History YMMV / AChristmasCarol2019

* TearJerker: Shortly before the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come comes, Lottie and Scrooge sit down in the churchyard. Scrooge tries to thank her for saving him from the headmaster who molested him but he's been so traumatized from the experiences of both his past and the events of that night that he's unable to SpitItOut. Guy Pearce plays the moment with such pathos and ethos that you can't help but feel sorry for him.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Scrooge is clearly traumatised by the abuse his father and the headmaster inflicted on him, and has flashbacks that might be a sign of PTSD. He also counts everything (often out loud to himself as if he can't even help it), memorises numbers to an obsessive degree (such as the total income and expenditure for ''every year'' that he's run his business), and when he's counting out the coals in the first episode he seems overly concerned about the smudges they leave, leading several reviewers and fans to suggest he might have OCD or similar.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Scrooge is clearly traumatised by the abuse his father and the headmaster inflicted on him, and has flashbacks that might be a sign of PTSD. He also counts everything (often out loud to himself as if he can't even help it), memorises numbers to an obsessive degree (such as the total income and expenditure for ''every year'' that he's run his business), and when he's counting out the coals in the first episode he seems overly concerned about the smudges they leave, leading several reviewers and fans to suggest he might have OCD or similar.

* DiagnosedByTheAudience: Scrooge is clearly traumatised by the abuse his father and the headmaster inflicted on him, and has flashbacks that might be a sign of PTSD. He also counts everything (often out loud to himself as if he can't even help it), memorises numbers to an obsessive degree (such as the total income and expenditure for ''every year'' that he's run his business), and when he's counting out the coals in the first episode he seems overly concerned about the smudges they leave, leading several reviewers and fans to suggest he might have OCD or similar.

* AmbiguousDisorder: Scrooge is clearly traumatised by the abuse his father and the headmaster inflicted on him, and has flashbacks that might be a sign of PTSD. He also counts everything (often out loud to himself as if he can't even help it), memorises numbers to an obsessive degree (such as the total income and expenditure for ''every year'' that he's run his business), and when he's counting out the coals in the first episode he seems overly concerned about the smudges they leave, leading several reviewers and fans to suggest he might have OCD or similar.

** Feminist messages are prevalent, with the female characters being portrayed as more saintly than the males (who are subservient to women, needlessly cruel, or outright evil). Lottie holds a pedophile at gunpoint to save her brother and Mrs. Cratchit is implied to be a defender of women who punishes men for how they treat women as it's implied that she summoned the ghosts to punish Scrooge for making her prostitute herself to save her family and then keeping her husband in his service by threatening to tell him what Mrs. Cratchit did.

* UnfortunateImplications: [[https://www.salon.com/2019/12/19/a-christmas-carol-fx-review-steven-knight/ Several]] [[https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/a-christmas-carol-fx-review-1263389 reviews]] [[https://collinwatchesmovies.wordpress.com/2019/12/24/a-christmas-carol-2019/ pointed out]] the implications in making Mary Cratchit, one of the few people of color in the production, a witch, which calls back to stereotypes.

* {{Anvilicious}}: The miniseries's liberties taken with the original story to provide the real-life subtext to the events such as the Grenfell Tower fire and other contemporary political scandals are not exactly subtle, but they are certainly important messages to keep the story's overall themes relevant for modern viewers.

** [[spoiler: Is The Ghost of Christmas Past sympathetic to Scrooge when he showed him his sister using a gun to save him from his headmaster or is he shaming a young, traumatised Scrooge for becoming just as bad as his headmaster by not seeing what she did for him?]]

* EightDeadlyWords: This adaptation of the classic story is ''so'' grim, and its Scrooge is ''so'' evil, that it becomes difficult for the viewer to actually ''care'' whether or not he learns a lesson.

* {{Anvilicious}}: The miniseries' liberties taken with the original story to provide real-life subtext to the events such as the Grenfell Tower fire and other contemporary political scandals are not exactly subtle but are certainly important messages to keep the story's overall themes relevant for modern viewers.

** [[spoiler: Is Marley denied a peaceful afterlife because he's a terrible person or was he denied a peaceful afterlife because he's a vital pawn in Mrs Cratchit's curse?]]

* MoralEventHorizon: Scrooge's "greatest act of evil" is when he [[spoiler: exploits Mary Cratchit's need for money to pay for Tiny Tim's medical treatment. He promises to give her the money if she performs sexual favors for him, to which she agrees. Once she strips down, he tells her to put her clothes back on and take the money, because it was all just an experiment to see if she'd go through with it. From there, he threatens to tell Bob what happened if Bob ever thinks about quitting, so that he can keep Bob under his thumb for life.]] This act is so heinous that one can't help but feel that Scrooge doesn't deserve redemption, a sentiment to which Scrooge himself agrees.

* ShockingMoments: The opening scene where Marley's grave is peed on. That alone should let you know just how dark this adaptation is. And that not getting into [[spoiler: Scrooge's sister wielding a gun against Scrooge's headmaster]].