The Problem of Jane and Other SC Rambles
Anybody who's read SC knows what The Problem of Jane is. At least, I hope so. Because nearly everyone threw screaming fits over her - not because they thought she was badly-written (thank heavens!) but because they thought she was bloody annoying.
Well, she was bloody annoying, and I rather meant her to be, but . . . there wasn't any way to really resolve it. I was committed to only showing Elizabeth's POV, and while Elizabeth might be hurt or irritated or even outraged by Jane's behaviour, she'd never really want her to be different, either. Not really. And the only way to communicate what was going on in Jane's head - and thereby gain some sympathy, if not justification, for her - was through conversations with third parties, and I thought that was frankly pushing things. I couldn't help feeling that there was a sort of invisible alt-story going on, not simply of Jane herself, but of all the things that were going on but off Elizabeth's radar.
I mean, the great epiphany re: Jane and Elizabeth's kidnapping is completely offscreen. I mean, here's Darcy trailing after Bingley and being bored and superior and suddenly he looks at an uninteresting acquaintance and she's his sister. And, clever as he is, he's going to realise that Elizabeth, this charming, fascinating creature he's trying not to become enthralled with, she's his baby cousin. And from there it's a stack of dominoes. Jane and Elizabeth are his family's Jane and Elizabeth, his sister and his cousin who've been lost for eighteen years, which means the Bennets are the kidnappers, and that's why Mrs Bennet is repulsively familiar, and they don't know, and he can't treat them like they're part of the unwashed masses anymore, because they're his own family, and then Wickham shows up and starts eyeing them and - crap, there's a lot going on, even though it's only a few days.
We don't know what Jane is thinking, or even if she remembers anything beyond what she talks about, and there's next to nothing about her relationship with Darcy and Georgiana. Of course, Jane's relationships aren't terribly important to me or to the readers, but they would be to Elizabeth, so they have to be addressed, somehow. And Darcy's are; he's the only Austen hero who is actually a protagonist, yet in old!SC he's effectively a minor character - Elizabeth's LI and Jane's brother, nothing more.
And with him, in the new draft, there's another issue - Hunsford. Because canon makes it clear that Darcy's behaviour at Pemberley is not unusual for him, while we repeatedly hear that his Meryton manner is. Mrs Reynolds insists that Pemberley!Darcy has always been like that, since he was a tiny child, while Colonel Fitzwilliam insists that he's 'generally different.' How he behaves at Pemberley is how he has always behaved in his own milieu, around his own circle; the difference is that he's behaving that way to Mr and Mrs Gardiner of Gracechurch Street and their niece. He's treating these people as if they were as worthy of civility as his own family.
Which is lovely and important and all, but SC!Darcy would never, never dream of treating Elizabeth Fitzwilliam as he does Elizabeth Bennet. She's the granddaughter of an earl and a viscount, she's his cousin. It's just not happening. In fact, it's more than that. At this point, he can't acknowledge the connection explicitly; he has to wait for Mr Bennet to die. But they're no longer part of the unwashed masses, they're his own sister and cousin - he'll definitely be switching on Pemberley!Darcy, at least to some degree. So any changes in him will be sparked by smaller things than the catastrophe of Hunsford.
It's the same for Elizabeth, because without Wickham and without Bingley/Jane, she essentially has to abandon most of her prejudices against Darcy. Of course, she has Eleanor as a surrogate, but still, there's never going to be the "I never knew myself" epiphany. And then she's got so much going on that she doesn't have time to be so impressed with her own dazzling wonderfulness. I think it's in little things; the first, when Darcy is kind to her and she realises that he's, um, a real person and not her personal straw man, the Eleanor situation, Cecily's little problem with finances, finding herself a single sparkle in a very big shiny world (*imagines vampire!SC!Elizabeth*), and falling in love - I mean, she matures and grows and all of that, but not in leaps and bounds per canon. Some relationships can't change, some are never the same, so on and so forth.
Oh, and Darcy/Elizabeth is . . . it was basically a subplot of SC, and while this isn't a point-by-point retelling of P&P (as so many what-ifs seem to be, somehow - why is that, anyway?), I think that central focus should remain. So I'm trying to make that more important; the story is effectively split between them (so we actually see what's going on in the 'invisible' story instead of just The World According to Elizabeth Ben Fitzwilliam), and also about them. We'll see how it works out. Right now, I'm still stuck in Hertfordshire with Jane and Mr Bennet and still stretching out The Revelation.
Oh, and I think I've managed to foreshadow the Problem of Jane in this passage - beware of spoilers, though!
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. “You are quite serious, sir? Jane and I are - are foundlings?”
“Well,” said her sister matter-of-factly, “we knew that already, of course.”
"Of course?"
She had imagined it, naturally, as children do. The young Elizabeth knew she must be a foundling - and the grown-up Elizabeth knew better. How could she possibly have supposed otherwise? There were dozens of logical reasons why she should not resemble any of her family but Jane, why Mrs Bennet liked her so much less than the other girls, for all of those things. This one, irrational and improbable in the extreme, happened to insipidly perfect heroines, not to real people, certainly not to her.
Somehow, she managed to regain something of her composure. "Perhaps you did," she said, "though I have not the slightest idea how, but I knew nothing of the kind!”
“My grandmother Bennet told me about it,” Jane replied. “She knew because of your hair, Lizzy, and some things you said when we first came to Longbourn, but - but she said it did not matter, so I never thought of it. Should I have?”
ETA: Just btw, I've set up a delicious account: http://delicious.com/anghraine
Well, she was bloody annoying, and I rather meant her to be, but . . . there wasn't any way to really resolve it. I was committed to only showing Elizabeth's POV, and while Elizabeth might be hurt or irritated or even outraged by Jane's behaviour, she'd never really want her to be different, either. Not really. And the only way to communicate what was going on in Jane's head - and thereby gain some sympathy, if not justification, for her - was through conversations with third parties, and I thought that was frankly pushing things. I couldn't help feeling that there was a sort of invisible alt-story going on, not simply of Jane herself, but of all the things that were going on but off Elizabeth's radar.
I mean, the great epiphany re: Jane and Elizabeth's kidnapping is completely offscreen. I mean, here's Darcy trailing after Bingley and being bored and superior and suddenly he looks at an uninteresting acquaintance and she's his sister. And, clever as he is, he's going to realise that Elizabeth, this charming, fascinating creature he's trying not to become enthralled with, she's his baby cousin. And from there it's a stack of dominoes. Jane and Elizabeth are his family's Jane and Elizabeth, his sister and his cousin who've been lost for eighteen years, which means the Bennets are the kidnappers, and that's why Mrs Bennet is repulsively familiar, and they don't know, and he can't treat them like they're part of the unwashed masses anymore, because they're his own family, and then Wickham shows up and starts eyeing them and - crap, there's a lot going on, even though it's only a few days.
We don't know what Jane is thinking, or even if she remembers anything beyond what she talks about, and there's next to nothing about her relationship with Darcy and Georgiana. Of course, Jane's relationships aren't terribly important to me or to the readers, but they would be to Elizabeth, so they have to be addressed, somehow. And Darcy's are; he's the only Austen hero who is actually a protagonist, yet in old!SC he's effectively a minor character - Elizabeth's LI and Jane's brother, nothing more.
And with him, in the new draft, there's another issue - Hunsford. Because canon makes it clear that Darcy's behaviour at Pemberley is not unusual for him, while we repeatedly hear that his Meryton manner is. Mrs Reynolds insists that Pemberley!Darcy has always been like that, since he was a tiny child, while Colonel Fitzwilliam insists that he's 'generally different.' How he behaves at Pemberley is how he has always behaved in his own milieu, around his own circle; the difference is that he's behaving that way to Mr and Mrs Gardiner of Gracechurch Street and their niece. He's treating these people as if they were as worthy of civility as his own family.
Which is lovely and important and all, but SC!Darcy would never, never dream of treating Elizabeth Fitzwilliam as he does Elizabeth Bennet. She's the granddaughter of an earl and a viscount, she's his cousin. It's just not happening. In fact, it's more than that. At this point, he can't acknowledge the connection explicitly; he has to wait for Mr Bennet to die. But they're no longer part of the unwashed masses, they're his own sister and cousin - he'll definitely be switching on Pemberley!Darcy, at least to some degree. So any changes in him will be sparked by smaller things than the catastrophe of Hunsford.
It's the same for Elizabeth, because without Wickham and without Bingley/Jane, she essentially has to abandon most of her prejudices against Darcy. Of course, she has Eleanor as a surrogate, but still, there's never going to be the "I never knew myself" epiphany. And then she's got so much going on that she doesn't have time to be so impressed with her own dazzling wonderfulness. I think it's in little things; the first, when Darcy is kind to her and she realises that he's, um, a real person and not her personal straw man, the Eleanor situation, Cecily's little problem with finances, finding herself a single sparkle in a very big shiny world (*imagines vampire!SC!Elizabeth*), and falling in love - I mean, she matures and grows and all of that, but not in leaps and bounds per canon. Some relationships can't change, some are never the same, so on and so forth.
Oh, and Darcy/Elizabeth is . . . it was basically a subplot of SC, and while this isn't a point-by-point retelling of P&P (as so many what-ifs seem to be, somehow - why is that, anyway?), I think that central focus should remain. So I'm trying to make that more important; the story is effectively split between them (so we actually see what's going on in the 'invisible' story instead of just The World According to Elizabeth Ben Fitzwilliam), and also about them. We'll see how it works out. Right now, I'm still stuck in Hertfordshire with Jane and Mr Bennet and still stretching out The Revelation.
Oh, and I think I've managed to foreshadow the Problem of Jane in this passage - beware of spoilers, though!
Elizabeth’s mouth dropped open. “You are quite serious, sir? Jane and I are - are foundlings?”
“Well,” said her sister matter-of-factly, “we knew that already, of course.”
"Of course?"
She had imagined it, naturally, as children do. The young Elizabeth knew she must be a foundling - and the grown-up Elizabeth knew better. How could she possibly have supposed otherwise? There were dozens of logical reasons why she should not resemble any of her family but Jane, why Mrs Bennet liked her so much less than the other girls, for all of those things. This one, irrational and improbable in the extreme, happened to insipidly perfect heroines, not to real people, certainly not to her.
Somehow, she managed to regain something of her composure. "Perhaps you did," she said, "though I have not the slightest idea how, but I knew nothing of the kind!”
“My grandmother Bennet told me about it,” Jane replied. “She knew because of your hair, Lizzy, and some things you said when we first came to Longbourn, but - but she said it did not matter, so I never thought of it. Should I have?”
ETA: Just btw, I've set up a delicious account: http://delicious.com/anghraine