if things hadn't gone the way they did, with the plant, and orin dying and everything, do you think audrey and seymour ever would have come together romantically? this can be answered ic or ooc. or both!
ooc;; thank u for the question!! i’ll keep this answer out of character just because it’s a little hard for audrey to have all the info to answer without breaking some timeline rules.
i’m going to try to break the answer down into different obstacles and whether or not i think they could be managed, but know off the bat: i think it’s super unlikely. part of the pain in their story is that they both so OBVIOUSLY love each other but exist in a situation where their sad, meager lives would have kept them at odds without the plant eliminating orin, boosting seymour’s self esteem, and giving them the financial power to consider leaving new york. their romance is supposed to make you ache because it’s SO OBVIOUS but is just not quite possible for one reason or another at all times.
one of the most frustrating but absolutely certain facets of audrey and seymour’s relationship is that they are both convinced the other could never reciprocate their feelings. in audrey’s case, she even seems to deny having feelings for seymour, although it’s a half-hearted effort at best. what it’s really about, for her, is avoiding feeling like she deserves seymour, which she thinks admitting she cares for him would do. their ‘s/he could never love me’ game is notorious and HELLA STRONG. i seriously doubt if they would ever have been able to move past friendship because of this factor alone. crystal, ronette, and chiffon could be a potential out, though, so i won’t say that would ABSOLUTELY prevent it.
orin himself is a pretty big problem, though. audrey is terrified of him, but also has become deeply affected by his abuse, believing he just might be the only man that could ever love her. even if he were to try and dump her, it’s questionable how well audrey would take it and if she wouldn’t go crawling right back to him. suppose he stayed with her though, just to explore every possible avenue. if audrey found out seymour had feelings for her while still dating orin it would absolutely tear her up. she’d want to be with seymour, but the idea of orin ever finding out and potentially hurting seymour is too great a risk. she would be afraid even just thinking about seymour, as if orin could somehow read her mind and find out the truth. seymour would have to convince audrey to leave orin, and that wouldn’t be possible unless they could get away from skid row, where audrey could feel safe that he wouldn’t find her. and they couldn’t get that kind of money without the plant. so the plant is essential to audrey leaving orin.
UNLESS orin tried to kill her. if the attempt was ever made then audrey would have no logic in her ‘think what he’d do if he ever got mad’ reason for staying; he’s escalated as far as he can and she has nothing to lose anymore by making him angry. in this circumstance, she could potentially be convinced to leave him for seymour or accept seymour’s help to get away from him and then discover seymour’s feelings and reciprocate them. so this one’s a maybe, but it’s not a terribly easy one, or a happy one. orin’s still alive and could show up again to hurt them, so the only real option is to leave skid row, which they can’t do. a confrontation is bound to happen.
now i’m not a seymour expert, but if i can say so much: seymour also definitely feels like he would need to be a wealthier man to be with audrey. while audrey’s feeling of insufficiency springs from a moral standpoint (i.e. she thinks she’s a ‘bad girl’ and he’s more wholesome than her), seymour’s springs from a social/financial standpoint (i.e. he thinks he could never provide for her or be ‘cool’ to her), and this second problem is a lot harder to solve if true. audrey’s not right about herself, of course, but if she were, a simple adjustment in behavior is the fix for them to be together. if seymour’s right, though, he would need to become hella rich hella fast and get some of that orin swag to change his social standing. because he has no way for this kind of self-improvement without audrey ii, there’s no way seymour could feel comfortable pursuing audrey under the circumstances set forth at the beginning of the show.
these are the 3 biggest problems i see, and again like…. if the stars aligned and some ex machina nonsense gave them like…. winning lotto tickets and a freight train right to orin’s face,then maybe. but i don’t think it would have been super likely.
