History YMMV / PrideAndPrejudice

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: Many high schoolers are forced to read it and end up disdaining it as the most generic and stereotypical romantic comedy of them all... except it's the UrExample or at least the TropeCodifier, and there are understandable reasons for the main characters and the romance to progress as they did.

** For that matter, some people feel that Mr. Bennet is portrayed ''far'' too sympathetically in adaptations. He is inarguably just as responsible for the way Lydia has turned out as his wife, and arguably moreso, as unlike her, he is relatively intelligent, but has spent much of the book, and indeed the past few years, making fun of his wife and younger daughters rather than correcting them. He's also apparently fine with sending Lydia out into public unsupervised even though he fully expects that she'll humiliate herself. He just figures she'll learn from it and move forward with her life, even though they live in a society where reputation is everything and she could very well cause serious damage to herself as well as the rest of the family. All of this could have been avoided if he just contributed to his daughters' education. In the original novel, all of this is called out (see MisaimedFandom below) but scriptwriters have been more likely to treat him as a good, albeit flawed, father.

** A ''very'' common sentiment in the fandom: "When I was younger I thought I'd grow up to be Lizzy. I realize now that I'm Charlotte." Charlotte's quote about being a burden on her parents and having no prospects is often brought up at the same time.

* RescuedFromTheScrappyHeap: An interesting case with Lydia. While many modern readers find her to be aggravating as ever, many also find her to be UnintentionallySympathetic. Modern views on relationships, maturity, reputation, and abuse being as different as they are from Regency era views, a lot of modern readers see Lydia as a victim -- a sometimes annoying one, but a victim nonetheless. Between the fact that Lydia really hasn't done anything awful enough to deserve being married to ''Wickham'', and the fact that she was ''fifteen'' (practically an adult by Regency standards, but still basically a ''child'' by ours), a lot of readers have somewhat softened their views towards her. This is probably why a lot of adaptations set in the modern day tend to treat her with more sympathy, and give her a happy ending.

* GeniusBonus: History buffs will note that Britain was at war with Emperor Napoleon during the time the book is set in, so almost any half-decent young officer in Britain was fighting overseas, leaving only the dregs behind. The fact that Mr. Wickham is in Britain flirting with teenage girls like the Bennet sisters tells you a lot you need to know about his character right off the bat. In addition Wickham is constantly whining about having no money, despite being an ''officer'' in the militia, a position that he would have had to pay a huge sum to obtain (the modern equivalent would be roughly $100,000).

* GeniusBonus: History buffs will note that Britain was at war with Emperor Napoleon during the time the book is set in, so almost any half-decent young officer in Britain was fighting overseas, leaving only the dregs behind. The fact that Mr. Wickham is in Britain flirting with teenage girls like the Bennet sisters tells you a lot you need to know about his character right off the bat. In addition Wickham is constantly whining about having no money, despite being an ''officer'' in the militia, a position that he would have had to pay an exorbitant amount to obtain (the modern equivalent would be roughly $100,000).

* GeniusBonus: History buffs will note that Britain was at war with Emperor Napoleon during the time the book is set in, so almost any half-decent young officer in Britain was fighting overseas, leaving only the dregs behind. The fact that Mr. Wickham is in Britain flirting with teenage girls like the Bennet sisters tells you a lot you need to know about his character right off the bat.

** Mr. Bennet is widely loved for being an entertaining DeadpanSnarker, but it's really worth noting that in the original novel, his harshly dismissive treatment of his wife and daughters ''is'' presented as inappropriate and sometimes downright ''loathsome''.

* FanPreferredCouple: A lot of the fandom ships Mary/Mr. Collins instead of Charlotte/Mr. Collins, usually on the grounds that Mary actually would've been quite happy as a minister's wife, and since they're both bookish, wannabe intellectual {{Know Nothing Know It All}}s, they'd have plenty to talk about. It's {{fanon}} that Mary has feelings for him (which is hinted at but never stated in the book), but Mr. Collins is just too dense to realize how perfect she'd be for him.

** Darcy, to a lesser extent. The fandom adores him, of course, but his social awkwardness and initial pompousness (particularly his disaster of a first marriage proposal) is the source of many jokes, and are often turned UpToEleven for comedy.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: Given how film and television adaptations have latterly made this ''the'' quintessential PeriodPiece romance, it's almost possible to forget the original book was a very much contemporary comedy of manners. Amongst the things that make it this include the themes of young women needing to find a suitable husband, the idea of the Longbourn estate being subject to fee tail (abolished in England in 1925) being a plot point, the numerous examples of [[invoked]] ValuesDissonance (see [=YMMV=] tab), and the fact that the richest and most eligible bachelor around makes a whopping £10,000 a year (less than a full-time minimum wage worker earns in the 2010s!)

** The one choice that seems to be almost universally preferred is the casting of Rosamund Pike as Jane in the 2005 version. Most fans feel that the 2005 Jane is more fleshed-out and interesting as a character, and avoids the accusations of InformedAttractiveness that are often leveled at Susannah Harker in the role.

* FanPreferredCouple: A lot of the fandom ships Mary/Mr. Collins instead of Charlotte/Mr. Collins, usually on the grounds that Mary actually would've been quite happy as a minister's wife, and since they're both bookish, wannabe intellectual {{Know Nothing Know It All}}s, they'd have plenty to talk about. It's {{fanon}} that Mary has feelings for him, but Mr. Collins is just too dense to realize how perfect she'd be for him.

** Mrs. Bennet is a bit of an odd example of this trope, in that she tends to benefit from it more from a contemporary perspective. As noted above, modern feminist readings of the novel tend to prioritise the fact that Mrs. Bennet has an undeniable point that, should her daughters not marry, the entire family faces destitution, and that the novel's tendency to treat her as a fool can be somewhat unjust in this respect. However, some of these readings can go a bit too far with regards to how wise and virtuous Mrs. Bennet is, and consequently forget that this is more a case of JerkassHasAPoint than Mrs. Bennet being a legitimately good and decent person unfairly disdained by the novel and her family members. While she is correct on this one issue, Mrs. Bennet is nevertheless still frivolous, self-centered, hypocritical, inept as a parent, greedy, uncouth, tactless and legitimately foolish in other key respects -- to the point that even a society of [[GoldDigger gold diggers]] can't stand her. In Darcy's first marriage proposal to Elizabeth, he [[Main/BrutalHonesty bluntly]] states the entire town has nothing but distain for the Bennets and Elizabeth and Jane's good behavior only provokes pity because no one will risk being associated with the rest of their family. The Bingley's are explicitly mentioned to pity Jane due to the family she was born into, and throughout the book, we only see the Bennets associate with the [[Main/NiceGuy Lucases]] (whom Mrs. Bennet badmouths) and other relatives of the Bennets. Even her concern for the marital state of her daughters can be legitimately read as more mercenary and flippant than more favorable readings can be willing to admit -- she focuses heavily on how her daughters being single affects her personally, and seems more concerned about her daughters simply marrying in and of itself rather than marrying ''well'' (that is, marrying someone who will treat them decently in addition to securing their financial futures), as evidenced by her silly giggling and cooing over Lydia's marriage to Wickham. This is despite the fact he was the sort of individual who runs off with a barely sixteen-year-old to begin with, and he would have left both her and her family ruined had he not been paid off.

** Mrs. Bennet is a bit of an odd example of this trope, in that she tends to benefit from it more from a contemporary perspective. As noted above, modern feminist readings of the novel tend to prioritise the fact that Mrs. Bennet has an undeniable point that, should her daughters not marry, the entire family faces destitution, and that the novel's tendency to treat her as a fool can be somewhat unjust in this respect. However, some of these readings can go a bit too far with regards to how wise and virtuous Mrs. Bennet is, and consequently forget that this is more a case of JerkassHasAPoint than Mrs. Bennet being a legitimately good and decent person unfairly disdained by the novel and her family members. While she is correct on this one issue, Mrs. Bennet is nevertheless still frivolous, self-centred, hypocritical, inept as a parent, greedy, uncouth, tactless and legitimately foolish in other key respects -- to the point that even a society of GoldDiggers can't stand her. In Darcy's first marriage proposal to Elizabeth, he [[Main/BrutalHonesty bluntly]] states the entire town has nothing but distain for the Bennets and Elizabeth and Jane's good behavior only provokes pity because no one will risk being associated with the rest of their family. The Bingley's are explicitly mentioned to pity Jane due to the family she was born into, and throughout the book, we only see the Bennets associate with the [[Main/NiceGuy Lucases]] (whom Mrs. Bennet badmouths) and other relatives of the Bennets. Even her concern for the marital state of her daughters can be legitimately read as more mercenary and flippant than more favorable readings can be willing to admit -- she focuses heavily on how her daughters being single affects her personally, and seems more concerned about her daughters simply marrying in and of itself rather than marrying ''well'' (that is, marrying someone who will treat them decently in addition to securing their financial futures), as evidenced by her silly giggling and cooing over Lydia's marriage to Wickham. This is despite the fact he was the sort of individual who runs off with a barely sixteen-year-old to begin with, and he would have left both her and her family ruined had he not been paid off.

** In the 2005 version, the plain, bookish Mary is played by ''Talulah Riley''... one of [[Film/StTrinians St. Trinian's]] hottest young women.