#and yeah the consequences for georgiana would be pretty dire imo

[anghraine]

I never saw anyone complainy about Darcy's reaction to Georgiana, but if I saw I would riot. He is a victim of Wickham and his decision, while not 100% right is not to be judge. I say this especially because I saw a similar situation in my life, where a girl of 14 had a thing with an adult and believe me, instead of judging the adult, a lot of people were blaming the girl, THE 14 YEAR OLD GIRL WAS BLAMED NOT THE 26 MAN.

So, if even nowadays we have dumb people judging a child instead of the adult, imagine in the regency era. If I was Georgiana sister I would 100% be quiet. I wouldn't want my sister to go through what I saw that 14 year old go through.

Besides, If someone is to blame for what happened with Lydia is Mr and Mrs Bennet, her parents, especially Mr. Bennet. He knew his daughter was innocent and would do inappropriate things and, instead of doing his fatherly duty and forbid her to go and help her to be more reasonable.

I've definitely seen it, unfortunately.

While the #1 responsible party is Wickham, by a mile, Lydia's general propensity towards impulsive, self-serving actions is pretty clearly a result of her parents' mixture of over-indulgence and neglect. Wickham would have been a danger to someone regardless, but the Bennet parents' impact on Lydia by 16 made her a particularly convenient target for Wickham or anyone else who flattered his way into her affections.

I also think that people sometimes forget that, while Georgiana is the proximate victim and has suffered the most acutely, the one Wickham really wanted to punish in her case was Darcy. When he trashes Georgiana to Elizabeth, the point seems less malice towards Georgiana herself (I suspect that "she is nothing to me" is one of the truer things he says) than tainting Darcy by association ("she is too much like her brother", etc). And he does also smear Darcy's character directly, of course.

This isn't to say that Darcy has it worse than Georgiana or Lydia, because he certainly doesn't or come close, but I think it's worth noting that he is the primary target of Wickham's malice and one of his victims as well, and people don't always appreciate just what a villain Wickham represented him as in their social context.

Even the vague details of Wickham's account that Darcy picks up from Elizabeth's rejection are enough to tell him he's been accused of something he considers depraved and a number of people, including Elizabeth, fully believe it. That's not equivalent to Wickham's exploitation of teenage girls, but it's still very bad, actually! So the idea that Darcy is the main culprit here is pretty distasteful to me, personally.

We can acknowledge that Darcy could have sacrificed the reputation of his 15-y-o sister (and ward) to protect any number of other girls, and instead he chose to prioritize the welfare of a single person because he personally loves her and is responsible for her. But we can also acknowledge that it's an awful choice to have to make and only happened because Wickham is a shitheel and Darcy keeps having to do damage control.

My best friend and I have talked about this kind of moral quandary—I'm sure there's a formal name somewhere, but we often talk about the question of whether taking a certain action for moral reasons, when you might have taken even more moral actions, is ignoble or simply less noble than you might have been. Like, are people obligated to do the most righteous thing possible, regardless of the cost to themselves or those around them, to be considered acting rightly at all? I'm not a philosopher, but I think it's a pretty difficult question and certainly more complex than "Darcy trying to protect the child under his care is reprehensible toxic masculinity" or whatever.

#and yeah the consequences for georgiana would be pretty dire imo #reputation-wise #anon replies #respuestas #austen blogging #austen fanwank #lady anne blogging #fitzwilliam darcy #george wickham #georgiana darcy #lydia bennet #long post