Tier-Ranking Jane Austen's Romances [CC]

[@Youknowwhoyounopoo]

Other Loveliness itself couples: Mr and Mrs Gardiner and Admiral and Mrs Croft.

[@murihiku]

"I think with modern eyes a lot of us feel a lot more sympathy for Lydia." Not I. She must know how she's damaging all her sisters' chances at happiness--including Kitty's, her closest friend!

[@michaelodonnell824]

Lydia either doesn't know (realise) or she doesn't care. In either case, she is not in any way an admirable character.

[@ludmilamaiolini6811]

Yeah… now that I’m older than when I first came across the story and better understand the stakes, I feel way less positive about her.

[@hanna-writes]

Yeah, Austen doesn’t condemn her for liking to dance and flirt-she condemns her for her callousness, selfishness and single-mindedness. The society they lived in shaped which of her choices caused the worst fallout, but it’s the underlying traits which made her make those choices that are depicted as bad.

[@AuntLoopy123]

@@hanna-writes True. Lydia's primary personality point is selfishness. She really thinks of no one but herself. Even when she's SO "in love" with "dear Wickham," she's still planning to flirt with other officers, even if it means hurting her husband. Just because she enjoys it, and who cares what others think or feel? I hold out SOME hope that she'll learn some empathy for others when she has a few children to care for. But that hope is not great. There are plenty of selfish mothers out there, who use their own children more as accessories than human beings, for whom they have a responsibility.

[@jessicashu982]

I would rank Emma/Mr. Knightley as "loveliness itself." My favorite couple by far!

[@knittingbooksetc.2810]

My favourite as well. By far.

[@cminmd0041]

I think like a lot of Austen Couples the age difference doesn't modernize well.

[@knittingbooksetc.2810]

@@cminmd0041 My brother is 13 years older than my sister-in-law. I really don’t see the problem there. It depends more on the people than on the age.

[@maryhamric]

AGREEEEEE. Mr Knighley and Emma actually have a great relationship...it's open and honest and they confront issues like Lizzie and Darcy. They belong at #1. Knightley & Emma have what it takes for happiness in the long haul.

[@obsessivefangirl5055]

Same!!! Also the age difference must be considered in the social context of that time. We shouldn't compare it to our modern day standards.

[@Steffi-bk4cv]

Still smiling because you ranked Mr and Mrs Elton as Happy thought indeed ;-)) Not an obvious choice, but it fits perfectly I guess...

[@SpinstersLibrary]

I love to hate them

[@lisal2017]

I think the ranking of Elizabeth and Mr Darcy indicate why Pride and Prejudice is the most popular of Austen’s 6 main novels. This was another fun video. I think my rankings would be more or less the same

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Pride and Prejudice is literary perfection 😍

[@mame-musing]

Here in the States we’ve been seeing broadcasts of horrendous floods in Germany. I hope your town has not been inundated. This video was a great addition to Jane Austen July.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Thank you, Mary! We're okay here, the flooding hasn't reached us yet. Bit worried about a nearby river but we live on the first floor so should be okay. It's still horrible to see the situation unfold in other parts of the country.

[@meghanthestorygirl4581]

I love how high up Mr and Mrs Elton were 😆

[@SpinstersLibrary]

My favourite obnoxious social media couple 🤣

[@cminmd0041]

The Elton's are PERFECT for each other!!! They would be perfect frenemies with Fanny and John Dashwood!!!

[@staffanlindstrom576]

Agree about Elizabeth and Darcy. They are in a class by themselves. Their conversation after Darcy´s second proposal is unique. What great-souled people! Henry Tilney and Catherine Morland are also fun and happiness-inducing, but most of the others are rather boring types to be around, Wentworth and Anne, Fanny Price and Edmund etc. I am glad you included the Eltons. They seem a perfectly matched couple and are great fun in their own particular way.

[@EmoBearRights]

I like Wentworth and Anne - they are an ever fixed mark couple. I think they are both very bright - she's well read and kind, he's had a lot of life experience and is very loyal. Eleanor and Edward suit each other and are probably nice to talk to. I've never liked Edmund - I've always seen him as similar to Pitt Crawley a bloke whose heart is kinda in the right place and isn't terrible and is not stupid but isn't anywhere as good, pure, smart, unbiased, rational, astute at reading people or unswayed by someone he fancies as he thinks he is. Whilst not being a bad bloke I find him low-key insufferable in how pompous, low level hypocritical and sometimes how deluded he is. Lead by the dumb stick is a quality that always pisses me off about male characters.

[@staffanlindstrom576]

@@EmoBearRights Poor Edmund - nobody likes him.

[@ElliesCozyChronicles]

This was such an enjoyable video! I also love Mr.Tilney🥰

[@einahsirro1488]

I love the titles of your categories! LOL! But I actually think Lydia will not be miserable with Wickham. She's too shallow to experience misery. She'll always find something to entertain herself, and she'll always consider him handsome, and enjoy his ability to charm others. She'll always be mooching off of Jane, but she has no pride to wound, so... yeah, I think she'll go along fine. I agreed with all your others, but I'd have bumped Lydia and Wickham up to My Poor Nerves, because they will always be painful for others to behold, but neither of them have the capacity to experience misery (other than boredom.)

[@cminmd0041]

Everyone always castigates Emma for her manipulation of Harriet but no one holds it against Darcy for doing the exact same thing to Bingley. Emma's real crime is acting like a man and daring to control her environment. The same "crime" that Lady Catherine commits, which is also considered one of Darcy's positive traits is how he takes care of all this cottagers.

[@obsessivefangirl5055]

Yess, finally someone said it! Emma is essentially the female Mr. Darcy but she is judged far too harshly for it, especially when fans forgive Darcy for everything, all misery he caused to Jane and Bingley so easily.

[@GitanAnimex]

@@obsessivefangirl5055 yeas but is him who brings them back together, i will say bingley do not deserve jane because it seem darcy is more important to him than her

[@obsessivefangirl5055]

@@GitanAnimex yep I agree about Bingley. He had no personality of his own and came off as extremely weak-willed

[@marysmith5003]

You cannot make the control freak Emma or the bossy Lady Catherine okay or "correct" by saying their crimes were no worse than Darcy's. He was wrong, infamously so, to assume he should protect Bingley. Of course, he thought he was doing the right thing. They all thought they were doing the right thing. The road to, well, you know ...

[@obsessivefangirl5055]

@@marysmith5003see the exact thing you said about Darcy applies to Emma. Word to word. She also thinks she's doing whats best for her friends, and thinks she knows best only to have her beliefs questioned. And Emma is young and naive and has no sense of moral guidance in her life aside from Knightley. Also, I think in the whole Jane/Bingely situation, calling Darcy a control freak wouldn't be too inaccurate either. What do you think?

[@tillysshelf]

What, no Lucy Steele and Robert Ferrars? They suit each other so well that they would have to be at least Happy Thought Indeed. I would have to put Anne and Wentworth as Loveliness Itself because I think they have a much more solid foundation than some Austen couples. I can see your reasoning with Charlotte and Mr Collins, but I'm fairly sure Charlotte will have a lot of My Poor Nerves moments despite her informed decision.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

I realised I forgot Lucy Steele and her final Mr Ferrars approximately two seconds after uploading the video 😱 but yes, they deserve each other...

[@taaptee]

Great of you to use the 1995 Pride and Prejudice for the thumbnail 😌

[@SpinstersLibrary]

I love it

[@FMTK23]

Great video Claudia! (also congratulations on 10k🎉 ) I'll probably push Anne Elliott& Captain Wentworth in the Loveliness category, but agree with the rest of it. Hope you guys are safe during the current floods.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Thank you! All good here where I live, though it's been horrifying seeing the news from other parts of the country

[@MilenaReads]

Currently rereading Sense and Sensibility and honestly, Colonel Brandon may be kind, but he’s a bit creepy. Courting a 17 year old girl when you’re 35... Don’t really feel he deserves better if that’s what he’s going for. Marianne should get some time to grow up.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Very good point!

[@BookishTexan]

This was great. I agree pretty much down the line. I would have reversed your placement of Anne & Wentworth with that of Elizabeth and Darcy. I have a similar idea for a video, but I’m waiting till I finish Mansfield Park.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Ooh, looking forward to it!

[@CharpyTheHedgehog]

Really great video! The only one I disagreed with was Jane Bennet and Mr Bingley, I think they will be a very happy and very sweet couple. I can see them having a lot of kids and being loving parents. I think it mentions Mr Bingley buying an estate in the end near Darcy and Elizabeth (I could be completely wrong about that!) and I think Darcy and Elizabeth would be positive influence on them in staying true to themselves and no longer following what his sisters want. I'm going to go and watch your Taskmistress video now!

[@michaelodonnell824]

Completely agree with you - Jane and Bingley are incredibly well matched, except that she outranks him (are you listening Caroline?!)

[@marykoenig1158]

Lol! "What's his name Edmond Bertram." The Taskmistress video is fun yet this one is laugh out loud fun too! I thoroughly enjoyed your take on the romances.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Thank you!

[@grutarg2938]

I'm so glad you included the Eltons, who are perfect for each other. What do you think about Lucy Steele and Robert Ferrars?

[@michaelodonnell824]

Two completely like the Eltons, except wee see too little of Robert. What about the Willoughbys from S&S - Willoughby and Miss Grey?

[@grutarg2938]

@@michaelodonnell824 Ooh, I'll have to reread S&S, but that's a good one.

[@AliceandtheGiantBookshelf]

I love "it's about time, or slightly too late, to do one myself!" I love Captain Wentworth's letter. May have to save this and watch the rest when I've read the last two novels that I've not read yet. :)

[@kari.bullet.journal]

Great ranking! Darcy and Elizabeth deserve that podium 🙌🏻👏🏻😁🥰

[@michaelodonnell824]

I think Anne Elliot and Frederick Wentworth deserve to be there too!

[@TullaRask]

I love Mr Darcy. He's a dependable guy, you will always know he does what is right. He and Lizzy will be great together. Very down-to-earth couple they are both. I love them. Darcy just needed a few pointers, which Lizzy gave him and then he fixed his wrong doings.

[@matthewzito6130]

Loveliness - Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth, Mr. Bingley and Jane, Happy - Colonel Brandon and Marianne, Mr. Knightley and Emma, Robert Martin and Harriet, Captain Wentworth and Anne Tolerable - Mr. Ferrars and Elinor, Catherine Moreland and Henry Tilney, Edmund Bertram and Fanny Price Poor Nerves - Mr. Collins and Charlotte, Robert Farrars and Lucy Steel, The Eltons, Frank Churchhill and Jane Fairfax Last Man - Mr. Wickham and Lydia, Mr. Willoughby and Miss Grey

[@glendaw5221]

Bless my heart I am trying, I really am. I’ve checked out Pride and Prejudice four times and have finally made it to chapter 13. I understand the humor, I understand the appeal of the language. I’m determined to make it through this time so at least I know what people are referring to when they say Mr Darcy. I’ve read Emma and Persuasion. Persuasion put me to sleep each night and I had to find my place in the audio book the next night. Emma was enjoyable. I’m definitely a late Jane Austen reader but I truly want to read them all. I’m eager to read The Other Bennett Sister. Help Me Make It Through The Night Jane Austen fans!!!

[@lynnstewart7034]

Great video! I like Anne Elliot more than you so would promote her and Captain Wentworth to loveliness itself. Both Mr Knightley and Colonel Brandon are too good for the women they chose (I can’t stand Emma and Marianne and would put them in a ‘the last woman I’d ever marry’ category 😂). I fear that in time they could be as unhappy as Mr Bennett. I totally agree with you, Elinor Dashwood deserves better. For viewers who haven’t seen your Jane Austen Taskmistress video, do yourself a favour, sit down and watch it.

[@coneil72]

I second all of this!

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Thank you! And yes, I can see upgrading Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth to the top tier

[@GitanAnimex]

I think what Henry sees in catherine is her innocences and good intentitons

[@edsepe2258]

Thank you for this. I'm in board with your placing of the Collins'. He's happy with his choice & she is willing to make it work.

[@obsessivefangirl5055]

I think Emma and Knightley definitely belong in the top category of loveliness itself. The age difference was practically no issue back in the day.

[@rlabarbera]

Henry Tilney is my favorite as well!

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Who can guess which couple I forgot? 👀

[@ellie698]

Catherine's brother and Isabella Thorpe from Mansfield Park?

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Ah but they don't end up together, much to his dismay

[@VoyageofaTimeWanderer]

Mr. Weston & Miss Taylor and Lucy Steele & Robert Ferrars!

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Miss Taylor is already married by the time the book begins, but yes I completed forgot about Lucy Steele's surprising match when I recorded the video

[@magorzataniewiadomska5914]

Elinor Tilney happily got married to a mysterious"man of fortune", therefore a hateful man general Tilney deigned to consent to his son "to be a fool I he liked it", 🥴

[@AuntLoopy123]

Frank Churchill could have kept the secret of his engagement, by simply being generally agreeable, and fun with the whole crowd, without getting too close to anyone, in particular. Just, "Oh, boy! I'm glad to be visiting my father, and all his fun friends!" If anyone, he should have given his new step-mother the most attention of all the women, because she's his step-mother and he wants to get to know her better (like his father). Basically, if he had behaved as an amiable asexual, not flirting with anyone, but befriending them all, he would have been MUCH better. The pain he gave poor Jane Fairfax! Uggggh! But, like so many of the characters in Jane Austen's novels, she forgave the one she loved, and looked toward a future when he would not be making THAT mistake again.

[@chrissymisha1182]

I think I would push Emma and Mr. Knightly up to the top tier, but otherwise I completely agree with your rankings 👍

[@obsessivefangirl5055]

I definitely think they belong in the loveliness itself category

[@sarah-bethhogg]

My favourite couple is Admiral and Mrs. Croft - #couple goals - but I know they don't count bc they are already together when the novel begins...

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Yes I love them! My favourite established couple in the novels.

[@SB-sg4em]

The only ones that I viscerally disagree with are Emma/Knightley and Jane/Bingley (I’d put them in loveliness itself), and my personal favourite couple Marianne/Brandon, who I would put in ‘Happy thought indeed.

[@BernasBookishAdventures]

Loved the video. The couple that everyone hates and they love it 🤣🤣

[@josephmayo3253]

I wouldn't say Darcy is intolerable throughout most of the novel. He makes a bad first impression at the Meryton Assembly. And his first proposal is the height of arrogance. But in between, his actions aren't that bad. Rather, the perceptions of him are colored by Wickham's misinformation and Lizzy's hurt pride. He's a bit aloof, but the rest is understandable from his perspective. I know you'll say separating Jane and Bingley was wrong. But he is protecting his friend from what he sees, not without reason, as a gold digging mother trying to foist her daughter on his rich, naive friend. I would push the Anne Wentworth marriage to the top tier. I think it's the best romance that Jane wrote. Neither one stopped loving the other through the whole separation. I think they'll be very happy together, now that they're allowing themselves to communicate with each other. But even their lack of open communication in the novel is understandable from each one's perspective. Good video. I'll have to check out more of your content.

[@spreadbookjoy]

#savecolonelbrandon 😂I actually would have put that couple at the bottom because she will be bored and make him utterly miserable. It’s interesting to consider Lydia Bennet from a modern perspective - she would have loved Tinder!

[@TheRealPrinceClub]

Why would people watch this video if they hadn’t at least read most of her novels

[@ellie698]

Lydia isn't going to be miserable because she's a flirt, she's going to be miserable because Wickham doesn't love her, is a liar, a cheat, a gambler and a thoroughly awful human being! 😕

[@SpinstersLibrary]

Yes, obviously. He's a terrible person. I said that the reason she was stuck with him in a marriage is because in a novel in Austen's society, being a flirt is something that is punished by the narrative

[@zuzanka1981]

While she doesn't deserve to be stuck with the odious Mr Wickham, she's no angel herself. Thoughtless, ignorant, selfish and shallow. Lydia would have been a punishment for any decent man to marry. I always believed that she was the representation of what Mrs Bennet was like before her marriage.

[@SusanLH]

@@SpinstersLibrary Was Lydia punished (ie hard to marry Wickham) because she was a flirt or because she was prepared to have sex with him in the (mistaken) belief he would marry her and then stay with him despite not being married? The latter was cause for society's censure and punishment up to the 1970s here in Australia and in many other places to this day.

[@cminmd0041]

@@SusanLH I think Lydia was a gullible, romantic, typical teenager who really did believe his lies about getting married. If Darcy hadn't intervened I think she would have stayed happily with Wickham expecting to get married until one day he just didn't come back to the room and the landlord handed her a bill. She wouldn't have figured out he was terrible until totally outed by circumstances. She is really infatuated with him, the dashing soldier aspect and being in love for the first time.

[@SusanLH]

@@cminmd0041 Lydia absolutely falls into our 21st century ideas of the spirited teenager, something we nurture as I did because we recognise its importance. JA looks at Lydia quite differently and it's through her lens and 19th century expectations I make my comments. And JA pegs Lydia's upbringing repeatedly as lacking and in all likelihood her character as set into adulthood. Lydia's not only what we expect a teenager to be but always in negative terms as well as being allowed into polite society (ie out). Lydia is referred to as "self-willed and careless" (Ch 37), "seldom listened to anybody for more than half a minute" (Ch 39), Elizabeth's summation of Lydia's character as "vain,, ignorant, idle and absolutely uncontrolled!" (Ch 41). Later Elizabeth's belief that Lydia may have been prepared to run off when marriage was not on offer (Ch 47) partially came true when in Ch 52 a letter from Mrs Gardiner writes "Lydia [was] absolutely resolved on remaining where she was ... She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when." And then in Ch 51 the narrator seems to be setting us up to understand Lydia's character will remain unchanged through life when she says "It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment from which she had been so wholly free at first." In other words, she had no shame at living unmarried with a man and showing her face in polite society and would remain "untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy and fearless". Our views about Lydia are actually not so dissimilar. Lydia has a bad wrap by JA; she's a caricature of her mother into the next generation and embodies what JA saw as inappropriate and unwanted (consider her treatment of Marianne in S&S and Marianne's romanticism and reliance on feeling with Lydia created as the even worse unthinking feeling version). It's pretty horrible but in the 19th century Lydia's behaviour, and in particular the running away and living unchaperoned with a man while unmarried merited extreme punishment ... and Lydia received far less punishment than Maria Betram from Mansfield Park.

[@MarilynMayaMendoza]

Hi Claudia I’ll watch later. LOL

[@ritawilbur6128]

I always fell Elinor and Brandon should have gotten married.

[@loisthiessen5611]

I believe Mansfield Park was the first of Jane Austen's novels. She is still working on character developments.

[@SpinstersLibrary]

It was actually the third published and fourth written of her novels. Northanger Abbey was the first, though it was only published posthumously.

[@WhatVictoriaRead]

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

[@EmoBearRights]

Julia and Yates are a tolerable I suppose - they'll be ok but not exciting as a couple.

[@TheRealPrinceClub]

I can’t stand the Eltons