#philippa gordon

[sebfreak]

[daily-rayless]

Anne Shirley and Philippa Gordon from Anne of the Island.

I wanted to play a bit with the idea of Anne going to visit Phil's family and attending a fancy soiree with her. Many (most?) adaptations of the Anne books situate them in the 1900s and 1910s, around the time when they were first being published, and the visuals reflect that. I think we collectively have come to think of the Anne story in the terms of those fashions and aesthetics.

But internal evidence reveals Anne's actually born in 1865, so the first book takes place in the 1870s, and by the time we get to her college years, we're only in the 1880s. So I wanted to show her in that era. Unfortunately for Anne, puff sleeves aren't really in fashion, but I gave her some slightly puffed cap sleeves. I'm sure Phil would make the effort to include them, if Anne really wanted them. Both gowns' designs were inspired by actual 1880s dresses. Phil's was cribbed from a Sargent portrait, as she would probably have an extremely elite wardrobe, but Anne's gotten some lace and fancy draping too.

Also Phil got a brown gown because LM Montgomery apparently loved brown dresses.

[rayless-reblogs]

Philippa Gordon, she's here.

If you'll allow me, I'm going to write a bit about Philippa Gordon, one of my favorite characters from literature. This is a bit off the cuff, but Philippa doesn't plan things well either, so I think she'd understand.

This and all the anime stills are from Anne Shirley (2025), taken from Crunchyroll.

Philippa's from LM Montgomery's iconic Anne of Green Gables series, but you tend not to hear about her. Because she tends not to make it into the adaptations. I think the practical reason for this is that she competes with Anne in a way the other female characters don't. Diana, Ruby, and Josie are beautiful, but lack Anne's creativity. Jane is decent and intelligent, but utterly unoriginal compared to Anne. But Philippa is not only gorgeous and rich, she's toweringly intelligent and lives with absolute verve and aplomb, even more so than Anne in some ways. I think she scares directors off -- they don't want to remove the spotlight from Anne, and so Philippa is quietly set to one side. (In fairness though, many adaptations never get to the part of the series that includes her in the first place.)

But I love her -- she's equal parts glamorous and silly, strong-willed and selfish, loving and affectionate, and very self-aware about it. She's not a ditz. She deliberately lives her life flippantly because her beauty, wealth, and brains let her get away with not caring much about anything. She's rather nihilistic when you lay it out like that. And in some key ways, she's Anne's antithesis. Anne cultivated her creativity and passion because the life of a poor unwanted orphan left her so few opportunities for beauty. She had to make her own, and thus she became very good at it. Not only does Anne have an abundant imagination, she feels too deeply to ever be a nihilist, and her hardships have developed within her a powerful core of strength.

Whereas Phil's had pretty much everything handed to her. She has beautiful clothes. She excels in college, but she'll never have to work. Men are falling over themselves to marry her and she can afford to take them for granted. And she's smart enough that she doesn't take herself seriously, saving her from absolute vanity and heartlessness. People should hate her, including Anne, but she's so charming that they find they don't.

I'd argue though that her easy life has stunted her emotionally. She thinks of herself as a shallow butterfly, but at the same time she acknowledges she has depths she's hidden from the world. Unlike Anne, she hasn't had to reach down and find her true self, and I think she's afraid to.

So you can imagine my joy when the new Anne Shirley brought her to life. Since 1908, we've had many Annes, but very few Phils to compare and contrast.

Taken from the Anne of Green Gables wiki.

Green Gables Fables is a 2014 multimedia web series that sets Anne's story in the present day. Its Phil is played by Robyn Matuto, and I haven't seen it, but I think it would be hard to translate Phil's story, which is so bound up in the narrow expectations of a Gilded Age socialite, into the modern era. Still, it's cool to know she made it into this version.

Taken from Yet Another Period Drama.

Better known is Sabina Franklyn's Phil from the BBC's 1975 Anne of Avonlea. This adaptation condenses Anne of Avonlea and Anne of the Island, and is pretty faithful considering its constraints. Sabina's Phil is lively and humorous, but she never quite captures Philippa as I see her in my mind.

In my opinion, Anne Shirley does well by Philippa. First of all, her design is great. While the character designs aren't very faithful to any decade in the 1800s, Phil's immediately brings her character across. Is the loose hair period accurate? No, but it conveys her free spirit. She's the only character with visible makeup, showing she's rich and worldly. As for her outfit, its open collar and long hobble skirt suggest the Titanic-ready fashions of the early 1910s, which puts her way ahead of the other characters sartorially, but also lets her come across as the most modish.

But with all that style, she's still allowed to be silly. Because she's not Philippa if she's not a little silly.

But also with that, she's allowed to be romantic. Is she an idealistic dreamer like Anne? No, but she has her own secret hopes, dreams she feels her life has left her unfit to attain -- she feels she's too shallow to win the love of a poor, frank, hardworking minister she's met. He might as well be on the moon, for her. And in that, she's very similar to Anne, and rather than erase her, the anime lets them exist together and support each other.

It's easy to draw comparisons between LM Montgomery and several of her main heroines, such as Anne, Valancy, and most definitely Emily. I don't think LMM saw much of herself in the glamorous and unreasonably gifted Phil. But LMM ended up marrying a minister, and it wasn't always a happy marriage, and LMM wasn't always happy in her role. As Phil wonders whether she could ever be happy as a minister's wife, trying to live as some kind of moral guide she feels utterly unsuited to be, I can't help thinking that's LMM herself talking, giving voice to something perhaps a minister's wife shouldn't have said aloud. And in Phil's happy marriage, maybe LMM was able to daydream a better version of her own life.

Anyway, I'm glad we have more Philippa. The fun thing about Anne is that every decade or so, a new version comes around. I hope we see more Phils in the future.

[taciturn-nerd]

Something about Philippa Gordon reminded me of these two but they’re not quite the same.

Charlotte La Bouff from Princess and the Frog

Unexpectedly academically talented: NO

Conventionally attractive: YES

Popular: YES?

Indecisive: NO

Ends up with someone who wasn't her "type": NO

Seems shallow but actually has a heart of gold: YES

Elle Woods from Legally Blonde

Unexpectedly academically talented: YES

Conventionally attractive: YES

Popular: Mostly YES

Indecisive: Mostly NO

Ends up with someone who wasn't her "type": YES

Seems shallow but actually has a heart of gold: YES

Philippa Gordon from Anne of the Island

Unexpectedly academically talented: YES

Conventionally attractive: YES

Popular: YES

Indecisive: YES

Ends up with someone who wasn't her "type": YES

Seems shallow but actually has a heart of gold: YES

[nancydrewmermaid]

Philippa and Jonas in "Anne Shirley" Episode 21 ❤️

[valoftheisland]

Need to know what kind of yuri cocaine LMM was on when she wrote Anne of the island because Anne and Phil's college situationship is still so crazy to me

[lands-of-fantasy]

Anne Shirley (2025)

Character Relationship Chart #3: Anne of the Island

My translated edit + the official Japanese diagram for the “Redmond College Arc”! 👒🍃🏫

< Chart #2

[ramblings-of-lola]

Oh, I love Anne being called out by Philippa about Gilbert.

"...I'd marry Gilbert Blythe if he were rich." Oh, would you?" said Anne, rather viciously. "We don't like that idea a little bit, although we don't want Gilbert ourselves, oh, no," mocked Phil.

"I suppose you've gone and refused Gilbert Blythe. You are an idiot, Anne Shirley!" "Do you call it idiotic to refuse to marry a man I don't love?" said Anne coldly, goaded to reply. "You don't know love when you see it. You've tricked something out with you imagination that you think love, and expect the real thing to look like that."