Now that I'm 31 years older....

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I first watched Thorn Birds as a teen and then re-watched in my forties. I also had a much different perspective of the characters. Father Ralph' behavior seemed much more unconscionable to me, very predatory. It's similar to why I can't enjoy My Fair Lady anymore because through more experienced eyes any romance is overshadowed by the more sinister manipulations of the older allegedly wiser man.

"I've had some similar confrontation with my mother and can empathise with Justine, in more ways than one."

My Mom did everything for me but she obviously favored my older sister and told me so.
My Dad was the exact opposite but he never said so.

I'm glad I have only one child because I would never want to favor one over another. But would I? I truly do not want to know.

Great replies by all btw. :)

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I remember watching the series when it originally aired and seeing Ralph and Meggie as star-crossed lovers who I wanted to see together. Now watching it, I have a very different view of things. Ralph is truly horrible. While I don't think he was a pedophile, his obsession with the child Meggie, even bringing her to live at the rectory with him, was extremely inappropriate at best.

But that's nothing compared to how he treated her when she got older. He was constantly telling her to forget about him and find someone else, but then he would keep coming back into her life. He wanted her, and he wanted his position in the church. It's called eating your cake and having it too, and that's just what he did. I loved Meggie's speech toward the end when she said something like, "Yes, you love me, and you love God even more, but you love yourself most of all." Truth at last!

After Dane died and Ralph found out that he was his son, he was prostrated with grief and reached out for Meggie to comfort him. But for once she let him feel the full consequences of his selfish actions, and she walked away. That was my favorite part. I wish he would have died right then.

Now that I'm getting old, I sympathize with Mary Carson's love for the much younger Ralph. It's true that our bodies grow old and unattractive, but inside we still feel the same. We're still attracted to handsome young men but know that to act on those feelings would come across at creepy and pathetic. So we just smile and feel sad.

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I recently watched the miniseries and then read the book. I saw parts of the miniseries when I was little but my mom kept chasing me away while she watched as she didn't think it was kid-appropriate as it certainly is not.
I remembered quite a bit and now that I am in my mid-thirties watching it again but yet for the first time I have to say that I'm like Meggie. I love Ralph yet hate him at the same time. Ralph was selfish and in some ways callous even though we never doubt he loved Meggie. The worst thing he did of all the awful things was not to acknowledge, not even to himself that Dane was his son.
He knew when he went to the island and he knows how old Dane was and at no time did he even ask Meggie if there was the possibility that Dane could be his son even though his gut told him. Just didn't want to interrupt his plans to be Cardinal. Such a great well written book and miniseries. It's the only movie/miniseries so far that does a better job than the book in my opinion.

I also see this story differently now than I did when I saw it when much younger. I too, like someone else in the thread, use to think "Aw, star-crossed lovers," but now see Ralph as a being awful in the way he keeps going on about the Church yet keeps coming back to Meggie -- then is gone again.

I just finished rewatching the mini series and my constant interjection I complained out loud to my TV screen was "Having your cake and eat it too!" I hated him for it, and felt sorry for Meggie basically being a person who was constantly and repeatedly neglected and abandoned over and over again by the people who purported to love her.

I also relate now to Mary Carson's line about getting older but not on the inside. My own mother actually told me about that, shared that with me about herself, one day decades ago. I think it was one of the hooks in The Thorn Birds that appealed to her (although she was NOT like Mary Carson in other ways!)

But she told me it's a shock to get older because inside she still felt like a 25 year old girl and couldn't relate to being 60 or whichever age. She also spoke of still having feelings of attraction for men of any age, even though not acting on those of course.

I don't care much about attraction these days but I still do appreciate a cute young guy to look at in a movie or whatnot, and then I have to remind myself I'm old enough to be that guy's mom, lol!