#anghraine babbles

[anghraine]

I do appreciate getting AO3 comments that encourage me to keep going! But I got a comment on an on-hiatus multi-chapter WIP that said absolutely nothing about it being unfinished and just listed things they liked, and it was really sweet.

[anghraine]

I'm feeling like supporting some women's wrongs! (And rights, but definitely also wrongs.)

[anghraine]

Sometimes I entertain myself by mentally categorizing tiers of headcanon. It has nothing to do with quality, just:

1- Wait, This is Headcanon?

The source material doesn't explicitly say that the headcanon is true, but it really strongly implies it, to the point that a lot of people don't even realize it's not explicit canon. I'm not talking ships so much as just really obvious details that aren't quite spelled out.

2- Interpretative Headcanon

The headcanon is based on something in the source material, and it's a valid interpretation, but there are a lot of ways to interpret the thing in the source, and it could easily and justifiably be read quite differently. This is also often mistaken for explicit canon.

3- Borderline Headcanon

The headcanon is spun off from something in the source material and doesn't contradict anything in it, but the basis is ephemeral enough that it's mostly something you/someone else/the fandom made up and ran with.

4- Classic Headcanon

The headcanon is not directly based on canon details. It's made up to fill those fun blank spaces in canons, and to connect things we do know. So it works with what's established in canon and can lead to really fun and interesting spins on canon, but it definitely leans more towards invention.

5- This Headcanon Has Creaky Floorboards

The headcanon is not only stuff you/I/fandom made up to go with canon details, it can actually be fairly difficult to reconcile with those details. It's technically possible to make them fit if you squint and interpret in some specific and improbable ways, but it's an obvious stretch. (This sounds negative, but sometimes canon details suck.)

6- HeadCANNON

Creaky? LOL. This headcanon definitely cannot be reconciled to its source material and does not wish to be. It gives no fucks about canon except insofar as these headcanons often go out of their way to defy the canon details of the source and blast holes straight through its structure.

[anghraine]

It's 11 PM, but one of my favorite little Darcy/Elizabeth moments happens while she still hates him and thinks he's a depraved monster, and I find it really entertaining.

It's during the Kent section, when Darcy calls at the parsonage and finds Elizabeth alone. During a longer, awkward conversation in which they both deeply misunderstand each other, they have this tiny interchange:

[Darcy:] “This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr Collins first came to Hunsford.” “I believe she did—and I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object.” “Mr Collins appears very fortunate in his choice of a wife.” “Yes, indeed; his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding—though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr Collins as the wisest thing she ever did."

So: they are in Mr Collins's house. Darcy tries to re-start the conversation with a polite nothing about the house. Elizabeth agrees about Lady Catherine's micro-managing, but can't resist the chance to make a sly jab at Mr Collins (who is not present) to Darcy (a genuine villain, as far as she believes).

Darcy's reply looks a bit like an attempt to redirect the conversation into safer waters (they can agree that Charlotte is cool!). But although his remark is only somewhat related to what Elizabeth said, I think it's a natural follow-up in his mind because he is also insulting Mr Collins, if more subtly.

He could have praised Mr Collins's judgment in choosing Charlotte or just said something nice about Charlotte; he doesn't. Instead, he suggests that Mr Collins's choice of Charlotte was a matter of good fortune—or chance, as Charlotte herself would say!—on Collins's part. Darcy and Elizabeth both know Collins is a fool and that his choice of a woman like Charlotte says nothing about his judgment, only about his good fortune. (Elizabeth has even better reason than Darcy to know how much Collins ending up with Charlotte was lucky for him, but Darcy can see it anyway.)

Darcy's phrasing gives him some plausible deniability, but I think he's generally quite careful with his wording and the implicit insult to Mr Collins is not accidental.

Elizabeth, I think, takes this exactly as intended. She's not at all confused about where this tangent came from or offended by it or anything. She readily seizes on the new line of conversation as encouragement to keep insulting Mr Collins and his appeal to women with functioning brainpower.

Elizabeth is pretty scrupulously polite in general, so I kind of love that she just starts venting about her absolute contempt for Mr Collins and the Collins/Charlotte marriage to Darcy in the middle of a tense and weird conversation in Mr Collins's house. And I love that Darcy, who is otherwise more or less dog-paddling his way through this conversation, is like "yeah, your friend seems really cool, that dumbass is lucky he accidentally chose someone with a brain."

Elizabeth: "Right? And, let me add-"

(Is it a bit of an asshole move on both their parts in the context of that scene? Yeah, I think a little. I also love it! Please trash-talk obnoxious hosts in their own parlours for the rest of your lives.)

[anghraine]

By popular demand (aka two people asked lol), a secondary Women's Wrongs Poll for characters I considered for the first one, but ended up not choosing for various reasons:

[anghraine]

I love that Elizabeth and Darcy are so ready to effectively tell each other they're full of shit. This happens a bunch of times, but I was re-reading their conversation at the Netherfield Ball and they're both kind of refreshingly Done.

[Darcy:] “Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?” [Elizabeth:] “Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet, for the advantage of some, conversation ought to be so arranged as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.” [Darcy:] “Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?” “Both,” replied Elizabeth archly; “for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the éclat of a proverb.” “This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,” said he.

It's also pretty funny, because I suspect Darcy is thinking of this sort of thing in a later conversation at Rosings:

“You mean to frighten me, Mr Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me. But I will not be alarmed, though your sister does play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.” “I shall not say that you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know, that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which, in fact, are not your own.”

[anghraine]

This is unnecessarily long, but: I was just thinking about Wickham's predation on fifteen-year-old Georgiana Darcy and then, almost exactly a year later, Wickham's predation on sixteen-year-old Lydia Bennet.

There are obvious parallels between the two incidents. In fact, they're so obvious that I think the incidents are sometimes treated as equivalent, with the consequences only differing by happenstance. I don't think that's true, personally.

There are some mechanistic sort of differences—Wickham put a lot more effort and planning into the Georgiana situation. He wanted to marry her for her money and to make her brother suffer. She had to be isolated from people who would look out for her interests, he had Mrs Younge in place, he had known Georgiana as a child and was able to exploit his own previous kindness to her as her father's godson, etc.

And Georgiana, despite all of this, and despite being swept away by a teenage infatuation with an extremely attractive man, was still uncomfortable with it. She was worried about disappointing a brother who raised her and whom she deeply loves and admires. When her brother actually showed up by surprise, she decided to tell him everything; Darcy takes pains to give her credit for this. Adaptations generally downplay Georgiana's active decision-making here, but the only element of chance is Darcy deciding to go to Ramsgate at all. He insists that he was only able to act because Georgiana chose to tell him what was going on.

This isn't meant to be an indictment of Lydia, though. Does she admire the parents who raised her? No. But why would she? Especially why would she admire a father who treats her mother and sisters and herself with profound contempt and no sense of responsibility? Why would she ever confide in him?

It's not like Lydia doesn't confide in anyone. In fact, she too confides in an older sibling, her sister Kitty. And in one sense, her trust in Kitty is not undeserved. Kitty does keep the secret. Presumably, she does this because, despite her occasional annoyance with Lydia, she is very much under her influence and goes along with whatever Lydia does. Regardless, she is trustworthy in that sense. Moreover, we see at the end of the book that Kitty is easily improved by being placed in better environments and taught how to behave. She just didn't know better.

How was she going to judge Lydia's situation correctly? Who was teaching her to judge anything correctly? Certainly not their parents.

If Mr Bennet had bothered to interest himself in his younger daughters and try and influence them for the better, impressionable Kitty is probably the one who would have benefited the most. The whole Lydia/Wickham thing would have fallen apart before it went anywhere if all the girls had been been properly raised, even if Lydia did exactly the same things.

And Lydia likely wouldn't do the same things if she'd been brought up properly and, you know, treated with a baseline of respect rather than being openly mocked by her father, the person most able to affect her development. Instead, at barely sixteen, she's been continually rejected by her father, over-indulged by her mother, and flattered by adult men (28-y-o Darcy says he and Wickham are nearly the same age). And she still tells someone what's going on, even though she doesn't care about her parents' opinions or the consequences of her actions. And she was under the protection of a colonel and his wife at the time, who also could have told someone or acted, and didn't.

It's not that nobody could have done anything about the Lydia/Wickham situation. It's that nobody did until Darcy found out and tried to extract her. But it was, in one sense, too late. To Lydia, he's just some unfun acquaintance who says boring things like "go home to your family and I'll do what I can to cover for you." That is, he tries to do what he did for Georgiana.

But Lydia is not Georgiana—she did not choose to tell him about any of this. She did not want to be extracted because she didn't know and couldn't be quickly made to understand what marriage to Wickham would mean in the long term. And she didn't care what her family thought because she had no reason to, pragmatically or psychologically.

Georgiana, otoh, did care about her family's welfare and the good opinion and affection of the head of her family. But despite their radical differences in personality, the most fundamental difference between the girls IMO is that Georgiana had every reason to believe that disappointing Darcy and losing his respect would be a change from the norm.

Normally he is affectionate and attentive towards her. They write each other long letters, he defends her to other family members, and praises her frequently. Georgiana, quiet and intimidated though she may be, talks more when he's around. Disappointing him had actual stakes for her.

Put another way, the potential loss of his good opinion mattered to her because he's gone to the trouble of raising her as well as he can and forming a good relationship with her. She chose to tell Darcy the whole thing because he had earned her affection and trust in a way that Mr Bennet has utterly failed to do. Even Darcy happening to visit Georgiana at Ramsgate comes from his affection and attention to Georgiana's welfare, even if he couldn't have known what would follow from checking on his sister at that particular moment.

Chance is always part of life, and it's part of the novel and these situations. But a lot of how these scenarios wound out was not determined by chance but by long-existing patterns in these girls' educations and relationships.

[anghraine]

"Much knowledge that was forgotten because it wasn't needed for many years has been recovered" sounds like something out of a fantasy novel, but it's actually from Voyager mission engineer Kareem Badaruddin wrt Voyager 1, and one of various awesome quotes in this article about the possible effective death of the Voyager 1 mission.

[anghraine]

I feel like the lighting of the beacons scene is kind of a microcosm of my issues with the LOTR films as a whole, in that:

Cinematically, it's absolutely gorgeous and stirring

The visuals are lifted even further by the score

It's a reference to a thing that is actually in the book, just highly re-contextualized (the beacons exist in the book and have already been lit, but serve a different function; it is the Red Arrow that is used to ask for Théoden's aid, with the specific remark that Denethor is asking for aid and not demanding it; the messenger who brought the arrow is caught and decapitated on his way back to Minas Tirith and so Denethor can't know if the message got out without using the palantír)

The lighting of the beacons in the films is tied into the story they're telling, in which basically all the NPCs other characters are much more self-doubting and self-sabotaging and it's up to Our Heroes to get them to do the right thing or the heroes just do it themselves (see Treebeard, see Théoden, see Faramir...)

Specifically, the necessity of lighting the beacons in the films is a direct byproduct of making film Denethor malicious and incredibly incompetent

The quiet, almost incidental tragedy of the messenger's death in war—not in a big battle, not in any glorious way at all, just this random guy being casually chased down and killed—is lost in favor of something dramatic and show-stopping and cool.

It is dramatic and show-stopping and cool! But sacrifices were definitely made in order to work it into the story at all and I think those sacrifices were very representative of the films' adaptational approach.

[anghraine]

I love how, in the book, Denethor, Boromir, and Faramir all have reservations about Aragorn initially, but the specific ways they have them also reflect their own personalities and ways of thinking.

Denethor's position: the heirs of Isildur do not have a claim to the crown under Gondorian legal precedent, which I represent as Steward of the House of Anárion. They also kind of suck in general and have nothing to offer Gondor to back up their sketchy birthright.

Boromir's position: okay, so you're heir of Isildur, and therefore of Elendil, I get it, that's cool and all, but do you have Elendil's muscles? Because what we need are great warriors who will help my people fight the war for our existence.

Faramir's position: yes, it would be nice to have a king again, if said king was noble and not a dumbass like so many of the previous kings were. But we're not going to hand the kingdom over to any rando who strolls in with a sword. We'll need actual proof he should be king.

[anghraine]

On the one hand, I absolutely love the high tragedy of Denethor's arc in the book, think it's amazingly well-written, and that he is one of the most complex and fascinating characters that Tolkien ever wrote.

On the other, there's part of me that's also a little frustrated by how much it has to happen because Tolkien kind of wrote himself into a corner with the Ruling Stewards. He's insistent on a few things about them:

Their initial rise to power as perma-regents of Gondor was squeaky-clean. Mardil was a paragon of virtue, he tried to prevent Eärnur from getting himself killed, there were no clear successors, and retaining the regency prevented another Kinstrife and created a stable institution that would hold Gondor together for 900+ years after the failure of the kings.

They are a high Númenórean family descended from Elendil, even if they're not formally of the line of Elendil (for unknown reasons, but most likely because they're descended through women).

Denethor is notably very similar to Aragorn, in intellect, wisdom, stature, ability, even appearance. He is a towering and respected figure, and he and his sons are highly popular with their people (even with children).

Denethor's military tactics in the book are very good, and UT says Sauron hoped Denethor would be less prepared than he actually was.

Denethor is proud, unbending, and personally dislikes and distrusts Aragorn. He thinks Gandalf is using him against Sauron for now while planning for Aragorn to take power later (this is filtered through his pride but ... um, is he wrong?).

Faramir, now Denethor's last heir, is a fantastic if reluctant warrior and captain, a super special Númenórean throwback, and a thoughtful, intelligent, and wise person who is humbler than Denethor, but also established as wary about Aragorn.

Gondor formally rejected the claim of Aragorn's family before the Ruling Stewardship even existed.

What all this means is that Denethor, if alive, is someone who will never willingly give way to Aragorn. Denethor has legal precedent on his side, he is himself a perfectly good ruler from a long-standing, stable, legitimate ruling family and a highly capable military leader in war, he is liked by his people, and he even has a viable heir regardless of the personal strain between him and Faramir.

There's just no reason for Aragorn to take power that Denethor, as written, would find remotely persuasive. But Denethor is also too noble and capable and special for a power grab on Aragorn's side to feel right, esp given how destructive it would be in the middle of a war (as Aragorn acknowledges!). Despite the sparkly kingliness and mystical airs, this is fundamentally a dynastic dispute between two different houses descended from Elendil, based on the minutia of Gondorian and Númenórean law and precedent, and a fight over that is ... not the kind of story this is.

Denethor has to be driven to self-destruction by the plot so that Aragorn's rise can happen. It simply would not occur if Denethor was alive and in his right mind. Faramir has to be mystically healed by Aragorn so that his reservations will dissolve and he will voluntarily remove himself from the picture in a way that doesn't feel bad.

And both scenes are fantastic, and make sense for the characters. But I do feel that they kind of get steamrollered by the plot to make way for Aragorn.

The thing that makes that doubly fascinating, though, is that Tolkien didn't have to prop the House of the Stewards up so thoroughly. He could have written a version where the Stewards are inadequate or really sketchy or simply can't be compared to Aragorn's greatness and it's clear why they should be replaced by him and his house. Tolkien could have made this a lot easier for himself! And I do respect the more difficult and nuanced approach Tolkien took with the Stewards by making them genuinely impressive and noble and capable in their own right and not just cardboard-cutouts for Aragorn to kick over.

But, well.

[anghraine]

Darcy's role in P&P would work for me anyway, but tbh it works for me 10x better because he halfway reverts back to form towards the end of the book.

[anghraine]

It's always weird when (some) people talk about the choice of the half-Elven as if they evolve like Pokémon upon choosing their ultimate fates.

Elros didn't become exclusively human. He chose to retain the gift of Men and to be counted among Men as far as that ultimate fate went, but he remained a half-Elf. He didn't gain a beard (even descendants as remote as Aragorn, Boromir, and Faramir can't because of Elros) or most Mannish qualities he didn't already possess and he lived half a millennium.

Elrond chose to be counted among Elves in terms of immortality, but he isn't exclusively an Elf. He's described as both Elf and Man, and as the eldest of Aragorn's people. Elrond's marriage to a full Elf produces peredhel children. Two of them are given names signifying Elf+(human)Man, names which Tolkien translated as "Elf-knight" (in Númenórean Sindarin) and "Elf-Númenórean." Elrond's sons are always distinguished from Elves in LOTR.

Arwen doesn't morph into a human woman when she swears her vows with Aragorn; she still looks like f!Elrond and ageless years afterwards, and she would be very long-lived even if you only counted her married life. She is probably the most emphatically Elvish of any peredhel, but she's still a peredhel. Elwing and Eärendil are, too. Peredhil are peredhil are peredhil.

[anghraine]

It's obvious that I'm adamantly opposed to the idea that Darcy does not deserve Elizabeth's good opinion/love, doesn't deserve his happy ending with her, is generally inferior to her, whatever.

I will say, however, that there is someone who has a good opinion of him that he does very little to earn. I think you could make a much better argument in that case that he doesn't really deserve it. And yet it's so endearing:

[Mrs Bennet:] “Mrs Long told me last night that he [Darcy] sat close to her for half an hour without once opening his lips.” “Are you quite sure, ma’am? Is not there a little mistake?” said Jane. “I certainly saw Mr Darcy speaking to her.” “Ay, because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he could not help answering her; but she said he seemed very angry at being spoke to.” “Miss Bingley told me,” said Jane, “that he never speaks much unless among his intimate acquaintance. With them he is remarkably agreeable.”

-

Jane's reaction to Wickham's story:

“Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light it places Mr Darcy, to be treating his father’s favourite in such a manner,—one whom his father had promised to provide for. It is impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his character, could be capable of it."

Jane passing on Bingley's account:

"I am sorry to say that by his account, as well as his sister’s, Mr Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr Darcy’s regard."

Jane after Wickham's story becomes common "knowledge":

Miss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be any extenuating circumstances in the case unknown to the society of Hertfordshire: her mild and steady candour always pleaded for allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes; but by everybody else Mr Darcy was condemned as the worst of men.

Jane after Elizabeth tells her about the Hunsford proposal:

She [Jane] was sorry that Mr Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister’s refusal must have given him.

Jane is so sad about how sad Darcy must be!

“His being so sure of succeeding was wrong,” said she [Jane], “and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his disappointment.”

Jane's response to hearing the truth about Wickham:

What a stroke was this for poor Jane, who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind as was here collected in one individual! Nor was Darcy’s vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery.

Jane still vicariously suffering for Darcy:

“Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr Darcy! dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing, I am sure you must feel it so.”

Jane even points out that Darcy's general behavior and demeanor never struck her as all that bad:

[Elizabeth]: “There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.” [Jane]: “I never thought Mr Darcy so deficient in the appearance of it as you used to do.”

Elizabeth keeps so much of her relationship with Darcy hidden through the later novel that Jane doesn't have reason to say much about him, but after their engagement, Elizabeth worries about her family's response:

she anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known: she was aware that no one liked him but Jane

When Elizabeth tells Jane about the engagement, Jane is shocked and baffled. Elizabeth assures her of her change in feeling, and adds:

"But are you pleased, Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?” “Very, very much."

Jane continues to be worried that Elizabeth doesn't really love Darcy and wants details that she eventually does receive.

“Now I am quite happy,” said she, “for you will be as happy as myself. I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley’s friend and your husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me."

Yes: Darcy is more dear to Jane than her father, mother, other three sisters, friends, and four uncles and aunts.

As for Darcy, he certainly likes and respects her. He describes her in the letter as amiable, cheerful, engaging, and explicitly excludes her from his criticisms of the Bennets. Back at Netherfield, he's noted as ignoring Miss Bingley to be polite towards Jane, and after his own engagement, he points out Elizabeth's care for Jane as early proof of her own goodness. Jane is one of only three characters he refers to by their first name alone by the end of the book (the others are Elizabeth and Georgiana).

So it's not that he doesn't appreciate her in his own way. I actually think the quiet rapport between them is really cute even though Jane is the person who suffers the most for Darcy's mistakes. But damn, Jane.

[anghraine]

It's kind of fascinating to me that towards the end of P&P, Elizabeth has become protective of Darcy and either a) actively tries to insulate him from Situations or b) wishes that she could and gets stressed that she can't.

Darcy deeply loves her and is very ready to do whatever he can to secure her happiness, but narratively, I think the emphasis at the end is very much more on Elizabeth's protectiveness towards him.

It's like:

When Bingley and Darcy first come back to Hertfordshire, Darcy is very quiet and Elizabeth can barely bring herself to say anything—until Mrs Bennet insults Darcy. Then Elizabeth speaks up.

Mrs Bennet enlists Elizabeth to separate Darcy from Bingley with another insult to Darcy. Elizabeth finds this both convenient and enraging.

That day, Elizabeth decides to privately tell Mrs Bennet about her engagement to Darcy, specifically so that Darcy will be spared Mrs Bennet's first unfiltered response.

Elizabeth fiercely defends Darcy's character and love for her, as well as hers for him, to Mr Bennet. She not only says she loves Darcy but that it upsets her to hear Mr Bennet's criticisms of him.

Elizabeth is both relieved by Mrs Bennet's ecstatic reception of the engagement and a bit disappointed by how completely shallow she's being about it, and 100% sure she made the right call in keeping Darcy away.

Elizabeth defends Darcy against Darcy himself, repeatedly.

There's a period where Elizabeth seems to unwind and laugh, but this passes, especially after Charlotte and Mr Collins show up. Darcy manages to stay calm around Mr Collins (I think this is framed as a significant and admirable achievement for him), but Elizabeth does not like him being in a situation where he has to deal with Mr Collins in the first place.

Elizabeth tries to shield Darcy from being noticed by Mrs Phillips and Mrs Bennet, who do seem to make him pretty excruciatingly uncomfortable.

Ultimately, Elizabeth ends up trying to keep Darcy to herself or to shepherd him around to relatives he can handle more easily, and is so stressed at this point that she just wants to get married and escape to Pemberley.

After their marriage, things are actually great at Pemberley and in their married life, despite the occasional complication.

Lydia writes a congratulatory letter to Elizabeth, asking for Darcy to get Wickham a promotion unless Elizabeth would rather not bring it up with him. Elizabeth really does not want Darcy to have to deal with this and handles it by privately setting aside a Lydia fund out of her personal expenses. (IIRC, it's not clear if Darcy even knows about this.)

Elizabeth also is the driving force behind Darcy's reconciliation with Lady Catherine.

This could read as an unsettling, unbalanced dynamic and a very odd ending point for the arc of a woman like Elizabeth, but in the context of the overall novel, it doesn't feel that way. Or maybe I'd see it more that way if I interpreted Darcy (and for that matter, Elizabeth) + their arcs differently? But as it is, I do think that by this point in the story they are genuinely doing the best they can, independently and for each other, and they've both come a long way. They shine in different contexts and support each other as much as they can in the circumstances that do arise.

It seems very them, in terms of their temperament and abilities, that Elizabeth would put all this effort into shielding Darcy, while at the same time, Darcy completely cuts off Lady Catherine for insulting Elizabeth and only ever speaks to her again because Elizabeth wants him to.

[anghraine]

I couldn't work it into the other post, but something I was also thinking about with regard to Wickham as a child is ... okay, on the one hand, I think it's important to bear in mind that child Wickham was, in fact, a child. We can't just assume he was evil from day 1. I find him more interesting if he's not intrinsically evil, and I do have some sympathy for the weird position he was in.

In some ways, Wickham seems to have been treated as essentially another son. Mrs Reynolds says that Mr Darcy raised him (entirely at his own expense), Wickham says that he and Darcy were objects of the same parental care, Darcy that Wickham was brought up to expect exertion on his behalf and was the favorite of his (Darcy's) father. Wickham was given a gentleman's education, sent to school and Cambridge, and a valuable living in the Church was planned for him. This is the kind of thing that would be done for him if he actually were a younger son.

But the thing is ... he's not Mr Darcy's son. He's the son of Mr Wickham, Mr Darcy's steward. Wickham is in reality a charity case entirely dependent on the Darcys' good will—this is part of why Darcy says it would have been a depravity to turn on him without reason. Wickham's brought up for genteel life, but the path set out for him is one he is remarkably ill-suited to (not only morally, as it will turn out, but temperamentally). I've sometimes wondered what it was like to be Wickham at ... say, 12 or 13.

Still, I also wonder if he was already kind of a handful.

Evidently not to Mr Darcy—Darcy says his father not only enjoyed Wickham's society due to his engaging manners, but always had the highest opinion of him. We have no idea what Lady Anne thought or did. But realistically, the people who dealt with young Wickham and Darcy the most were probably the servants.

Wickham insists that Mrs Reynolds was fond of him. Maybe she was, though she has nothing good to say about him now. She describes him in fairly impersonal terms at Pemberley, and after saying he's in the army now, remarks, "I am afraid he has turned out very wild." She seems pretty eager to shift the conversation to Darcy and says, "But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he [Darcy] was always the sweetest tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world."

I've wondered if this conclusion was affected by Wickham as well as Darcy—if she sees something of the Wickham who turned out wild in her memories of Wickham the child, and this reinforces her sense of the significance of childhood behavior. She insists that she's never had a cross word from Darcy, even as a small child (she's been at Pemberley since he was 4, i.e. 24 years). But given her conclusions about children and her characterization of adult Wickham, I wouldn't be surprised if the first people to experience the brunt of Wickham's poor behavior were the servants at Pemberley.