I do love how both Cathy and Heathcliff are deeply aware of their respective Romantic Archetypes that everyone keeps trying to shove them into and both get rightfully pissed off about the boxes they are being shoved into and use those boxes as tools of manipulation to clobber other people with. Cathy talking to Edgar like "manic pixie dream girl means MANIC pixie dream girl, I'm gonna be ~~improper~~ about Heathcliff, fucking get over it." And Heathcliff's whole "relationship" with Isabella being leaning into the brooding "exotic rich brooding dark hero who can be civilized fixed by the power of feminine white womanhood true love" and then him being like jesus fucking christ you actually fell for that??? like, I didn't even lie to you, you just fully filled in the narrative of your pure love redeeming me with barely any prompting, are you for real?????? It's so fun how they play with the tropes imposed on them on purpose, in ways that betray how hopelessly trapped and paralyzed they feel by those narratives. Heathcliff says fuck you you don't get any story of me being a secret prince or a war hero or a rags to riches businessman or even evil highway robber for that matter. Cathy says fuck you you don't get any closure about of me growing as a person and being less selfish, or any clarity on the distinctions between selfishness/"ill temper" and physical illness and mental illness. I was always faking it when I was sick I was never faking it when I was sick but whatever story you tell you can't wrangle me as a saintly dead mother. I'm a gothic villain who will not be softened into a tale of family reconciliation. I'm a ghost story all godly folk disapprove of. I'm at peace in heaven, and I'm burning in hell unrepentant, and I walk the moors hand in hand with you. We are buried together. You're my one true love. Nothing could keep us apart. I never would have married you. Edgar also is there.
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