It clicked with me this morning that Mary Tudor was ALSO known as "Bloody Mary", since she had at least 300 Protestants killed during her reign. This suddenly made sense with me in figuring out why Mary is so set on getting total revenge on Malvolio for (1) interfering in the way I run the house, (2) bringing down the energy in a house where both Olivia and Toby need to be boosted up, and (3) directly embarrassing me (despite my royal background) in front of Toby and Andrew. Mary has a very maternal side to her which takes care of people and of order, but she also has a very mean and vengeful spirit which will, quite literally, haunt you if you step on her toes purposefully.
I've been thinking a lot about the Judy Dench character in the movie "Pride and Prejudice". I think she is a mix of careful decision-making for the sake of posterity, and also of old-school strictness and need for hierarchy. I think some of the gestures used by that character might also be able to be implemented into Maria's physicality. And just like frosh year, I need to go find that random Pittsburgh woman who exemplifies Mary, and study her habits. I also noticed that in all the portraits made of her, Mary looks straight-up annoyed. It seems she pursed her lips and squinted her eyes in disapproval since the age of five. Interesting to note.
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