Evil Jane!
By Jayne Bamber,
Author of Happier in Her Friends Than Relations
 |
| Giving you flowers or giving you the finger? |
As a reader (okay, addict) of
Austen fanfiction for over a decade I have, like many of you, consumed a lot
of JAFF over the years, and have seen all sorts of wild liberties taken with
the characters and storylines we love so dearly.
One of my favorite tropes in
fanfiction is raising antagonists to Supervillain Status, and it’s been done
with a lot of characters from Pride &
Prejudice – Lady Catherine, Caroline Bingley, and George Wickham (the usual
suspects) are often upgraded to evil masterminds with nefarious schemes against
our dear Lizzy and Darcy. Even characters like Mr. Collins, Lydia Bennet, and
Mrs. Bennet, who are more chaotic-neutral (or idiotic neutral?) than true evil,
have taken their turn as villains, as have revered supporting characters like
Mr. Bennet, Georgiana Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam. So why not the angelic
Jane Bennet?
