Apparently, there is a major challenge facing screenwriters when it comes to creating period drama heroines who can balance anachronism, drama, and empathy in a way that results in a consistent character arc.

When we leave the 21st century behind, nearly any historical setting still reflects a patriarchal and often oppressive society for women, with double standards and complex social structures. I say this because, in 2025, we had no fewer than TWO series airing simultaneously, both set during the so-called “Gilded Age” — that is, the late 19th century — and both female protagonists seem to have lost not only their direction, but also any sense of coherence or emotional maturity.

In The Gilded Age, the sweet Marian Brook takes us on the journey of a young woman who was born and raised in rural Pennsylvania and is thrown into the center of New York’s social intrigues after becoming orphaned and penniless, forced to live with two aunts she had never met. Marian goes through intense heartbreaks but finds the ideal partner in her wealthy neighbor Larry Russell — modern like her, and equally romantic. Until he makes a mistake: a seemingly simple lie, though with delicate context, which reveals a new side of Marian — aggressive, resentful, traumatized, paranoid, and tempestuous. By the season finale, she’s attempting to mend things with a justifiably hurt, frightened, and heartbroken Larry, uncertain whether reconciliation is even possible.

Compared to Nan Saint George from The Buccaneers, Marian still works as an emotional anchor. Both young women embody the current narrative dilemma: how to give voice and agency to women in times when that was both improbable and virtually impossible — and they need to be criticized.

In Marian Brook’s case, there’s less room for scrutiny, since she is an original creation by Julian Fellowes. But Nan? Even though she is also a fictional character, Edith Wharton — who lived and wrote during the Gilded Age itself — based her stories on real people (the same ones who inspired The Gilded Age) to portray young American women dealing with the cultural and social clashes between the United States and England.

Apple TV+ set out to adapt Wharton’s unfinished novel with a “modernized” approach. Riding the wave of Meghan Markle’s story — which practically reenacts the same drama from two centuries ago in our current time — Nan Saint George had all the ingredients to become a beloved character among book fans and melodrama lovers. And yet, what a disappointment.

Nan Saint George is the gravitational center of The Buccaneers — but not always in a good way. She was reimagined as a walking emotional storm, constantly on the verge of a scandal or breakdown. While in the book she represents a quiet transition from the old aristocratic order to a new female consciousness, in the series she comes across, for the most part, as nothing more than a rich, reckless girl. And maybe — unintentionally — that says a lot about the times we live in.

But let’s take it one step at a time.

The Nan of the novel: freedom with lucidity

Edith Wharton conceived Nan as a fascinating figure: American, yet raised on the fringes of the dominant elite; sensitive, but not submissive; spontaneous, yet morally lucid. Her rebellion isn’t performative. On the contrary — she tries to fit in, to love, to do what’s expected of her — until she realizes the world around her has no place for someone like her. That’s when her story gains real depth. Wharton’s Nan is, above all, a woman undergoing disillusionment, who chooses integrity even if it means giving up comfort. Her greatest strength lies in her silence, her dignity, and her decision not to play the game of appearances.

I’ve made the comparison between the series and the book more than once, but it’s always worth returning to the source to understand the difficulty viewers are having connecting with the Nan being sold to audiences in 2025.

The Nan of the series: she screams, she runs, she manipulates

In the Apple TV+ series, written by Katherine Jakeways, Nan is a different creature altogether.

When The Buccaneers premiered in 2023, Nan Saint George was introduced as our clear and radiant protagonist: the idealistic, free-spirited American girl, rejected by British society for being illegitimate, yet firm in her authenticity. She seemed destined to bridge two worlds — reason and heart, tradition and revolution. Her love for Guy Thwarte was pure, inevitable, almost literary. She was the moral center of the story. But what the series did to her — and what she did to herself — might be one of the greatest ironies of this adaptation. Because now, at the end of season two, Nan is no longer the romantic heroine. She is the most lost, unstable, and yes, cruel character in the show.

Played by Kristine Froseth with full commitment to emotional excess, this version of Nan is tailor-made for the social media era — which means everything must be felt, said, and shouted at maximum intensity. Emotional restraint gives way to impulse, hysteria, and public meltdowns. And what’s most curious: unlike the literary Nan, this one rarely seems to learn from her mistakes.

Nan blackmails her husband, disappears for days, returns saying she’s “afraid”; she emotionally yo-yos Guy Thwarte, insults her sister, disrespects friends, and ultimately stars in one of the most chaotic and theatrically “tacky” endings in recent TV memory: pregnant, masked, threatening everyone, and galloping through the palace garden as snow falls. If The Buccaneers were an opera, this would be the third act of an unhinged heroine who still hasn’t figured out whether she’s fighting society or just her own impulses.

It’s worth noting — and counting — that in NO scene does Nan stay in place: she always enters running and exits just as fast. Her style of conversation is always designed to make others chase her. It would be comical if it weren’t already bordering on tragic.

Behind the performance

Kristine Froseth is fully committed to what the show demands — even if that demand changes from scene to scene. While season one flirted with romantic coming-of-age tones, season two dives headfirst into melodrama. Froseth follows: she moves from introspective whisper to performative hysteria with conviction — teary eyes, trembling voice, magnetic presence.

But the problem lies in the material: the script gives her a protagonist meant to be relatable, but who instead feels like a string of emotional collapses with no real consequence.

Behind the scenes, the showrunner has said she wanted to “reimagine Wharton for a young, feminist audience,” but what resulted was more of an aesthetic update than an ideological one. The series is full of beautiful costumes, moody pop songs, and empowerment poses — but Nan (and the show as a whole) lack the moral complexity that makes Wharton’s work still so relevant today.

Theo, Guy, and the triangle of dysfunction

The love triangle between Nan, the Duke of Tintagel (Theo), and Guy Thwarte was meant to be the tragic heart of the series. But in the Apple TV+ version, it turns into an emotional circus. Theo is a disturbed aristocrat, yes — but not exactly cruel — which weakens the conflict. Guy is the romantic projection of a freer love, but so passive he seems to exist only to receive Nan’s leftover affection.

Series Nan swings between the two with such emotional instability that she seems to want both — and neither. In the book, this tension takes on another tone: she marries Theo out of pressure and despair, but her true love is Guy — a love that is impossible, ethical, and restrained. There’s real tragedy in that. In the series, the prevailing feeling is exhaustion.

Pregnancy as climax and catastrophe

The final arc of season two turns Nan’s pregnancy — which doesn’t exist in the original — into an emotional and narrative bomb. The final episode flirts with farce and absurdity: she appears masked at a ball, doesn’t tell her husband about the pregnancy but blackmails him to keep her duchess title, threatens to expose every aristocratic secret, and vanishes (running, of course) as if in a Baz Luhrmann-directed Evita montage. It’s gloriously tacky, yes — but also shows how far the character has drifted from any emotional nuance.

It’s almost ironic: the more the show tries to present Nan as a symbol of female freedom, the more she seems trapped in a script that demands shallow emotions and extreme behavior. The Nan of the book renounces with dignity. The Nan of the series screams until the final scene.

Heroine or villain? Or just too human?

The most cruel — and fascinating — aspect of the TV version of Nan is that she still believes she’s the virtuous protagonist of a romantic story. She believes that, because she’s suffered, she’s entitled to hurt others. That the duchess title she once hated now serves as both shield and banner. That becoming a mother will redeem her. That saying “I don’t want to hurt anyone” is enough — even as she tramples everyone around her.

And perhaps the most tragic thing is that the series itself doesn’t seem to know how to resolve this. The Buccaneers increasingly seem interested in replacing the idea of a heroine with something more chaotic, unstable, “modern.” But in doing so, Nan becomes less revolutionary and more dysfunctional. There’s no arc. Just a chain reaction. She claims to be free but lives trapped in cycles she creates — and then destroys.

So, what is The Buccaneers really telling us?

Something is fascinating about Apple TV+ choosing to turn a sophisticated literary work into a stylized teen melodrama. The show has visually stunning moments, competent performances, and a clear desire to speak to a new generation. But by centering the story on a Nan who has lost the balance between vulnerability and ego, the series loses exactly what made the original character so powerful.

The Nan of the novel is someone forced to make impossible choices in a world not built for her. The Nan of the show believes the world revolves around her — and in some ways, the series seems to agree. The result is a heroine who aspires to be a symbol of emancipation but ultimately becomes nothing more than a portrait of collapse.

If The Buccaneers continues, maybe it’s time to give Nan something she’s never had in the series: introspection. Because if everything is a scandal, then nothing is a scandal. And in the end, even rebellion needs purpose.