Crow

But in the end, it’s that very pen that is her escape, her emancipation from Crimson peak as she stabs it into Lucille. Lucille had intended the use of that pen to be an ironic, sickly final word on Edith’s life as she signed it away. A tool of creation, Edith’s love of writing and future ambitions, instead used as one of destruction for those very dreams. But instead, it because of that tool, used by her feminine hands, that gave her that split second chance at freedom.

I got confused with the ages so I did some digging and I could be wrong because I couldn’t make out the newspaper

Thank you! I'm so normal about her! :)

Seriously, I think part of her interest to me is the fact that a vocal subset of the fandom DESPISES her. Highly correlated with Hiddleston adoration outside of the CPeak sphere, though that's not always the way it goes. It strikes me as interesting that you have this male character who actively states onscreen that he's not an innocent wounded bird who just needs to be redeemed by the love of a good woman (not directly, but I believe he's talking about himself in that moment)- but because he's pretty and sad, part of the fandom falls just as hard for him as the female protagonist does. Charming people into trusting him when he is eminently untrustworthy is what Thomas does, to the point where it even breaks the fourth wall. Fascinating.

On top of that, those same people WANT to hate Lucille so badly and completely that they'll just plain make things up. I saw someone admitting that they imagined a larger age gap between the siblings than the canonical two years, purely because they wanted the relationship to be even more toxic on Lucille's part. The freaking official movie novelization changes large swaths of the action to make Lucille seem worse and Thomas more sympathetic. Crimson Peak Cosplay TikTok is chock full of Sharpe siblings videos set to the same sound implying that Thomas wants to "get rid of" Lucille from his life despite no indication thereof in the movie (Never Getting Rid Of Me from the musical Waitress). It's wild.

Also, "he's an abuse victim" seems to be a valid excuse for Thomas' sins to be totally forgiven, but not Lucille's? To the point where some people just...seem to forget that she was horrifically abused, too? Not by someone who loved her, like Thomas was by her, but then he didn't spend six years in a hellish asylum. They both have unique abuse experiences that shape their actions and personalities. They're both victims- but they're also both grown people in their mid-30s who definitely Did That, regardless of the psychological reasons.

So we have a dark female character who both the actress and the director worked to make nuanced and compelling, who gets flattened into the sole villain of the piece by certain vocal fans (with what seems like a side order of quintessential Fandom MisogynyTM because her male counterpart gets the Oh Poor Innocent Lamb treatment), who's gay-coded and sympathetic in many ways and Victorian and absolutely gorgeous.

Marzi catnip, truly.

The relationship is still toxic however, “Thomas was abused” isn’t a wildly valid argument. Both Lucille and Thomas were abused and from what the movie tells us, Lucille got it worse.

Thomas isn’t innocent. He’s done horrible things to innocent women even if he didn’t do the ‘dirty work’ he still lies and manipulates them to their grave.

My issue with saying “Thomas is forgivable and Lucille is not?” Is because, Lucille doesn’t try to change, she doesn’t care and she stays a villain to the end of the movie. She’s a sad, heartbreaking character driven by her love and loneliness but she’s still a villain.

I say that Thomas earns forgiveness because he tries to save Edith at the end. He dies trying to protect her and even protects her in death. He tries to be better and he protects our main protagonist, telling her not to drink the tea at one point and then confronting Lucille about it.

Thomas doesn’t deserve complete forgiveness, he’s still responsible for the deaths of innocent women. However Lucille doesn’t deserved total damnation for what she did. She was driven by trauma and she had motives for why she did what she did.

On that note, I will say the Lucille hate is a lot more unnecessary than it needs to be. She’s an interesting character and we love her for it.

Also a valid interpretation!

(I mean, there are no wrong interpretations unless you ask GDT directly what he meant AND consider that canon. I'm just curious about how common the two biggest ones are, and what other ways people might interpret it.)

she's a lost girl. she's a monster. every single thing she does is motivated by love and loneliness. she has destroyed innocent lives and feels no remorse for it. she should get to heal from her trauma and be happy. she should be hanged for everyone else's safety. she would die for the person she loves most, but she wouldn't stop manipulating him and trapping him in the darkness with her. she loves beautiful, fragile things so much she has to kill them about it. she's Probably Queer but would never admit that. she's the Victorian "angel in the house" archetype, but an angel of death.

Lokius is always the winner of these polls and there are so many more interesting ships than Lokius. I’m not saying all the ships I put are more interesting, I’d take Lokius over sylki, HOWEVER.