By removing one book subplot, the writers of Prime Video’s My Lady Jane prevented a disaster and strengthened the central allegory. My Lady Jane is 2024’s newest anachronistic historical romance, weaving together a story of steamy relationships and power struggles. The show has already been very successful, receiving a higher Rotten Tomatoes score than all three seasons of Bridgerton. My Lady Jane draws its story primarily from the eponymous novel by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows – which was deemed a New York Times bestseller and Publishers Weekly’s best young adult book of 2016.

While the overall narrative remains faithful to the source material, My Lady Jane makes multiple changes to the book that develop the characters and add layers of complexity to the plot. While most changes were optional, the writers changed one part of the book that would’ve been disastrous onscreen. The plot they inserted in its place helped create a more compelling message that permeates through the entire series.

My Lady Jane Removes The Romantic Subplot Between Jane And Edward

The Prime Video version of My Lady Jane removes one of the worst and most painfully awkward parts of the book, the romantic subplot between Jane and Edward. In the book version of the story, the first cousins, Jane Grey and King Edward, were each other’s first loves and still have lingering romantic feelings for one another. This creates drama when Jane marries Guildford (spelled Gifford and nicknamed G in the book). Edward waxes poetic in his internal narration about how much he wants to marry Jane. Meanwhile, Guildford gets jealous of everything Jane says and does.

The book goes out of its way to remind the readers that cousin romances weren’t taboo at the time, as if that eases the discomfort of reading it.

Guildford even worries that Jane will always put Edward above him. Unfortunately, Jane and Edward’s thoughts confirm there’s a reason for Guildford to be jealous, as both clearly still have feelings for each other. It doesn’t help that they are each other’s closest confidantes and best friends. This makes the lines in their relationship messy and blurred throughout the book.

The ex-lover trope isn’t uncommon in romance stories and can add tension in an enemies-to-lovers plot, like Jane and Guildford’s in My Lady Jane. However, the subplot is painful because Jane and Edward are cousins who grew up with each other. The book goes out of its way to remind the readers that cousin romances weren’t taboo at the time, as if that eases the discomfort of reading it. Sadly, this disclaimer does nothing to make the relationship any less awkward.

The Awkward Cousins’ Romance Would Ruin Prime Video’s My Lady Jane

When it comes to changing the source material, Prime Video made the right choice by removing the romance between Edward and Jane. Despite being historically appropriate, modern audiences don’t take well to incestuous relationships, even when the sexual component isn’t present. The perfect example of this is how modern audiences view the relationship between Josh and Cher in the classic 1990s rom-com Clueless. What was previously cute is now seen as gross. Sometimes, period pieces or fantasies get a pass on familial romances, but not often.