anyway, i find it interesting that people always use the "jess made rory a better person" argument vs logan. yeah, jess yelled at rory to go back to college, but that doesn't necessarily mean he's the better person. he treated her like dirt for most of the episodes he was in. i don't think that constitutes as "changing her for the better"
i have soooo many feelings about that. i think the yale argument, in itself, is flawed––like assuming that rory “needed saving” just because she wanted to take a break for her mental wellbeing. yes, she was going through a hard time! yes, she needed to sort things out on her own! could she have handled the situation better? probably, but she came to this decision on her own, because she knew herself best and knew what she needed.
what i am not okay with is the way people constantly praise jess for it when all he did was mansplain who she was by saying “i know you / this isn’t you.” rory knows herself better than ANYONE, and i’m pretty sure she would know what’s best for her. but then jess comes along and says, “no, i know you better than you know yourself, and you shouldn’t be making this decision, you’re so wrong for this, and i’ll just point out all your mistakes haha!”
there is something incredibly condescending about it, and it rubs me the wrong way because that is how jess has always been––he always acted like rory was inferior to him. in this situation, it was with her decision-making. in earlier seasons, it was with the complete lack of respect for things rory loved (he called stars hollow events dumb, even when he knew rory enjoyed them. he didn’t even want to go because he had “already gotten her,” and only went because he was threatened by dean. he was rude to rory’s family, he was rude to luke, he was rude to the town rory loved dearly.)
so no, it definitely wasn’t his place to guilt-trip her and say she wasn’t herself just because she made this big decision on her own. he could have easily pushed her along without acting incredibly high-and-mighty about it, but somehow he still managed to make it about him by saying i know you, and i know you better, therefore this isn’t you.
anyway, it was manipulative at best, and it gave her a push, but he shouldn’t take the credit for it.
the argument is always “jess made rory a better person” vs “logan made rory a worse person” and it irritates me because it somehow ties rory to her boyfriends all the time. it’s misogynistic because rory is more than capable of making decisions on her own. plus, in the later seasons, she grew to become a much more complex character by making mistakes and overcoming failure––saying that rory got worse because of it is just wrong. give her space to make mistakes and give her space to learn from them!!! please!!!
people should just stop associating rory’s decisions with her boyfriends. she is her own person, period.
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