As someone who had a speech impediment for most of my childhood, I was pleasantly surprised that no one had made fun of Hunt until episode 5 since its generally used as an easy punchline in a lot of shows. (And considering the context of the scene and lidington being evil incarnate it was fine) It’s also nice that despite him having obvious character flaws, the stutter isn’t depicted as the physical embodiment of some greater moral failing

calamity-bean:

It’s utterly in character for Lidington to mock him, and heaven knows he’s done far worse, but ugh, I was still pretty irritated on Hunt’s behalf! Though I don’t have personal experience to draw from, I agree with you — it’s refreshing that Hunt’s stutter hasn’t been used for comedy, or as a shallow characterization tool, or any other unpleasant little low-hanging trope. It’s just, like … a thing. He’s just a character who just happens to have a stutter — and a really compelling and well-crafted character, imo!

Josiah Hunt kinds of smells like a Nice Guy™ to me… I think Amelia doesn’t realize that it’s kind of dangerous to marry him. He already has a good deal of control over Violet (and remember her fear of losing her freedom?) and now, if he marries Amelia, he’ll have a LOT of control over her as a spouse. I think the events of Nancy Birch and Josiah Hunt and the whipping might be… foretelling…

calamity-bean:

Well, he didn’t have Nancy whipped just for the fun of it; he had her whipped for leading a riot and shouting that they should go lynch Lydia Quigley without due process. I.e., she was whipped for the crime of sedition. As I basically stated in my last post, Hunt has thus far shown no proclivity for harming anyone outside a strict enforcement of the legal system. That doesn’t mean I agree with or condone the punishments he’s handed down —

particularly the harshness of his punishments against Violet and Nancy —

but it means that thus far, there’s been no real indication that Hunt is given to lashing out violently for personal reasons or in response to anything that’s not legally a crime.

I don’t know how Hunt’s going to react if he finds out about Violet and Amelia. I don’t know how angry he’ll be. I don’t know whether he’ll try to part them. I recognize the power he has over Violet and the power he would have over Amelia as his wife, and I try to prepare for the worst … But I also know that, thus far, Hunt has been consistently respectful of Amelia, consistently respectful of her boundaries, and civil even to some people I’m pretty sure he morally disapproves of, as discussed in my last post. At the moment, the trajectory of his character development seems positive. I like to hope that will continue, but I guess we’ll have to see.

I actually don’t think he strikes me as Nice Guy™; of course that could be proven wrong in the future but if it were it’d be a shame. His character development has, like you said here, actually been upward this season.