History WMG / KeepingUpAppearances

[[WMG: Keeping Up Appearances shares a universe with Series/RumpoleOfTheBailey and Hyacinth is actually Hilda's niece]]

This is inspired by a couple of observations. Firstly, the first time I saw Peggy Thorpe-Bates with a particular haircut and from a particular angle I mistook her for Patricia Routledge (there’s an age difference but the episode of Rumpole was made several years before Keeping Up Appearances).

[[WMG: The sisters' maiden name really was "Bouquet." Also,Richard's last name is really "BUCKET."]]

This would explain the floral-theme to their names. Also, when Hyacinth and Richard got married, it would allow her to use the "bouquet" pronouncation.

* The prequel shows that Hyacinth was raised in a poverty-stricken household, so she kept aspiring to live a more affluent lifestyle. After she married Richard, she managed to pull herself up to a comfortable middle-class lifestyle; for a while, that satisfied her but after seeing how Violet is living (at least in material terms) she became jealous and realized that her current lifestyle wasn't enough and now she aspires to become part of the upper class. If she and Richard ''do'' somehow manage to become wealthy, then she'll be jealous of people with titles, those who come from an old money background, or the ultra-wealthy.

[[WMG: Hyacinth's continuous social climbing is the result of that being all she knows how to do.]]

* Hyacinth looked up Richard's genealogy and found that he's of Norman or Huguenot descent, so it's not just out of pretentiousness that she insists on the bouquet pronunciation but rather a different form of snobbery.

Yep, just like in ''WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf'', the apparently miserable couple whose long marriage [[NoAccountingForTaste no-one can understand]] is entirely founded on their mutual denial of the loss of the one good thing they ever had. Although that doesn't explain why they imagine him to be an AmbiguouslyGay, profligate wastrel...

[[WMG: Hyacinth insists on pronouncing her last name name as "Buckay" because that ''is'' how it's supposed to be pronounced]]

[[WMG: Hyacinth insists on pronouncing her last name name as "Bouquet" because that ''is'' how it's supposed to be pronounced]]
* Hyacinth looked up Richard's genealogy and found that he's of Norman descent, so it's not just out of pretentiousness that she insists on the bouquet pronunciation but rather a different form of snobbery. For added irony, the name could have been originally spelled something like "Buquette", in which case it would have still been pronounced "bucket".

This would explain the floral-theme to their names. Also, when Hyacinth and Richard got married, it would allow her to use the "bouquet" pronouncation.

[[WMG: Keeping Up Appearances shares a universe with RumpoleOfTheBailey and Hyacinth is actually Hilda's niece]]

* Well, in the Swedish novel ''The Dung-beetle Flies at Dusk'' the kindly old lady who has periodically been phoning up the protagonists with helpful if slightly cryptic hints turns out to have been DeadAllAlong...

* Granted, it would present a challenge for a ghost to use the telephone.

* Granted, it would a challenge for a ghost to use the telephone.

Yep, just like in ''WhosAfraidOfVirginiaWoolf'', the apparently miserable couple whose long marriage [[NoAccountingForTaste no-one can understand]] is entirely founded on their mutual denial of the loss of the one good thing they ever had. Although that doesn't explain why they imagine him to be an AmbiguouslyGay, profligate wastrel...