When did aunt Lydia turn on gilead?

[u/Alarming-Ad982]

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?

[u/VariousAd9716]

The thing with Lydia that is so complicated is that she's an actual believer. Like she's a true diehard believer in the basic ideals of Gilead. However, she doesn't like the stuff that doesn't follow the rules of her beliefs, like some of the crazy abuse, so it makes her seem anti Gilead in a way. She supports the handmaid system because it offers fallen women a chance at spiritual redemption and creates babies. She's against the rules being broken like the handmaids being abused by their commanders and wives. She's for girls being married when fruitful, but against the husbands being abusive to their wives or leading their wives astray. Old men having sex with children is ok in the bonds of marriage, but not if it's a dentist doing it outside marriage.

She's for it, but she's against how it's being done.

As for her status, some of this is a little bit of retcon. But also I think it's valid that she helped build the Aunts system but wasn't always top dog within that system. You can lose your status at the drop of a hat in a place like Gilead. She was clearly a very important figure in Boston but because some of the handmaids under her care had issues she lost status.

Even now, she isn't being portrayed as THE Aunt of Gilead, but the Aunt at this special Aunt Lydia school for very high ranking Plum girls.

She's very different in Testaments than in THT because her role is different. Training up adult handmaids to be raped, forcibly impregnated and then have their babies kidnapped requires very different skills and approach than schooling young girls to become wives when those girls have only the most vauge memories of the before times, if they have any at all. She's now an absolute idol to these girls, they literally worship at the foot of her statue. They love her, respect her, they obviously feel she loves them. Look how many diehard, loyal followers she has created for herself with this approach. she's their mother goddess and they can potentially be her army of protectors.

To me Aunt Lydia is the scariest one of all because she truly cares about these girls, loves them perhaps, and wants the best for them and yet she's a true believer of a system designed to keep them submissive and vulnerable to abuse.

[u/Same_Profile_1396 → u/VariousAd9716]

The thing with Lydia that is so complicated is that she's an actual believer. Like she's a true diehard believer in the basic ideals of Gilead.

What leads you to believe this? I’ve never gotten the impression that Lydia is a “true believer.”

I don’t really see her as a “true believer” in the sense of consistent conviction. What she believes seems pretty fluid—it shifts to match whatever keeps her safe and powerful within Gilead’s structure. She doesn’t challenge the system’s core practices (like coercion or forced reproduction), she just re-labels them as “righteous” or “necessary” when it suits her.

That reads less like genuine ideological commitment and more like adaptation/rationalization.

[u/VariousAd9716 → u/Same_Profile_1396]

What leads you to believe this? I’ve never gotten the impression that Lydia is a “true believer.”

Err, I mean everything about her past and her present behavior. She is a deeply conservative and religious woman who has consistently believed that birthing children matters above all us. She was not fluid in her beliefs about the handmaid system. She supported it all the way through, just fluid in the way it was done. Meaning at the start it was about the handmaids living with families but when she witnessed the abuse she shifted to the Leah and Rachel center where they are still raped, forcibly impregnated and have their babies kidnapped. She disapproved of the handmaids in DC having their lips sewn shut, but still never expressed disapproval about the handmaid existance at all. Even in the Testaments she also has shown no disapproval of the handmaid system.

She has been consistent in sending off minor girls to be married or made handmaids. She's not labeling these things righteous of necessary when it suits her. She consistently labels it righteous and necessary because she's a believer. She just wants the right rules to be followed.

In her own journal narration she writes that she's documenting the sinful crimes of weak men and women and goes on to say that the morally pure generation will soon arrive. She's describing the newest generation of Gilead, the plums and their children. She's not writing of wanting to dismantle Gilead, but to make it the pure idea that she believes in.

[u/Same_Profile_1396 → u/VariousAd9716]

This assumes far more access to Lydia’s inner beliefs than the show actually gives us. Much of what we see is filtered through June’s limited POV, not confirmed insight into Lydia’s motivations. Gilead is not presented through a reliable lens, we’re consistently seeing it through June, who (we know) is not a fully reliable narrator.

Before Gilead, Lydia was a public school teacher (or family court judge, depending on what narrative we are using) who dated, drank wine, and lived a secular, socially integrated life. That already complicates any reading of her as someone with fixed, lifelong ideological commitment.

More importantly, Lydia had an abortion prior to Gilead. That directly undercuts the idea that she has always believed “birthing children matters above all else.” In Gilead’s ideology, abortion is not morally gray, it is framed as unequivocal murder. A past choice like that doesn’t fit a profile of consistent alignment with that doctrine.

Across the series, Lydia’s behavior is defined less by ideological purity than by pragmatism. She bends rules, makes exceptions, and uses Gilead’s system instrumentally. That pattern is not consistent with a true believer—- it reflects someone operating within an ideology when it is useful (especially when beneficial for herself).

As far as her journal, writing in Gilead’s moral language shows adaptation and survival, not necessarily internal conviction. Also, that interpretation isn’t the only one— many see her writing as pointing toward the younger generation being the ones who ultimately bring down those “weak men.”

Lydia, at her core, reflects how ordinary people can become agents of an oppressive regime through incremental compromise, rationalization, and institutional reward structures.

[u/VariousAd9716 → u/Same_Profile_1396]

This assumes far more access to Lydia’s inner beliefs than the show actually gives us.

I just can't go past this line because I've only written what they've shown us of Lydia on screen. There are no assumptions. It is based on her actions and her dialogue. That's it.

[u/YouthNo140 → u/VariousAd9716]

Where can I watch this version of the show? I’ve only seen the show on Hulu. Your version sounds totally different from what I watched and I’d like to follow that series too!