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Line 27: Despite this, Basil has attempted to defy Sybil face to face, yet she manages to silence him with one sharp bark of "Basil!", except for one moment in "[[The Psychiatrist (Fawlty Towers)|The Psychiatrist]]", when Basil is driven to his breaking point and angrily lashes out at her, calling her a "rancorous, coiffured old sow" to her face. A few times, Basil has infuriated Sybil to the point of [[physical abuse|physical violence]]; in "The Builders", she flies into a rage and throws a cash box across the room toward her husband, who only just manages to avoid it. In "Waldorf Salad", meanwhile, she strikes Basil across the face after he refuses to surrender the titular dish to a guest. She also slapped him in "[[The Anniversary (Fawlty Towers)|The Anniversary]]", after she believed he had ''again'' forgotten their anniversary. She also implies that the last time he forgot, she gave him a severe beating. She is characterised by a shrill conversational tone and laugh, which her husband compares to 'someone machine-gunning a seal'. Basil also refers to her by a number of epithets, occasionally to her face, including; "the [[dragon]]", "that [[golfing]] [[Bitis arietans|puff adder]]", "toxic [[midget]]", "my little nest of [[viper]]s", "sabre-toothed tart", "my little [[piranha|piranha fish]]", "my little workhorse" and "my little Sybil and Basil never directly express love for one another (in ''The Wedding Party'', they are shown to sleep in separate beds; in ''[[A Touch of Class (Fawlty Towers)|A Touch of Class]]'' Basil kisses her and she tells him not to), and Basil especially never seems to be capable of courtesy towards his wife – in "Gourmet Night", while drunk, Sybil shows Basil affection, only for him to tell her to drink "another vat of wine." In "[[The Hotel Inspectors]]", after Basil is beaten up and knocked to the floor by an angry guest, Sybil casually walks by Basil and cheerfully asks, "you've handled that then, have you Basil?" In "[[The Anniversary (Fawlty Towers)|The Anniversary]]", one of Basil's escapades – making her think he had forgotten their wedding anniversary – brings Sybil to tears – though, ironically, this was one of the few episodes in which Basil was thinking of someone besides himself and preparing to show some compassion towards Sybil. "Communication Problems" reveals that Sybil does not approve of gambling and has forbidden Basil to partake in it; the main plot of this episode is that Basil is secretly gambling, and Sybil eventually finds out. | |||