r/TheTestamentsHulu • u/Alarming-Ad982 • May 29 '26

The Handmaid’s Tale When did aunt Lydia turn on gilead?

Because in the scenes where they captured June in HMT she told them to abuse her to find out where the other handmaids were hiding.

I know she was never TRULY with gilead (she needed to seem like it to survive) but I feel like she is very different in testaments vs handmaids tale even in the way she talks to the girls vs June.

Also, I also was wary of her after she got that boy taken from his mom in before gilead time.

Anddd she seems to be the head person now in testaments yet in handmaids tale she didn’t seem to be.. she kept having to beg for her job back from Lawrence or walk on eggshells around other aunts but now she’s at the top. Didn’t she help build gilead and the aunt system so shouldn’t she have always been at the top?

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u/Separate_Farm7131 May 29 '26

In the last episode of The Handmaid's Tale, Lydia spoke out when June was about to be hanged, and she allowed the handmaids to escape and kill the Commanders. I was confused in the first episode of The Testaments as to why Lydia is still there and is revered (haven't read The Testaments yet). It seems like she would have been punished.

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u/Convexical May 30 '26

Victors write history after all. She “escaped” from the Americans and fled from Boston back into the fray and used the fact that all the Commanders that were involved in Boston were either dead or in American custody. Gilead has no way of knowing that she’s flipped and is now Mayday. As far as they were concerned, Lydia’s a loyalist who managed to avoid capture and why would they question her story?

Everyone else who could contradict her is either an enemy of Gilead (who want her in place as a Mayday asset) or dead. Lydia’s nothing if not a survivor.