Why does Maria fall in love with George?

I think she fell in love with the children first. And after he reconciled with them, her attraction began to him as a loving and indulgent father. He also appreciates the things about her that everyone in her Nonnberg life criticizes. Also, he's smokin'!

Sometimes there isn't a rational explanation. The chemistry is just there.

I don't think it was a matter of the first guy that she met outside of the abbey... I think he fascinated her at first(he wasn't at all what she was expecting). They had a mutual love for the children in common so that was where they connected. Then he gave her approval in ways that I think she probably never really had from many people. And then finally, he looked at her in a way that made it hard to breathe. So it wasn't a case of the first handsome man she saw, but the handsome man that saw her and looked at her and made her feel so many things.

I think sometimes these things start off as a fascination with someone rather than instant love, and my feeling is that, from the moment Georg emerged from the shadows in the ballroon, Maria just found him intriguing, and then found herself unexpectedly deeply in love.

lemacd, the Sicilians have a phrase for that, 'un colpo di fulmine'. The literal translation is 'a hit of lightning', figuratively it is used to mean lovestruck.

It isn't only a Sicilian phrase but Italian in general. I really love it.

That's interesting, @clarinetjamie. But would handsome, musical, well-dressed and... suave? convince her that it is true love and not just being swept up? I agree that he is all those things, but it seems to me that she would try to convince herself it is the first time she's met someone like that and that her reaction would wear off eventually. I mean, she might even confuse her so that that she decides she needs to get away from it as it is clearly distracting her from... oh wait.

I think the children did have something to do with it, though, like you said. It's creepy to suggest that a father-figure would turn her heart but she never knew that kind of love first hand it would certainly open her heart up.

This is an interesting question. I'm not entirely sure I could explain why I fell in love with my husband. I mean, I could try, I suppose...

I think she fell in love because she was never really fit for the abbey to begin with. Her character was much too spirited, too bursting with life. I'm not entirely sure about what was common for nuns in those days but I feel early 20s would have been an uncommonly young age to decide to dedicate your life to God by becoming a cloistered nun.

I think she found a true purpose in her role in the house. As blairp said, Georg loved and appreciated a lot of the qualities she possessed that had no place in the abbey. She was outspoken and unafraid to speak up for what she believed in. Her role in the abbey, as a postulant particularly, gave her little to no real avenue for that trait to work itself out.

Whereas in the von Trapp home, I think her strength of character really helped to break Georg out of the daze he'd been in since Agathe had died. It was the first time someone cared enough about his children that they had been willing to push past feeling afraid of and intimidated by him in order to completely ream him out for being so utterly selfish and unfair in his grief. That was definitely a huge part of the attraction from Georg's side of things and I think once Maria realised that he actually respected her for that quality it started to stir a lot of feelings in her. All her previously "problematic" traits served her so well in that house. They needed someone strong and full of life; I think Georg was the first adult that had ever made her feel valued and appreciated for who she uniquely was- that was what helped her most significantly to fall in love. Obviously there was also just the pure chemistry, his attractiveness, seeing his softer side evolve etc. with the children. But I think her finding her place and freedom to truly be herself in that house was the most pivotal point.

I think this is all evident in how much she anguished after being told by Elsa that she was "in love". She needed to have that journey, the conversation with the Mother Abbess in order to realise that she fit much better in the role of a wife and mother than she ever did at the abbey. And once she came to that realisation it sort of allowed her to be in love, explore and deepen those feelings.