Tales of copper mining, smuggling and romantic chaos in 18th-century Cornwall, courtesy of the BBC, have once again come to an end.
Oh, how we’ll miss (until mid-2017 sometime) those rugged Cornish coastlines! As we question what will now fill the Sunday night void, we might be left wondering what to do with our conflicted affection for a very flawed and faulty protagonist, who only in the closing minutes recovers from a betrayal that nearly costs him his marriage.
On trial
Beginning with Captain Ross Poldark on trial, potentially facing the death penalty, the second series sees him evading that punishment twice over and on a third possible occasion by hiding under the floorboards after a misguided smuggling operation. Despite his successful avoidance of the noose in this course of political and economic events, it’s within the walls of his home where the real trial proves to be. This series confronted Ross with identity-shaping opportunities – will he give in to his saviour complex? Or will he choose a righteous path? It takes him eight and a half episodes to see that one does not equal the other.
Stretching himself too thin by fighting everyone’s corner and racked with guilt for the unforeseen damage his well-intended actions cause, Ross finds relief from his stress in now and again indulging the terrier-like yapping of George Warleggan in a bar brawl or a fireside murder attempt. His irrepressible social conscience moves him to neglect his own family in order to provide for others, while his wife Demelza’s own generous spirit previously played a part in the tragic loss of their young daughter in series one. Treating her on the whole as an equal, Demelza displays a near-limitless capacity for bearing with Ross’s compulsion to provide for and protect everyone – until he betrays her.
Betrayal
This betrayal, unseen by friends and neighbours but slicing into their marriage at its weakest point, cuts Demelza off from her initially unrepentant husband. Their home-life grows cold and uncommunicative as Ross makes excuses. He concludes that the only thing to do to gain back Demelza’s respect and to fulfil his role, his identity, as a soldier, is to rejoin his regiment. She doesn’t quite respond as he imagined: ‘Go to war Ross, play soldiers, or stay home and save all of Cornwall. What it is to be married to such a great man.’ Demelza perfectly, sarcastically, summarises her husband’s Achilles Heel. Motivated by a desire to use his social standing and resources for the good of those around him, Ross is generous to a fault, and acts impulsively when his plans are threatened, even when those actions are entirely destructive and lack reason and wisdom. Ross’s saviour complex is thwarted by his, well, humanness – by his limitations and finiteness; by his not actually being a saviour. He wants to be all things to all people at all times, and finds not only that he cannot be, but when he tries, his actions cause harm.
The true saviour
There is one in whose image we’re made, whose generosity can never be faulted. The state of humanity hangs upon being united to the unique power of his life, death and resurrection. His ultimate payment for our debt is his perfect generosity. If Ross were to pay that price, the consequences would not be the same.
We want Ross to be a good man. We long for him to say sorry, for Demelza to forgive him and for them to rebuild their home together. We want all these things in the full knowledge (thanks to the series three trailer which aired at the end of the finale) that more drama and more complications await them, that Cornwall will still need saving, that the mine workers’ families will still need feeding, that the Poldarks will make mistakes and hurt each other in untold ways. Loyalties, promises and hearts will be tested. We know that Ross will not always be a good man, but he is a flawed man capable of doing good.
