Which is dumber?

While on trial for witchcraft [spoiler]admitting to a zealous fanatic and the 18th-century judges you took part in a seance, a ritual to summon up and talk to a ghost, or threatening the 19th-century prosecuter while on the witness stand in your own behalf on the same charge?[/spoiler]

I have gotten some interesting discussion on this with the friends I see everyday who also happen to love the show. I am interested in hearing what you all think....

I'd be willing to bet that the former, talking about a seance to drum up a ghost, would be more damaging. That's practically ADMITTING that you're a witch, and telling the court to just stop what they're doing and hang your stupid ass already.

Given the paranoia of the time, I'd say both are equally dumb. But, if you want to talk dumb, how about Vicki and her big mouth in 1795? It seems she implicated herself more and more, despite her innocence to the charges.

Oops.  I'm watching all this for the first time in my memory, now.   VW is the first and Bradford the second I guess, since even though PB isn't accused yet, obviously it's going to happen.    I'm starting to realize how plagiarized later storylines were from this one.    I thought I knew, but it's worse than I thought.

  Vicki was incredibly stupid to admit that they were having a seance at the time she disappeared into the past. She didn't have to tell them that! It's definitely one of those times when you needed to lie. Geeze, that sealed her conviction right there. She had said something about a family meeting. Why not just say "We were discussing what to do about Mrs. Johnson's cooking?" Anything!

Alondra

Did she really do that!? LOL! I haven't seen those parts, yet! I never mind the spoilers, but gimme a BREAK Vicky! Eh, then again, maybe she got nervous and her mouth decided before her brain could speak up that she would spill her gutts. That's gotta suck
for her.

Both are equally dumb. I think they go hand in hand. ~DJ

  Yes she did that. Her case was really looking bad and Peter decided that the only way to hopefully get her off was to tell them she had come from the future. I forget now exactly why he thought that. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that she had been dressed "horribly immodestly" when she first arrived. But when Trask cross examined her he asked what she was doing at the time she was whisked to the past. She said everyone was in the drawing room having a meeting. He asked what sort of meeting? She said a seance. That pretty much guaranteed she'd soon be wearing a noose around her neck.

Alondra

:-[Yes she did that. Her case was really looking bad and Peter decided that the only way to hopefully get her off was to tell them she had come from the future...

Peter decided that? 

Here's your sign!

If that isn't the stupidest... I understand that desperate times call for desperate measures, but woo! :shakes head:  ~DJ

Speaking of dumb (or at least ill considered), there was Natalie, blase as you please about using tarot cards!  I guess if you have money and position, using so called "black arts" to foretell the future isn't considered a witchcraft enough to be punishable.!

  Yes and though Trask ragged on her for that he didn't bring it up again and he didn't call her a witch. I guess it was ok for her since she was a countess.

Alondra


(Edited by mod.)

Speaking of dumb (or at least ill considered), there was Natalie, blase as you please about using tarot cards!  I guess if you have money and position, using so called "black arts" to foretell the future isn't considered a witchcraft enough to be punishable.!

Yes!  OMG, that annoyed the hell outta me!  

Yes and though Trask ragged on her for that he didn't bring it up again and he didn't call her a witch. I guess it was ok for her since she was a countess.

But then, despite being a "man of God" and all, I am sure he was being well compensated by the Collinses and/or DuPres' for his trouble ....

Besides the fact she didn't really hide her clothes or the family history.

Lori

How many of us would be able to confabulate some satisfactory alternate explanation for everything?    It's a valid approach to err on the side of telling the truth, if you just absolutely have no alterative that automatically gets you off.   Or, short version, VW was screwed.

I hope that were I to find myself in that position, I'd have the sense to say, "Oh, deary me, I don't know what happened, and I don't understand it at all!  Please, Miss Abigail, burn those clothes and PRAY with me!  Oh, Reverend Trask, please PRAY for me!"

The clothes part always gets me.  "I'll need those clothes!"  She knew that she had other clothes to wear in 1967,  and she could reasonably assume that if she ever got back to her own time, her friends would not reject her for temporarily wearing strange clothes - so why couldn't she let that one outfit go?

I still maintain, however (until the next time I watch 1795), that Vicky thought she was in a nightmare - literally - so she though it was OK to say all the stupid things that she said.