#(the brooding thing is weird in its own right wrt /book/ darcy bc he's described as usually calm and frequently smiling)

[anghraine]

I think one of the reasons that I've always been deeply annoyed by the conception of Darcy as a brooding, humorless love interest (and inferior because of it) is because I actually really enjoy his sense of humor.

Maybe it's because I don't have much of a sense of humor, myself (so I also find this annoying because of the assumption that not liking most humor is some kind of moral failing). But when I do find things amusing, they're often dry and understated asides that I find really funny. I love, for instance:

“I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.”

Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr Darcy replied, with great intrepidity,—

“Miss Elizabeth Bennet.”

+

“I am afraid, Mr Darcy,” observed Miss Bingley, in a half whisper, “that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.”

“Not at all,” he replied: “they were brightened by the exercise.”

I think my other favorite Darcy-Caroline interchange is even simpler, but I do find it entertaining:

“Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp, and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley’s.”

“Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again?”

I also always laugh at the book version of this scene:

“That is a failing, indeed!” cried Elizabeth. “Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot laugh at it. You are safe from me.”

“There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil, a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.”

“And your defect is a propensity to hate everybody.”

“And yours,” he replied, with a smile, “is wilfully to misunderstand them.”

Here, I also enjoy the use of a quite serious contemporary philosophical point (and the fact that he references it in a conversation with a woman at all, tbh), but the sudden shift to banter is what makes the interchange to me.

None of these are like ... haha-funny jokes, but I wouldn't find those amusing, anyway, while these always make me giggle.

#and i think it's evident that he does like elizabeth's sense of humor once he figures it out #so even though yes he's a fundamentally quite serious person #it's not that he doesn't find anything funny or never says anything that's funny #(and i don't mean in an unintentional way—he's obviously sharp-witted and knows what he's doing) #(most of the time anyway) #so the whole humorless brooding hero thing is just... meh #it's the mix of witty banter and fundamental seriousness that makes the ship! #(the brooding thing is weird in its own right wrt /book/ darcy bc he's described as usually calm and frequently smiling) #anghraine babbles #austen fanwank #austen blogging #lady anne blogging #fitzwilliam darcy #pride and prejudice #jane austen #long post