Vindicating the Bennet sisters

My summer holiday (unusually long by the standards of most countries except Sweden, yet it feels too short for me) is drawing to a close. I have done quite a bit of reading, though - not very ambitious reading, mind you, but reading nonetheless. Two of my not-too-demanding summer reads have been "Austenuations", i.e. novels somehow connected to Jane Austen's fictional universe (prequels, sequels, retellings from another point of view - that kind of thing). In both cases, the novel they lean against is the ever-popular Pride and Prejudice, and one of the authors' goals has clearly been to give a satisfying ending to one of the Bennet sisters still unmarried at the end of P & P: Mary and Kitty Bennet respectively.

Now, this is not a new exercise. I'd guess one of the reasons Pride and Prejudice attracts so many sequel writers is that there are still two Bennet girls to marry off. Austen couldn't resist playing this game herself, apparently: she's supposed to have told her family that Mary married her Uncle Phillips's clerk and Kitty married a clergyman. Sequel writers tend to take different views on whether this should be considered "canon". For myself, I don't think they need to follow Austen's pronouncements to the letter: I've no idea in which context they were said, but I can just see her putting a worried niece's mind at rest ("Auntie Jane, didn't Mary and Kitty marry?""Yes, yes, Mary married her uncle's clerk and Kitty got really sensible with time and married a clergyman."). It is strange to imagine Kitty as a clergyman's wife - why couldn't she marry an officer, but a nicer one than Wickham? - and consequently, I've seen her paired with a couple of pretty unconvential clergymen in various sequels. Sometimes, I'd wish that the sequel writers would ignore Austen's marriage predictions rather than force them into being, but on the other hand I'd rather they follow them than write a sequel where Mary becomes an old maid or Kitty is killed off (this has happened). It's not too big a stretch to assume that Austen meant all the Bennet sisters to get husbands, and this is what most readers (including me) want too.

In the novels I've read - The Other Bennet Sister by Janice Hadlow and What Kitty Did Next by Carrie Kablean - the authors want to do more than simply marry the girls off, however. They want to vindicate and flesh out the characters of two sisters who, in different ways, were pretty hard done by in the original novel.

Hadlow's novel is the most ambitious, and maybe her task was also the hardest. I can't be the only one who's felt sorry for Mary Bennet, but sadly, the main characters' low opinion of her seems well-founded in Pride and Prejudice. As the plain and bookish sister, one could assume that she would be the clever one in the family, but she never says or does anything sensible and is in her priggish way almost as silly as her younger sisters. Austen was harsh here. You would expect an author to give a plain, studious girl good sense as a sort of compensation, but Austen would be familiar with enough luckless maidens who were neither good-looking nor clever and consequently really hard to marry off (this at a time when staying single and making your own living wasn't really an option for a middle-class woman, unless you could face the drudgery of becoming a governess). Mary is an example of this type of unfortunate girl. If we only go by what we learn from her in Pride and Prejudice, she's lucky to get a husband at all, even if he's "only" a lawyer's clerk.

Hadlow puts a lot of effort into vindicating Mary. The hefty novel takes place before, during and after the events of Pride and Prejudice. We learn of Mary's troubled childhood, despised as plain by her mother and ignored by her father, whom she is eager to impress. Hadlow skilfully doesn't deny that Mary's behaviour is priggish, but she makes a convincing case for why it's not unreasonable for her to behave in this way and gravitate towards ultra-serious books which denounce fripperies such as appearances. I did feel that too much time was spent on Mary's back story, but seeing Mr Collins's visit from Mary's viewpoint was fascinating. Many a reader have asked themselves why no attempt was made to match Mary to Mr Collins, seeing as they seem compatible. The answer is simple enough: Mr Collins, as Longbourn's heir, thinks he is entitled to the best the Bennet household has to offer him by way of wife material, and if Jane isn't available Elizabeth is the next-best thing. This, again, is realistic: what's remarkable is that Charlotte Lucas, no dazzling beauty, manages to catch him in the end. Mr Collins would probably not have much luck on a dating site in this day and age, but from the point of view of Regency England, he is highly eligible.

What I liked was that Hadlow's Mary isn't any more taken in by Mr Collins than the rest of the Bennet family: she sees his absurdities, but believes she would be able to live with them and makes an entirely unromantic play for him. It fails, and she is not given any credit for her pragmatic thinking by her mother.

Hadlow doesn't spend too much time on the events described in Pride and Prejudice, but only delves into them when they are important for Mary, which is a good call. I was more interested in what happens to her after P & P, and the slow build-up pays off when it comes to character development: I could believe that the self-aware and intelligent young woman at the end of the novel was the same person as the insecure teenager at the beginning of it who sought solace in Fordyce's sermons and thought she had to make an impression by quoting moral platitudes. There's a lot to enjoy for the Austen nerd: we get to see what it really means to be the unmarried sister in a family, and I appreciated how Mary unwittingly puts the Collinses' marriage on a better footing during a visit by forcing Charlotte to up her game. Avoiding your husband as much as possible really isn't much of a recipe for a happy marriage. When Mary's own chance for romance finally comes I found her love interest a little underwhelming, but I think Austen would have approved of him, for all that he's not Mr Phillips's clerk.

What Kitty Did Next isn't as substantial as The Other Bennet Sister - it's more of a classic Regency romp kind of Austen sequel. Like Hadlow, though, Kablean is a stern champion of "her" Bennet sister and keen to portray her as a young woman of character. Now, Kitty in the original novel is more of a blank slate than Mary. She copies her sister Lydia a lot, so what she becomes when she is free of Lydia's influence is really anyone's guess. In this respect, you could say that she's easier to vindicate than Mary. Like her sister, though, she is left in an unenviable position at the end of Pride and Prejudice. Mr Bennet, spooked by Lydia's fate, vows that he will become a much sterner parent and rattles off a number of restrictions which poor Kitty will bear the brunt of. He is mostly joking, but Kitty isn't to know that (I didn't get it myself as a teenager), and had he been serious, she would have had zero chance of meeting a suitor. Serious or not, Mr Bennet's new-found interest in his role as a father is likely to lead to a much duller life for Kitty.

In Kablean's novel, Kitty discovers talents both for writing and music, which I thought came a bit out of nowhere. But she is still suitably interested in the glamours of high society. The novel feels a little static at times: the blurb mentions a "fateful night" at Pemberley, but it doesn't take place until quite late, and before that there aren't that many events or conflicts. It has to be said, though, that I hadn't predicted the way in which Kitty gets into trouble: it's a little different to what one might think. Kablean is clearly familiar with Austen's marriage predicitions for Mary and Kitty, and mischievously introduces several young men who either are or might become ordained, which keeps one guessing, though Kitty's own preferences seem pretty marked. Or will her final choice not be a clergyman at all?

Of the two novels, I prefer Hadlow's, but I enjoyed Kablean's as well as an easy summer read. It's interesting to see that they have some things in common: for one thing, happily, they aren't written as Austen pastiches, and the prose flows well yet unanachronistically. In both novels, the sisters' parents are no help when it comes to the girls finding happiness (except in the end for Kitty when Mr Bennet steps up) and their father's contempt for their "silliness" wounds them both. Jane is kind but ineffectual when there's a real crisis brewing. Miss Bingley is a cow. The Gardiners offer a refuge and are very important in Hadlow's book especially. The Darcy household is somewhat criticised for being a self-contained unit: it's difficult to find a place in their happy bubble. Hadlow's Mary never quite fits in at Pemberley, whereas Kablean's Kitty thrives there at first, only to learn the hard way that her sister, her brother-in-law and her new friend Georgiana Darcy don't quite trust the "new" Kitty yet.

Another thing the novels have in common, then, is that the focus is not (as it so often is in P & P sequels) Elizabeth and Darcy's marriage, so they're not an excuse to dwell on love scenes between these fan favourites. Fine by me (I'm a little tired of this romance, I must confess), but might be useful to know: trust me, if you want Lizzy-Darcy smooching, there are plenty of alternatives. 

How to lose like a villain (and keep your dignity)

So, I finally got to the part in Star Wars Rebels with Grand Admiral Thrawn in it. Thrawn was actually one big reason (though not the only one) why I decided to really get into the two animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. When there was a mention of him in The Mandalorian, the fans were so delighted I realised that here was a Class A Imperial villain waiting to be discovered. I knew he was in Rebels, but I suspected I would get more out of this series if I saw Clone Wars first - a fair assumption. 

I owe Thrawn some gratitude, as I've had a good time with both series - eventually. I didn't think much of the first one-and-a-half season of Clone Wars (which I watched ages ago), and the first season of Rebels was a slog too. But they picked up, and though Clone Wars had some storylines that weren't too thrilling - I'll not be revisiting the "corruption on Mandalore" plot in a hurry - and the more kid-friendly Rebels can be annoyingly "hey wow, look how cool it is to be a rebel" at times (especially trying when you're not-so-secretly on the Empire's side), there's some really good stuff here for a Star Wars nerd to sink their teeth into. For instance, plenty of delightful villains. When I first heard that they brought Darth Maul back, I thought it sounded silly, seeing as he was - you know - cut in half in The Phantom Menace, but boy was it the right call.

But what about Thrawn, then? Did he live up to the hype? Well... he still might. It's only fair to say that Thrawn doesn't only appear in Star Wars Rebels but in a number of novels too, and may have acquired most of his fan base that way. In Rebels, he shows potential: he's clearly cleverer and more complex than your average Imperial officer. But I'm a good way into season three, which is when he first appears, and he hasn't had a substantial win over the rebels yet. His strategic genius is more talked-about than in evidence. Even with a high-ranking spy in his inner circle, how could he let those important new ship designs go?

It made me reflect on the well-known problem of recurring villains in long-running franchises - like, for instance, multi-season TV series. Fans want them and grow attached to them, but how can you as a villain keep losing to the good guys, as the genre demands, and still be seen as a threat to be taken seriously? Plenty of strategies are deployed which are more or less successful. Here are a handful, not all of them to be recommended:

Winning battles but losing the war: One of the very best options. If you want your long-running villain to be respected, give him (or her, but I'll use he/him here because of my personal preferences) some wins! You can still have the heroes triumph at the end when it really matters and the fate of the Earth/galaxy/universe/other is at stake. But showing that they are evenly matched by the villains - maybe even outmatched - adds tension to the final showdowns.

The close shave: This is the standard solution - the heroes defeat the villain, but it's not easy. There are some tense moments when it could all have gone in another direction. Works well once or twice, which is why this narrative device is what you usually see in feature-length films, but in a long-running series, you can't use it too often, or the villain will look incompetent no matter what. A player who keeps hitting the goal post is not a good goal scorer.

The cynical miscalculation: Sooner or later, the villain has to start making mistakes. It helps if these mistakes aren't simply dumb errors, but based on the limits of a villainous outlook. Of course it would be foolish to think a hero would be tempted from the straight and narrow by, say, greed, but there are other failings a hero might be prone to because of their self-righteousness, such as vindictiveness (masquerading as "serving justice") and a certain longing for power (for the greater good, of course). If a villain bases his strategy on an over-reliance on his opponents' weaknesses, then that doesn't come across as too idiotic. It only shows that there is a part of being a hero which a villain simply doesn't "get".

The bigger threat: As used in such different franchises as Doctor Who and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (achingly wholesome, but not too wholesome for some pleasingly twisted villain ships). In summary, the protagonist/s have to put their struggle against the main antagonist aside because even greater trouble is brewing - sometimes they get help from their enemy, sometimes not. The reason why it has become a bit of a cliché that the Doctor and the Master must join forces to defeat some universe-shaking threat is that it works so well. The Master can get something right for a change and prove his genius without it having world-burning consequences, and then once the alliance is done he (or she if it's Missy) can go back to being a total selfish bastard. Neat. A variation of this strategy is "the wild card", where the recurring villain has his own agenda, but is not set up as the heroes' main antagonist. The wild card's function can be summed up by quoting Rumple/Mr Gold and Emma from Once Upon a Time: "Are you suggesting I'm working for Regina or against her?" "I don't know... Maybe diagonally".

The problem is that viewers tend to crave a strong main antagonist. You can't put the main threat elsewhere indefinitely, and you can't get away with always upstaging the main villain with a "wild card". Except in Once.

"Ah, just as I anticipated": This is the opposite of winning the battles but losing the war: the villain takes smaller losses with equanimity, because he has a Master Plan, and even losses teach him something about his opponent, or will help him to win in the long run. Thrawn in Rebels is a good example of this narrative device so far. But much as I love Master Plans, they very rarely work out, and unless you can create some really impactful scenes where the heroes think they're properly screwed because of the villain's master planning, the viewer will catch on to the fact that the supposedly intelligent baddie ended up losing the battles and the war.

Blaming your underlings: Also known as "sitting on a throne and complaining". Unless you're Palpatine, don't do this. Making your minions seem incompetent won't make you seem cleverer. One, the success of a mission is the boss's responsibility. Once or twice, you can keep your master-villain reputation by blaming others: it might even come across as relateable (we've all been there, when we've done everything right, and then it all falls apart because of someone else's mistake). But ultimately you're responsible for your henchmen: if they're not up to scratch, fire them or kill them or something. Better still, do some of the work yourself. Because, two, even if your underlings miss a trick or two, if all you've done is sit on a throne (or similar), then they've probably done more for the villainous cause than you. Fantasy Palpatine - sorry, Galbatorix - in the film Eragon is a good example of how throne-complaining comes across. (If you wonder why I've watched this film when all fans of the book hate it - well, just look at the cast list.) Fantasy Darth Vader (Durza) may not have been able to kill off Fantasy Luke (Eragon), but he did for Fantasy Obi-Wan (Brom) and very nearly Fantasy Leia (Arya) too, plus he knows where the rebel base is. In fact, he's done all of the heavy lifting, while all Galbatorix does is whine about incompetence in the tones of John Malkovich seemingly on valium. Just topple the lazy sod and take over, Durza - I'm rooting for you.