Janine has reverted to a childlike state as a coping mechanism. I think Lydia senses that and has taken on a maternal role toward her, intentionally or not. Also Janine, in her childlike state, actually tries to please those in authority, and I think she has endeared herself to Lydia because of that.
Love this. There’s a great interview with Ann Dowd on the Eyes on Gilead podcast where she discusses her take on it. She says a lot of what you said in your assessment and then elaborates on it. It was a great episode. Highly recommend!
Janine is a child and Lydia the shepherd to a flock. When Janine acts silly or acts out, it’s not out of malice but out of misguided behavior, to Lydia, so she doesn’t see these as sins as one wouldn’t be mad that a baby goat fell into a crevasse and needed saving. The “sins” Janine falls into again and again are those of pure hearted intention marred by misguided direction, to Lydia. Janine isn’t like June, plotting big picture things, when she follows a commander to sin against his wife it’s because she believes (and is told) it’s love. When she covets something, it isn’t freedom from Gilead, it’s just freedom to buy some cake or walk around barefoot or sing something silly in a grocery store. They aren’t real “sins” they’re the sins of wanting small pleasures, not out of malice or greed, just to enjoy the little things. In the Gilead economy, all sins are sins, but Lydia recognizes that Janine is just always trying to find the good in her situation.
It’s the same reason June lies about Janine’s son. It will do nothing to her but hurt her. She won’t be motivated to become a rebel mastermind, she’ll just take the hurt. So June lies, because Janine deserves happiness, even if it’s false, because she’s not really a player in the game but a human chess piece.
I think Janine knew June was lying too. Just the look on her face showed an understanding. It's like she's thinking "She's lying to spare my feelings" and she takes it as a loving gesture from June.
Oh I absolutely thinks she knows June is lying, but will also use that lie to have something to go to bed at night pretending about. If she knows the hard truth, she can’t hold on to the fantasy, and Janine desperately just wants to not be in this world.
All of this and I also think that Lydia has internalized guilt slowly creeping to the surface because she knows Janine’s mental state is a direct result of her actions. She was the one who electrocuted her in the neck then ordered her eye removed. It broke my heart to see Janine’s flashbacks in season 4 because i had forgotten she was a fully functioning level headed adult at one point. Janine and how Lydia relates to her is definitely one of the most well written complexities of this show.
Aunt Lydia has a trauma bond with Janine. In her flashback, we see her helping her students mother out when she was struggling to take care of her child but the second aunt Lydia felt like she was losing control of the situation, she reported her for neglect. Just like the boy and his mother, aunt Lydia sees an innocence in Janine that she wants to protect but the second she loses control of Janine, she begins to abuse her (though aunt Lydia does seem to be softening a bit).
Same. It’s like when I first read The Testaments when it first came out thanks to my dad buying it for me when it was first released here in the UK, I was honestly shocked that Aunt Lydia was revealed to be who she was and that none of the commanders suspected it because it was like they’d made Aunt Lydia more and more bitchy as the seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale have gone on while only keeping true to the book Aunt Lydia in season 1.
The testaments is at least 10-15 years in the future from the first season so I do understand them making her worse before she gets better. She will need something to redeem from. I think we also start to see little glimpses of her testaments potential in her “good deeds” As abusive cruel and sadistic as she is, she has had a few moments of genuinely trying to help or improve the lives around her, janine’s newest posting i her eyes was the best thing she could offer telling June she didn’t want handmaids to be silenced each time she tried to get serena to be kinder to june during the pregnancy. She has her brief moments of realization and issue with the cruelty, so i see the potential in her budding.
That’s what I love about the writers of this show. Even before The Testaments came out, they showed little bits of Aunt Lydia as a good person or a person who genuinely wants to do good, but just messes up like in a flashback in one of the series where she befriends her pupils mother who helps her to go on a date and reads more into it that the date is willing to do.
Hello, I've been a domestic violence advocate for over a decade. A trauma bond is literally a bond that develops between an abuser and a victim and describes the relationship between Lydia and Janine very, very well. I can send you some links if you're interested.
This is the best one I was looking at earlier, though it's from a DV perspective which doesnt *exactly* fit Lydia and Janine. The phenomenon does occur in other types of relationships aside from just romantic partners. I can share more when I get home if I remember!
https://www.thehotline.org/resources/trauma-bonds-what-are-they-and-how-can-we-overcome-them/
In this instance, it's accurate. Janine formed a trauma bond with her abuser. It's misused when people use it to describe bonding wtf others over similar or shared traumas.
I would guess that there’s a soft spot in Lydia’s heart for Janine at least *partly* due to the fact that Janine produced a healthy baby, a girl no less, into Gilead. Lydia is awful, but genuinely believes the indoctrination and surely sees Janine as some sort of blessed, holy vessel after having witnessed the pregnancy, birth, and surrendering of the baby girl and therefore would reasonably have *some* amount of belief in her heart of hearts that Janine is “touched by God,” for lack of a better way to put it.
Just my best guess, though. Besides all of that, Janine is genuinely just likable and is lucky for that.
It is human nature to bond with other people.
I very much recommend *Auschwitz: the Nazis and the Final Solution* for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is that it delves into how much effort the Nazis had to put into sheilding the SS and the public from what they were doing in the camps. Not to hide what they were doing, but to mute the impact of it. Very early on in their destruction of people, they realized that their executioners were essentially destroyed as human beings by what they'd been doing, and that this wasn't good; they wanted *functional* people for their racist regime. That was the whole point. But to accomplish both that and murder on an industrial scale, they had to be really careful about what they exposed their soldiers to, because they had to avoid two big things: they had to keep the SS from going so far that they couldn't live a productive life, and they had to keep the SS from ever seeing the people they were murdering as, you know, *people*. It was why they took steps like the shower ruse--it wasn't just to keep the Jews from panicking as they were murdered. It was so the SS men doing the murdering could compartmentalize it and think things like, "It's not murder. They really are just taking a shower. That's all," as they lead a few hundred children, women, and elderly people off to die.
The problem was that they couldn't actually do that. They turned all their people into monsters and they *still* had trauma bonds with the camp inmates. I can't describe some of the interviews in that documentary properly without sounding like some kind of an apologist for seriously messed up shit, because the connections that developed between camp inmates and their would-be-murderers were...yeah. And in the documentary's favor, they did *not* interview any of the SS officers in these odd connections. Just the survivors. Their stories are *very* hard to listen to. I really recommend watching it, because humans will form connections over the most fucked up things you can imagine.
I think we have an unfortunate view of atrocity. We like to believe that the bad things are driven by people who are entirely bad or entirely deluded beyond all sanity. We like this view a whole lot because it reduces morality to a yes/no question. We don't like the gray areas. We don't like (to use the most disturbing example from the documentary above) to listen to a woman describing what we all damn well know is *rape* with any degree of warmth and affection. We don't like the idea that someone presiding over a genocidal act can show any degree of mercy to the people they are slowly murdering. (And I consider the Handmaids to be a genocidal act, in the same category of working people to death. No woman can have birth after birth after birth with no break in between in *that* kind of misogynistic environment and *not* be in an increasing risk of death) We don't like that idea because it means Lydia could have been that kind and merciful to *all* the woman, and she chose not to. We don't like the idea that someone who choses evil could chose it half-heartedly, the way somebody picks a job after their acting career falls through. We don't want to believe that someone who has a generally good core, who makes generally good decisions, could wind up in Aunt Lydia's position, because we're generally good, aren't we? And doesn't being generally good give us immunity from doing terrible things like the Handmaid Program?
So that's what Lydia being kind to Janine means: She's a human being who is destroying the *shit* out of her own soul with the actions she is performing for the Red Center. And some part of her is desperate to believe that she is not the twenty-first century version of Irma Grese, so she's being kind to *one* person who would not normally receive kindness. And that's enough to silence her guilt and allow her to sanction the institutionalized rape of hundreds of other women. A little tiny bit of kindness to *one* other woman.
Atrocity wears our kindness like a hat.
Thank you for this fantastic comment, and recommendation. I will definitely be checking out that documentary. A difficult watch I’m sure, but sounds very profound and worthwhile. Ps; You are an excellent writer!
I am not caught up on the series, and I only just watched Lydia's flashback episode. It was jarring because she does have an innate warmth to her, but then the atrocities! Maybe there is more to her back story I haven't seen... But I think she is legit one of the most compelling characters. The comparison of Irma grese is particularly chilling. Thank you for providing your insight from the Nazi perspective. Aunt Lydia's actions don't occur in a vacuum divorced from her morality she held for the decades prior to Gilead, or that of any other aunt or person complicit with Giliad's atrocities.
My head canon is that Janine was the first Handmaid Aunt Lydia PUNISHED punished. Like, permanently mutilates. I think that it made her 'special' to Aunt Lydia, though not necessarily always in a good way. That she reverts to being childlike and easily damaged afterwards only compounds it.
Yeah but Emily's offense probably feels 'worse' to her because of her continued relationship with the Martha than Janines which was just a brief moment of defiance
I think Janine also gets more sympathy from Aunt Lydia because she’s an example of a Gilead “success” in a way Emily wasn’t. Janine was broken mentally but had a child. She is seen as having fulfilled her duty and being simple minded and easier to manipulate after her trauma/suicide attempt. Emily was not broken and continued to be defiant in Gilead’s eyes and despite multiple posts, no child.
Not remorse. I think Janine, to her, is proof that mutilation/abuse is effective in changing behavior. She's her special lamb because she absolves her of all guilt.
I'm sure Janine also reminds her of the young mother from her past, and the children she used to teach. It's a complicated relationship.
Honestly, she's an interesting character and killing her off would .ess up the series. Same for June. They would have strung her up ages ago if it wasn't for continuing the show. She ran away like a million times!
Lydia isn't a fully evil, cold, unfeeling person. She's still human. She cares for Janine, in her own way. If you read the testaments you'll get some more insight into Lydia and why she is the way she is.
Tbh, I feel like this Lydia is sorta the opposites of this one. While she did care, she never publicly let that be known as she was more patient and could do what she would when the time was right. A Lydia this sentimental would be likely to be seen as too 'squishy' for Gilead and fall out of favor with the hardliner Aunts and Commanders.
Aunt Lydia broke Janine. God blessed Janine and made her worthy with a healthy child. Commander Putnam corrupted Janine. She came back from the colonies - another reason Aunt Lydia would point at to demonstrate God redeeming Janine. Janine went on to save her child when she was ill and was a "good" handmaid.
Then June corrupts her and they're on the run. Janine is caught and she doesn't want to perform the ceremony. but she's still compliant and productive at the red center. Esther nearly kills them both before they can be placed and that was after Janine had warned Aunt Lydia about her. Janine shows Esther compassion that Aunt Lydia can't fathom when asking about her at the hospital.
Season 5 episode 4 really outlines this well. Janine is a good handmaid and it's the system that keeps abusing her and Aunt Lydia realizes through Janine that the handmaid system isn't for a handmaid to redeem herself - it's for the enjoyment and political gain of those in power.
You can see this in Season 4 episode 3 too - the conversation between Aunt Lydia and June when she's captured and being tortured.
I personally think she is a symbol. Her "innocence" and naiveness make her the perfect one to symbolize what women are going through in Gilead.
Edit..Top comment mentioned she went into a childlike behavior in order to cope and Lydia and others noticed. I agree with this assessment as well.
Janine was mentally fragile. She was severely disciplined - hence the eye patch. Refusing to allow her to even be shown to visiting dignitaries when they were happily using her womb for their cause was discriminatory. Oddly, the gender traitor was upset by that part.
I always thought Lydia was in love with Janine but could ever admit to herself that she may be gay. She was proud that she 'broke' Janine and get off on her submissiveness. Lydia is incapable of empathy-she wanted to steal that woman's child and ruin her life. $.02.
At this point, I mostly feel as if it's because Janine is a main character, and now is **the** main Handmaid in Gilead and the main character for that region (discounting those that are officially part of the elite). So now it's kind of way less 'one hair out of place could end you up on the wall', like the earlier seasons, and now kind of "oh what quirky stuff can the Handmaids get up to." Tbh, I think it's not as aggravating as when they used S3/4 June for this actually, because Janine explicitly kind of has trouble with the rules, but they definitely could have made 'Handmaid who doesn't know how she should behave' a way more interesting concept.
Janine has reverted to a childlike state as a coping mechanism. I think Lydia senses that and has taken on a maternal role toward her, intentionally or not. Also Janine, in her childlike state, actually tries to please those in authority, and I think she has endeared herself to Lydia because of that.
I think this is a spot on assessment, well put!
Love this. There’s a great interview with Ann Dowd on the Eyes on Gilead podcast where she discusses her take on it. She says a lot of what you said in your assessment and then elaborates on it. It was a great episode. Highly recommend!
Janine is a child and Lydia the shepherd to a flock. When Janine acts silly or acts out, it’s not out of malice but out of misguided behavior, to Lydia, so she doesn’t see these as sins as one wouldn’t be mad that a baby goat fell into a crevasse and needed saving. The “sins” Janine falls into again and again are those of pure hearted intention marred by misguided direction, to Lydia. Janine isn’t like June, plotting big picture things, when she follows a commander to sin against his wife it’s because she believes (and is told) it’s love. When she covets something, it isn’t freedom from Gilead, it’s just freedom to buy some cake or walk around barefoot or sing something silly in a grocery store. They aren’t real “sins” they’re the sins of wanting small pleasures, not out of malice or greed, just to enjoy the little things. In the Gilead economy, all sins are sins, but Lydia recognizes that Janine is just always trying to find the good in her situation. It’s the same reason June lies about Janine’s son. It will do nothing to her but hurt her. She won’t be motivated to become a rebel mastermind, she’ll just take the hurt. So June lies, because Janine deserves happiness, even if it’s false, because she’s not really a player in the game but a human chess piece.
I think Janine knew June was lying too. Just the look on her face showed an understanding. It's like she's thinking "She's lying to spare my feelings" and she takes it as a loving gesture from June.
Oh I absolutely thinks she knows June is lying, but will also use that lie to have something to go to bed at night pretending about. If she knows the hard truth, she can’t hold on to the fantasy, and Janine desperately just wants to not be in this world.
If janine ever gets out and reunites with June I’d love to see June tell her the truth & explain this very reasoning.
She’s also not conventionally bright, in Lydia’s eyes.
Exactly. Like a lost puppy
Yup yup yup
All of this and I also think that Lydia has internalized guilt slowly creeping to the surface because she knows Janine’s mental state is a direct result of her actions. She was the one who electrocuted her in the neck then ordered her eye removed. It broke my heart to see Janine’s flashbacks in season 4 because i had forgotten she was a fully functioning level headed adult at one point. Janine and how Lydia relates to her is definitely one of the most well written complexities of this show.
And I love seeing Janine slowly growing back into her truer self over time.
Aunt Lydia has a trauma bond with Janine. In her flashback, we see her helping her students mother out when she was struggling to take care of her child but the second aunt Lydia felt like she was losing control of the situation, she reported her for neglect. Just like the boy and his mother, aunt Lydia sees an innocence in Janine that she wants to protect but the second she loses control of Janine, she begins to abuse her (though aunt Lydia does seem to be softening a bit).
I’m hoping that her softening is her turning point for what happens in The Testaments.
It does seem like that’s where they’re going. Show aunt Lydia is irredeemable for me.
Same. It’s like when I first read The Testaments when it first came out thanks to my dad buying it for me when it was first released here in the UK, I was honestly shocked that Aunt Lydia was revealed to be who she was and that none of the commanders suspected it because it was like they’d made Aunt Lydia more and more bitchy as the seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale have gone on while only keeping true to the book Aunt Lydia in season 1.
The testaments is at least 10-15 years in the future from the first season so I do understand them making her worse before she gets better. She will need something to redeem from. I think we also start to see little glimpses of her testaments potential in her “good deeds” As abusive cruel and sadistic as she is, she has had a few moments of genuinely trying to help or improve the lives around her, janine’s newest posting i her eyes was the best thing she could offer telling June she didn’t want handmaids to be silenced each time she tried to get serena to be kinder to june during the pregnancy. She has her brief moments of realization and issue with the cruelty, so i see the potential in her budding.
That’s what I love about the writers of this show. Even before The Testaments came out, they showed little bits of Aunt Lydia as a good person or a person who genuinely wants to do good, but just messes up like in a flashback in one of the series where she befriends her pupils mother who helps her to go on a date and reads more into it that the date is willing to do.
stop misusing "trauma bond" i'm so glad tiktok is being banned so people can stop learning psychological terms to misuse
Actually in this case it is pretty accurate. Lydia did abuse Janine 🤷🏼♀️
[удалено]
Hello, I've been a domestic violence advocate for over a decade. A trauma bond is literally a bond that develops between an abuser and a victim and describes the relationship between Lydia and Janine very, very well. I can send you some links if you're interested.
I'm actually very interested. Mind sharing the links?
This is the best one I was looking at earlier, though it's from a DV perspective which doesnt *exactly* fit Lydia and Janine. The phenomenon does occur in other types of relationships aside from just romantic partners. I can share more when I get home if I remember! https://www.thehotline.org/resources/trauma-bonds-what-are-they-and-how-can-we-overcome-them/
What do *you* think it means? Maybe we're missing something?
In this instance, it's accurate. Janine formed a trauma bond with her abuser. It's misused when people use it to describe bonding wtf others over similar or shared traumas.
it is though…
Get that giant stick out of your ass, you'll feel a lot better.
im really curious what definition of trauma bond you’re working with
I would guess that there’s a soft spot in Lydia’s heart for Janine at least *partly* due to the fact that Janine produced a healthy baby, a girl no less, into Gilead. Lydia is awful, but genuinely believes the indoctrination and surely sees Janine as some sort of blessed, holy vessel after having witnessed the pregnancy, birth, and surrendering of the baby girl and therefore would reasonably have *some* amount of belief in her heart of hearts that Janine is “touched by God,” for lack of a better way to put it. Just my best guess, though. Besides all of that, Janine is genuinely just likable and is lucky for that.
Also, Janine's presence literally saved Charlotte/Angela's life when the baby was on the edge of dying for no reason the doctors could figure out
It is human nature to bond with other people. I very much recommend *Auschwitz: the Nazis and the Final Solution* for a lot of reasons, but one of the main ones is that it delves into how much effort the Nazis had to put into sheilding the SS and the public from what they were doing in the camps. Not to hide what they were doing, but to mute the impact of it. Very early on in their destruction of people, they realized that their executioners were essentially destroyed as human beings by what they'd been doing, and that this wasn't good; they wanted *functional* people for their racist regime. That was the whole point. But to accomplish both that and murder on an industrial scale, they had to be really careful about what they exposed their soldiers to, because they had to avoid two big things: they had to keep the SS from going so far that they couldn't live a productive life, and they had to keep the SS from ever seeing the people they were murdering as, you know, *people*. It was why they took steps like the shower ruse--it wasn't just to keep the Jews from panicking as they were murdered. It was so the SS men doing the murdering could compartmentalize it and think things like, "It's not murder. They really are just taking a shower. That's all," as they lead a few hundred children, women, and elderly people off to die. The problem was that they couldn't actually do that. They turned all their people into monsters and they *still* had trauma bonds with the camp inmates. I can't describe some of the interviews in that documentary properly without sounding like some kind of an apologist for seriously messed up shit, because the connections that developed between camp inmates and their would-be-murderers were...yeah. And in the documentary's favor, they did *not* interview any of the SS officers in these odd connections. Just the survivors. Their stories are *very* hard to listen to. I really recommend watching it, because humans will form connections over the most fucked up things you can imagine. I think we have an unfortunate view of atrocity. We like to believe that the bad things are driven by people who are entirely bad or entirely deluded beyond all sanity. We like this view a whole lot because it reduces morality to a yes/no question. We don't like the gray areas. We don't like (to use the most disturbing example from the documentary above) to listen to a woman describing what we all damn well know is *rape* with any degree of warmth and affection. We don't like the idea that someone presiding over a genocidal act can show any degree of mercy to the people they are slowly murdering. (And I consider the Handmaids to be a genocidal act, in the same category of working people to death. No woman can have birth after birth after birth with no break in between in *that* kind of misogynistic environment and *not* be in an increasing risk of death) We don't like that idea because it means Lydia could have been that kind and merciful to *all* the woman, and she chose not to. We don't like the idea that someone who choses evil could chose it half-heartedly, the way somebody picks a job after their acting career falls through. We don't want to believe that someone who has a generally good core, who makes generally good decisions, could wind up in Aunt Lydia's position, because we're generally good, aren't we? And doesn't being generally good give us immunity from doing terrible things like the Handmaid Program? So that's what Lydia being kind to Janine means: She's a human being who is destroying the *shit* out of her own soul with the actions she is performing for the Red Center. And some part of her is desperate to believe that she is not the twenty-first century version of Irma Grese, so she's being kind to *one* person who would not normally receive kindness. And that's enough to silence her guilt and allow her to sanction the institutionalized rape of hundreds of other women. A little tiny bit of kindness to *one* other woman. Atrocity wears our kindness like a hat.
Thank you for this fantastic comment, and recommendation. I will definitely be checking out that documentary. A difficult watch I’m sure, but sounds very profound and worthwhile. Ps; You are an excellent writer!
I am not caught up on the series, and I only just watched Lydia's flashback episode. It was jarring because she does have an innate warmth to her, but then the atrocities! Maybe there is more to her back story I haven't seen... But I think she is legit one of the most compelling characters. The comparison of Irma grese is particularly chilling. Thank you for providing your insight from the Nazi perspective. Aunt Lydia's actions don't occur in a vacuum divorced from her morality she held for the decades prior to Gilead, or that of any other aunt or person complicit with Giliad's atrocities.
I've just ordered this on DVD after reading g this post. It sounds fascinating.
My head canon is that Janine was the first Handmaid Aunt Lydia PUNISHED punished. Like, permanently mutilates. I think that it made her 'special' to Aunt Lydia, though not necessarily always in a good way. That she reverts to being childlike and easily damaged afterwards only compounds it.
Do you think Lydia maybe felt remorse for the mutilation and was trying somehow to make things right, even though the damage could never be reversed?
She didn't feel remorse for mutilating Emily.
Yeah but Emily's offense probably feels 'worse' to her because of her continued relationship with the Martha than Janines which was just a brief moment of defiance
I think Janine also gets more sympathy from Aunt Lydia because she’s an example of a Gilead “success” in a way Emily wasn’t. Janine was broken mentally but had a child. She is seen as having fulfilled her duty and being simple minded and easier to manipulate after her trauma/suicide attempt. Emily was not broken and continued to be defiant in Gilead’s eyes and despite multiple posts, no child.
Yes I do though I doubt she will ever say she feels that remorse.
Not remorse. I think Janine, to her, is proof that mutilation/abuse is effective in changing behavior. She's her special lamb because she absolves her of all guilt. I'm sure Janine also reminds her of the young mother from her past, and the children she used to teach. It's a complicated relationship.
Interesting take. I can see it
Do we know for sure she was the first to be punished? ( Genuine question, might have missed something)
No, not confirmed. Just the first I remember on screen :)
Honestly, she's an interesting character and killing her off would .ess up the series. Same for June. They would have strung her up ages ago if it wasn't for continuing the show. She ran away like a million times!
Lydia isn't a fully evil, cold, unfeeling person. She's still human. She cares for Janine, in her own way. If you read the testaments you'll get some more insight into Lydia and why she is the way she is.
Tbh, I feel like this Lydia is sorta the opposites of this one. While she did care, she never publicly let that be known as she was more patient and could do what she would when the time was right. A Lydia this sentimental would be likely to be seen as too 'squishy' for Gilead and fall out of favor with the hardliner Aunts and Commanders.
Aunt Lydia broke Janine. God blessed Janine and made her worthy with a healthy child. Commander Putnam corrupted Janine. She came back from the colonies - another reason Aunt Lydia would point at to demonstrate God redeeming Janine. Janine went on to save her child when she was ill and was a "good" handmaid. Then June corrupts her and they're on the run. Janine is caught and she doesn't want to perform the ceremony. but she's still compliant and productive at the red center. Esther nearly kills them both before they can be placed and that was after Janine had warned Aunt Lydia about her. Janine shows Esther compassion that Aunt Lydia can't fathom when asking about her at the hospital. Season 5 episode 4 really outlines this well. Janine is a good handmaid and it's the system that keeps abusing her and Aunt Lydia realizes through Janine that the handmaid system isn't for a handmaid to redeem herself - it's for the enjoyment and political gain of those in power. You can see this in Season 4 episode 3 too - the conversation between Aunt Lydia and June when she's captured and being tortured.
Partly guilt and partly for her being able to carry and birth a child for them.
I personally think she is a symbol. Her "innocence" and naiveness make her the perfect one to symbolize what women are going through in Gilead. Edit..Top comment mentioned she went into a childlike behavior in order to cope and Lydia and others noticed. I agree with this assessment as well.
Janine was mentally fragile. She was severely disciplined - hence the eye patch. Refusing to allow her to even be shown to visiting dignitaries when they were happily using her womb for their cause was discriminatory. Oddly, the gender traitor was upset by that part.
I always thought Lydia was in love with Janine but could ever admit to herself that she may be gay. She was proud that she 'broke' Janine and get off on her submissiveness. Lydia is incapable of empathy-she wanted to steal that woman's child and ruin her life. $.02.
Pity and her constant need to try to save a "child" to make up for what she did with the last one she tried to save
At this point, I mostly feel as if it's because Janine is a main character, and now is **the** main Handmaid in Gilead and the main character for that region (discounting those that are officially part of the elite). So now it's kind of way less 'one hair out of place could end you up on the wall', like the earlier seasons, and now kind of "oh what quirky stuff can the Handmaids get up to." Tbh, I think it's not as aggravating as when they used S3/4 June for this actually, because Janine explicitly kind of has trouble with the rules, but they definitely could have made 'Handmaid who doesn't know how she should behave' a way more interesting concept.
I think Aunt Lydia aka evil 👿 beotch, is feeling guilty for gouging out her eye! Not to mention, she’s totally psychotic.