Character Deep Dive: Sophie Baek

Portrayed by: Yerin Ha
Book | Show: Julia Quinn’s An Offer From a Gentelman and Netflix’s Bridgerton

Sophie Baek deserves the world. There have been plenty of Cinderella-type heroines to get their happy endings, like Anne Hathaway’s Ella and Lily James’ Cinderella. Yet in a sea of this specific archetype, Sophie Baek stands tall (despite her short size) among the rest as her own hero who’s worthy of love and respect.

When you look at the lineup of Bridgerton heroines, it’s easy to see why they manage to find their perfect match and their happily ever after. These women are a rare breed of beauty, wit, and spirit, and each is different from the other. What makes Sophie so special is that she arrives on the scene as an outsider, not a lovely debutante of Mayfair, ready to sparkle before the queen. In fact, she never got the chance thanks to her stepmother. Despite her circumstances, Sophie’s light never dims. She remains kind, resourceful, and caring, and in the process, one of Mayfair’s most notorious rakes is willing to risk it all for her.

Writer’s Note: This deep dive is a combination of the novel, An Offer From a Gentleman by Julia Quinn, and the Netflix series. Much of Sophie’s story has been adapted into the show, but there will be a handful of references to the book specifically. Throughout this, we will refer to Sophie as Sophie Baek, not Beckett. 

Sophie Baek, The Bastard

Meet Sophie Baek, the girl who never got to be Sophie Gun. That’s what her name would’ve been if she weren’t an earl’s bastard. It’s not harsh; in fact, it’s the opening line of An Offer From a Gentleman: “Everyone knew that Sophie Beckett was a bastard.” Without her servant mother, Sophie grew up in her birth father’s household. You think a stepmother and two stepsisters could fill that void? Think again. When Araminta met Sophie for the first time, she snuffed out any possibility for Sophie to receive her maternal affection. The realization that Sophie was the earl’s illegitimate daughter left Araminta feeling betrayed, therefore shunning Sophie at every turn.

When Lord Penwood dies, Araminta strips Sophie of the dignity and respect she deserved, and frankly, a decent-sized dowry under the status of a ward. All in the name of “protecting” Sophie from the world that Lord Gun promised to protect her from, as well as protecting Araminta from the consequences of scandal. The world isn’t kind to an orphan like Sophie. At the time, she didn’t have any financial support, only the word of a woman who treats Sophie like she’s a burden. The only care Sophie would receive from Araminta is food, clothing, shelter, and invisibility. Solely reliant on this, Sophie spent years disavowing her identity because her father, in her eyes, broke his promise to her. She wasn’t protected or looked after. Sophie Baek was a bastard orphan, alone and dreaming of a family of her own.

Without a proper wage, Sophie spent years working in her father’s house for Araminta, Rosamund, and Posy. Although she has friends like Alfie and Irma, Sophie wished she could get a glimpse of a life that she should’ve been part of. She wanted to be in a ballroom to enjoy its beauty, not just working it. Intricate details that go completely unnoticed by the ton. Thanks to her friends, Sophie sneaks into a masquerade ball hosted at Bridgerton House. Though she wears a mask, she reveals what she’s always been to the world that night: a radiant fairy princess. She glows, she sparkles — she’s a diamond among the elite, a fact that Queen Charlotte even confirms in the Season 4 finale. 

Sophie Baek should’ve had many things in life. She deserved a season in London. She deserved to be deemed the diamond of the first water. She deserved to be wooed and courted by the eligible bachelors of London. Unfortunately, she had that ripped from her. She spent much of her life on the outside, looking in on what she should’ve had. So for one night, Sophie gets to let herself pretend that she belongs, a lady in a silver dress.

If that weren’t enough, on the same night, Sophie meets the man of her dreams. Benedict Bridgerton is completely enraptured by her from moment one. He sees her across the ballroom, and the man who couldn’t keep still is stopped in his tracks. Benedict is transfixed by the joy radiating from her. It’s the magical stuff you read about in fairytales, and Sophie allows herself to get swept up by the fantasy of the night and falls in love with a man who she thinks wouldn’t look twice at her. Sophie stores up the memories from the night so she can escape to them when she returns to her reality — a bastard orphan servant.

Sophie, The Servant

Unlike her fellow Bridgerton heroines, Sophie has lived much of her life outside of privilege. She has spent years on the outside, looking in on the if-only’s. If only her father publicly acknowledged her. If only Lord Penwood kept his promise to take care of her. If only Araminta treated Sophie with any dignity. If only she could be seen and accepted for who she is. 

Instead, Sophie has had to look out for herself and survive. She’s quick-witted and resourceful, skilled in caring for herself as well as her employers. When Araminta fires her from Penwood House, Sophie finds a way out of Mayfair and a new family to work for to keep going. While Anthony and Daphne may never know how to light a stove, Sophie knows how to nurse a person back to health. She knows how to cook her own meals. She knows how to live with a little to keep going. She understands the real world more than her future in-laws ever will. Honestly, if there were a zombie outbreak in the Regency era (like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Sophie Baek is the one person I’d rely on in order to survive.

Something notably about the Netflix version of Sophie’s story is that we get to see her reputation among her coworkers. Within Penwood House, Alfie and Irma are Sophie’s first family, helping her sneak out to the masquerade ball and later helping her search for Lord Penwood’s will. Later at the Cavenders’ country house, Sophie defends Hazel from Philip Cavender’s pursuit, protecting her and helping her gain employment at Bridgerton House. Sophie isn’t just an island. She’s a hard worker who has the respect of her coworkers; in turn, they care about her. When Sophie is about to leave Bridgerton House, Celia and Footman John want her to stay because they’ve become good friends. When Sophie is thrown in jail, it’s her friends — Alfie, Hazel, and Mrs. Wilson — who inform the Bridgertons where Sophie was. To them, Sophie wasn’t just a good worker. She’s their friend, someone worth fighting for despite their status in the ton. 

Sophie, The Survivor

When Araminta tells Sophie to leave, it’s basically a death sentence. London in the 1800s was not a kind place for a young woman on her own, especially without money or connections. This is during a time when women are treated like garbage and usually left to the slums. Even when Sophie is later wrongfully locked away in jail, she at least has an idea of what would happen next. Being alone in the world is too vast an unknown. She leaves the only life she’s ever known with nothing but a pair of shoe clips. This would be enough to break a person; yet, Sophie Baek survives. She leaves London and finds a new job in the country with a different family on her own. In the book, Sophie even sells her hair in order to make money. Sophie doesn’t wallow in her predicament, nor does she return to a toxic living situation; instead, she lets it go for the sake of her own survival.

Sophie’s resilient nature doesn’t stop there. Benedict meets Sophie as a servant at Cavenders’ house. The lady in silver feels more like a faded dream to Benedict, but he can’t help but be drawn to Sophie. Their time at My Cottage reconnects him to the pieces of his soul that had gone dim. When he propositions Sophie to be his mistress, she turns him down; in fact, she turns him down multiple times. Sophie loves Benedict and even lets herself entertain the fantasy of being his mistress after his love confession and their private oasis in the conservatory. Even though she beats the pregnancy scare, Sophie doesn’t want history to repeat itself. She won’t become a mistress and let a child of hers suffer the same fate as she did, despite Benedict vowing that he wouldn’t abandon them. 

Sophie built walls around her heart in order to survive. From the day Araminta told her Sophie wasn’t mentioned in the will, she let Araminta’s words about knowing her place sink into her bones. She couldn’t allow herself to believe that Benedict would ever really love her and choose her. Her own father hadn’t, so how could she expect any different from Benedict, right? While Benedict’s mode of guarding his heart is deflection and compartmentalization, Sophie has a fortified fortress around her heart. She won’t give herself an inch to give in because it just invites all that heartbreak back in. When the temptation becomes too strong for Sophie, she doesn’t hesitate to accept a new position in the Americas and leaves. It takes a great deal of strength to walk away from the love of your life, and Sophie does it. Even when she comes to work for Violet Bridgerton and is actually treated like a human being, she is willing to walk away from the Bridgertons’ kindness. She’d rather face the unknown on her own again. If that’s not strength, then I don’t know what is. 

Sophie, The Dreamer

Life has been unbearably cruel and unkind to Sophie. Despite this, she remains incredibly kind and courageous. There’s a spark in her that won’t be snuffed out. For all the walls she’s built up, Sophie is compassionate and caring to her friends and the Bridgerton family. When Francesca starts to feel overwhelmed at the funeral, Sophie swoops in to give her a respite. When Sophie notices the chemistry between Hazel and John, she doesn’t try to dissuade her friend. For how good a person she is and how supportive she is of others’ dreams, Sophie only allows herself brief moments to dream and hope for a future that couldn’t be hers.

Sophie and Benedict’s meeting is the magical, Cinderella-esque thing of dreams; they were wonderstruck and forever changed by this moment. But there’s a magic in the mundane of how they fall in love, and I think that’s the real magic of their story. Yes, they get this storybook meeting and serendipitously reunite later on, but the rest of the story is in their real world. Sophie and Benedict are apart for a significant amount of time. He doesn’t recognize her when they reunite, and she doesn’t tell him the truth. Sophie brings him back down to earth from his dreams of grandeur of having his cake and eating it too; she’s the one trying to stick to societal boundaries in order to protect her heart. Sophie has her walls, and Benedict is the one trying to break them down brick by brick.

Externally, Sophie is the realist between the two of them; internally, she’s so much softer, a woman in love with Benedict. After her kiss with Benedict by the lake, Sophie can’t wipe that giddy grin off her face as she walks back to her room. She tries to separate her feelings from him, yet she finds herself drifting back into his orbit. It’s a classic battle between the head and the heart that Sophie finds herself fighting.

However much they try to fight it, Benedict and Sophie are made for each other and are helpless to deny the drift towards one another. The odds are stacked against them. In addition to both of them being ostracized from society, Benedict wrestles with choosing Sophie over a connection with his large, loving family; meanwhile, Sophie doesn’t think she’s worth sacrificing a family she dreamt of being part of. With every obstacle and fear mounted against them, Benedict and Sophie love each other because they’re able to see past what society defines them as. Number Two and a servant are more than meets the eye — they see each other for who they really are. Across time and distance, they will always find each other. With Benedict, she’s found her anchor, her safe haven. Sophie is no longer set adrift nor alone in the world. Her dreams of a loving family are not misplaced when they’re in his hands. 

Sophie, The Relatable Heroine

After watching Bridgerton Season 1, I finally picked up the book series in 2021. For how much I’d later go on and write about Benedict and Sophie, I didn’t think I was going to like An Offer From a Gentleman initially. To be fair, I read the books out of order. At the time, I fell hard for Colin and Penelope’s story; I enjoyed Kate and Anthony’s… I really didn’t see how it was going to be for Benedict. Typically, I enjoy the friends-to-lovers trope, enemies-to-lovers, even fake dating/marriage. But I think deep down, I want a fairytale, love at first sight, sparks fly, “enchanted to meet you” kind of love. It’s not realistic. It doesn’t just happen in life. It’s the stuff of dreams, and yet, I’m drawn to it like a moth to a flame, and so is Sophie. 

Therein lies the reason why I care so much about Sophie: I’m like her. For the years I’ve been apart from my family and hometown, and the industry I work for grows more unsustainable every day. Despite the obstacles, I’ve worked hard to be where I am in my career today, and I’ve worked hard to stay grounded in a transient city, thanks to my friends and community. I’m incredibly grateful for this journey I’ve been on, but much of it has been on my own.

Despite the level-headed expectations I have for my life, here I am drawn to a silly romance story that sparks something in me. I dream about that struck-by-lightning moment where I meet the man of my dreams. I think Sophie and her story spark that in a lot of people. There’s nothing weak about dreaming about those kinds of love stories, with all their magic and mystery. Despite the obstacles that Benedict and Sophie face, love does find a way. And it’s ok that it wasn’t a gradual, known each other for a while type of thing. There’s love that can hit suddenly,  everything changes, and it’s worth fighting for. It’s rare, it’s beautiful, and there’s a reason why audiences are drawn to it.

For years, I’ve been screaming to anyone who would listen that Sophie matters and her introduction to the Netflix show is going to be a game-changer. I’ve had to wait years for this dream of mine to be made a reality, and the wait was worth it. My dream of audiences falling in love with Sophie came true primarily because of the talent that is Yerin Ha. She keeps the spirit, spunk, and softness of Sophie from the book but makes her own through her nuanced performance. Ha captures her kindness, her resilience, and her insecurities that make Sophie relatable and real. 

Sophie Baek is not some weak damsel in distress. Life is aggressively cruel to Sophie, yet she’s a survivor who doesn’t fully give up on even the possibility of love. Her circumstances make it seem like romantic and familial love are some far-off fantasy, but as cheesy as this sounds… love finds a way. Thanks to Alice Mondrich’s plan, Sophie Baek gets to be Sophie Gun for about ten minutes. She gets her moment to be escorted out on the dance floor by the most eligible bachelor. It’s a brief moment where she gets to embrace her father’s recognition of her. But Benedict doesn’t waste any time making Sophie Baek Gun something better: a Bridgerton. He’s given her his heart and wants to give her the family she’s always dreamt of. Her wedding to Benedict at Our Cottage, surrounded by her new and found family, makes her fantasy a reality.

Sophie Bridgerton deserves the world and her happily ever after.