#darcy is smart

[poetryofmuses]

seduce me with your high level of intelligence and knowledge about every little thing because i'm dumb.

[anghraine]

Wickham's lies and half-lies to Elizabeth are aggravating on one level, but ngl, the initial conversation between them is pretty funny in other ways.

At first, Wickham doesn't say much that Elizabeth doesn't already know, then just asks, "Are you much acquainted with Mr Darcy?" It's Elizabeth who jumps feet-first into venting about Darcy to this perfect stranger.

Then, after Wickham's tale of his woes at Darcy's hands, she is 100% onboard:

“This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced.” “Some time or other he will be—but it shall not be by me. Till I can forget his father, I can never defy or expose him.” Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed them.

&

Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, “To treat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his father!” She could have added, “A young man, too, like you, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiable.”

With Jane afterwards:

“I can much more easily believe Mr Bingley’s being imposed on than that Mr Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me last night; names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it be not so, let Mr Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his looks.” “It is difficult, indeed—it is distressing. One does not know what to think.” “I beg your pardon;—one knows exactly what to think.”

It's funnier, ngl, because she's someone who will tell a slight acquaintance, "I understand you perfectly" with an absolutely incredible degree of assurance about her ability to judge character and then she turns around and has this conversation with Wickham that's just ... lol what.

It's also, obviously, awful and frustrating that he's going around misleading young women, lying about his own victims, etc etc. And Elizabeth is so eager to accommodate Wickham's dubious tale-telling that she becomes ethically compromised in her own way, as I've talked about before. And that can be frustrating as well!

But. The scene is funny, too.

[hiddenpxpercuts]

@devilsmenu (Guwon)

"We thank you for your service." Darcy told the other with a sarcastic smile. "How about we move it along so I can help this nice person out."

[floralovebot]

Oh! I have some headcanon of the friendship dynamic between Darcy, Riven and Helia (plus if Nabu or Flora are added). It's like a kind of strange trio that understands each other perfectly.

And Helia and Stormy would be chaotic!

Sometimes it's nice to experience interactions between Trix and Specialists.

What headcanons do you have about Florelia/Driven?

darcy/riven/helia friendship dynamics... ohmy we love to see it..... they'd be pretty messy at first but i can see it growing to a real power trio dynamic! same dude i love trix/specialists dynamics it's so funny tom me (like stormy liking brandon in the comics or the trix trying to get helia to talk to them while he just blank face silent treatment Like aljhgdldahgl)

if we're talking romantic florelia/driven... i was just obsesed with rivelia and flora/darcy (florcy?? dara... flodar... florarcy..... good god their names Do Not go well together) separately and then i was like wait,,, i can combine this aljhgdl

flora and darcy making potions together.. darcy and helia doing yoga together... riven teaching flora self-defense,, darcy ranting to all of them about icy's new monster boyfriend,,, helia and darcy going to their stupid hipster goth cafes,,,, darcy loving flora's grabbing vines (darcy is the only other person the vines are nice too),,, OUGHHHHH just absolutely obsessed with them

[someprideandprejudice]

Pride and Prejudice is, ultimately, a story about appearances.

While the story may be centered around and advertised as a romance, all the conflict began due to misunderstandings from first appearances.

This is easily seen with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth’s relationship. I’ve ranted about this a few times so I won’t go into as much detail here, but pretty much the entire plot of the story could have been avoided if Mr. Darcy had loosened up a bit and Elizabeth had bothered to give him the benefit of the doubt. Mr. Darcy’s cold countenance and Elizabeth’s first impression of him had set off the story. There’s a reason this book is called Pride and Prejudice after all. Mr. Darcy’s apparent pride and disregard and Elizabeth’s prejudice of him had her thinking the worst of him throughout the story.

Appearances not only affect our main couple, however, but Jane and Mr. Bingley as well. The entire reason Mr. Bingley is convinced to leave the country is because Jane didn’t seem to like him back romantically. Although, due to Elizabeth’s perspective, we know that’s not the case, it had been noted multiple times that Jane kept her favor secret and didn’t outwardly show it like most others would. On Mr. Darcy and Mr. Bingley’s side, of course it looked like she didn’t like him the way he did her and was only amusing him. To avoid a further broken heart (and to escape the ‘inappropriate’ country society) they had left back to town.

Then, obviously, there’s Mr. Wickham who, to Elizabeth, had come off as a kind and polite gentleman, but had later been revealed to be conniving and crafty, as well as greedy in his pursuits.

If there’s a lesson to be gained from this story, it would be that appearances can be deceiving. Those who may appear kind might not be and someone might feel differently about you than they might show. You shouldn’t judge someone’s intentions from your first look, nor your second, and maybe not even your third. Understanding others is not a simple feat that can be done by looking at their surface appearance. In the words of the very wise Hatake Kakashi, you have to look underneath the underneath.

Did I put a Naruto quote in my 1800s Victorian Era book blog post? Yes I did.

Does it matter? No it does not.

[butchfriend]

damn there is really nothing like turning in a final paper a week late and still getting a perfect score 🤓

[lavenderfeminist]

you are so right. at least romance novels with het couples are sometimes palatable, because the male is in no way acting or looking like a realistic male. but movies and shows are basically unwatchable.

Their deeply unappealing behavior is secondary to their maleness itself, but yeah. I can read Pride and Prejudice and enjoy it without really visualizing the male love interest, but then when I watch an adaptation of it I'm like...god he's ugly. Most times he's both ugly AND his character is a complete loser.

[potatoesandsunshine]

write the weird crossover you want to see in the world.....

[halliewriteshockey]

While we’re on the topic, this is how Darcy drinks from the water fountain

It’s... not actually gonna fly away, buddy

[supercool-here]

All I can think about is how convenient it was that Mr. Darcy's parents were dead when he met Elizabeth and fell in love with her

[poetryofmuses]

men will be obsessed with Dakota Johnson but still not date a girl with a big forehead.

[anghraine]

I’ve been thinking about the development of Elizabeth’s feelings for Darcy in P&P, and one of the things I find really intriguing is how incredibly careful Austen is in her handling of their physical attraction to each other.

A lot of takes on Darcy’s initial attraction to Elizabeth focus entirely on the physical element, but Austen’s description of it folds together his attraction to her intelligence, her expression, her body, and the “easy playfulness” of her manner. Of these, the earliest mentioned is his realization that her face is “rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes” and her eyes are the physical feature that he seems to dwell on the most.

At any rate, Darcy’s attraction to Elizabeth is established early on (Ch 6) and continues as a thread from that point on. And—I mean, even in 1813, it’s one thing to show a man in his twenties being attracted to the pretty heroine. Austen is a lot cagier about Elizabeth’s feelings.

The narrative is structured so that we know Darcy is physically attractive from his entrance in Ch 3, when the narrator refers to “his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien” along with his wealth. But we’re not in Elizabeth’s head at that point, and iirc, she isn’t shown as saying or thinking anything about his physical attractiveness until she blushingly agrees that he is very handsome forty chapters later.

Even there, Austen leaves the dialogue to stand on its own and tells us nothing of what Elizabeth actually feels about it. The conversation moves to Darcy’s personal virtues, which reveal the critical fact that Darcy is consistently kind and good-natured in the domestic sphere. So Elizabeth’s concession that Darcy is physically attractive is narratively linked to the suggestion that he would make a safe husband, emotionally speaking (although her concession comes first, which may be significant).

Between the initial, omniscient narrator-type description of him and Elizabeth agreeing in Ch 43, we do get references to his looks a few times, but during the period of Elizabeth’s dislike, it’s always either through implication or through someone around Elizabeth rather than Elizabeth herself. So Bingley, for instance, jokes about how Darcy is so much taller than he is, but the narrator only remarks on Elizabeth’s assumption that Darcy is offended by this.

We know that Elizabeth looks for a resemblance to Darcy when she first sees Lady Catherine, and finds it, but this isn’t explicitly linked to her conclusion that Lady Catherine might have been handsome in her youth.

Then there’s the introduction of Colonel Fitzwilliam, when he arrives with Darcy, as “about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman.” Obviously the contrast is with Darcy, who is handsome but has less gentlemanly manners, but this isn’t explicitly spelled out. Austen simply says that Darcy “looked just as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire” and moves to the manner of his compliments to Charlotte.

We do get an explicit contrast later, when Darcy, Georgiana, and Bingley come to Lambton (so, after the critical revelations):

Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother; but there was sense and good humour in her face

Austen breezes past this to Georgiana’s manners and Bingley’s arrival. There are a couple of discussions of Darcy’s appearance earlier at Pemberley, but entirely held between Mr and Mrs Gardiner, who admire his figure while Elizabeth is consumed by embarrassment. She mentions that it was obvious that he had only just arrived via horse or carriage, but not how she knows this or what she feels about it beyond repeatedly blushing.

Then they meet again, he interacts with the Gardiners for awhile, and Elizabeth and the Gardiners leave. The Gardiners discuss the encounter including Darcy’s appearance, and Mrs Gardiner—who at this point, still thinks Darcy has mistreated Wickham—first concludes that Wickham is handsomer, then immediately re-considers and decides that Darcy has perfect features, but not Wickham’s angelic countenance. She (Mrs Gardiner) goes on, “He[Darcy] has not an ill-natured look. On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks.”

Elizabeth does not opine on Darcy’s mouth, lol, and instead defends Darcy’s moral character as far as his financial dealings with Wickham are concerned. We don’t hear much more of it apart from that, and in general, we see Elizabeth’s reactions to Darcy more than we hear about them:

Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush.

She blushed again and again over the perverseness of the meeting.

The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and wishes must still be unshaken.

Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with her eyes, envied everyone to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help anybody to coffee; and then was enraged against herself for being so silly!

The colour now rushed into Elizabeth’s cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt

She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke

I do not personally think there can be much reasonable doubt about whether Elizabeth is attracted to Darcy during this phase of the book. But the narrative does dance around it enough (for understandable 1813 reasons, I suspect, given that Elizabeth either dislikes or hates Darcy for a significant portion of the book) that it’s not at all clear when she begins to finds him attractive, especially given that she does not actually see him between receiving the letter and acknowledging his attractiveness at Pemberley. So I think there are multiple valid interpretations or headcanons one could come up with for that.

[itspileofgoodthings]

anyway: my mom is an Anne, my oldest sister is an Elinor, Nina is a Lizzy,

[libraryleopard]

the thing is that no one is doing it like pride and prejudice even over two hundred years later

[frangusmadgator]

twins in paradise was certainly a thing i watched!