[dicapitoe-deactivated20221110]

A message:

[tachyon-at-rest]

Transcript:

Being anti-trans won't free you from patriarchy or racism. How small of you to be seduced by the opportunity to oppress others for a taste of power while remaining powerless in your in life.

[eddie-redcliffe]

Doesn't it irritate you?

[amphibianshaped]

deep

[roycohn]

there's an old anne rice interview circulating on twitter rn that i remember reading ages ago where she makes a pretty salient point about how submissive men who have bdsm fantasies etc will go to a sex worker and basically order the ala carte version of their fantasy to be performed in real life but women don't really have that same option and certainly not at the same point of availability so they read her horny books instead. and honestly that argument has been in the back of my mind every time people get on their high horses about the popularity of booktok romantasy novels or heated rivalry or whatever the "women are horny and we're upset about that" cultural property du jour is ever since. women, especially straight women, have so few outlets for their sexual desires, especially if they have a partner who doesn't share them, and i will never understand why "someone ELSE'S private sexual fantasy makes me uncomfortable and therefore they should not be allowed to engage with it, even if i am in no way being affected by it or even aware of it at all" is such a popular party line among allegedly progressive young people.

[atinymekanie]

The only issue I genuinely ever take with the romantasy tropes is that often they seem to be utterly nonconsensual on the part of the woman, as she is simply accepting (often with a lot of internal monologue about how she’s scared/concerned/upset about) the man treating her in whatever way his fantasy runs, which usually seems to be very dominance-based.

In this world where women are already subjected to the sexual whims of their male partners and their own desires are often ignored or belittled, I very decidedly don’t wish to read about that exact same thing happening to the FMC. Now, if the FMC is living her best life whilst being subjected to these tropes and shadow-daddy MMCs, then good for her!

I just really wish that the FMC’s pleasure and desires would be centered, rather than just assumed to be submissive and then executed as such without first asking.

So yeah, am I asking to see the kink negotiation scene? Hell yeah, I am.

[ariaste]

Nope. Because in a book like that, the BOOK ITSELF IS HAPPENING WITHIN THE KINK SCENE. The kink is non-diagetic! It's like saying "I don't like when movies have music that comes from nowhere, I wish they would show us where the musicians are, how do you have an orchestra pit when the heroine is running around the moors in the fog and the rain??" The kink negotiation scene isn't happening between the characters, it's happening implicitly between the reader and the author, and your power to withdraw consent is perpetual and ongoing -- all you have to do is close the book and walk away. You're allowed to do that, and I encourage you to do it.

But for things happening between the characters, if the FMC is scared-AND-horny or whatever, that's what the fantasy is supposed to be and you as the reader are expected to do some basic suspension of disbelief in order to engage with the idea that (just like in a kink scene!) this is not real, this is just for pretend, everyone is safe and no one is actually getting hurt. On account if it is fiction.

Now, if you're not into that, that's perfectly fine, I am not saying you have to be into reading things that you don't like. If you want to see some kink negotiation, that's cool. Sometimes, there are books that are about diagetic kink, and they do include those negotiation scenes. But for non-diagetic kink (aka the thing you're "taking issue" with), I don't think that it's fair to say that it's wrong for those books to be written that way. A woman's desires ARE being centered -- either the author's own desires or what the author is envisioning the reader will desire. If you're not into it--again, that's perfectly fine, it's just not the right book for you or the right genre for you. Read something else.

You missed the point of the first post, @atinymekanie, so let's read it together again:

women, especially straight women, have so few outlets for their sexual desires, especially if they have a partner who doesn't share them, and i will never understand why "someone ELSE'S private sexual fantasy makes me uncomfortable and therefore they should not be allowed to engage with it, even if i am in no way being affected by it or even aware of it at all" is such a popular party line among allegedly progressive young people.

"yes but the only issue i take with romantasy tropes [...]" literally is just "someone else's private sexual fantasy makes me uncomfortable" in different clothing. Do you see what I'm saying? You're doing the same thing. "Yes but when it comes to the thing *I* don't like, people shouldn't do it that way." Not everyone is doing it that way! Read different books!

[eddie-redcliffe]

The Other Bennet Sister - Chapter 4

[yamalvr]

i have a personality flaw that always positions me on the side of characters who are hiding everything and refuse to accept help. like do NOT confide in people. confiding in people is the enemy. REAL winners lie and lie and continue lying until they ruin every single thing theyve got going for them & didnt fix a single goddamn thing. keep digging grandpa youre almost there

[thesweetnessofspring]

I've seen a little bit of questioning over the categorization of TBC, so let me share a journal entry from Montgomery as found in the introduction to The Blue Castle: the Original Manuscript, emphasis mine:

On Wednesday [February 4] I finished a novel, The Blue Castle—a little comedy for adults.

So while TBC may be shelved as YA, Montgomery wrote it with an adult audience in mind.

[blekitnyzamek]

It was definitely not wrote for children, even if people were seeing Maud as children literature author only! Entry from biography Lucy Maud Montgomery. The Gift of Wings by Mary Henley Rubio says:

This novel was certainly not written for children. It was even banned from some church libraries. First, it has an unwed mother in it, but, worse, when Roaring Abel skewers religious hypocrisy, he is so funny that readers cannot help laughing. Apparently, no one saw that this novel was close to being Maud’s own spiritual autobiography, a spillover mid-life crisis. It is ironic that at the same time Maud was choosing older heroines and mature themes for her novels, she was being demoted to the children’s shelves of bookstores and libraries by changing literary styles and other forces. This novel was the first to be banned in some libraries.

And that one:

Frustrated by what was happening to her [Maud's] own reputation through the latter 1920s, she began to grumble privately about being demoted to “only a children’s author.” She had written The Blue Castle in 1926, intending it to be a story for adults. Instead, it was often treated as a children’s book and, as a result, its mature content got it banned for children in a number of places. While she was censored for mentioning an unwed mother (who dies, no less), young writers like Callaghan were earning praise for sympathetic treatment of down-and-outers and prostitutes. It did seem unfair. The only consolation was that, despite the fact that it shocked her Sunday School readers, The Blue Castle sold well, and her publishers wanted more of the same.

There is also this piece from the Hamilton Spectator (still from biography):

When asked her [Maud's] opinion of the modern “teenage girl”—the ultra modern young person who smoked and went everywhere unchaperoned, and who contrasted rather sadly with Anne of Green Gables, Mrs. McDonald defended the modern young girl. … Speaking of the too popular sex novel of the present day which the young girls read, Mrs. McDonald admitted that it was not until the other day that she had read Flaming Youth, the most flagrant of the fast sexy novels. She had been disgusted by it, for it neither pointed a moral, nor had it any excuse for its existence, like some of the really great sex novels, such as Tolstoy wrote.

And right after that Rubio writes:

Some days later, Maud wrote again in her journals how much she was enjoying writing The Blue Castle. It touched on taboo themes: she gave an unmarried mother a brief but sympathetic treatment in it, depicting her as an innocent, gullible, and psychologically needy young woman who got pregnant out of innocence. The main heroine fantasizes wildly about the perfect lover.

So I think we can be ceartain that Valarney fucked, Maud wanted to be scandalicious ✨

There is also this part:

Anne’s House of Dreams had removed a zombie-like husband from a passionate young woman’s life. Reversing this situation, The Blue Castle produced a romantic lover for its unhappy, lonely heroine. The Blue Castle was drawn from deep in Maud’s reservoir of imaginative wishes. Ewan’s apparent “madness” and murderous dreams certainly heated up her febrile imagination. She could not help wondering what her life would have been like had she married a man who was a confident, intellectually stimulating, responsive partner, a composite of the best qualities of men like Ewan, John Stirling, John Mustard, and Edwin Smith.

Also: POLAND MENTIONED 🦅🦅🦅🇵🇱

The Blue Castle sold very well in its day, from England to North America to Australia in English, and in other languages as well. It has stayed in print. Its plot took on political overtones when it was made into a musical comedy in Poland in 1982, and well over a decade later that show was still a box office success there.

[As far as I know it opened for the first time in 1978 in Łódź BUT Mary Rubio was in Poland in 1984 invited by Barbara Wachowicz, author of the libretto of the musical. Date can comes from fact that in 1982 musical opened in/transfered to Kraków, where she saw it.]

And that one:

For its era, The Blue Castle was quite an explicit book in its extremely subtle representation of sexual repression and then sexual satisfaction, helping it get excluded from some church libraries.

[I copy-paste them from ebook, so I don't know number of pages of all this citations, sorry]

@batrachised

[is-that-sand-in-my-waffles]

to celebrate may the 4th, reblog with your top three favorite star wars projects in the tags (books, shows, movies, games, legends or canon - anything is fair game!)

[bellamyblcke]

LOVE IS SIMPLY THE NAME FOR THE DESIRE AND PURSUIT OF THE WHOLE we are all trying here (2026) / my liberation notes (2022) / my mister (2018)

[hamletthedane]

@oldguardians making this answer a separate post because it’s kind of interesting*!

‘‘I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it.’’

Jane and Elizabeth attempted to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had often attempted it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason; and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of ve daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about.”

(In the interest of not getting bogged down in legal minutiae, I’ll keep this pretty general. Please note that I am vastly oversimplifying some legal concepts here for the sake of explaining the issue clearly. If you’re an attorney/barrister/whatever, don’t @ me - I KNOW it’s all much more nuanced than this.)

Pride & Prejudice is set somewhere around 1811. In the novel, the Bennets’ ownership interest in the family estate is famously said to be “entailed” away from the Bennet girls in favor of their cousin, Mr. Collins. This is specifically explained to be because Mr. Bennet has no sons, and thus his estate reverts back to his closest male relative.

In the real world, entailment could (and usually did) work that way. But there is an enormous, glaring issue: English entailments have long been very VERY easy to defeat** through a remedy called Common Recovery. If Longbourn was truly entailed away from the female descendants, as the novel indicates, Mr. Bennet could have hired an attorney (his brother-in-law?) to start the Common Recovery process at any time. Within a few months, the court would render a judgment giving Mr. Bennet the property outright and free from any entailment, allowing him to leave the property to his daughters upon his death*** and make them independently wealthy women. And this wasn’t just a possibility - it was a very common legal mechanism that would have been almost expected of a gentleman interested in preserving his family’s comfort. There are hundreds of cases in the English Chancery records (featuring many families that were much less wealthy than the Bennets!) invoking this very remedy whenever fathers failed to produce sons.

So entailment makes no sense - it had basically no power over landowners by the Regency Period.

Let’s talk alternatives. In 1811, the primary way of keeping property in the male line was through another estate planning technique called strict settlement. To GREATLY simplify a complicated form of ownership, strict settlement had the present possessor of property always hold a life estate interest (they own it only until their death), with their male primogeniture descendants holding a remainder fee tail interest (read: eventual outright ownership upon their father’s death). Each generation of life estate owner would then force their young male descendants (the fee tail owner) upon their coming of age to give the young descendant’s unknown future male sons the remainder interest, retaining a life estate for themselves (which they would receive upon their father’s death). Thus the ownership system perpetuates down a male line of descendants, each generation demanding the same restrictive ownership system of their own children.

If you followed that - and I don’t blame you if you didn’t, as this is all very deliberately obtuse - you might think “wait okay. That kind of sounds like the Bennets’ situation. Austen called it an entailment but maybe it was actually a strict settlement!” Several academics have tried to argue that, but it also fails for several reasons:

(1) With the Bennets’ seemingly comfortable current income, strict settlement would have provided for significant lifetime income + dowries for Mr. Bennet’s female descendants. But in P&P, it’s made very clear that the girls’ only possible inheritance is a tiny amount from their mother’s side and nothing from their father’s. If they do not marry, they will be destitute. That is extremely unlikely and would be very shameful in strict settlement ownership..

(2) It would have been inconceivable for Mr. Bennet’s father to have forced him to benefit a cousin over his own descendants, even if they were women. One of the fundamental points of strict settlement was to avoid this outcome (aka to avoid the entailment system). People did NOT want a distant male cousin to inherit property simply because there wasn’t a primogeniture male descendant - they knew that if anything, their own female descendants could always produce a male heir in their marriages. Plus, Mr. Bennet’s and Mr. Collin’s fathers apparently hated each other (ref Mr. Collins’ initial letter) - why would Mr. Bennet’s father force his son to benefit the son of a man he himself hates?

(3) For many many other reasons, a strict settlement does not match how the family talks about/treats the estate in the novel. There’s literally a whole law review article on this topic (cited below), and I’ll defer to that for a full discussion.

So we’re left with two possibilities: the land is entailed, and for some reason Mr. Bennet isn’t willing to pay a small amount in attorney’s fees to undo the entailment for the enormous benefit of his daughters (extremely unlikely, robs the story of all its tension), or the land is subject to a bizarre + shameful strict settlement that goes directly against everything that would have been normal at the time, and none of the characters know that (makes no sense in the story).

And then, of course, there’s the truth: the “entailment” is simply a narrative device that does not reflect actual law or historical transfer of property at death, which is perfectly fine. Jane Austen was not writing a law textbook or even a legal drama. And her underlying point remains clear: Regency-era women were often in economically precarious positions and forced to marry to maintain their social and economic standings.

((If you do want a version in your head that works under the law, maybe we imagine that Mr. Collin’s father actually owned the home but was in debt to Mr. Bennet so he gave him some kind of strange lifelong leasehold interest with income from the property included. And then we ignore the passage saying Mr. Bennet having a son would have “avoided” the home passing to Mr. Collins + pretend that the family lied to everybody about the home being entailed to save face))

For additional reading, I highly recommend A FUNHOUSE MIRROR OF LAW: THE ENTAILMENT IN JANE AUSTEN’S PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Peter A. Appel (linked). His analysis reflects my own reading of Regency inheritance law, and I think his conclusions are generally sound. There is significant other scholarship on this subject, but I find Appel’s work the most persuasive.

—-

* At least to me, who admittedly studies this for a living

** For fun War of the Roses reasons!

*** Or much more likely, to a male relative conservator/trustee for their benefit (probably Mrs. Bennet’s brother, the attorney)

[philcollinsenjoyer]

about 90% of fanfiction takes place in a utopia where men are thoughtful and unsure of their place in the world

[gingersnapsvhs]

did your parents *"pre-screen" the media you interacted with when you were a kid/before legal adult age where you are?

yes, always AND they did parental guidance talks about it

yes, always but there was no parental guidance involved

sometimes, with parental guidance talks

sometimes, no parental guidance talks

not usually, but occasionally (WITH parental guidance)

not usually, but occasionally (WITHOUT parental guidance)

they never pre-screened but there were other rules (elaborate?)

my parents fully didn't give a shit about what media i engaged with

see results

Voting ended onDec 16, 2025

*by "pre-screening", i typically mean any sort of behavior that exists on a spectrum of "actually watching/playing/reading the thing before you played it" to "doing any sort of research on it before letting you watch it".

feel free to share your experiences in the tags or replies or whatever!

[dustpileofherown]

Attention one and all!!

You are hereby cordially invited to the second Blue Castle Book Club kicking off Monday, May 18th.

We will be continuing to use the tag #Blue Castle Book Club for all posts so feel free to jump in the conversation there!

Here is the official schedule, one chapter per day with weekend breaks to catch up:

May 18-22: Chapters 1-5

May 25-29: Chapters 6-10

June 1-5: Chapters 11-15

June 8-12: Chapters 16-20

June 15-19: Chapters 21-25

June 22-26: Chapters 26-30

June 29-July 3: Chapters 31-35

July 6-10: Chapters 36-40

July 13-17: Chapters 41-45

You can find the full text of the book here: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67979/pg67979-images.html

The Blue Castle: a novel

The Blue Castle: a novel

Also! After book club we will be hosting a fanworks event - any and all genres/mediums of fan work are welcome! Stay tuned for more details to be posted later this summer.

[chesh-cat-rus]

Today I understood why Mr Bingley is important for 'Pride and Prejudice.' Of course I've heard that he's Mr Darcy's foil and he helps us see that Mr Darcy lacks manners. And probably we need him to see a man whose character trait is quickly deciding to leave a place and who might never come back, and who also - I don't know - can easily get under the influence of his friends.

And I have always seen him as a very insignificant side character, and I never understood why there was even a need for him; like why Jane Austen of all people would write such a lacking(?) side character. He is not really a commentary on something. He's just fickle.

And was there even a need for Mr Bingley & Jane's love story? They're basically 'love at first sight, destined for each other' and they look quite out of place among the other three couples -- Elizabeth and Mr Darcy, Lydia and Mr Wickham, Charlotte and Mr Collins -- that are all a commentary on love and society.

Today I understood that had there been no Mr Bingley Jane would've married Mr Collins out of obligation as the eldest sister and that would have been a very different book that didn't feel like such a happy story by the end of it (my Mom calls it a fairy tale), had only one of the sisters (Elizabeth) landed herself a love match.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe there is an undercurrent to Jane's story that is about her being an angel and that their love with Mr Bingley is a dream that rarely comes true, I don't know. But still, apparently Mr Bingley is not as inconsequential a character as he has always seemed to be.

[taradactyls]

Sorry to highjack your post with an essay, but there's actually a common misconception here that I really want to breakdown.

One of the things that it isn't easy to notice these days is that Jane and Bingley actually are a commentary on love and society in exactly the same way the other couples are. It just isn't as obvious because the expectations and discussion over how people are meant to behave when in love has vastly changed in two-hundred years.

Jane exemplifies a common standard for young gentlewomen of that era: be demure (but never cold), friendly (but not too friendly), reserved about your true emotions (but always pleasing to everyone), appear grateful for every civil interaction a gentleman offers you (but never seeking or desperate for them), etc. She's beautiful, yes, and unfailingly kind, but her 'perfection' for contemporary readers would've gone far beyond that.

Because in many ways, Jane is the perfect gentlewoman. All those impossible virtues of good sense and perfect goodness and eternal gratitude and elegant grace are united in her. And in the Jane and Bingley love story Austen asks the question of how that behaviour, however generally admirable, can function in reality and then explores some of the drawbacks.

We actually see Charlotte allude to this directly in chapter 6. When Lizzy is happy that "Jane united, with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent," Charlotte famously rebuts:

"It may perhaps be pleasant," replied Charlotte, "to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten a women had better show more affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on."

This exchange isn't just iconic (and, in my opinion, a mark of Austen's genius for all it conveyed), it's a debate about society and its ideals vs the reality in practice. Since society has changed readers tend to see it purely as a commentary on Jane/ justification for why Darcy interpreted her the way he did/ foreshadowing for Charlotte's own choice, but it wasn't only that. It was calling out some downsides to women being perfectly composed at all times when the man they're in love with is a decent guy who cares about things like 'whether his affections are welcomed' and isn't so self-centred as to not have doubts over how someone who doesn't reveal much might actually feel. It's actually a testament to Bingley's character and general concern for others that he doesn't just assume that 'of course she likes me, she's polite and friendly to me,' when doubts are raised. You know who wouldn't have doubts? Arrogant and self-centred people whose priorities aren't others and think only about what they want. Though not directly said in the text, the Jane and Bingley temporary break-up does call into question whether behaving in this admirable way might actually push away the most considerate and thoughtful suitors.

And though I know modern readers are very prone to judging Bingley harshly for not returning quickly to Jane, keep in mind we live over two centuries later in a far more individual-focused society with different values. In the text Lizzy, who we all know has no qualms about being angry at others, ceases to be mad at Bingley almost as soon as she receives Darcy's explanation. He's not condemned by either her or the text for being persuaded that Jane was indifferent to him, and Lizzy actually comes to believe it's understandable.

I think another thing we've lost with the passage of time is just how bad the Bennets could be seen as. While Mr Bennet lives they're rich, top 0.2% rich for England in that era, and yet the daughters will have next to nothing for their class/upbringing and weren't taught many of the housekeeping/economic skills they'd need for a realistic future. I've talked more in depth about what they should have been saving according to contemporary accounts and done some maths here and here but the gist is they should've easily been six times as rich as they are. Let's not forget the lack of education too. I said it in one of those posts, and I'll say it again, if you knew a top 1% family who were constantly flirting with bankruptcy and 2/5 of their children were barely educated you wouldn't be wrong for thinking there were some serious problems in that family. Then there's the social vulgarity/silliness, but that translates much better to modern audiences so I won't go into that anymore than to say that decorum was a BIG DEAL back then and who you were 'connected with' could very literally affect your standing in society. Darcy and Bingley's sister's were snobbier about it than they should've been, but the core reasons for concern were actually valid. Even Lizzy very quickly saw the justice in Darcy's logic once presented with the facts so bluntly.

Bingley noticed these things, as everyone sensible did, but he's just too generous a person for that to matter enough to stop him from wanting to marry Jane. It was only being persuaded that she genuinely was indifferent to him that made him put aside his hopes.

We should also keep in mind that it wasn't just randoms who were doing the persuading, it was Bingley's best friend (who is used to believing himself an authority on others - a flaw he has to overcome in the course of the novel) and his sisters (whom everyone considered close friends of Jane and who would've seen her more than Bingley). Their motives were jaded by prejudice but for many contemporary readers these would've been the most reliable advisors anyone could have in matters like this.

Given the delicacy of the subject it's not like he could directly ask Jane herself until the actual proposal, or even begin acting more markedly and hope she responds in kind (the impropriety of which is similar to what we see with Marianna and Willoughby in Sense and Sensibility). Even when Lizzy knows Bingley liked Jane, knows that Jane still feels the same and suspecting that he does too, she doesn't so much as think about giving him a hint when she sees him again in Derbyshire. It simply wouldn't be proper, it's up to his intimates to speak with him about it. So, if Bingley wanted an outside opinion Darcy and his sisters were it; and, on paper, they're very good advisors on the topic of whether Jane liked him.

In most situations it would be a massive character flaw to think 'I don't care what all my closest family/friends/her friends say, I'm going to persist in thinking this girl likes me against their advice.' Keep in mind they knew each other for six weeks and he's never even been alone with Jane. His sisters have though. There's also a commentary in there on the moral pitfalls of influencing someone at all (which is explored in far more depth in Persuasion) but Bingley is never called wrong by the text or characters for not jumping to the assumption that his friend's being an arrogant snob and his sisters are bitchy snobs. A rich man who recognises he can be wrong is a good quality even today, and if we think in contemporary terms (and remember he's only 22) I don't think it's at all unreasonable that he was persuaded.

Which brings us to his whole personality: Bingley is in many ways a perfect gentleman socially. Charming and civil to everyone, uniformly good-tempered, and other than offending one or two young ladies by not asking them to dance, commits no social sins. He's also praised for being friendly and obliging - the latter being another trait which, as Jane Austen does with Jane's praised traits, gets explored via its weaknesses. Arguably the novel is one long exploration of the weaknesses of various traits, most notably those in its title, but this is already too long for that tangent.

Bingley's also very new money. Outright called the first gentleman (remembering that that word meant something very specific about education, dress, behaviour, poise, etc in that era compared to today) of his family, and his father was in trade. In a time where the middle merchant class was still establishing itself as worthy of being treated with respect by their 'betters' (and the mere fact of Darcy's close friendship with Bingley is the first clue that he's not as arrogant and snobby as Lizzy believes) his perfect upholding of an amiable ideal is a commentary in itself. Especially when we see Lady Catherine and Darcy, with their impeccable bloodlines, commit social faults arguably equal/worse to Mrs Bennet (herself not born into the gentry class and a negative example of social mobility to contrast Bingley's positive example) and Mr Collins. The highborn character who does embody appropriate social graces, Colonel Fitzwilliam, is interestingly not landed himself and needs an occupation.

Modern readers, without such a class based society which focused on social graces, are also less understanding of that 'obliging' aspect of Bingley's personality. But this was a time when, generally speaking, the richer and more important you are the more likely you are to get what you want and everyone else fell into line. It was so common that it wasn't even really critiqued heavily by Austen, some people were rich and had the means to do as they wished through money or social credit, and others followed if they wanted to be involved at all. We see this casually mentioned when Colonel Fitzwilliam says "I am at [Darcy's] disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases;" which also helps us understand that the Colonel probably didn't have the income to own his own carriage or easily rent one to travel (which was EXPENSIVE). That context, of rich men not only ruling the world but also getting to decide what other people (in the Darcy/Colonel Fitzwilliam case, even older and higher-born people - and Bingley was younger and new to the gentry) do in their leisure time through virtue of their wealth, is the context we need to view Bingley in. Though Darcy was undoubtedly more important Bingley was still 2-2.5x richer than Mr Bennet and thus everyone else in the neighbourhood excepting his friend - and yet far from being the standard rich man who began dictating the social scene and choosing what to do without consideration for others, he was obliging. He matched what others were doing, had consideration for them, participated as though grateful to be invited instead of entitled to it. His obliging nature is part of what sets him up as a true gentleman and far more worthy than others who only adopt some of the social graces and miss how it's meant to apply to their whole character.

His personality is actually a very interesting study in what makes a gentleman a gentleman, and argues that the real qualities which matter have nothing at all to do with connections or family history. It's also an analysis of what obliging personalities can fall victim to, even when they're sensible, as Bingley is said to be. His whole character ties in directly (as does Wickham's more overtly) with Darcy and Lizzy's own journeys with true gentlemanlike behaviour and character. It's just not in a way which is at all easily noticeable to modern eyes without a background understanding of the society he functioned in, nor is it something directly depicted in the adaptions.

Anyway, sorry for the hastily typed essay and I hope I've convinced you that Bingley and Jane are an exploration of love and society just as the other couples are, and also a rather pointed social commentary on behavioural standards and changing class lines through social mobility. For all that Jane Austen's writing feels comforting and sometimes quite verbose, she actually fit an immense amount of commentary and meaning into every aspect of her books. Jane and Bingley are absolutely no different.

[redwooding]

I love a good hijacking of a post, especially when it's as thoughtful and grounded in historical knowledge as this one is.

[whetstonefires]

You know what I realize that people underestimate with Pride & Prejudice is the strategic importance of Jane.

Because like, I recently saw Charlotte and Elizabeth contrasted as the former being pragmatic and the latter holding out for a love match, because she's younger and prettier and thinks she can afford it, and that is very much not what's happening.

The Charlotte take is correct, but the Elizabeth is all wrong. Lizzie doesn't insist on a love match. That's serendipitous and rather unexpected. She wants, exactly as Mr. Bennet says, someone she can respect. Contempt won't do. Mr. Bennet puts it in weirdly sexist terms like he's trying to avoid acknowledging what he did to himself by marrying a self-absorbed idiot, but it's still true. That's what Elizabeth is shooting for: a marriage that won't make her unhappy.

She's grown up watching how miserable her parents make one another; she's not willing to sign up for a lifetime of being bitter and lonely in her own home.

I think she is very aware, in refusing Mr. Collins, that it's reasonably unlikely that anyone she actually respects is going to want her, with her few accomplishments and her lack of property. That she is turning down security and the chance keep the house she grew up in, and all she gets in return may be spinsterhood.

But, crucially, she has absolute faith in Jane.

The bit about teaching Jane's daughters to embroider badly? That's a joke, but it's also a serious potential life plan. Jane is the best creature in the world, and a beauty; there's no chance at all she won't get married to someone worthwhile.

(Bingley mucks this up by breaking Jane's heart, but her prospects remain reasonable if their mother would lay off!)

And if Elizabeth can't replicate that feat, then there's also no doubt in her mind that Jane will let her live in her house as a dependent as long as she likes, and never let it be made shameful or awful to be that impoverished spinster aunt. It will be okay never to be married at all, because she has her sister, whom she trusts absolutely to succeed and to protect her.

And if something eventually happens to Jane's family and they can't keep her anymore, she can throw herself upon the mercy of the Gardeners, who have money and like her very much, and are likewise good people. She has a support network--not a perfect or impregnable one, but it exists. It gives her realistic options.

Spinsterhood was a very dangerous choice; there are reasons you would go to considerable lengths not to risk it.

But Elizabeth has Jane, and her pride, and an understanding of what marrying someone who will make you miserable costs.

That's part of the thesis of the book, I would say! Recurring Austen thought. How important it is not to marry someone who will make you, specifically, unhappy.

She would rather be a dependent of people she likes and trusts than of someone she doesn't, even if the latter is formally considered more secure; she would rather live in a happy, reasonable household as an extra than be the mistress of her own home, but that home is full of Mr. Collins and her mother.

This is a calculation she's making consciously! She's not counting on a better marriage coming along. She just feels the most likely bad outcome from refusing Mr. Collins is still much better than the certain outcome of accepting him. Which is being stuck with Mr. Collins forever.

Elizabeth is also being pragmatic. Austen also endorses her choice, for the person she is and the concerns she has. She's just picking different trade-offs than Charlotte.

Elizabeth's flaw is not in her own priorities; she doesn't make a reckless choice and get lucky. But in being unable to accept that Charlotte's are different, and it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with Charlotte.

Because realistically, when your marriage is your whole family and career forever, and you only get to pick the ones that offer themselves to you, when you are legally bound to the status of dependent, you're always going to be making some trade-offs.

😂 Even the unrealistically ideal dream scenario of wealthy handsome clever ethical Mr. Darcy still asks you to undergo personal growth, accommodate someone else's communication style, and eat a little crow.

[kiralamouse]

I love the additional points in the tags: #charlotte is a much less sociable person than lizzie#so avoiding her husband most of the time and not seeking out his company is more viable for her!#she also has more patience for people being wrong#partly i think because she kinds checks out and lets them get on with it which lizzie isn't too great at even with her mother#people have different needs like that's a thing okay#marriage#spinsterhood#pragmatism#like if elizabeth had to listen to collins talk for a few months straight she would be nearly insane with rage#he's not just a low-quality man he's a man designed to be the worst for her specifically#also note that because jane's marriage is elizabeth's fallback plan#darcy screwed her over personally by interfering between her and bingley#she ofc does not bring this up how could she#but it's intensifying the anger during the hunsford rejection i think

I hadn’t even thought about Jane being Lizzie’s fallback as an amplification to the anger at Darcy, but yes! I’m sure that “the happiness of a most beloved sister” is indeed foremost in her concerns on that - easily the most important thing - but I bet some subconscious anxiety is aggravating Lizzie’s anger here.

[whetstonefires]

Yeah, and it's like--the fucking audacity of the man, right?

If Jane and Bingley had been married, Jane would have had everything she deserved, and Elizabeth would have been safe.

Better chances of finding someone she wanted, with access to a wider society and Bingley's web of contacts, and free to refuse anyone she didn't, because Bingley is sweet-natured and wealthy and there would have been no obstacle to staying with them as long as she needed to. (Other than his sisters not liking it lmao.)

Mary-Kitty-Lydia would have had better odds of escaping the trap their parents carelessly raised them into, as well. Mrs. Bennet would have had less to be horrible and anxious about. Mr. Collins wouldn't matter anymore. Bingley was literally going to save them all.

And Darcy took that away. Because he thought that they, and Jane by extension, weren't good enough. That Jane wasn't good enough!

He took away Elizabeth's other options and now he says she must endure his proposal? The hypocrisy. The gall.

The same presumption as Collins that of course she would accept, what choice did she have? To ask is to obtain. He has the means of survival in the palm of his hand. What could any woman in her position do, but go along with his life plan?

It's practically economic coercion, if you believe he thought it through, and awful even if you think he didn't. It fits perfectly into her Wickham-sourced understanding of the man, that he throws around his power and takes other people's chances away and assumes everything is his by natural right.

That he's the only person qualified to make choices, and that therefore no one else should.

(And enough of this is accurate that Darcy's mortified regret and determination to work on himself is founded in the reality of his fuckups and bad habits, but enough is wrong for Lizzie to feel bad and be more inclined to forgive him the rest, especially since he's helping and trying to be better. It's an effective romance!)

So yeah I think the the 'how dare he!' at Hunsford after he contributed to getting Bingley away from Jane runs deep, because of the money on the table. Lydia's indiscretion threatens the whole family; Jane's success would have helped them all just as much.

In a way I think, in addition to all the other things that are going on there, Darcy patching over the devastation of the elopement is him paying back the opportunity he carelessly took away because he thought he knew best, before.

Just stepping out of the way of the match wouldn't be enough to show that he understood he'd acted against the Bennets previously for no sufficiently good reason, and Elizabeth was right to be offended that he expected her not to care about that if he dangled himself and all his assets in front of her.

[sophsun1]

Batman Returns (1992) dir. Tim Burton

[drill-teeth]

Something I really struggle to get people to understand is that like. Sometimes there was no intentional homoerotic subtext, the author was just extremely misogynistic. Sometimes the author wasn't "secretly shipping" those two men, the author literally just hates women so much that they see them as being literally incapable of relationships with depth. Like this is kind of a big thing with misogyny actually. A lot of extremely misogynistic people truly believe that a man can only have meaningful and complex relationships with other men because they literally just think women are so inferior they only exist to birth children and clean the house. It's like when people say along the lines of "no one worships exclusively men quite like straight men do". It's just that phenomenon actually. That happens to be manifesting in a raging misogynist's writing. Writing a man character who literally only puts effort into his friendships with other men while completely ignoring his literal girlfriend or wife is actually an extremely straight thing to write. And that doesn't mean you can't ship those men or that there are no stories with actual intentional homoerotic subtext. I just think it's important to be able to recognize extreme misogyny in writing and acknowledge it without brushing it off and assuming good intentions when literally all evidence is screaming that this was a misogynistic writing choice and not a representing gay men choice.