{"version": "1.0", "type": "rich", "title": "I feel like a lot of people don\u2019t quite get what a butler is. The role tends to get rounded off to \u2018male servant\u2019 pretty...", "author_name": "kontextmaschine", "author_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "provider_name": "kontextmaschine", "provider_url": "https://kontextmaschine.com", "url": "https://kontextmaschine.com/post/719152392890990592/", "html": "

stele3:

decepticonsensual:

booksandchainmail:

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voxette-vk:

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dagny-hashtaggart:

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I feel like a lot of people don\u2019t quite get what a butler is. The role tends to get rounded off to \u2018male servant\u2019 pretty regularly in some media, whereas actually butlers are typically not just servants but chief servants. The butler was generally in charge of either all male servants or just all servants, period, in the household of an aristocrat or other very wealthy person. This meant that butlers have often been fairly powerful and influential people, and sometimes even had a manservant or two of their own.

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(Also, fun fact: Mary Roberts Rinehart, the early 20th century mystery writer who is widely credited with popularizing the whole \u2018the butler did it\u2019 trope was nearly murdered by one of her own servants, a chef whom she had passed over for promotion to butler. He came at her with a pistol, but it jammed, allowing her chauffeur time to wrestle it away and restrain him.)

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You didn\u2019t answer the key question things brings up: did she popularize the trope before or after the would-be butler tried to kill her?

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according to wikipedia, before

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There\u2019s something glorious about the fact that the author who popularised \u201cthe butler did it\u201d had a servant who a) failed to become the butler and then b) failed to do it.

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If he\u2019d been butler material, he\u2019d have finished the job.

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