CHARACTER ANALYSIS: Mary (updated)

 CHARACTER ANALYSIS:  Mary (updated)

Living... in post-WWI Birmingham, England, a widow. Currently living at Arrow House, Tommy’s house. 

Profession... She has medical training and is a certified nurse who worked at the orphanage she grew up in. Therefore, she’s now the head nurse of the Grace Shelby Institute and she takes care of the orphans. Tommy told her that she would become the headmistress of the institute should something happen to him.

Interests... Drinking and dancing. Mary doesn’t have many vices, but alcohol helped her numb the pain. She also loves animals and sometimes watches racetracks (Be careful with how she drinks. She can quickly get drunk and she’s not a happy drunkard.)

Relationship Status... single but is currently madly in love with Tommy Shelby and wants a life with him. As his date, perhaps his fiancée, and frankly -but it seems to be so out of reach- his wife. If she has nothing of it, as long as she can take care of Charlie and Tommy, she’s fine with it. 

Challenge... Staying alive and out of illegal activities. So far, she is clean. She can, however, become a target if her relationship with Tommy becomes public and people know she’s his girl. She also has to navigate between her fears, and the bad ideas people like Lizzie could put in her head when she’s at her most vulnerable. She wants to grieve for her son and move forward as well. She wants to be loved but doesn’t allow it just yet.  She also would have to deal with people who don’t want her to sit as an equal (some pub owners), those who see her as a trophy (Michael, Archibald), or those who don’t want her to exist at all (her mother).

Personality... Victoria is intelligent, cunning, witty, and stoic (not to Tommy’s extent, but she’s tough to read). She is trying to protect herself from pain as her life had been nothing but a destructive cycle. Deep down she’s actually very soft and desperate for love but looks in the wrong places. She is not above killing someone if that meant she could protect others (or herself). She’s been traumatized by the loss of her baby, the abandonment of her mother, and the abuse at the hands of the nuns who « raised her ». She wears on her back the stigmata of the whipping she received at their hands. All she wants is a happy life, but she tends to self-sabotage because she doesn’t believe she’s worth loving. However, since she met Tommy, something has started to change in her. She found a family in the peaky blinders and with them built back some of her strength and self-esteem. She has a family to come back to. She has people who care about her, and she would fiercely protect them.  She has also unleashed a very sensual side of herself and is owning her sex appeal even more now but only in private and only with Tommy.