The Thirteenth Tale

[diddl]

Anyone else see this?

I was only half watching.

Which twin did Vida save?

Or is the thing that we work it out ourselves?

Adeline was evil, and after the fire, if she had escaped, she wouldn't have stopped being evil. Its unlikely she would have been able to grow old without killing more people and being caught for it.

But who else would Adeline have wanted to kill?

The baby was gone-and she had inadvertently killed Emmaline-wouldn't that have stopped her?

Maybe Vida?

I don't think wanting to kill people would just stop. She killed John the Dig because he showed Vida attention, her jealousy wasn't just for Emmeline.

Maybe she thought that the baby would be taken away anyway? They had concealed his birth after all, and with his mother so obviously unable to care for him, and 'Adeline' also having a history of mental illness maybe Vida just thought the safest place for him was with the lady she chose, away from the family and therefore able to have a fresh start?

I agree with the fresh start hypothesis, Amandine.
I think Vida, as the most compos mentis of the girls, could see the baby would have led a very strange life if they kept him and so gave him away to the bakers widow. In the book it goes into more detail about her, and even on the TV it says Vida had often watched her in her cottage, and so Vida knew the boy would be cared for.
I was horrified with what they did to Aurelius in the adaptation. He wasn't a hobo! I imagined him as an eccentric chap who liked to visit an empty ruined house, but he was a successful caterer, not a tramp.

So it was based on a book then! Such a complex story, I thought it must be. I was looking on the end credits for information on which book it was based, but there was nothing (naughty BBC).

Can someone give me the book details please, as so many of you seem to have read the book first? It sounds interesting.

its called the thirteenth tale by diane setterfield. I downloaded it to my kindle for £2.99

Just watched the end again on iplayer

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03n30p9/The_Thirteenth_Tale/

Having seen it again there doesn't seem to be any ambiguity about who is who - so Vida really was the half sister, and Adeline really did die in the fire, and Emmeline was the old lady digging at the end.

to lose my conspiracy theory Will have to read the book though.

I did enjoy the tv adaptation but i agree about being disappointed in some if the changes they made, especially to the ending

I think the baby was given away because even if it had been Emmeline who survived she wouldn't have been able to raise a baby. Even though Adaline was the 'evil' twin it was quite clear both of them were very damaged.

Smudgy in the book there is some ambiguity at the end over which twin survived but it was never in doubt that it was one of the twins and not Vida the half sister

Thanks Coconuts

Loved the book, have this recorded to watch later for a quiet evening!

I thought that when the twins were separated, Emmeline was calling out the name "Emmeline". Was I imagining it? If not, why was she doing that?

Near the beginning, Vida tells Margaret that her life ended with the fire at Angelfield.

Surely that means that Emmeline died?

surely it means that from that day her life as nobody ended and then she became adeline.

just finished the book. definite ambiguity over who was saved but a bloody good read. such a shame aurelius was pretty much cut out of the tv programme. he was a lovely character in the book.

But wouldn't having an identity mean that her life had begun?

Just watched a bit again & when she rescued the twin that was being beaten, I had a feeling that that was Adeline & Emmeline was fighting her because she thought that she'd killed her baby.

Then outside the room, as Vida had hold of the key, the twin she had rescued pressed pressed Vidas hand tightly around it causing the burn.

I took that to be Emmeline trying to rescue her twin who she still felt bonded to. I do think though that the book and film are deliberately ambiguous. It implies that even Vida wasn't sure which twin she had saved. 'But she - this person, this someone, this one or the other, this might or might not be, this darling, this monster, this I don't know who she is - does not reply.'

In the book the door episode says that 'Emmeline puts out a hand to clutch the key and open it again' so it is hard to know which twin was rescued.

In the book did Vida have a name before she became Adeline? Surely the Missus and John the Dig would have given her one?

Finally watched last night. Never read the book but very disappointed in the TV prog. May be considered sacrilege to say it but have always thought Vanessa redgrave to be a ridiculously overrated actress.

I read the book and though it was the biggest load of old hooey! Sounds like the TV show was much the same.

no she didnt ria

Vida had no name in the book, but I don't recall much fuss was made of it.

Squoosh, the novel was, as you eloquently say, a 'load of old hooey'! I watched the beginning of the adaptation because of Vanessa Redgrave and Olivia Coleman, and because I'd forgotten how dopey the novel was, but I soon gave up. That kind of over-heated cod-Gothic, all incest and evil twins and crumbling houses and missing babies, is like nails down a blackboard to me.

For those who liked it, though, let me suggest Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry, which also features a completely mad plot, identical twins, blurred/mistaken identities, crucial substitutions, lots of death, ghosts and gloom, but with Highgate Cemetery instead of a crumbling mansion.