#also resident blanche ingram fan here

[mzannthropy]

I've been dreading Chapter 42, not bc it's bad--on the contrary!--but bc I knew I would have an unpopular opinion. So *deep breaths* here it is:

I don't like how LMM dealt with the Ethel Traverse situation. I don't like that the reason for the break up was that Ethel was only after his money. It's cheap and lazy!

What I would have preferred instead is Ethel dumping him for a different guy, or Barney dumping her after she laughed at that sketch in the paper, dismissing his feelings, telling him to "get over it, it's just a sketch". Basically, I hate when any fiction does that "woman evil bc she wants to marry rich" thing. It's tired and overdone. And also misogynistic. I mARry hIM bc I LUUURVE Him nOt FoR hIs mOnEy, shut up, no woman is obliged to marry a broke loser. Men marry women for money and don't apologise for that.

College-era Barney was not the Barney we know and love. What made him be what he is now is leaving home and living in the wilderness. He didn't like who he was, so he went away and worked on himself, instead of turning into a bitter incel. We always need stories like that. Ethel could have just married someone else and lived happily ever after.

It seems to me that LMM simply chose the laziest way out here. Maybe she just needed to finish the novel asap, she was writing this and Emily's Quest at the same time. I don't know. It's also not like her. In the Anne series, Jane Andrews expresses her wish to be rich--and she marries a rich man and is happy. The "I don't want sunbursts and marblehalls" from Anne x Gilbert proposal doesn't mean that Gilbert will be forever poor--he's studying to be a doctor. LMM knew the importance of money; her publisher was ripping her off and she was the main breadwinner in her marriage, yet it was her husband's profession that determined where they'd live.

So that's just my thoughts.