History Characters / EmmaApproved

CEO of Bates Financial Services and long-time friend of the Woodhouse family.

* Race Lift: A 19th-century British woman is played by a black actress

* StepfordSmiler: Emma suspects so. She's not so far off the bat; [[spoiler: Izzy comes to admit that her marriage isn't perfect and she's completely bored with her life. She resolves this by going BackToSchool.]]

* AgeLift: He was Frank's father in the book, but stepbrother here.

* NiceGuy

* {{Housewife}}: As in the original. This Isabella dropped out of college to care for her children; this is now her present occupation. [[spoiler: In Episode 31 she admits she's bored of it and decides to go back to school to complete her architecture degree to qualify as an architect.]]

* {{Housewife}}: As in the original. This Isabella dropped out of college to care for her children; this is now her present occupation. [[spoiler: In Episode 31 she admits she's bored of it and decides to go back to school to become an architect.]]

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Bernie Su [[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LeQ6dtk0ToAbEpmWWjFxcCTbmwPqIfb_6zwhNSmkYqI/edit really wanted a black or Hispanic actor for this role.]] Paul Stuart turned out to be the only good choice of everyone they saw.

* RaceLift: Similar to Emma, a 19th-century woman from Britain is played by an actress of Hawaiian descent.

* GenkiGirl: Very cheerful and energetic, especially when it comes to getting people together.

* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Bernie Su [[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LeQ6dtk0ToAbEpmWWjFxcCTbmwPqIfb_6zwhNSmkYqI/edit really wanted a black or Hispanic actor for this role.]] Paul Stuart turned out to be the only good choice of everyone they saw.

* SocialClimber: Wants in Emma's pants because she's beautiful, wealthy, charming, and comes from a well-connected family -- all traits that would help him rise up in his social circles and exactly the sort of things he thinks a good politician's wife is. Never mind that Emma isn't even the ''least'' bit interested in politics.

-->(on romancing Harriet): [[spoiler: Maybe if I was running for StudentCouncilPresident!]]

* LoveConfession: [[spoiler: To Emma in Episode 24. She's having none of it.]] It's played more sympathetically than most incarnations of the character.

* ThePerfectionist: Great at organizing things to the most minute detail, and prides herself on this. It actually makes her a stellar wedding planner

* HopelessSuitor: To Emma.

* TheFashionista: Emma wears a new outfit every episode, in contrast to Alex. She takes note of this and ruins some of his clothes in an effort to improve his fashion sense.

* ItsAllAboutMe

* ThePerfectionist

* VitriolicBestBuds: With Alex. She might snark at his uptight attitude and boring fashion sense and he might snark about, well, [[TheWonka everything she does]], but it's clear they value each other very much. As he says so himself, he doesn't like it when they genuinely fight.

One of Emma's closest friends, a pastry chef and "power homemaker" who marries Paul Weston at the beginning of the series.

* HappilyMarried: Her appearance with Paul at the holiday party suggests this.

!!Paul Weston (Gabriel Voss)

* TheCharmer: Emma and Harriet are easily won over by him.

* BeneathTheMask: Emma's lack of durable and deep-seated self-confidence (and not the superficial, instable vanity she shows constantly) is foreshadowed since episode 3 at least.

* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Says this near-verbatim regarding getting Harriet to reject Martin.

* VitriolicBestBuds: With Alex. She might snark at his uptight attitude and boring fashion sense and he might snark about, well, [[TheWonka everything she does]], but it's clear they value each other very much.

Emma's sweet, klutzy assistant.

* HorribleJudgeOfCharacter: Idolizing Emma, at least. While Emma is a good person who does genuinely have Harriet's best interests at heart, the way she goes about them doesn't allow Harriet to make her own decisions. She doesn't pick up on this, though.

* PygmalionPlot: Emma attempts this on her. It doesn't help that she is genuinely gullibe and easily manipulated.

* NiceGuy

* {{Jerkass}}: She often comes off as very insensitive (even if she doesn't mean it ''some'' of the time), a trait carried over from the book.

* ShipperOnDeck: For Annie and Ryan, and presumably everybody she has ever match-made. She does genuinely care about them, as shown when she correctly deduced the source of Annie's cold feet about marrying Ryan and took measures to prevent it. Her reasoning is that she could tell Annie really loved him.
** Also deconstructed, as her near-fanatic shipping-on-deck combined with her blinding outward self-confidence gives her tunnel vision regarding her clients' relationships and the inability to interpret romantic gestures as ''anything'' but something towards that.

* ItsAllAboutMe

* GranolaGirl: As she says herself, "doing good for other people is my life philosophy!"
* PygmalionPlot: Emma attempts this on her.

Emma's company's IT guy, who may or may not have a thing for Harriet.

!!Harriet Smith

The cheery, charming head of a professional matchmaking company, Emma is a young woman spiritedly determined to "make it bigger and better than Oprah" - one client at a time.

* MulticoloredHair: Dark hair with ombre highlights.

* RaceLift: A Caucasian young woman in the book, Emma is played by an actress of Japanese and German descent in this adaptation.
* RichBitch: Played with. She is mildly interested in fashion and loves her expensive outfits, which she sometimes uses as bribes to Screw the Rules, I Have Money! effect. She started her company with her father's money and uses it to take control of other people's life, because she feels superior and thinks they don't know what they want. She's also extremely driven and hard-working to the point she gained her own client base after her father's initial input, genuinely wants to help others. It doesn't hurt that she's mostly right and works as a BlitheSpirit ChaoticGood [[TheWonka Wonka Archetype]].