This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Don't understand these deletions:
- Ho Yay (Just try deleting sightings of Subtext between Heterosexual Life-Partners. Fruitless. Don't worry; it's not an insult to the author.)
- Marty Stu (Said character is not The Hero but The Hero's foil, so don't worry, this is not a bad thing or an insult.)
Shoebox: I didn't delete Ho Yay because it was an insult, but because it has absolutely nothing to do with the characters' relationship as depicted in the book. They are close friends, but well within the bounds of normal social mores for the time, and at no point is it even subtly hinted that anything more is impeding the heterosexual romances that form the core of the story. To assume subtext here is to assume that there absolutely can't be male friendship without it. Which I don't.
Likewise, no matter how you define it — and I'm not quite sure how a Sue/Stu, who by definition overwhelms a production to its detriment, can not be the hero — Bingley isn't a Marty Stu. The author clearly intended him as a likeable, attractive young man, but a rather shallow and not-too-bright one. There's no fawning, and no preference.
Stavrogin: Why is Elizabeth once again described as "not beautiful" after I fixed it? She is described as the second best looking of the famously pretty Bennet sisters in the book, and her looks are praised or thought highly of by most of the characters, from Lady Catherine to Colonel Fitzwilliam to Bingley. It is actually Mary, whom the "narrator" describes as "the only plain one in the family"... This is a common misconception about Elizabeth, but it has absolutely no basis in the book.
Lale: I don't care how popular filtering Darcy's and Elizabeth's bickering through the modern lens of Belligerent Sexual Tension is — it is incorrect. They do not fall in love with each other because they enjoy fighting; the point is never to go by first impressions, and someone you think you hate might actually be a person you can esteem and love... just as someone you find charismatic and charming can turn out to be a scruple-less Casanova. Austen writes in other books that a guy would have to be really arrogant to assume that even women who dislike him must actually be in love with him, because how could any woman genuinely dislike him? Doesn't Darcy himself admit something along the lines of how proud and foolish it was to automatically assume Elizabeth was in love with him all along... I'm sure it was after the scene where Elizabeth tries to disabuse Mr. Collins of the notion that "No" means "Yes" but before she started to fall for Darcy after he started being a gentleman...
- besides, Darcy catches on quite quickly that he likes Elizabeth. and Elizabeth starts seeing him in a different light after he stops being a jerk. they do argue,but that's not really the point of the book.
