anghraine

An anon said:

One of my biggest issues with 1995 P&P is that both Darcy and Elizabeth look too old. David Rintoul's Darcy was definitely too robotic for my tastes but I definitely got "young and fashionable" vibes from him.

I replied:

It’s not one of my biggest, in that there are a lot of other things that bother me more, but it does bug me, can’t lie. Just about everyone seems 5-10 years older than they should.

It definitely contrasts with the 2005 and 1980, where IIRC the ages are kind of all over the place, so some are spot-on or nearly so, and others are wayyyy off. If I recall correctly, the 1995 is more consistent but also almost always ‘off’ in that 5-10 year range.

I know this seems trivial to some people, but I think the ages do matter to their backgrounds and developments and general characterizations. Not just the young ones, either—Mrs Bennet would be barely middle-aged and Mrs Gardiner is almost certainly in her 30s. That affects the impression they give (to the audience and to the other characters) and their own experiences and personalities and dynamics with other people.

And I do think that Garvie and Knightley come across as early 20-somethings where other Elizabeths have a certain … hm, air of maturity about them that doesn’t fully work for me. Meanwhile, Darcy is literally introduced as a “young man,” is still in his 20s, and (like Elizabeth) has a character arc that rests on brand! new! experiences! And I think that the adaptations generally are—not interested in getting that across with him. But the 1995 is especially uninterested in that aspect IMO, so generally speaking, I’m with you there.

(I also agree that Rintoul is too far on the robotic end, but does come across as fashionable! It’s an interesting choice, because at first, Darcy seems to simultaneously resent ‘the world’ [i.e. the fashionable world] while also being judgy about people not being part of it. He’s not a fop by any means, but he is part of a certain world, and the ways in which he doesn’t fit aren’t visible, sometimes even to him.)

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: The River of Dreams (Billy Joel)

An anon said:

Darcy loving the Gardiners and becoming BFFs with them is one of the best and most underrated aspects of P&P. I'd love to see a fic where they visit Meryton before the ball and Elizabeth's shocked that Darcy actually gets along with them, once he realises they're nothing like Mrs B.

I replied:

It really is one of my favorite parts, and where I see the most actual change in Darcy’s beliefs. And that very fic concept has rolled around in my head for YEARS.

I think Darcy would be slower to warm to them than in canon because of his preconceptions at that point, but that he pretty consistently is able to adjust his initial opinions of people to account for new data. He doesn’t question the underlying worldview until really shocked out of it, but he can adapt on an individual basis—as with his friendship with Bingley, say. He’s certainly perceptive enough to see that the Gardiners are very different from Mrs Bennet, and I think could make a mental ‘adjustment’ there; they’re special, like Bingley.

Alternately, it’s possible that their profound difference from his assumptions about what they’d be like could startle him enough that it begins the (in the AU) gradual process of him reconsidering his basic preconceptions and not just his application of those preconceptions to particular people. I think which happens would depend on the strength of his impression of them and the course of their relationship and so forth, but either could happen.

Either way, I do agree that he would soon come away with a positive impression of them and conduct himself agreeably enough towards them, which I also agree would be pretty !!?!???!? to Elizabeth in itself. On top of that, the stark contrast between his behavior towards the Gardiners and e.g. Mr and Mrs Bennet would make it clear that some level of personal disapproval is at work there, not just general elitism, which is harder to take (as we see in her response to the letter, his opinion of them does trouble her—I think in part because she fundamentally agrees with it and has tried not to think about it). And I don’t think Darcy at that point (maybe any point) would be inclined to hide his preference for the Gardiners, so it would just be very apparent and strain her assumptions about him.

Whether that would extend to straining her general reliance on assumptions about people, once she’s realized that she wasn’t quite right about him, is a more complicated matter, as with the “Alternately…” for Darcy above. But it’s possible that this all results in slower and less painful but no less profound epiphanies for both.

I’ve thought of both very specific and general scenarios for all this, so … maybe someday I’ll get to one of them.

Tagged: #i didn't get into what the gardiners think of him and wickham in the au #or how wickham figures at all #but that's also part of it in my head

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Turning Tables (Adele)

An anon asked:

You’re an INTJ and you accept the common typing of Darcy as an INTJ, right? Well, I’ve just found a few people arguing that Darcy is actually a Sensor, arguing that a real Ni-dom would have better predicted that Wickham would target Lydia or some other young girl, and citing the fact that he misjudges Jane’s feelings for Bingley based on appearances. Would you argue that he’s still an INTJ despite the above, and if so, how?

I replied:

Yes, I’m an INTJ, and yes, I accept (and relish!) the usual INTJ-typing for him.

I’ll say upfront that I like the MBTI, but also have issues with it as a system and haven’t dug into the details for a long time. My friend

tree could probably answer this question better than I can.

But personally, I think one of the issues with discussion of it is that people tend to flatten everything about someone into the type and ignore other, individualizing motivations they have. IMO that’s part of what’s happening here.

So, to begin with, it’s less that Darcy did or didn’t intuit that Wickham was dangerous than that, due to upbringing (rather than temperament), Darcy initially didn’t register anything as important unless it touched on his own “family” circle—a circle that is inclusive of his friends and dependents, but not of strangers or simple acquaintances. Once Wickham wasn’t on his radar, eh.

With regard to Jane, we’re told that Darcy wanted Bingley to marry Georgiana, and that this factored into Darcy's involvement in the whole situation, even though he tried to keep it from affecting his judgment of Jane. I think the pretty clear implication is that he failed.

But the thing I find interesting about Darcy is that, despite his pride, and despite his biases, his judgments about people’s underlying characters are right a lot more often than you’d expect. He’s not wrong about Mrs Bennet and the younger girls. He rightly has reservations about Mr Bennet. He, also rightly, considers Mr Collins lucky to have married Charlotte, even though he barely knows either of them. He’s right that Elizabeth and Jane are concerned with propriety and excludes Jane as well as Elizabeth from his condemnation of the family in general.

And I don’t think these judgments are really following from considered observations that have eventually led him to a conclusion (sometimes he thinks so, but IMO he’s already reached his conclusions). They’re fast, influenced by both his general beliefs and by quick, subconscious observations coming together. What gives him the appearance of a more deliberate, straightforward thought process, I think, is his need to account for the new information he keeps accumulating after reaching a judgment. He will adjust his early conclusions to make all the data work, even though changing his mind troubles him.

Basically, he’s someone who has good intuitive judgment of character, but gets so caught up in his own ideas and thoughts that he sometimes misses what’s right in front of his face, though his need to keep integrating all information he receives usually keeps him from going too far astray. As I said, I’m no MBTI expert, but that just doesn’t sound like an ISTJ at all to me. I think Ni+Te makes a lot more sense.

(That said, I do think that a lot of readings of Darcy sound pretty ISTJ-ish, very much including academic ones. I just don’t think the character himself is.)

Tagged: #i saw a gifset the other day with him as istj and i was just like ... lol no #maybe in the movie i guess but canon darcy? no

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: How Can I Go On (Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé)

A small detail in the later phase of P&P that amuses me:

Mr Darcy was almost as far from her [Elizabeth] as the table could divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse; but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and cold was their manner whenever they did.

Mrs Bennet:

“The venison was roasted to a turn—and everybody said, they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucas’s last week; and even Mr Darcy acknowledged that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least.”

It’s like—he complimented Mrs Bennet! He’s trying!

… but just comes across as a human ice cube anyway. :P

Tagged: #honestly it's one of my fave things about the end of pride and prejudice #or rather the whole second half #there are so many suggestions that they still have the same flaws they always had #it's less about /actually/ overcoming them than putting in the effort to try #elizabeth keeps jumping to wrong (but now well-meaning!) conclusions #darcy works himself up to icy civility #baby steps!

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: If I Could Turn Back Time (Cher)

An anon asked:

How old do you think mrs. gardiner is? could she be as young as mr. darcy

I replied:

She could be, though I think early- to mid-thirties is more probable.

The only direct statement about her age, as far as I recall, is that she’s “several years” younger than her sisters-in-law, Mrs Bennet and Mrs Phillips. Mrs Bennet can’t really be under about 40. While “several” is pretty vague and you can interpret it as you will, IMO you have to stretch it pretty far to encompass an age gap of at least 12 years and quite possibly more.

We do know that Mrs Gardiner was unmarried some 10 or 12 years earlier, when she lived in Lambton. Her oldest child is 8. So, if you want to skew younger, let’s say she married Mr Gardiner 9-10 years earlier (though canonically it could just as easily be 11-12). IIRC, historical research suggests that women of the gentry typically married at around 24, while those from the more middling classes tended to marry later. If she was, say, 25 when she married, that would make her 34-5, which I think fits pretty well with her being several years younger than an around 40-y-o Mrs Bennet.

But, of course, nothing says she has to marry at a historically typical age. Maybe she was younger than usual! Make her 19, pick the shortest likely duration of marriage, nine years, and then she’d be 28—Darcy’s age. So it is possible, yes.

Tagged: #i do feel like the dynamic with elizabeth makes more sense with a larger age gap than 7-8 years #but it's not beyond the realm of possibility at all! #ngl even with my preferred version #it's weird to think of her as my age

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Requiem (The Fifth) (Trans-Siberian Orchestra)

The post thanking me for rejecting Mrs Bennet apologetics is now getting Mrs Bennet apologetics on it

>_<

#people reallyyyyy want to dismiss how well-off the gardiners are tbh #i guess it makes a certain amount of sense bc the defenses of mrs bennet are contingent on her being actually right about their futures #but she's not #/shrug

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: You're My Best Friend (Queen)

“Mrs Bennet is just being reasonable because everyone Back Then thought like her”

aghghghhhhhhgh

#have you considered giving her a drop of agency? just a thought #seriously though #historical context does not work that way

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Runaway (Bon Jovi)

A Tumblr anon said:

Thank you (for that comment about the Bennet women and poverty). I'm pretty sure we saw the same post and I was like 'i don't know enough about the source time period to say, but I'm pretty sure that's not right'. The Gardiner's were my first thought-Lizzy and Jane both seemed pretty tight with them-but at the end of the day, there's 5 of them yes, and I understand Mrs. Bennet wanting them to get married, but uh, shes not doing a great job of presenting the family if she does? Tiniest violin yes

I replied:

You’re welcome! I’ve seen a lot of those posts (and a lot of articles to the same effect) and it’s just incredibly grating because it largely disregards her very real faults (she’s short-sighted, mean-spirited, self-absorbed, extravagant etc) to make her out to be some poor overlooked Cassandra. And yeah, everything she does impedes her goals.

The Gardiners are really important to this, as you say! They can afford a long, winding tourist trip for three people, they frequently have Jane and Elizabeth living with them, Mr Bennet has no difficulty believing that Mr Gardiner could have shelled out ten thousand pounds for Lydia’s marriage, Mr Gardiner did intend to pay several thousand pounds, and Mrs Bennet shrugs off any gratitude a normal person might feel because she would have inherited Mr Gardiner’s money if he hadn’t gone and had children (uhhhh). The Gardiners are well-off and certainly would have looked after her and the girls—but it would be a major step down from life as the Bennets of Longbourn, and that’s the real problem.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Runaway (Bon Jovi)

Unpopular opinion: the Bennet women were never, ever, ever going to face real poverty—even by Austen standards. They were facing dependence on Mrs Bennet’s well-off relatives, which would be unpleasant, but in no way comparable to what unconnected poor women actually faced in their society.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Black Velvet (Alannah Myles)

In response to the Austen meme, an anon asked:

2, 4, and 8?

I replied:

:)

2) Favorite Austen man

Darcy, predictably!

4) Favorite quote from the books?

Oh, there are so many! I’m really fond of “Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery,” though.

8) Least favorite couple?

As far as the main couples go, Marianne and Brandon. They barely interact and the language of the end is pretty distasteful to me.

Least favorite couple overall is … well, there are worse characters than either, but it is really hard to outclass Mr and Mrs Bennet for mutual awfulness.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Peace of Mind (Boston)

I posted the next chapter of Love, Pride & Delicacy at AO3 here. I wanted to cover the [redacted] and [redacted], but that nearly wraps up the main Hertfordshire section, so we should get to Kent and the Catherines next chapter.

/fingers crossed

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)

kungfunurse at Tumblr asked:

Hey, odd question. In a verbal smack-down between Mrs. Norris and Mrs. Bennet, with points awarded for length, volume, and logic, who would win?

I said:

Mrs Norris by a mile. Mrs Bennet is singularly incompetent at verbal smackdowns of anyone (she tries, but … lol).

Current Mood: confused

Mrs Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband’s love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income.

But Mrs Bennet is just worried about their economic future and Mr Bennet never thinks of saving money!

(What if—bear with me—characters in an Austen novel are a little more complex than that?)

I vagueblogged twice:

argh
(#sometimes tumblr is just ... so incredibly irritating)

and then:

Sometimes I forget how profoundly I disagree with people until a post takes off.

I'm pretty sure both were about people managing to take my post about the Bennets' mutual complicity in their horrible marriage into another poor helpless Mrs Bennet discussion that took over my activity bar.

An anon at Tumblr asked:

What's your opinion on the Bennett's marriage?

I said:

In the book, it’s horrible, and I don’t understand attempts to romanticize it.

I think Austen is honestly quite clear on this point. Mr Bennet’s treatment of his wife and younger daughters is the repugnant response to his own youthful error in marrying a woman because her spirited good looks gave the impression of good humour. Mrs Bennet, for her part, is not merely unintelligent but bad-tempered and rather nasty (I talked about my poor opinion of her here; I don’t go in for the apologetics for her at all).

We hear that Elizabeth had never been blind to how inappropriate Mr Bennet’s treatment of Mrs Bennet is, and I think part of the purpose of their spectacularly bad marriage is to provide a background for her own concerns about respect and equality in marriage. That background element is lost in making their marriage actually a good, loving one.

Personally, I also think it factors into her over-reliance on manners as a guide to character—her parents’ failures of decorum are the outward manifestations of their failures as spouses, parents, and human beings. The same is not true, or wholly true, of everyone, but she doesn’t really get that until her epiphany.

Oh, and I also think that it makes Elizabeth’s eagerness to leave Longbourn behind her at the end of the book more sympathetic if she’s grown out of a genuinely unpleasant family situation, so there’s that, too.

Current Location: Washington
Current Music: Hey Soul Sister (Dallas String Quartet)

It's not really meta, but I want to preserve it anyway.

So, awhile back I might have counted the number of times the characters in P&P smile, or are mentioned as smiling. For general edification:

( Read more... )

lexiconallie at Tumblr asked:

What do you think of the 1980 miniseries of Pride and Prejudice? It's on hulu if you haven't seen it and you're interested (add watch/550364 after hulu's url) It seems very accurate to the book and it's my personal favorite adaptation.

( Read more... )

Current Music: Far Horizons (Jeremy Soule)

Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Ch 3

I will go further, and affirm, as an indisputable fact, that most of the women, in the circle of my observation, who have acted like rational creatures, or shewn any vigour of intellect, have accidentally been allowed to run wild—as some of the elegant formers of the fair sex would insinuate.

hm

Pride and Prejudice, Ch 9:

“Lizzy,” cried her mother, “remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.”

Pride and Prejudice, Ch 19

“Do not consider me now as an elegant female intending to plague you, but as a rational creature speaking the truth from her heart.”

hmmm

Current Mood: bouncy
Current Location: Oakland(ish)
Current Music: Summer of '69 (Bryan Adams)

I am sure I've ranted about this at some point in the past, but some very well-intentioned responses to something almost completely unrelated set me off, and I went for full-blown meta.

tl;dr - Mr Bennet being awful in his own way doesn't make Mrs Bennet any better

( Read more... )

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Location: Oakland(ish)
Current Music: Rey's Theme (piano)

I didn't sign up for

month_of_meta , but I did want to do something, preferably several somethings, as they occurred to me. A lot of this is probably familiar to my f-list (I originally did it on Tumblr), but I think it's worth repeating a few dozen times :)

disclaimer: it doesn’t mean your fic is terrible badwrong if you don’t do these things or that nobody likes it or that your fic is even not good or that I am a perfect Georgian-period Austen fanwriter who has followed this to the letter from seventeen onwards, it’s just stuff that makes me (and most of my friends, but don’t worry, I’m not a BNF), more likely to read. Also, I tried to list things that are helpful for fic based on any of the novels, but the examples are from P&P since that’s like 95% of the fandom.

( Read more... )

Current Location: St Helens, OR
Current Music: The Gambler
Crossposts: http://elizabeth-hoot.livejournal.com/151436.html

Profile

Anghraine

June 2025

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

Active Entries

Style Credit

Style: Dark Blue for Funky Circles by ninetydegrees

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jun. 15th, 2025 06:51 pm

Entries tagged with ch: mrs bennet

Tumblr crosspost (17 December 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (3 December 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (19 September 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (15 September 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (15 September 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (11 September 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (4 September 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (29 August 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (29 August 2020)

Tumblr crosspost (20 August 2020)

New chapter!

Tumblr crosspost (16 August 2019)

Tumblr crosspost (7 July 2019)

Tumblr crosspost (2 July 2019)

Tumblr crosspost (2 July 2019)

crosspost: smiles! [Dec 2013]

crosspost: on the 1980 P&P

Okay, this was happy making

on the Mrs Bennet apologetics

tips for period Austenfic