Greatest Bridgerton Season 2 Line Kanthony Haters Choose to Ignore

Some fans adored her understated style, her prickly nature, and her animal-loving, feisty spirit. Others found the love triangle with her sister Edwina too hard to stomach and blamed Kate for the fall-out.

Critiques of Kate mostly seem to revolve around an absolute horror at her 'selfishness' in falling in love with Anthony and keeping it a secret. After all, the secret eventually came out, causing the wedding to be canceled and Edwina's heart to be shattered. The fact that innocent Edwina was humiliated seems – for some – to have made Kate the villain of the whole piece. Some consider the character to be incredibly selfish.

However, these fans seem to be ignoring the larger context of what's happening in Season 2, a context that can be neatly summed up with one of Kate's lines. It's one of the few times in the season that Kate allows herself to truly say how she feels, and it comes in Episode 6 ('The Choice'). Edwina has just shouted at Kate for not telling her the truth, and Kate pleads:

'You do not remember when Appa died, when the world fell out from beneath us… to save us from an even worse fate I promised I would not consider myself until you and Mama were taken care of. I gave what I had without regret and I would do it again… I still do it, I give what I have in order to protect you.'

Unlike Anthony Bridgerton, Kate does not have the benefit of flashbacks in Season 2 to show exactly how difficult it was for her to grow up shouldering so much responsibility. However, we do know that Kate lost her beloved father when she was only a child. Then she was forced to look after a shattered stepmother and baby sister, without proper time to grieve.

Kate learned from a very young age that if she did not protect her family from the truth and handle things herself, the people she loved would be hurt.

At no point did Kate try to sabotage Edwina's relationship with Anthony. Instead, she sacrificed her own feelings over and over and over again, as she had learned to do since she was a child. Was she wrong to do so? Yes. But that doesn't make her a bad person. Like Anthony, she learned bad habits over a lifetime of protecting those closest to her. We seem to give Anthony credit for that. Why can't we give the same credit to Kate?

Not everyone has to love the same characters. But calling Kate Sharma selfish is just incorrect. Like Anthony, she has spent her life making sacrifices for others – that's exactly what makes them perfect for each other.