[[WMG: Later in life, Mr. Collins and Elizabeth will have a torrid affair.]]

Elizabeth famously tells Darcy, "I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry." At the end of the book, he's the last man in the world whom she is prevailed on to marry. Sounds like perfectly straightforward foreshadowing, right?

Well, earlier in the book, she also told Mr. Collins "I am the last woman in the world who could make you [happy]." Draw your own conclusions.
* EWWWW.
** Pass the BrainBleach!

[[WMG: Mary and Mr. Collins were made for each other.]]
Mr. Collins is just too dense to realize this. (Some screen adaptations follow this logic, having Mary ineffectually pursue Mr. Collins.)

She'd make a good clergyman's wife; she could play the organ in church and teach Sunday School (that is, if they lived in the 20th century United States instead of Regency England).
* Though chances are that Mr. Collins proclaiming that Lydia would be better off dead than ruined in society's eye may rid Mary of her fondness for Mr. Collins. In the 1995 movie, Mary did not look any more thrilled to hear that than Jane and Lizzie were.
* One flaw: Mary has learned many things, but cooking and housekeeping are not among them. Until Mr. Bennet passes away, which could be many years down the road, Mr. Collins lives a comparatively modest lifestyle within his own parsonage. What luxuries (and servants) he has access to really belong to Lady Catherine over at Rosings. Charlotte Lucas has domestic skills that none of the Bennet sisters, including Mary, do. Given how easily Charlotte finds ways to keep Mr. Collins busy (and out of her hair), it does not seem that he was looking for a wife with a similar personality, but rather one who would keep his household for him.

[[WMG: The original book did have [[Literature/PrideAndPrejudiceAndZombies zombies in it]].]]

Jane Austen wrote the whole thing. The publishers just edited those parts out for the sake of not alienating their readership.

[[WMG: Mrs. Bennet has an anxiety/panic disorder.]]

I'm only putting this here because I believe I'll be laughed out of FridgeLogic, but Mrs. Bennet's descriptions of her symptoms sound an awful lot like a panic/anxiety attack, and she is demonstrably anxious about the idea of 'starving in the hedgerows'. Add to that that she just might be overwhelmed by the fact that she's gone from 'merchant class' to 'gentry', and not know what the heck to do in such a situation, and it seems reasonable to me.
* The assumption that she’s acting up “for attention” is a modern one. A woman in Mrs. Bennet’s circumstances could very much have been plunged into outright destitution in her circumstances, and every one of Austen’s early readers would have known that. She is ''legitimately'' afraid.
* It's certainly a definite possibility, although access to what we today would consider "hard drugs" or "prescription drugs" was very different back then. Perhaps Mr. Bennet may fear that she would be even worse on something like opium. That said, she does little to contribute to her daughters' efforts to find husbands other than lamenting the need for such and, as a middle-class woman who married into the upper-class, she seems totally unaware of how to raise her daughters to improve their chances, or how to behave properly herself to do so. Mr. Bennet really should have spent the money for a governess as soon as he realized what his wife was really like. Unfortunately, this was a time before modern psychiatry and so there was not a medical support system in place for these kinds of issues. That is why Austen herself paints Mrs. Bennet as "silly", because she also lived in that time period and thus had no concept of how these things would be treated two centuries later.

[[WMG: Charlotte spread the rumor about Elizabeth and Darcy.]]

It's very likely Darcy would talk/ask about her non-stop should they be in each other's company, while Elizabeth would conspicuously not mention him at all. In the rare occasions they were in the same room, she would pick up on it. So obviously she's got to test theory out, maybe play matchmaker. Bonus points for how it would ruffle Lady Catherine's feathers. She doesn't even have to be particularly forceful to get the talk started, her husband's a gossip, and not particularly good about reading between the lines (And desperately wants attention from the upper crust.) Just a "I heard from someone who heard" and we're off.

[[WMG: Mr. Darcy is neurodivergent.]]

His behaviour (adverse reactions to social gatherings and crowded spaces, general reclusiveness, tendency to say the wrong thing at the wrong place or time, high rejection sensitivity, having very few or no close friends, immerses himself in intellectual pursuits to compensate for his social ineptitude) very much points to the modern criteria for social anxiety disorder (and also overlaps with other conditions such as autism spectrum and ADHD). The way he is viewed in-story and his difficulties also mirror the struggles of neurodivergent people even in the modern days.

He is viewed as unapproachable by most people. His own family members even do not hesitate to brand him as arrogant and rude. However, neurodivergent people's attempts to hide their unease in social situations come across as "brooding" to a neurotypical society. When he does attempt to socialise in public gatherings, he is often coerced to do so, and his attempts to express himself are taken negatively because of his struggles to communicate.

The contrast between him and Wickham shows these struggles further. Despite being an abusive person, Wickham knows how to charm others and navigate social graces effectively, which makes him well-liked and people see past his horrible actions. Darcy however, even though his intentions are pure and he is a good person on the inside, is rejected socially. Neurodivergent people are often chastised for not displaying affection in the "correct" or socially acceptable ways or are told that the ways that they show their support for others are "wrong" no matter how much good they do. It is also highly possible that Mary and Mr. Collins have similar disabilities, as they have a lot of symptoms in common and are viewed with similar disdain by those around them.


Austen could have been unintentionally putting out the message that neurotypical society gives more importance to the appearance of social graces than to the actual intent of one's actions. This is why neurodivergent people are ostracised though they might be good at heart, and socially charming abusers continue to get away with their actions.

[[WMG: Charlotte Lucas is asexual and/or aromantic.]]

Everything about Charlotte's feelings toward men and marriage seems to point in this direction. She has no particular admiration for men as a whole (it says as much in the text), and she views marriage from a purely practical standpoint - it'll get her out of her parents' house, make her not have to depend on her brothers' generosity after their parents die, and give her a respectable role in society. She has no interest in love and even tells Elizabeth in so many words that "I'm not romantic, you know. I never was." They didn't have words for it back then, but I'm pretty well convinced that in a modern setting, Charlotte would be aro/ace. (I've never watched ''The Lizzie Bennet Diaries'' so I don't know if this gets addressed in there.)

[[WMG: The "bad cold" that Jane catches [[CatchYourDeathOfCold in the rain]] is really a light case of influenza.]]
Her symptoms include a fever and a headache, which are both more common flu symptoms than cold symptoms. A Georgian-era apothecary like Mr. Jones probably wouldn't have distinguished between the two diseases as easily as a modern doctor.