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About Theo and Eloise:
In my humble opinion:
Theo’s use as a character is to encourage Eloise to look past the surface of people. Of course he’s there to introduce her to romantic attraction, but in a very specific way, and it’s to start developing a sense of what she might like in a partner. Just because someone is perfect for you superficially does not mean they actually are, and for a character like Eloise patience and discernment are going to be very important for her storyline.
🛑 If you really really love Theo or Theloise and think they should be endgame, please stop now… 🛑
We got foreshadowing of this when Violet tries to hook Eloise up with that ton guy at the Hearts and Flowers ball. Violet picks him out for Eloise because she says he shares her rebelliousness. And that guy is rebellious and is looking for someone different, just like Violet says. But his personality is all wrong for Eloise and it crashes and burns pretty much immediately.
Theo is said to be “perfect” for Eloise. And on the surface, he might seem so. He’s a radical. He’s political. But those are his interests. Not his personality.
So let’s really look at his personality. Theo is one of the most condescending and patronizing people Eloise comes across. When he first meets her, he talks down to her, making assumptions of her based on her gender and class. Their initial banter is the stuff of meet cutes, which glosses over WHY they were bantering back and forth like that in the first place- he immediately underestimated her intelligence upon seeing her.
It’s debatable why she accepted it from him vs the other guy, but I think the biggest issue is that unlike the guy Eloise danced with at the ball, Eloise has a reason to keep talking to him despite him showing the same attitude that left her running from the ballroom floor. She needed him for something, so it was worth continuing to engage, and engaging with him for longer allows her crush to grow.
Eloise is going to be a character who needs time to really fall in love. And so she is going to need to develop the capacity for more patience for other people than her character currently has. She’s often impulsive and makes snap decisions, but Theo forces her out of that by being a character she has to work with. Which is a great thing! Through Theo, Eloise gets to explore more of her interests, which is not nothing! Credit where credit is due, she’s obviously going to want that in a partner, and I would hope any relationship they write for her would have that as an element to it. It’s valuable for her to learn that that’s possible as she starts to develop her sense of taste in men.
But he’s also not the ONE yet, which is also valuable for her.
When Eloise doesn’t kiss Theo he blows up at her. He lashes out and accuses her of being just like every other lady. Going back to the foreshadowing from the Hearts and Flowers ball, there’s some irony here- there, Eloise gets offended because the man implies that she’s Not Like Other Girls. Here, that is used against her. Theo thinks Eloise should act a certain way because she’s rebellious, but when he dismisses her as a prude, he once again reveals the superficiality of his politics when it comes to praxis.
At the time I watched S2, I hadn’t yet read the books, but I’ve read them since, and this is very similar to a scene from TSPWL, where Eloise is trying to discuss something serious with Phillip, who is trying to kiss her instead. We don’t know yet whether that scene will make it to the show or not, since show Phillip seems to have a somewhat different storyline from the books, but it was a deliberate choice to use that as a reason for Theo to lash out at Eloise in the show, and I think it’s actually about Eloise’s growth. In the similar scene in the book, she calls Phillip out for this behavior while in the show Eloise just cries. Somewhere between age 18 and 28, she won’t take it, even from men she likes, which is, frankly pretty realistic. Even the most radical feminists sometimes take BS from the “radical” first boyfriends they date as teenagers. Eloise has a realistic mix of strength and vulnerability, and Theo hit a vulnerable spot for her. She’s a feminist, but she has very little real world experience with relationships between men and women outside of her brothers, and Theo is a valuable storyline to create that experience, so that when she is ready (hopefully 10 years on, I’m team time jump Eloise), she’ll have the combination of patience and discernment necessary to find and keep the right person for her.
When it comes to Sir Phillip specifically, Eloise is interested in his words first. They write letters back and forth, they never meet in person before Phillip proposes, so we know physical attraction has nothing to do with it. When she runs off to meet him she’s partially there to assess his personality. See how he actually acts. And he’s not perfect. But even as flawed characters they ultimately compliment rather than clash. In the books we know she had been courted before and turns down multiple proposals, so she had enough experiences with men to know where she stands. Eloise was never going to settle for the first man who liked her, or even the first man she thought she might like, and in fact, so many happily married women have that story of “wow, if I had married the guy I was with at 18 it would be a disaster.” Eloise is getting that with Theo.
Because imagine Theo and Eloise long term. Imagine their verbal sparring when they’re fully on Theo’s turf, with Eloise as his wife. His condescension would get old so fast with Theo always having the upper hand. Eloise likes the buzz and mental stimulation of their banter, but ultimately she’s a woman who likes to be right, and likes to feel like she’s being heard and respected. Theo likes the novelty of a woman like Eloise, but prefers when he’s in the teachable position- giving her books to read, taking her to rallies, etc- and not when her needs don’t line up with his desires.
I won’t claim to know how they’re going to do Phillip in the show for Eloise’s season, other than what we all know the changes they’ve already made to his backstory with Marina and the twins. But I do think counting him out already by claiming Theo is “perfect” for Eloise is a pretty shallow read on what’s been seen and what’s still possible for her.