Sarah Rees Brennan's Blog, page 11

Roxanne Ritchi of Megamind

I remember going to see Megamind, the story of a stereotypical villain who becomes a hero, with faint trepidation as well as hope. I was hoping because I thought the set-up was clever--why do these brilliant supervillains, with inventions and minions aplenty, never win? Maybe because they unconsciously don't want to, and if they succeeded in killing the hero would be stricken with remorse and grief.

I was fearful because Will Ferrell was doing the voice for the hero, and like Nicholas Cage and Steve Carell, I know that he is famous but I will never understand why. It is an enduring mystery to me, like the meaning of life or how to accurately read maps.

So, the main players in the movie: Megamind, the supervillain inventor, Metroman, the superhero he believes he's killed (in reality, not so much) who is like if Elvis and Superman had a love child, Minion (the minion and BFF of Megamind), and Hal, a weak-minded cameraman who Megamind tries to transform into a superhero so that Megamind can have someone to fight and define himself against once more. Except that power corrupts, and super power super corrupts. Awkward.

And Roxanne Ritchi, the reporter who Hal cameramans for. If Lois Lane and Tina Fey had a baby, that baby would be Roxanne Ritchi. (She is actually voice acted by Tina Fey, who I will love forever for writing Mean Girls among many other reasons.)

Roxanne is the sassy girl reporter archetype. And I really loved her. She made me remember why I loved that archetype. And she is treated with respect by the movie: she is portrayed as the one consistently in the right, and the one who is critiquing the movie's narrative almost from the start. She is the only character who never gives up.

Admittedly I did not love her right off. In her first scene, she describes Metroman thus: 'His heart is an ocean within another ocean...'

Then she is promptly kidnapped.

Not a promising start, I thought.

But then, once kidnapped and restrained, she... mocks the villain for his predictable deathtrap array. 'Your plans never work' she observes, because she is aware of her narrative! She yawns in the face of sharks with lasers on their heads.

When Metroman she communicates her location in a calm enough way: she wants to be rescued efficiently, as if she might want him to pick up the drycleaning.

The dudes are exchanging Witty Superhero Quips--'Revenge is a dish best served cold!' 'But easily warmed in the microwave of evil'--when she breaks in with, 'Girls, girls, you're both pretty. Can I go home now?'

She is totally unfazed. Roxanne Ritchi does not have time for this nonsense.

When Metroman apparently dies, Roxanne is obviously grieved by the sight of a dead body, but she is not freaked out the way our villainous hero is. He's the one who freaks out: she remains the stoic determined character we're beginning to see she is.

As the superhero is apparently dead, evil triumphs. The city is taken over.

Roxanne goes on TV and demands of their new totalitarian overlord--'Are you happy now?"

He is not. She conveys her power with words, as her weapon of choice: she articulates her feelings and Megamind's as she mourns their hero and her city.

She is being relentlessly Nice Guy'd by her camera man Hal, who invites her to parties at his house that will actually on further questioning be just the two of them. She shuts him down nicely all the time: the narrative never suggests that she should do anything else. His behaviour is gross and she should feel gross about it! Dudes who think they are entitled to a lady just because they want her, the movie and Roxanne suggest, are gross.

'Heroes aren't born, they're made' she says, and provides Megamind with the plot (scientifically give someone super powers) when all she meant was that someone, anyone, could BECOME a hero if they chose.

When Megamind races off on an insane mission, Roxanne herself decides to BECOME a hero, proving once again that she is always about a hundred steps ahead. She works out Megamind's secret lair and she charges right in. Hal the cameraman's all 'Not again' as if she charges off all the time, and I believe she does!

When her helper Bernard (secretly Megamind in disguise) is kidnapped by... uh, Megamind (complicated, his evil plans are always so complicated) she seizes a gun and threatens the supervillain to protect her new friend. When grabbed and disarmed herself, she yells at Bernard to run: she naturally takes the lead in a fight against evil. Roxanne acts for the majority of the movie as her own hero.

Megamind is her sidekick. And he finds he likes being her sidekick.

'I never heard you laugh before' Megamind says to Roxanne, finding out that relationships work better when you make ladies laugh than when you seize them.

Roxanne, it is clear, likes funny, nerdy guys who are happy to sidekick her.

'All you have to do is save her and she'll be yours' says Megamind to Hal, speaking of Hal's crush who Megamind does not know is Roxanne, but Megamind is as usual dead wrong, blinded by what he thinks is the inevitable structure of a narrative.

Roxanne was never attracted to dudes who swept in to save her. She was never with the hero she was paired with in the media. They were obviously pals, but nothing more! (I actually wondered if I was meant to think Metroman was gay. Which would have been excellent.)

'The bad guy doesn't get the girl' says Megamind's Minion. But Roxanne the feisty reporter, from the start, is not interested in the conventions of narrative.

Titan, the new superhero--i.e. Hal, the camera man with super powers, comes and flies with her--she does not like it, because turns out, being helplessly flown around with is totally terrifying--and he believes they will now have a romance because 'You're supposed to be with me.'

'No,' says Roxanne: no, no and no. Sorry, buddy. Roxanne is owed to no man, however superpowered or airborne.

Roxanne works out that Megamind created Titan, and also says firmly something that Megamind hadn't realised: that Hal is a terrible choice. Again, she is the only person clear-eyed enough to see the situation as it actually is.

'You judge a person by their actions' says Roxanne to Megamind, and then they make out. Unfortunately Roxanne's kissing is so sensational that Megamind transforms back to his original form, and she discovers 'Bernard her sidekick' is an illusion. Roxanne has moves.

'Trickery!' says Roxanne, furiously, and dumps Megamind like a ton of bricks that are on fire. Megamind's like 'Narrative inevitability!'

Roxanne is like 'Again you misunderstand me. I mean that you're a deceitful jerk.'

But then a plot crisis comes: Titan suggests to Megamind that they should team up and be partners in evil, because being a hero is for losers, especially if he is not delivered the reward of a lady. Megamind is stunned by this waste of Titan's powers, and fights him: when defeated Megamind expects to be taken to jail, but he ends up running because Titan plans to kill him. He has to deal with an actual villain: he has to see the damage wrought when other people won't play fair.

'Congratulations, another of your genius plans has backfired,' says Roxanne. She ain't even surprised.

'I need your help--you're one of the smartest people I know' Megamind admits.

When they go to Metroman's hideout, it is Roxanne with her eye for details who notes evidence someone is living there. It is in fact Metroman, who faked his own death to run away and become a rock star. Metroman tells Megamind that he realises he had a choice and can be whatever he wants... but Roxanne knew that all along.

Roxanne is furious that Metroman deserted the city. Also, she is the only one who realises the truth, that Metroman's music is terrible. Roxanne is surrounded by idiots: she finds it very tiring.

But she works with what she has. Finding Metroman a deserter, Roxanne's new plan is to grab some of Megamind's superior tech and fight. Megamind is like 'All is lost! Narrative inevitability!' and Roxanne develops a migraine.

Everyone gives up but Roxanne. It is not her style.

Roxanne goes off to confront Hal by herself, and try to reason with him. She has a way with words that she's right to be confident about. She knows this guy and she hopes--as you would--that he has a core of decency. Sadly for her, this guy is terrible and he kidnaps her.

Roxanne has Stockholm Fatigue: she is very very bored with being kidnapped.

When Roxanne is captured by Titan, she gives a rousing speech on camera when Titan expected her to plead for help. She once again uses her words and her perceptiveness: she sees the best in Megamind--he is very persistent and brave--and inspires him to fight, using his inventions. (Which... if you will recall... was Roxanne's plan to start with.)

'I lied to Roxanne' is Megamind's verdict on his treatment of her: that was the worst thing he did to her. His journey is from being blind to seeing things the way Roxanne does--clearly.

'You see the best in everyone even when it's not there. There is no Santa Claus, there is no Easter Bunny, and there is no Queen of England' says Hal. Not only funny, but true: sometimes people disappoint you, but there IS a queen. Roxanne is right to believe the best of people, because sometimes it pays off: it pays off to believe in Megamind.

'I knew you'd come back' she says when he turns up to battle Hal. 'That makes one of us,' says Megamind.

Megamind has used his technology to disguise himself as Metroman--who he secretly wanted to be all along. What he says to her when he rescues her is 'You were right, Roxanne.' Because she was.

And when Titan is temporarily run off and he goes back to Roxanne, he turns back to himself. Disguise isn't the answer, not for Roxanne and sadly not for Titan, as Titan works out Megamind isn't Metroman and returns to murder him.

Roxanne sees where the de-superpowering weapon is hidden, and relays to Megamind in a coded way where it is: because they are intellectual equals, and because of course Roxanne has a hand in defeating the villain.

They get together at the end of the movie, you may not be surprised to learn. Admittedly this is complicated as he has kidnapped her a bunch of times and lied to her, but I did like how Roxanne was obviously never afraid of him--and how he wooed the girl through sidekicking. In the end, the relationship stands this way: Roxanne has to intervene for a socially awkward dude & teach him how to present himself better and more honestly. And Roxanne is happy to do this because she gets a relationship with a dude who makes her laugh, who is a genius whose inventions can be used to benefit the world and who will be following her lead.

Megamind describes her as his reason to win, and Megamind is the one who defeats the hero. It's Megamind's movie: he and not Roxanne is at the centre of the narrative. And I liked him! But Roxanne was the one who spoke to me the most.

Megamind lies to himself and the world constantly. Roxanne is dedicated to the truth, and discovering the truth about yourself is the message of the story.
I love a sleuthing lady generally, but I specifically love a reporter heroine because I love words, and the stories built out of them. I am fascinated by the idea of truth and discovery, and the courage needed to discover the truth. I wanted Kami of Unspoken to be like that.

It did not hurt that Roxanne was funny, sassy and a snappy dresser. Also apparently she was deliberately made to be both super hot and have wide hips, which is nice for a change!

'All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered. The point is to discover them,' said Galileo. Kami would've liked that. So would Roxanne Ritchi.

It Takes A Village

FRIEND: I know you're doing your all-Gothic all-the-time readings.
SARAH: Friend, that is true. Let me tell you a funny story about live burial.
FRIEND: … No, you're OK.
FRIEND: So you like those Amelia Peabody novels by that author Elizabeth Peters, well that lady wrote a ton of Gothic fiction under the name Barbara Michaels.
SARAH: Man, everyone writes Gothic novels under pseudonyms. I should have written a Gothic novel under an exciting false name. Do you think I should have called myself Emilia Raventhorpe?
FRIEND: … No, you're OK.
SARAH: Anyway good, I've been wanting some excellent modern Gothics. I shall go buy them all for my holiday.

I was on a trip around Egypt when I read eighteen Barbara Michaels novels in a row. At one point I missed some fairly significant tombs while on the tour bus because I was enraptured.

TOUR GUIDE: So the Valley of the Ki—
SARAH: Not now someone's getting buried alive!
GOTHIC NOVELS: Someone's always getting buried alive.

Barbara Michaels wrote Gothic novels for thirty-three years, from 1966 (six years after Victoria Holt's Mistress of Mellyn told everyone it was time to make like Rebecca/Jane Eyre and that the party was at the Gothic manor) to 1999, by which time people were partying elsewhere. (Partying like it was… well, you know.)

GREYGALLOWS by Barbara Michaels was published in 1972, so it was still early days for (what was then called, obviously it was a while ago) the modern Gothic. But even by then, Barbara Michaels had some fun ideas about what to do with the Gothic novel.

And she gave me some ideas too.

LUCY CARTWRIGHT: I've been raised sheltered in a country boarding school and I cannot wait to be picked up by my aunt and taken out to enjoy the London SEASON!
LUCY: Uh-oh. I think my aunt is trying to improve her appearance with cosmetics, and as we all know women who do that are no better than painted harlots!
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Let's get you married off.
LUCY: Say what?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Er. Let's get to London!

LUCY: I fling open the carriage window eager to embrace the delights of a whole new world! Shining, shimmering, splendid… what is that smell?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Uh, the street? Oh wait, I know, beggars! This is a good game!
LUCY: Ugh, that's awful! Oh God living in a historical novel is disgusting. Why don't people talk about the lack of sanitation more? Oh my God, is that the river? There's dead dogs in it!
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: I see a dead person! Do I win? Do I win?
LUCY: This can't be safe to drink.
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: No, best to stick with the gin.
LUCY: AUNT PAINTED HARLOT!
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Fine. If you want to be a lady about it, brandy.
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: So pick a suitor.
LUCY: Yeah I don't know how to put this, but… no ugmos may apply?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: … I don't know why we can't just betroth them at birth anymore. Damn modern sensibilities!

AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Well, you've got the money, you've got the looks, shame about the limp.
LUCY: Aunt Painted Harlot, Imma put it this way. Face like this? Boobs like these? Ain't nobody care about my waltz moves.
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Refreshing to see a disabled heroine who is sure she's hot! The fact you have a ton of cash because of all your dead relatives will help too.

HONEST LAWYER: Welcome to the office of trying to administer Miss Lucy's fortune honestly.
JONATHAN SCOTT: Can you hear the people sing, it is the song of angry men, it is the singing of a people who will not be slaves ag… Um. Sorry ladies. My apologies, Miss Painted Harlot and Miss… Whoa, miss, can I see the tag on your corset?
LUCY: CERTAINLY NOT.
JONATHAN: I just wanted to check and see whether you were made in heaven.

HONEST LAWYER: This is my clerk. Jonathan really, you know that political commentary makes the ladies come over all faint. Their minds cannot bear it and I have no smelling salts in my law offices of honesty!
HONEST LAWYER: Could you occupy Miss Cartwright for a minute while I talk to her painted harlot aunt about her excessive expenditure?
JONATHAN: Absolutely, absolutely. Let me just put on the smooth jazz.

JONATHAN: So, while I am delighted to have a fine-looking honey such as yourself over, don't you think you have a right to hear about the disposition of your own money?
LUCY: Whoa buddy, next you'll be saying I have the right to my own actual life!
JONATHAN: Women should have rights! The poor should not be downtrodden! Also can I have your phone number!
LUCY: … I find your ideas interesting and I'd like to subscribe to your socialist newsletter, but I only give out my digits to hotties. Later.

AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Let's try to marry you off well. You know what dudes love? Harping.
LUCY: Aunt Painted Harlot, R U 4 real?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Harping always gets dudes hot. It is a sure fire thing. May I introduce your new harp instructor, Fernando.
LUCY: Can you hear the bells, Fernando?
FERNANDO: Er, no.
LUCY: You can ring my bell, is what I'm trying to say.
FERNANDO: … Oh, right. Man, I love bells!

BARON CLARE: *stands disdainfully to one side, doing his best Mr Darcy impression*
BARON CLARE: *knows that chicks always dig Darcy*
LUCY'S HOT FRIEND: Hello, handsome!
BARON CLARE: Who let the dogs out, woof, woof!
LUCY: Why do the hot ones have no manners?
BARON CLARE: Hey there sweet thing. You have a great face. I barely notice the limp.
LUCY: … Wait, is he doing the Victorian equivalent of negging me?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: … Hot!

LUCY: I had a dream that someone put me in a collar. Not a hot dream, like a dream about being trapped in some way? By society? Maybe. It was either a metaphor or food poisoning.
FERNANDO: I think you will feel better if we make out.

LUCY: I guess Baron Clare is super hot. But so is Fernando. It's a puzzle. I'd best just sit here and see who does the best job wooing me.
JONATHAN SCOTT: Just glad to be invited to the tea party!
LUCY: Who invited you?
JONATHAN: Without clean drinking water London is going to have another outbreak of cholera. And we all pretty much have the typhoid already. Have you noticed that?
LUCY: When I said I wanted someone to talk dirty to me… THIS IS NOT WHAT I MEANT.

BARON CLARE: My father totally killed all three of his wives. Looking hot today, Lucy. I like them pallid and on the verge of death.
LUCY: I was just, uh, up late pondering the mysterious hotness of musical dudes. But I'll be fine. Why don't you sit down next to me and tell me all about your… large estates.
BARON CLARE: The villagers call my house Greygallows! The villagers never liked my family. Maybe because we set our rents so high? Or maybe it's because of all the murdering we do. I've never really been able to work that one out.
LUCY: Cool story, bro.

FERNANDO: You're going to marry that hot baron, aren't you?
LUCY: Hard to say. Ladies don't have many choices in life, and at least he gets me hot beneath the petticoat.
FERNANDO: I shall throw myself off the balcony!
LUCY: Fernando, don't! We're only on the second floor, it would be really embarrassing.
FERNANDO: OK let's make out instead.
LUCY: OK… Wow, making out is awesome. I think my petticoats are about to go on fire!
FERNANDO: That tingling feeling you have is LOVE.
LUCY: God and Queen Victoria say you're right…
FERNANDO: Let's run away and be married! Here's a ring.

BARON CLARE: It's a beautiful night. We're looking for something dumb to do. Hey baby… I think I wanna marry you.
LUCY: Well, this is a conundrum.
BARON CLARE: Here's a ring.
LUCY: Heh heh heh. I definitely don't already have one of those! What's this on the ring, your family crest? It's like… an animal…
BARON CLARE: It's a bunny rabbit!
LUCY: Awwww! I love bunnies.
BARON CLARE: And a doggy!
LUCY: Awwww! I love doggi-
BARON CLARE: And the bunny is being held in the doggy's snarling jaws, look, baby!
LUCY: …
BARON CLARE: That's the bunny rabbit's head a few feet away.
LUCY: …

FERNANDO: Baby, be mine! There is a curse on the house of the Clares. All their wives die.
LUCY: You're looking good right now, Fernando, but…

LUCY: What if I don't want to marry anyone, auntie?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: I totally accepted cash from Baron Clare in exchange for you, and if you don't marry him we're going to go to the country where I will shut you up and psychologically torment you.
LUCY: Is there a curse on the Clares, though?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Curse, pish tosh. Yeah, maybe. So what? Marry him or I'm going to smack you around! Let's get started now. Smack smack smack smack-
LUCY: … Team Fernando!

FERNANDO: At last Lucy, we will run away together!
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: Unhand that girl, or I fire!
FERNANDO: Seriously?
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: I don't want no scrub. A scrub is a guy that can't get no love from my niece. Lucy, this dude is from Liverpool, and his real name is Frank Goodbody!
LUCY: Well, he does have a gooooood…
AUNT PAINTED HARLOT: I still have a gun.
LUCY: Fernando, I am deeply shocked.

LUCY: I feel all faint. Maybe from the shock. Or maybe from the typhoid. My aunt was right, I should have stuck to the gin and not drunk the water.
BARON CLARE: That's cool. I like them disease-ridden. Let's get hitched!

LUCY: It is our wedding night and I am ready!
BARON CLARE: Ready for sleepy bye bye, you tired little moppet.
LUCY: No… I…
BARON CLARE: You are all tuckered out from the wedding! Rest now.
LUCY: Goddamnit.

LUCY: Well, it's been a long trip in which I did not get laid, and now holy God it's the Village of the Damned.
BARON CLARE: Yay, sweetie, we're home!

LUCY: So here we are at Greygallows, which is a huge tomb, and it will not stop raining, and I am still not getting laid. I am so bored, I am going to turn to acts of charity. Hey, maid, would your sick brother like some nourishing food?
HOUSEMAID: You are the greatest.
HOUSEKEEPER: Rock on, milady. The entire staff would like to express our appreciation, and our sorrow for the fact you are soon going to be murdered.
LUCY: … thanks for that.

LUCY: Is it cool if I am nice to the villagers? A girl needs a hobby.
BARON CLARE: I mean this sincerely: go into any disease-ridden hovel you can find. Roll around in bedsheets smeared with sickness. Find a dying child and let it cough in your mouth.
LUCY: Awesome, thanks!

HOUSEKEEPER: You want a tour of the house? Right, so Greygallows is built like a fortress basically because everyone in the village totally hated the usurping first Baron Clare, and they hated his king Henry VII, and they loved his wife Lady Elizabeth, who walks these halls as a ghost since her untimely death.
LUCY: What did she die of?
HOUSEKEEPER: Hard to say, but we think it was probably the being murdered that did it.

BARON CLARE: Baby, let's go riding! I've saddled and bridled this lovely mad horse for you.
LUCY: Nah, I'll walk.

LUCY: Just wandering the lonely halls at midnight, nothing to see here… Ahhhh! Ahhh! An intruder! Call the police!
BARON CLARE: Pumpkin, stop your fretting, it's just an unholy spirit from beyond the grave.
LUCY: I am freaked out!
BARON CLARE: Did you promise to obey me or not? It's in the marriage vows so I know you totally did. Drink up this lovely laudanum and you will be right as rain.
LUCY: You know what else was in the marriage vows? I believe it is law that you have to love me up and down and kiss me all over my face!
BARON CLARE: … WHY YOU HUSSY.
LUCY: Wut.
BARON CLARE: Hands off the goods, lady, you're not getting my manly flower tonight!
LUCY: We could just cuddle.
BARON CLARE: Oh I know where that leads. Cuddle vixen.

LUCY: OK, not getting laid, I'm gonna go to church and meet some people. Hey, the vicar and his sister are both total cupcakes.
VICAR AND MISS FLEETWOOD: Good day to you, ma'am.
LUCY: I'll go pay them a visit.
VICAR AND MISS FLEETWOOD: … We said GOOD DAY.
BARON CLARE: … Oh hey.
LUCY: Dude! You were meant to be away on business.
BARON CLARE: Awkward.
LUCY: Is business Miss 'Total Cupcake' Fleetwood? Oh my God, I am trapped in a loveless and sexless marriage, and pride is my only comfort.
MISS FLEETWOOD: Nice weather we're having.
LUCY: No, no, Lucy, be cool. She's the vicar's sister for heaven's sake. She's not some floozy. Your marriage is fine.
BARON CLARE: Hi sweetie. Feeling sickly?
LUCY: I feel great.
BARON CLARE: You were hotter when you were at death's door. That's how I always picture you.

LUCY: Always nice of you to come by for tea, Miss Fleetwood. I was thinking that ladies robed in transparent white coming from my husband's bedchamber MIGHT NOT BE GHOSTS, if you know what I'm saying.
MISS FLEETWOOD: I'm afraid I don't follow.
LUCY: What I am saying, you brazen trollop, is… Ahhhhh behind that tree a ghost it's a ghost hold me Miss Fleetwood!
MISS FLEETWOOD: What were you saying before we were interrupted by a ghastly spectre?
LUCY: Er. Don't recall.

BARON CLARE: I hate limping women, they're so lame.
LUCY: Um. Insensitive!
BARON CLARE: Sign this paper.
LUCY: Am I signing away my whole fortune?
BARON CLARE: Women, always with the dumb questions!

LUCY: Off to amuse myself with charity work again. Man, I could use getting laid. Uh-oh, poverty, typhoid, houses rotting and falling down… a dude raving at me… I don't understand you, buddy. I don't speak Yorkshire. Little help here? Hey, old man Jenkins?
OLD MAN JENKINS: He says he's starving because the Industrial Revolution messed with him and they're only hiring women and children because they are cheaper and then the women and children die. And he says your husband is a total… tick.
LUCY: Is that an exact translation, old man Jenkins?
OLD MAN JENKINS: … Almost.

LUCY: It strikes me that I could do something about all this with my money.
BARON CLARE: I think you'll find as we're married that it is my money, and I need it to buy Italian marble fireplaces.

OLD MAN JENKINS: I'm going to explain economics to you, milady.
LUCY: Use small words. I cannot stress to you how poorly I have been educated.

BARON CLARE: Baby I love it when you ride your horse dangerously. You're so hot when you jump Break-Your-Wife's-Neck Hedge and go around Oncoming-Death-Blind-Corner.
LUCY: Thanks I guess. My only comfort is my trips to the village where at least I can help people.
VILLAGERS: We have locked our doors. Go AWAY.
LUCY: Guys, c'mon, don't be like that.
VILLAGERS: Stay back! We all have cholera.
BARON CLARE: Oh, munchkin, when I think of you shut out of houses filled with sweet infectious death it makes my blood boil. Stupid peasants.

LUCY: Honey, you accidentally left me riding around on the moors in the fog and darkness!
ELDRITCH SHRIEK: spooks horse.
LUCY: I have fallen off my horse and am dying of exposure on the moor.
GROOM: I save you, milady!
HOUSEKEEPER: I nurse you tenderly back to health, milady!
BARON CLARE: It's so hard to find criminally neglectful staff these days. I'm firing that groom who saved you.
LUCY: Rosebud, I can only describe your behavior as freaky and murderous.

BARON CLARE: How about you sign another bit of paper that will give me your money, and then you can go visit more disease houses!
LUCY: … Yay?

JONATHAN SCOTT: Hi, all these pieces of paper signing away your fortune has made everyone at the honest law office a bit concerned?
LUCY: JONATHAN BOY AM I GLAD TO SEE YOU.
JONATHAN: Lucy you look fine as ever. How are you?
LUCY: I keep having weird accidents and this house is filled with ghosts and sometimes my husband's eyes glow red! … On the whole, can't complain. And yourself?

JONATHAN: Everyone in the village seems to really love you.
LUCY: Aw, I like them too. Especially since my husband is kind of… you know…
BARON CLARE: *drinks*
BARON CLARE: You know what makes me want to throw up? My wife's face and also her limp.
BARON CLARE: And also brandy.

JONATHAN: You might be wondering if the law will protect you from your husband hurting you or stealing from you. The answer is no. He even owns your dresses.
LUCY: Well, he wouldn't look good in them.
JONATHAN: Sorry, babe. I wish you had total control of your money, and that you had been taught Greek, and that you had the vote, and that your husband wasn't trying to kill you.
LUCY: You know you are much hotter than I originally thought.

BARON CLARE: I am drunk and I am here to rip off your clothes!
LUCY: Are you kidding me?
BARON CLARE: I can also punch you in the face.
HOUSEMAID: And I can whack you with a hairbrush!
BARON CLARE: You are fired.
HOUSEMAID: Tell me something I don't know.

JONATHAN: Let's go to the moors and have a little chat about how if your husband murdered you he would inherit all of your money. We should run away together!
LUCY: That would be awesome except for the bit where he divorced me, nobody ever hired you again, and we starved. Maybe if I banged him…
JONATHAN: Wait, you haven't? Well, isn't it a beautiful day on the moors!
MISS FLEETWOOD: Hi guys. I don't enjoy the works of George Eliot.
JONATHAN: She's not that hot. Hello, Middlemarch is genius!
BARON CLARE: Time to manhandle my wife some more!
JONATHAN: Time to wrestle you to the floor and then be banished into the rain by your thugs!
LUCY: … WHAT A MAN. I gotta read me some Middlemarch!

HOUSEKEEPER: I'm sure your husband means no harm despite the fact he beats you on the regular. Tea?
LUCY: … Thanks.

A NOTE SLID UNDER LUCY'S DOOR: This note is totally from Jonathan and not your evil husband plotting to kill you. Please meet me in a dangerous and secluded location. XOXO!
LUCY: I find something about this suspicious.

BARON CLARE: I have emptied the house of all our servants, and we two are alone in this desolate manor. Fancy a glass of drugs?
LUCY: Whaaat?
BARON CLARE: Ahahahaha. I totally meant, fancy a glass of wine?
LUCY: Let me just water this plant with my glass real quick.
BARON CLARE: What's that?
LUCY: Nothing, my sweet! This is some delicious murder wine. What a killer vintage!

LUCY: Imma just lie here in bed and wait for my chance to escape.
BARON CLARE: Imma just sit here by my wife's bed and wait for her to die.
JONATHAN: Baby, you OK?
LUCY: Jonathan, look-
BARON CLARE: *poker smash*
LUCY: … out. Dammit!

LUCY: So you're planning to murder me.
BARON CLARE: Oh my gosh no.
LUCY: Well, I have to tell you, that is a huge relief.
BARON CLARE: I'm just going to tie you up and leave you on the moors to die of exposure. Like calling your horse or dosing you with drugs. It's not actual murder!
LUCY: … I really cannot express my relief.

BARON CLARE: Anyway it's all Aunt Painted Harlot's fault, she totally led me to believe you would die of consumption! It's so unfair that you didn't die of natural causes!
LUCY: My heart bleeds for you.

OUTSIDE: the sound of hoofbeats
LUCY: Woo hoo! Rescue!
MR FLEETWOOD: staggers in.
LUCY: Vicar, you are all covered in blood and mud, but hey, I'm tied up, I'm not going to judge. Could you please release me?
MR FLEETWOOD: My sister's dead and so is the baby, so it's time to stop murdering your wife and just be sensible. Can we be sensible?
BARON CLARE: I will burn down this whole house and everyone inside it!
LUCY: I'm going to take that as a 'no.'

LUCY: Well, Jonathan and Mr Fleetwood are both unconscious, I am tied up, and the house is burning. This is it I guess.
HOUSEMAID, GROOM AND ASSORTED VILLAGERS: We have come to save you milady!
LUCY: Charity rocks.

LUCY: Should we do something about putting the fire out?
VILLAGERS: Fire so pretty.
LUCY: You know, both my husband and his house were never really all that.
LUCY AND VILLAGERS: Burn baby burn! Disco inferno…

JONATHAN: So Baron Clare was actually secretly married to Miss Fleetwood the whole time.
LUCY: Wow, Gothic dudes love bigamy.
JONATHAN: So nice they do it twice. Anyway he married you because he thought you'd die, and then whoops, you were fine. So sometimes they tried to scare you off with ghosts. Mr Fleetwood would dress up as a White Lady.
LUCY: Wow, Gothic dudes love cross-dressing.
JONATHAN: Makes them feel all fancy. And Miss Fleetwood was up the duff, so it became really urgent to kill you off. But now everybody's dead except you, me and the villagers. Woo hoo! Lucy, I will condescend to you and dismiss your disability, but I will also work on social reform with you and help you get more education! How about it?
LUCY: Good enough!

So, I enjoyed GREYGALLOWS. Not my very favourite Barbara Michaels (my very favourite Barbara Michaels is coming, don't worry) but: cool book, fun that it hits on some of the topics of THE WOMAN IN WHITE with extra—that isn't fair!—and –hey, feminism, though!

And it also deconstructs the Gothic hero a little bit: that handsome manor-owning dude brooding at the back of the ballroom with the dark lock of hair falling in his eyes who gives you tingles when he kisses your hand… still might be going to murder you. Someone is trying to kill you, and it really might be your husband.

But the thing that struck me most about GREYGALLOWS was the village. It never even gets named. And yet it was so clearly awesome. It was still loyal to the memory of Richard III, my favourite King of England. Its people barred the doors to Lucy because, hello, infectious diseases are infectious. It was pretty clear that the house and the Clare family were cursed, cursed, cursed… and the curse did come true. Old man Jenkins was clearly a secret genius. They saved the lady of the manor, and they watched the manor burn.

And yet they didn't get much pagetime, even though they Saved the Day.

And even so they got much more pagetime than is usual with a Gothic manor. Either the Gothic manor is lonely on the moors, or lonely on the cliff (how are they getting the milk in? What in God's name happens when all the toilet paper runs out and you're thirty miles away from the shops…) or there IS a village and it's just extremely cursorily mentioned. Yep, village, people post their letters there, but forget the fact there are actual people there and they probably have opinions about the lords of the manor.

Especially if there is something very… odd… about the manor and the people up there.

It all started to feel weirdly feudal. These people should be characters, and not just side characters because they weren't nobility. If the book is set in modern times, there should be tension, because the lords of the manor don't have the power they once did.

And so I went around the Cotswolds, because it's beautiful there—even the stone is gold—and I made up my own town out of bits and pieces of towns, a legend of a ghost in Evesham, a sweet shop from Broadway and a pub from Bourton-on-the-Water. Bourton-on-the-Water, Moreton-in-Marsh, the Severn Vale, Stow-on-the-Wold. Fabulous names, and I wanted a name like that.

And Sorry-in-the-Vale has secrets, and a divided attitude to the lords of the manor who have been gone so long. It's a bit of what Stephen King calls The Peculiar Little Town - because well, that's a lot of fun.

The Gothic manor seems to so effortlessly swallow the town in its shadow, in most books. I appreciated that it didn't in GREYGALLOWS, and I wanted to play with a complicated relationship between Sorry-in-the-Vale and Aurimere House in UNSPOKEN.

Also, I am going to have a whole made-up MAP of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Isn't that fancy!

Are there any made-up places that you have loved, oh internet of my heart? Do you like them or the real places better?

THE UNSPOKEN COVER

The Unspoken Cover Revealed!(also a contest).

Or, see below...






















And the official cover copy:

Kami Glass loves someone she's never met . . . a boy she's talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn't silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn't suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.

But all that changes when the Lynburns return.

The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she's determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the- Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?

Sarah Rees Brennan brings Gothic romance kicking and screaming into the twenty-first century with a funny, modern heroine who can take care of herself, an angry, beautiful boy who needs to be saved, and the mysterious forces that bring them together and tear them apart.

I hope that you guys are one millionth as much in love as I am.

And Unspoken will be out on September 11 so that my Kami can come on the Smart Chicks tour, which I am extremely excited about!.

The Unspoken Cover Story

I was once asked by a lovely lady at a convention what getting a cover felt like.

'Well,' I said after a pause. 'It's kind of like someone coming up behind you in a dark alley. Maybe it's a friend who you're going to be delighted to see after the moment of terror passes! And maybe... you're about to get mugged by a stranger with a rusty blade and a broken bottle, and a menacing expression.'

Now, I have already told the tale of how I a) met Mallory Loehr, Editor Extraordinaire, in my underwear and b) somehow cozened her into buying Unspoken.

I already wanted to sell Mallory the book, because a lady whose edits are 'Let's make this more like Diana Wynne Jones' is an editor I want to work with.

But Mallory did another wondersome thing during the auction of Unspoken. She sent me links to the work of a dozen different cover artists she liked, and I really liked them too. Quoth I to myself, 'Sarah, this lady has taste. She will give you a very fine cover.'

And covers, as we all know, are the number one reason books sell. We say 'Don't judge a book by its cover' for the same reason we say 'Don't count your chickens before they hatch' - people always do. I am an inveterate poultry-counter and cover-judger myself.

Plus, one wants ones baby to be kitted out in beautiful clothes.

So, the auction came to a close, and I was with Mallory, to my extreme joy. And then Mallory did another amazing thing. She let me pick the cover artist.

We both liked her. We wrote up what we'd like the cover to look like. I was introduced to my cover designer, Jan Gerardi, and we all talked together.

It was deeply confusing.

MALLORY: Any more ideas, Sarah?
SARAH: Are you sure you want to hear my ideas? Are you sure? ... You do know I'm the writer, right? I don't count!
MALLORY: Yes, we are sure, crazy though you currently sound.
SARAH: Um, well, I did think. The Lynburn Legacy books are about nature a lot, right? Because the setting is important, and the woods and the countryside play in, and so I was thinking...
MALLORY: Speak on.
SARAH: An autumn cover, a winter cover and a spring cover?
JAN: Great idea, Sarah! Let's start with an autumn cover. Something gold, or perhaps red!
SARAH: Why are you listening to me? I don't understand...

They continued their mystifying behaviour, and we had a rough cover, and everything was going pretty great, I thought!

And then disaster struck.

MALLORY: Sarah, I hate to tell you this, but our cover artist disappeared.
SARAH: What do you mean?
MALLORY: She doesn't answer the phone when we call. She does not answer emails, or letters.
SARAH: That is not normal behaviour!
MALLORY: No it is not. Our current theory is that she murdered someone and is on the lam.
SARAH: How will we get my cover now?
MALLORY: We're going to have to start from scratch and get a totally new cover.
MALLORY: ... Sarah? Sarah, did you pass out?
SARAH: ... Maybe yes.

My cover artist disappeared into thin air. This does not happen to everyone. It was clear to me: I was cursed.

Mallory was awesome the whole time. 'Now we can get a super unique cover!' she said enthusiastically. 'Let's talk concepts!' I sat in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth and muttering 'the mirror crack'd from side to side, the curse has fallen upon me...'

When I was not rocking back and forth, I sent Jan and Mallory approximately 180 pictures attached, and we had many conversations. I was still confused about being included in these conversations, but I did make many suggestions.

And then the curse fell upon me again.

First let me explain what stock art is. It is art already done, which publishers can buy for book covers if they like. Less expensive than a cover shoot (if your cover's photographic) and often extremely pretty. Twilight's cover is stock art. We were all three of us discussing artists and photographers and looking for stock art at the same time.

MALLORY: I've found this great stock art that will be perfect for the covers! I'm sending it to you now! It's all set and everybody loves it.
SARAH (quietly, to herself): ... Oh no I hate it.

I knew what happened when an author hates the cover everyone else loves. What do writers know of covers or art? Writers are not art departments. We shouldn't get to choose, and mostly, we don't.

Nevertheless, good to register a token protest. I emailed my agent and asked her to call and register our non-love for the cover. This is part of why one has an agent: so you do not have to yell at people yourself. Agents can talk calmly and professionally while you run around in circles crying 'WOE!' to the ceiling.

So I was gloomily straightening my hair and getting ready to go see a play, when my phone rang.

SARAH: ... MALLORY WHY ARE YOU CALLING ME? This is all supposed to happen with me... not involved... My plan to scream 'Woe!' at the ceiling is ruined if you are on the phone!
MALLORY: Do you hate your cover?
SARAH: Hate is a strong word.
MALLORY: But do you?
SARAH: ... Strongly accurate. Yes I do.
MALLORY: Then it's gone. That cover is off the table.
SARAH: You're kidding me.
MALLORY: I'm not.
SARAH: Are you high?
MALLORY: ... I am not...

I may have slightly scandalised Mallory with that question, but you must understand that that was a bizarre thing for her to do. Writers much, much more successful than me have hated their covers long ere this, and publishers have said unto them 'Too bad.' I have tried to get covers changed before, and it has not happened.

This was a stunning thing for her to do. I was very happy, and even more surprised.

So, it was time for another phone conversation about What On Earth We Were Going To Do.

JAN: So I still really like Sarah's seasons cover idea, we have to keep that, so we need nature.
MALLORY: What about architecture? Architecture's very Gothic.
SARAH: Silhouettes, what would we think about silhouettes? Shadow selves, and the shadows of the past...
MALLORY: And we want it to look romantic.
JAN: And mysterious.
MALLORY: But Kami has to look active on the cover. No swooning or fainting or even running away. She is not like that.
SARAH: This is all hopeless, hopeless, we will never have a cover, I am cursed... cursed... the curse has fallen upon me...
MALLORY (who by this time was used to me): ...I've just had a brilliant idea.

The next day, Mallory asked me if I'd heard of an artist called Beth White, who worked in cut paper, and did an amazing job with architecture and nature and silhouettes.

Cut paper is literally what it sounds like--art created by cutting black paper with a knife, into images.

An article on the lovely and talented Beth White, showing some of her art.

SARAH: Great idea! She seems amazing! I'd love to have a cover done by her! But I'm cursed. So it'll all go wrong. She'll probably get kidnapped. Or abducted by art-loving aliens...
MALLORY: ... I'll go describe the book to Beth White and see if she'd like to do this thing.

Beth White, amazingly, seemed as if she'd like to do this thing. And so I waited, in fear and trembling, for the rough sketch.

It arrived when I was in the airport in Atlanta. I looked around in terror lest I was about to lose it.

OTHER PEOPLE WAITING TO GET ON A PLANE WITH ME: I wish that tall girl didn't look quite so shifty.
SARAH: Oh God oh God I can't look but I have to look right now because I have to get on a plane!
SARAH: looks
SARAH: It's... so beautiful...
SARAH: bursts into tears because of the beauty
AN OLDER GENTLEMAN: Are you okay? Are you... homicidally upset?
SARAH (through her tears): This is mine!
OLDER GENTLEMAN (looking at screen): Oh. You're a very talented artist!

It was an understandable misunderstanding.

I think everyone on that plane thought I was a maniac. And then Beth White made the final Piece of Art, and sent said giant piece of art to Random House, and then the art was sent out to be photocopied in a HUGE PHOTOCOPIER, and I spent all my time certain the art was going to be stolen. ('By art-loving aliens?' asked Mallory, having by now a firm grip on my mental processes.)

But the cover wasn't stolen. And it was sent to me in rose red and gold.

And it became clear to me that I wasn't cursed. For it is perhaps my favourite cover, perhaps of anyone's covers at all, let alone mine, perhaps of ALL TIME.

The full jacket (it has art on the front AND the back, because I am the FANCIEST) is going to be revealed on the Booksmugglers blog tomorrow, and you will all see how lucky I am.

Thinkin' About Adaptations

I cross-posted this from tumblr, because Discussions are Important, so... that's why all the pictures. ;)

I remember being still in school, and going to see a movie called Clueless with all my friends. I sat there enjoying myself and then slowly, slowly it started to dawn on me that I KNEW THIS STORY.
SARAH: Guys guys guys! This is Emma! It's Emma!
SARAH'S FRIENDS: What's that? Blithering as usual…

I was the only Jane Austen fiend among my friends. But they certainly started to pay attention when I began whispering the plot twists.

They thought I was psychic.

I am a Jane Austen fiend, and I have watched almost all the adaptations I can think of of her books—but Clueless remains, I think, with some fierce competition from the BBC Pride and Prejudice, my favourite Jane Austen adaptation.

Because I am a writer, and because I am a ferocious reader who goes loopy and starts reading cereal packets without regular books, I think about story a lot—and a lot of stories are riffs off ideas, themes, tropes, and sometimes riffs off specific stories. I generally go to see movies adapted from books because I'm curious about what they're going to do with them. It's fun to see different imaginations shaping a story.

So I watched both Sherlock Holmes films, and I've watched a good bit of Sherlock, too.

I didn't intend to watch 'Elementary,' an American modern version of Sherlock Holmes's adventures, because I'd heard it described as the American version of Sherlock. No, thanks, said I to myself! I am not American, my books aren't American, and I don't see any reason that stories need to be changed just to be American and therefore relatable.

I'm currently at a writing retreat: last year I brought DVDs of a British dark fantasy show called Misfits, and all my Americans loved, loved, loved it. No need to American it up!

But… always a need for a good adaptation.

A rule of good adaptations for me… do something new, do something cool, do something different because you are working in a different space/time/medium/philosophy from the original. Make people have fun and make them think. (Those two goals really should be the goals of all good media, of course…) I mean, one of my long-cherished projects has been to write a modern Pride and Prejudice with a gay storyline.

My new favourite show is an adaptation of a classic story (the Count of Monte Cristo) modern'd up and with a lady lead.











Hello, Revenge.

So yesterday, looking up from my computer where people assumed I was Virtuously Working, I totally blew my cover by announcing 'LUCY LIU JUST GOT CAST AS DR WATSON!'











The doctor's in the house.

And instantly, Casa Writing Retreat to a woman and a man, all of whom are writers or artists (Holly and Theo Black, Paolo Bacigalupi, Cristi Jacques, Cassie Clare, Josh Lewis and me) was in.

Because hey, something new and cool! Something that indicated the people making it were thinking of ways to make it their own, and thus more entertaining. Because if we want the same thing over and over, well, nobody has to go to the bother of making a whole show/movie/writing a book.

Amazing 'rewinding' and 're-reading' technology has been available for ages.

So I happy-clapped and tweeted my joy, and received… mixed responses. And I was entirely freaking confused by said responses.

1) It will be TOO DIFFERENT from and against the spirit of the original.











Oh, okay. I guess that's why everybody hates that show Sherlock, where they moved the story a hundred years in the future and solve so many crimes with modern technology…?

2) It will be just like every other show! Cynical grab for cash!

It will be just like every other show with a lady of colour front and centre? Because there are… so many more of those shows than white guys…? There are so many more ladies of colour who are huge box office draws as compared to those poor white guys?

It will be just like every other show with an interracial couple (platonic or otherwise) front and centre?

Is everyone watching TV in Opposites Land? Can someone give me a TV subscription in Opposites Land? I can think of a couple of shows that fit this description, but very, very few.

Besides which, speaking of being like every other show, it's not like we're short on bromances. Which brings me to my next point…

3) Le Bromance!

Hey, I am all in. I love a bromance. I wrote a whole trilogy devoted to a bromance! I generally like a bromance which also has a lot of time for the ladies, but… bromance. Sure. In. I love friends, I love family, I love people of whatever gender and in whatever relation to each other having loving complicated relationships!











(Aw, look. Those vampire bros love each other.)

But we have, like, out this very year just gone by, two different Sherlock Holmes franchises separately doing the shimmy and crooning along to 'Guy Love.'

Nobody is tearing Starsky & Hutch, Supernatural, Sherlock, the Sherlock Holmes movies, House (which is in fact just another version of Sherlock Holmes, and also centers on the bromance of Two White Guys), need I go on, out of anybody's arms. But a third version of Sherlock 'I Love You Man' Holmes in the space of two years sounds a bit like 'For the Lord's sake whatever you do, it's gotta be all about dudes, all the time!'

And it's not like bromances are doing badly commercially, either.

4) It's… homophobic to cast Lucy Liu as Watson…

I would like media to be less sexist, less racist, and less homophobic.

Having an Asian lady instead of a white dude as a lead character gives me at least some of that.

Less homophobic, well, I don't know yet about Elementary, but Holmes and Watson are not portrayed as openly gay in any adaptation I've seen. You cannot 'straighten up' something that does not contain a gay storyline to begin with! (We don't even know whether or not they are going to put Lady Doctor Watson and Sherlock in a romantic pairing.)

I am all in for Lady Dr Watson/Sherlock True Love if they do it well, and I am in for just friendship. Romance is awesome. Friendships, also awesome.

I've also seen it suggested that Watson had to be cast as a woman because American audiences wouldn't be comfortable with gay subtext. I think that anyone who has seen the Sherlock Holmes films with Robert Downey Jr. and watched more than an episode or two of House will agree that American audiences appear to be fine with gay subtext and Sherlock (in fact, see above point regarding bromances). Both the TV show and the movie are wildly popular successes. I think the creators of this show wanted to do a new thing — not had to, but wanted to. And that's fine.

Gay subtext fine with audiences, who can enjoy it or not notice it… gay text happens less.

I would be all in for gay Sherlock/Watson too! I haven't at any point got it in a movie or a TV show, but I am all in. I own and have read A STUDY IN LAVENDER, a book of short stories where Arthur Conan Doyle's characters are gay. (I recommend it highly.)

I would be all in for girl Sherlock and boy Watson. I would be all in for girl Sherlock and girl Watson.

All those things would be great things to do, but this thing they have done is a great thing to do, too. And I am all in for the girl Watson we have, and I think it's especially cool she's a lady of colour.

I actually saw pictures of the three Watsons, with a note saying 'One of these things is not like the other.'





















One of these things is not like the others? And a good thing too.

To summarise again my Rule For Adaptation: All things new again. Don't do the same thing over and over, do something new with the material… and do it well.

A show with a girl Watson automatically being regarded as going to be worse than a show with a boy Watson… is very close to saying that girls are not as good as boys.

Is Elementary going to be good? I don't know. Maybe not! But something I do know… I'm going to watch it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I thought this was the perfect day to make my Gothic Tuesday (and Secret Sleuth Thursday) post about a book I love, which is both a Gothic and a sleuthin' lady story.

That book is the Woman in White, a story in which an Evil Baronet marries a beautiful innocent young lady, and then to get her money he swaps her out for her doppelganger (possible illegitimate half-sister) who is dying. Real wife goes in the asylum under her doppelganger's identity, fake wife dies and leaves husband to enjoy all her money. He is aided in his plot by an Even More Evil Count, and foiled in his plot by the Beautiful Ingenue's Poor But Virtuous Suitor and Her Feisty Older Sister.

This story is super implausible, but not for the reasons you think.

Wilkie Collins, the author of this book, had at least three personal acquaintances who had actually shut up their actual wives in madhouses with no trouble.

The only time it didn't work out was with the Bulwer-Lyttons.

ROSINA BULWER-LYTTON: I'm very angry with my husband!
DOCTORS: Very angry, eh? And you're a lady. Sounds hysterical to me!
ROSINA BULWER-LYTTON: He let my daughter die in a cheap hotel and wouldn't even let me see her!
DOCTORS: Women! Get all worked up over the least little thing. Well, she definitely seems crazy, throw her in the loony bin.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON: Woo hoo! Everything's coming up EDWARD! Time to run for office!
THE PRESS: Time to dig up dirt!
THE PRESS: … Did you just lock up your wife for literally no reason only five minutes ago?
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON: … Maybe.
DOCTORS: In retrospect our diagnosis of 'crazy' might have been a little hasty. It's possible we meant to write 'cranky' on those reports…
ROSINA BULWER-LYTTON: I am free. And in a shocking turn of events, I am EVEN MORE ANGRY than before.
EDWARD BULWER-LYTTON: Women! Get all worked up over the least little thing.
ENGLAND: Let that be a lesson not to lock up your wife in a madhouse when it's election year.
ENGLAND: Any other year is cool.

So, as you can see, The Woman In White is a Gothic. People taking terrible advantage of innocent young things. Shadow selves that spell disaster. The Right Man and the Wrong Man. The Right House (it's called Limmeridge) and the Wrong House (it's called Blackwater, and might as well be called Fortress of Evil Doompants). Terrible family secrets! Ladies accused of being mad, and wondering if they are actually going mad.

But The Woman In White is not just a Gothic. It has a lady sleuth. It is a TWO FOR ONE.

Very few Gothics do, because the Gothic Heroine is spending so much time running away from danger with speed, or being understandably confused. But The Woman In White has two heroines, the innocent Laura and her half-sister, Marian.

Miss Marian Halcombe is a badass. Nobody is stealing her sister's identity and locking her up in a loony bin on Marian's watch.

But we open with our hero. Tragically, we only have one of those. His name is Walter.

WALTER: I am a drawing master offered the chance to go down to a country house and teach two young ladies how to draw. Hope they'll be hot. Hot and rich.
PESCA: I am the Italian friend who offered Walter this chance!
WALTER: Heh, yeah. He's my friend. Heh, ITALIANS. He's so short, and he thinks he can play sports like Englishmen can! He tried to swim and I had to rescue him, of course. Not hearty and athletic like the sons of England! Foreigners are hilarious!
PESCA: My pal the xenophobe. You should totally marry one of these hot ladies down the country and be rich. Marry up, buddy!
WALTER: I find your ideas compelling, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

ANNE CATHERICK: Hi I am a strange lady dressed all in white who's going to creepily creep up on you in the dead of night!
WALTER: Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhh! Are you a GHOST?
ANNE CATHERICK: No, dude. Pull yourself together. I'm just escaping from a madhouse.
WALTER: Oh, that's all right then.
WALTER: Hang on a minute. Come again?
ANNE CATHERICK: Hail a cab for me, would you, buddy?
WALTER: Well. I guess it's wrong to lock sane ladies up in madhouses. And this lady is touching my arm. It's kind of sexy.
WALTER: Taxi!
ANNE CATHERICK: You're a gent.

WALTER: Well here I am at breakfast in Limmeridge House. Hope breakfast will be… hot.
LADY'S BACK VIEW: *is very promising*
WALTER: I like big butts and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with an itty bitty waist
And a round thing in your face
You get sprung!

LADY'S FRONT VIEW: Hi, I'm Marian.
WALTER: DEAR GOD WHAT IS THAT THING.
MARIAN: Hey, so while you were standing around admiring my ass—
WALTER: Her jaw's all firm, and she doesn't even look gentle, and ugh, what, is that—does she almost have a mustache, upper lip too downy, may day, may day, too downy-
MARIAN: --thought I'd introduce myself—
WALTER: Oh God, why wouldst thou waste dat ass on such a face. DAT ASS.
MARIAN: And your name is?
AUDIENCE: This is Walter 'Asshole' Hartright.

MARIAN: So I've been brought up by society to believe women are terrible, although from what I can see dudes are all terrible too, and I love my half-sister but I am desperate to talk to an intellectual equal! Seriously, I have low self esteem because I'm not hot and I'm poor and I'm a lady, therefore the world has informed me I am worthless, but oddly I'm super smart and I enjoy intelligent conversation, so do you think we could get along?
WALTER: … I do like the low self esteem. Shows proper thinking.
MARIAN: … Good enough.
WALTER: And you have an old governess who I'm going to be dismissing, hell, old women, ugly women, what are you people even for. Where is your sister?
MARIAN: Upstairs with a headache. She's delicate, as ladies should be.
WALTER: So she's the hot one.
MARIAN: And the rich one.
WALTER: Your information interests me, and I'd like to subscribe to your newsletter.

MARIAN: Here's my sister painting under the trees…
WALTER: Please be hot please be hot please be hot—
LAURA: I'm hot!
WALTER: Praise the Lord!
LAURA: And gullible.
WALTER: Oh yeah, baby, this just keeps getting better.

WALTER: Let me tell you about this mysterious thing that happened to me with a mad lady, Marian. She totally mentioned this house.
MARIAN: You did totally right to help that girl escape! Liberty! Also, a mystery? I'm going to SLEUTH! I've got all my mom's letters and I've worked out who the girl is. Anything else you can think that's weird about Anne Catherick and related to us?
WALTER: Something… connected to Laura… something, like maybe… on the tip of my tongue. No, it's gone.
MARIAN: Anything about Anne Catherick basically being a clone of Laura?
WALTER: Damn! You're right! They look the exact same!
MARIAN: … That one just got by you, huh, Walter?
WALTER: But Laura's the hot one. That's right, Laura baby, you're the hot clone! *finger guns*
LAURA: *blushes*

WALTER: Oh lovely days at Limmeridge, where I get to touch Laura's hair and her hand and listen to her play music and look down her dress. I love Laura so truly!
AUDIENCE: Do you ever talk to her?
WALTER: No! Silly audience. Marian's the one for talking to.

MARIAN: So I can't help noticing you and Laura are in love with each other.
WALTER: Mayyyybe.
MARIAN: Buddy, in the world we live in, my sister's life would not be improved by marrying penniless drawing masters. But more importantly, she's totally engaged.
WALTER: What is there to do?
MARIAN: Four letters. Believe me when I say, GTFO.
WALTER: Oh my lost love!
MARIAN: Yes. Very touching. Don't let the door hit you on the way OUT.

ANNE CATHERICK: Dear Laura, don't marry Sir Percy Fiend. He's a bad guy and totally locked me up in a madhouse against my will because I know a dark secret about him. Signed, someone anonymous but maybe dressed in white.
WALTER: I like this anonymous letter writer's style. Let's corner this frightened mentally disabled woman in a graveyard and get the secret out of her!
MARIAN: … I'm going back to the house.
WALTER: Tell me the secret, or I'll think you belong in a madhouse!
ANNE CATHERICK: And I'm out!
WALTER: I think I said something to upset her, but I'm not sure what.
MARIAN: You're not exactly detective material, are you?

WALTER: This is a pickle, Marian! What are we going to do?
MARIAN: You're gonna scram. Go on, get out of here, buddy. Marian's on the case.

WALTER: I'm out!
SIR PERCY MCEVIL: I'm in!

MARIAN: Kindly lawyer friend, has Sir Percy Devilface ever struck you as kind of sketch?
KINDLY LAWYER FRIEND: Nope! Though the fact he wants to have all Laura's cash left to him and no-one else on her death is a little gross.
LAURA'S UNCLE: Let him have the cash! Dudes love cash! And you know what else dudes love? Peace and quiet. I'm really hoping Sir Percy Villainous Countenance will take both these broads off my hands.
KINDLY LAWYER FRIEND: But maybe Laura's thoughts on the subject matter?
LAURA'S UNCLE: Thoughts? I was not aware ladies were allowed to have those!

LAURA: I'm going to tell Sir Percy Cruelpants that I will marry him, but I love another, so he won't want to marry me.
MARIAN: Well, he will if he doesn't give a crap about your feelings, though?
LAURA: Nonsense, I'm sure this will work out awesome. Sir Percy Blackheart, I love someone else and I don't wanna marry you. Still want to marry me?
SIR PERCY RIDICULOUSLY EVIL: Still rich?
LAURA: Yes.
SIR PERCY THE PERFIDIOUS: Then yes.
LAURA: … That did not go the way it did in my head.

MARIAN: Seriously though, does anyone else have a bad feeling about Sir Percy Monsterface?
KINDLY LAWYER FRIEND: Nope. Seems a great guy.
LAURA'S UNCLE: True blue. Solid gold.
MARIAN: Got a lot of debts, though?
KINDLY LAWYER FRIEND: Uh, that's what Laura's fortune is for, silly.
LAURA'S UNCLE: I don't think of them as 'debts' so much as 'wise investments in tons of loose women and alcohol.'
MARIAN: Bit old for Laura, though?
KINDLY LAWYER FRIEND: Nah, he's matured like a fine wine.
LAURA'S UNCLE: Yeah, the dude's a silver fox.
KINDLY LAWYER FRIEND: So the wedding's on?
LAURA'S UNCLE: On like Donkey Kong!
MARIAN: You got anything to say at this point, Laura?
LAURA: Nothing matters anymore. Don't bother me while I'm listening to the Smiths.
LAURA'S PET POODLE: Woof woof pure evil woof!
MARIAN: … Well, you're no help.

MARIAN: All you have to do is tell me to go down there and tell Sir Percy, Baronet and Supreme Gitface, that you're not marrying him. Seriously, just say the word. I will go down there and I will rain down UNHOLY FIRE.
LAURA: Alas, I must marry him, I am doomed forevermore.
MARIAN: I'll set fire to his wig, then I'll set fire to his carriage, then I'll set fire to the church. Just say the word. The word can be 'Fire.'
LAURA: I can't upset my uncle and Sir Percy Demonface by acting as if my thoughts and wishes matter, Marian. Just think of how distressed and perhaps even inconvenienced they might be!
MARIAN: I ain't care. Marian don't give a … fig.
LAURA: Marian!
MARIAN: Look out the window, Laura. See that dot on the horizon? It is the last fig I give.

LAURA: Goodbye, Marian. See you when I get back from my honeymoon. I'm so sad I'm not poor and ugly like you, so nobody wanted to marry me.
MARIAN: Yeah, my life is endless sunshine. Good talk.
LAURA: I'm so, so sad, Marian. And so hot. I'm so, so hot. You could never understand.

LAURA: I'm finally back from honeymoon Marian! Turns out marrying a dude who was pure evil, and who I did not love or wish to marry, was kind of a bad decision!
MARIAN: Oh Laura. I love you, but you are not the brightest jewel in the Royal Treasury. Yo, Sir Percy, still evil?
SIR PERCY STILL TOTALLY EVIL: You betcha. Meet Count Fosco, my best friend, and his Countess, Laura's aunt!
MARIAN: Hey, Auntie Kind Of, didn't you used to support women's rights and want the vote?
COUNTESS FOSCO: Well, sure, before my husband brainwashed me! Silly Marian!
MARIAN: Awesome. And this dude is a count, so let's just start with the baseline assumption that he's evil. Or a vampire. Or an evil vampire.
COUNT FOSCO: Good assumption.
MARIAN: What a lovely house party at the Fortress of Evil Doompants this is shaping up to be.

COUNT FOSCO: I am fat and jolly and I love animals!
MARIAN: So you're not evil…?
COUNT FOSCO: Hey sweet thing, what do you think about crime?
MARIAN: It's wrong. Why, what do you think about crime?
COUNT FOSCO: It pays.
MARIAN: I'm just gonna go.
COUNT FOSCO: Hate to see you go. Loooove to watch you leave.

SIR PERCIVAL LOTS OF SHADY DEBTS: How would it be if you signed this piece of paper I won't let you read, Laura?
MARIAN: How would it be if I hit you over the head with this large ornate vase, and/or threw you out one of the windows on the upper floors?
LAURA: I think my sister is trying to hint to me that I shouldn't sign this. I'm not sure about that, though. I'm not very good at hints.

MARIAN: Imma get me some legal advice. Sneaky like.
LAURA: Imma go outside and hang with Anne Catherick, listening to hints about my husband's dark secrets, until he finds me!
MARIAN: … I cannot leave you alone for one minute.

SIR PERCIVAL GUILTY FRENZY: How would it be if I insulted Marian, called Laura a whore and then locked her in her room, and then ran around the house yelling 'Nobody will ever know my dark secret!'
COUNT FOSCO: Percy! Percy, I have nothing against evil, but I have two serious problems with your behavior! One, it is not sneaky.
SIR PERCY THE WORST: I'm going to lock up Marian as well.
MARIAN: Oh please try.
COUNT FOSCO: Which brings me to two, Marian is going to CUT US. She is going to take us to the cleaner's, and the cleaner's is located downtown, which is where she will be taking us. Down. To China town. Can I get confirmation on this? Marian, what are you planning to do?
MARIAN: Cut you.
COUNT FOSCO: … Just let Laura out of her room.

SIR PERCIVAL SHOWING HIS TRUE COLORS: But Laura knows my secret and she has to be silenced and—
COUNT FOSCO: Let's talk about silencing your wife forever in the dark, in the library, where Marian can't hear us.
SIR PERCIVAL NOT EXACTLY MACHIAVELLI: And the library is…
COUNT FOSCO: I'll draw you a map.

MARIAN: I'm going to sneak over the roofs to eavesdrop on the gents on the verandah.
MARIAN: And I'm going to dress like a NINJA to do it.
MARIAN: And by 'ninja' I mean, I'm going to wear… but a SINGLE petticoat. Of a dark color! Can't see me. Can't hear me. Quick as a cat!

COUNT FOSCO: So let's examine the facts. We are evil. Laura is an idiot. Marian is a fierce and foxy lady who loves your idiot wife, which is bad luck for us. She is an obstacle in my path though an ornament to my eyes. Man, that ass, you know what I'm saying? My anaconda don't want none unless you've got buns hon.
SIR PERCY (NOT AN ASS MAN): On task.
COUNT FOSCO: Okay! We both want cash, and yet, we do not want Marian to cut us. How about poisoning Laura?
SIR PERCY WHOA THAT'S A LITTLE EVIL EVEN FOR SIR PERCY: Look, I am not entirely comfortable with actually poisoning my actual wife. Also, we have a problem with this crazy sickly clone of my wife who is spreading my dark secret everywhere.
COUNT FOSCO: Your wife has a crazy sickly clone?... Interesting.

MARIAN: I wonder what fiendish plan they are hatching? Well, I've recorded their whole evil conversation, despite getting soaked through, and I'm determined to foil them.
MARIAN: … I'm a dedicated sleuth. I'm hot-blooded. Check it and see. I got a fever of a hundred and three.
MARIAN: … Crud I really do have a fever.
COUNT FOSCO: Dear Marian, Your diary is great reading! Bad luck about the fever, it really has made my evil plans go a lot more smoothly. P.S. Nice ass.

LAURA: I must help nurse Marian!
HOUSEKEPER: Yes, Laura, but the thing is…
LAURA: I am so distressed about Marian I might have hysterics! I feel all faint! I'm coming over all dizzy. Imma swoon!
HOUSEKEEPER: You are useless and annoying. That's the thing.

LAURA: I am laid up ill due to anxiety over Marian!
HOUSEKEEPER: That's very helpful, Laura. So Marian is nowhere to be seen.
LAURA: I shall collapse again some more!
HOUSEKEEPER: … Your assistance is invaluable, Laura.

LAURA: So let me get this straight. You're saying Marian got up from her almost-deathbed to go talk to my uncle about letting me stay at his place because our marriage is a disaster?
SIR PERCY THE UNCONVINCING LIAR: Eheheheheheh. You know that Marian. She's a pistol!
LAURA: I must go see Marian!
SIR PERCY THE REALLY UNCONVINCING LIAR: That's in no way part of my evil plan.

HOUSEKEEPER: Hey Marian. Wait a second, Marian hasn't left the house and you tricked Laura into going to London?
SIR PERCY THE TRULY GODAWFUL LIAR: Certainly not so we could switch Laura and her dying clone!
HOUSEKEEPER: This is some dodgy business. I quit, and in retrospect I should never have taken a job at the Fortress of Evil Doompants.

WALTER: I've come back from many daring adventures abroad, which I can't really describe at this time because writing me as a resourceful survivor would mess with the audience's suspension of disbelief.
WALTER: I still totally love Laura!
WALTER: And I hear she's dead.
WALTER: That is such a bummer. Oh Laura, baby. You were so hot. And we could totally have had a conversation. You know. Someday.

WALTER: Here I am at Laura's grave. Oh girl, miss you. You weren't all that bright, but you were a sweet kid. And when I think of all the talks we—wait, that was Marian. And when I think of the times we solved myst—no, Marian. And that joke you told that made me laugh until I peed a little—nope, Marian again. Never mind. Great face, girl. Great face.
MARIAN: Hi Walter.
WALTER: Oh my God, Marian! You are EVEN LESS HOT than you used to be! Girl, what happened, why have you not been moisturizing?
MARIAN: Still a charmer, I see.
WALTER: Oh my God, Laura! You're alive! That's the good news! The bad news is that you are also less hot.
MARIAN & LAURA: …
WALTER: What have you been up to, girls?
MARIAN: Well…
WALTER: Because I gotta tell you, you ladies clearly have not been at the beauty parlor.

EVERYONE ELSE, IN THE PAST: Sorry your sister's dead, Marian.
MARIAN: There's much more to all this than there appears.
EVERYONE ELSE: What are you going to do about it, Marian?
MARIAN: I'm going to SLEUTH YOUR BRAINS OUT.

MARIAN: I have located the asylum where Anne Catherick is being kept.
LAURA: Marian!
MARIAN: Laura! Holy crap they switched you with your dying clone and trapped you in a madhouse!
LAURA: They sure did! What can we possibly do about this terrible situation? I'm going to have hysterics.
MARIAN: I'm going to plan a jailbreak.

MARIAN: So I plotted, bribed a nurse, broke Laura out of the asylum, and demanded her uncle help us get justice.
LAURA'S UNCLE: That seems like a lot of hassle. Seems like Laura being dead would be easier for everyone.
MARIAN: I do not agree.
LAURA'S UNCLE: Seems like you're a lady and you don't count.

WALTER: This is terrible! Don't worry, Laura, Marian, I'll handle everything!
MARIAN: Yeah, I've been doing so badly handling things. See also: jailbreak.
WALTER: Sweet helpless ladies. Let's all get a house together. Marian will do all the housework and I'll earn the money.
LAURA: I am useless!
WALTER: Baby, that's been true this whole time, I don't know why it's bothering you now.
LAURA: You're going to start liking Marian more than me!
AUDIENCE: We have all been expecting that to happen for hundreds of pages, yes.
WALTER: Baby, baby listen to me. I like useless chicks. Total incompetence at life gets me hot.
LAURA: I am legitimately frustrated with my situation, do not patronize me!
WALTER: How about I patronize you by pretending that your art is good enough to buy, and deceiving you into believing you are contributing to the household?
LAURA: I suppose that would be okay if I never found out about it…

COUNT FOSCO: Hey sexy mama, no sleuthing and you can keep ur sister. Capisce?
WALTER: Capisce?
MARIAN: … He means deal.
WALTER: Italians are so confusing.

WALTER: But we'll never submit to his evil threats! Let's find out Sir Percy's dark secret.
MARIAN: And blackmail him with it to get Laura re-established.
WALTER: You know, I just meant because then we could give him the finger, but your plan is way better. I'm going to talk to Anne Catherick's mom and get the secrets out of her through sweet-talkin'!
MARIAN: Sweet-talking? You?
WALTER: What's your point?
MARIAN: Maybe I better go with you…
WALTER: Marian honestly I am going to be JUST FINE WITHOUT YOU.

WALTER: Maybe I should wear, like, a fake mustache on my sleuthing mission. No, wait, disguises are for sneaks and foreigners.
AUDIENCE: Walter, worst sleuth ever. Marian dressed like a ninja.

WALTER: Sooo. You feel like telling me Sir Percy Evilpants's secrets to a total stranger?
MRS CATHERICK: Nope!
WALTER: Well, damn.
WALTER: I hear Sir Percy McJerkface was lurking around a church so I'll go check out the church…
THUGS: *assault Walter*
WALTER AND THUGS: *put in jail*
SIR PERCY, MOFO TO THE END: *tries to burn down a church, gets stuck in it*
CHURCH: *burns*
SIR PERCY THE DOOMED EVIL IDIOT: *also burns*

WALTER: OMG let me see this burned disfigured corpse!
WALTER: Well, that's a relief.
VILLAGER: Was he… an enemy of yours?
WALTER: Yes, but the thing is that Laura is like a 7, and he's like a 4. She's so out of his league!
VILLAGERS: Okay, Walter 'Shallow Jerk' Hartright.
AUDIENCE: Way ahead of you, villagers.

MRS CATHERICK: Hi Walter. So, I totally hated Have Mercy Sir Percy, and I am into the fact you assassinated him.
WALTER: Listen, lady, I assure you that I am totally incapable of successfully planning a picnic, let alone an assassination.
MRS CATHERICK: Baby, let me tell you, if I was a little younger, you'd be like 'Rock me momma like a wagon wheel, rock me momma any way you feel' and you'd have been into it. But time and gravity have not been kind, bits are sagging, you're a shallow jerk, and so I'm just going to tell you that Sir Percy was actually not Sir Percy at all. His parents were never married, he forged an fake marriage record in that church, and that was his guilty secret. Enjoy your gossip, babe, and if you want to come to tea for scones and a little afternoon delight, it's on.

WALTER: Well, even if Sir Percy wasn't already dead, I could never have blackmailed him over THAT. That would've been wrong.
AUDIENCE: Wuss. Marian would've done it.

WALTER: Hey Marian, hey Laura, my mission was a complete failure!
MARIAN: Imagine my surprise.
WALTER: How come you guys moved house?
MARIAN: Oh, the Count totally caught us. I kept it from Laura with my ninja moves.
WALTER: What stuff did the Count say to you?
MARIAN: 'Wanna love you up and down girl, would give it to you daily and nightly and ever so rightly…'
WALTER: What relevant stuff did the Count say to you?
MARIAN: Basically he was giving us one more chance. He said it was unbearable to think of upsetting a lady, especially a lady with such fine junk in such an outstanding trunk.
WALTER: Whoa. But has he, like, noticed the mustache?
MARIAN: Walter, and I say this with love, STFU.
WALTER: So did you cut him?
MARIAN: Tempted, but I didn't want to make a fuss and alert Laura. So he said 'Forever, my love, hail and farewell and I'd love to tap that ass' and I said 'Okay good talk…'
WALTER: Well, we'll get him.
MARIAN: Exactly how?
WALTER: I have not worked that out yet…

WALTER: I must wait to speak of my love.
MARIAN: Until Laura is independent of you, and you can be sure she is making her own decisions?
WALTER: No! Until she is hot again. And she's looking pretty good right about now…
WALTER: Laura, I'm not sure how to put this, because we've never actually had a conversation.
LAURA: Walter, I also find this situation awkward.
MARIAN: Oh for God's sake. Laura, Walter likes it and he'd like to put a ring on it.
LAURA AND WALTER: Oh sweet sweet love! And sweet sweet never talking about it.

PESCA: Remember me, the Italian friend from the start of the book?
WALTER: Only when I need something! So look, you're Italian, you guys all know each other, right?
PESCA: Uh, no…?
WALTER: Do you know this evil count?
PESCA: Uh, well… coincidentally yes.
WALTER: Awesome! And you're Italian, so you have mob connections, right?
PESCA: Not necessarily!... But coincidentally yes.
WALTER: Could you take out a hit on him?
PESCA: Walter! … Okay, yes.

WALTER: I'm going to go visit Count Fosco and put the fear of the mob into him.
MARIAN: Imma come with you.
WALTER: No way, little lady.
MARIAN: But you said we were a team…
WALTER: Lied like a rug!
MARIAN: … Eff you, Walter.

COUNT FOSCO: Okay, since the alternative is being killed by the mob, I'm going to write a confession of everything I did to Laura. Boy did I do a lot! Boy am I evil! But I have awesome taste in women. And one more thing…?
WALTER: Are you sorry for any of it?
COUNT FOSCO: Lord no. But Miss Halcombe the Hotass. You gotta cherish her, buddy. That ass is an ass of immortal gorgeousness. She should get that bronzed.

WALTER: Sadly for Count Fosco, the mob totally iced him anyway.
LAURA: And my identity was re-established.

LAURA: Amazing news, honey bunny sweetiepie munchkin, my uncle is dead and we are rich, baby, rich!
MARIAN: And I will never marry and stay with you guys forever, because I'm afraid you fall down and hurt yourselves when I'm not looking.
WALTER: And so I end my tale with both the rich hot lady I want to bang, and the awesome lady I want to talk to. Woo-hoo! Everything's coming up Walter!
AUDIENCE: … Eff you, Walter.

The great thing about The Woman In White is that Wilkie Collins received a huge bunch of letters from gentlemen describing their position in life and fine estates, and asking who the lady Marian Halcombe was based on was, and whether she would accept their hands in marriage.

Lord Edward Fitzgerald, Irish aristocrat and revolutionary, called his yacht Marian Halcombe 'after the brave girl in the story.'

Dudes went CRAZY for Marian. People sneer at ladies for loving Edward in Twilight, but loving a fictional character is not just for ladies.

Holly Black's advice on romance is "You cannot date a boy in a book. But you can date a boy who LOVES BOOKS. And that is what you should do. Because he will prioritize not just reading but also the things about books that make fictional boys appealing. A sense of romance and adventure and narrative drive. He is probably looking for someone from a book too."

So I feel The Woman In White does a lot of stuff, but the two things I took away: seeing a girl not running, not scared, not trapped, but trying to figure all the crazy Gothical stuff out, was AWESOME.

And guys can love an imaginary lady.

This is why a sleuthing lady and a boy who lives and loves people largely in his imagination are the stars of Unspoken.

Cagefight With Your Shadow Self: Who Will Be The Mistress of Mellyn?

In the spirit of the new year, I thought we could take on one of the first modern Gothics!

ELEANOR HIBBERT: I am a bestselling author under the names Jean Plaidy and Philippa Carr, but I want to pick a new name and be an even BIGGER bestseller.
PUBLISHER: Lady, we like your style. Have you noticed that this book REBECCA has literally never been out of print? Do you realise that the publishers of REBECCA probably have so much money that instead of hot stone massages they get gold coin massages. 'Oooh,' they say. 'Feels so affluent it stings a little!'
PUBLISHER: … We dream of being that publisher.
ELEANOR HIBBERT: I dream of being that author. I'm gonna call myself Victoria Holt, after my bank. Because someday I'll have so much money people will think they called the bank after ME.
PUBLISHER: … Oh Victoria. If only they were all like you. Please write a book like REBECCA.

So Victoria Holt wrote THE MISTRESS OF MELLYN, which was designed to be like REBECCA and also came out quite a lot like JANE EYRE. It came out in 1961, and Victoria Holt and Mary Stewart (who we'll be hearing about… another time…) are generally considered the mamas of the modern Gothic.

READERS: 1961? Modern Gothic?
SARAH: It's what they called it at the time, I don't know. Anyway… modern compared to 1860…

THE MISTRESS OF MELLYN opens as:

Martha Leigh is sitting on a train depressed about going to be a governess in a Gothic manor. As well she might. No good awaits her.

PETER NANSELLOCK: Your name is Martha Leigh. You are going to a house called Mellyn.
MARTHA: Gasp! Can you read…
PETER: The future? Your mind? Maybe.
MARTHA: … Luggage labels? Ass.
MARTHA: Oh well, I am a Gothic heroine. I should be grateful the flirty fake fortune teller wasn't crossdressing.

ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Welcome to Mellyn, humble governess! You may be wondering who all these people are. Well, the master is not here on account of he goes off on 'business trips.'
MARTHA: The Ho Tour of Europe?
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Possible. Also possible that it is the Brood Tour of Europe. Sometimes he sends back pictures being like 'Here I am in Venice. :( '
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: The mistress, Alice, is not here on account of being dead. As is, of course, standard.
MARTHA: Sure.

ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: This is Alvean, the troubled daughter of the house! This is Gilly, my mute illegitimate granddaughter whose mom committed the suicides! And these are some trampy maids.
TRAMPY MAIDS: Tee hee.
MARTHA: Judgin' you.
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Oh well, even if the maids can't keep their hands off the stable boys, at least they can keep their hands off the valuables! The last governess was dismissed for stealing. We'll all be keeping an eye on you, Miss Potentially Sticky Paws.

ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Here is Celestine Nansellock, the sister of the weirdo fortune teller you met on the train and the dead mistress's best friend! She lives next door.
MARTHA: Well, at least someone called Celestine has to be trustworthy…
CELESTINE: Still super upset about Alice's mysterious and terrible death!
MARTHA: Wait, her what?
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Spot of whisky, dear?

PETER: Awesome to meet you out in the woods! I love to harass women in a variety of locations.
MARTHA: … Charmed.
PETER: Having fun at Mellyn? It's a little awkward that my brother Geoffrey ran off with the mistress and then they both died in a big train explosion, but other than that we all get on pretty well.
MARTHA: Wait, ran off with who? Train explosion what?
PETER: Of course the question is, was the body found exploded beyond recognition actually Alice's?
MARTHA: …
PETER: So nice to chit-chat! Welcome to the neighborhood!
MARTHA: I sense something weird is going on here. I'm very intuitive like that.

CONNAN TREMELLYN: Hello, I am the master of Mellyn, and my face always looks like this. :(
MARTHA: Scowly dudes really get me hot beneath the petticoat, and so I'm going to assume you're having it off with the trampy maids!
TRAMPY MAIDS: Tee hee.
CONNAN: So how's the kid's education going? :(
MARTHA: Get away from me, you IMMORAL SEDUCER!
CONNAN: … :(

ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Wondering how Gilly the Illegitimate went all mute and funny in the head? Oh, the dead mistress was out riding and she basically rode over the kid. Horse hoof right in the brain pan!
MARTHA: Not medically advised.
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: And now the mistress's daughter is super scared of riding! Nobody knows why!
MARTHA: … Yes. That is a puzzle.
MARTHA: … Could I trouble you for a spot more whisky?
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: I like you, girl. You are what we all wanted in a governess. Respectful to your elders. Good with the children. Secret tippler.

LADY FOXYPANTS: Hiiii I'm super hot.
ALVEAN: Hate you.
MARTHA: Hate you even more than the trampy maids.
TRAMPY MAIDS: Tee hee.
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Yeah, she's an actress married to an old dude who lives across the way.
MARTHA: Say no more, I already assumed she was of loose morals because she was so super fine.
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Yeah, I ain't sayin' she's a gold digger, but… wait, that's exactly what I'm saying. Sorry, still drunk.

MARTHA: Come on Alvean, I'm going to teach you to horse-ride!
ALVEAN: I was hoping you'd neglect me while mooning after my dad, as is standard!
MARTHA: That's the dream, Alvean, but unfortunately these days people have all these newfangled notions about 'taking care of the children' and 'at a bare minimum, making sure they don't die.' Silly fuss! Let me just put on your mom's horseriding clothes.
CELESTINE: ALICE BACK FROM THE GRAVE!!!! NOOOOOOOO!!!!!
MARTHA: Is that you Celestine? Haha, she fell down. What a funny story. Someone fetch the medicinal brandy... and bring it to me.

ALVEAN: I BROKE MY ARM.
MARTHA: Well, you didn't die of the typhus, did you? So it's all fine! We even got you MEDICAL ATTENTION.
ALVEAN: …
MARTHA: Every luxury showered on you. Lucky girl.

CONNAN: Is the kid okay? She's not dead, is she? For once my face is entirely appropriate. : (
MARTHA: Dude, has it occurred to you that this is the 1900s? You can't just neglect children anymore!
CONNAN: No. It literally never occurred to me before this moment when you pointed it out that a motherless child, who I have raised from the day she was born, might need affection or attention.
MARTHA: Are you being SARCASTIC?
CONNAN: No, seriously. I am Gothically handsome, but none too bright. : (
MARTHA: Oh you big hot gloomy hot doofus. I love you.

GREAT-AUNT: Want to sit down and have a drink with me, Martha?
MARTHA: Boy do I!
GREAT-AUNT: So, funny story: Alvean was Geoffrey Nansellock's kid and not Connan's at all!
MARTHA: That explains so much about Connan's parenting. And his face.
GREAT-AUNT: You want me to pour you another glass of dandelion wine?
MARTHA: If you would be so kind as to pass me the entire bottle.

HEROINE'S SISTER: Sending you a plot-convenient hot dress! PS Remember dudes hate sassy ladies. Zip it! PS Not the dress. Unzip that whenever.

ALVEAN: Arrrrrrrgghhhhh Mommy's ghost!
MARTHA: Just me, sweetie, dressed fancy in this plot-convenient dress! It's hilarious how people keep mistaking me for your dead mom, isn't it?
ALVEAN: Hilarious. Can I have a soothing drink?
MARTHA: Best not. You're eight.

PETER: Here is a pretty pony as a token of my affections.
CONNAN: Here are some lovely diamonds as a token of my affections.
MARTHA: Dudes keep giving me horses and diamonds! I wish they'd give me something useful like a hip flask.

GHOST ALICE: You look great, Marty. You look super fly in that dress. I totally think my husband has the hots for you. Hit that like a gong!
MARTHA: Ghostly visitations. So weirdly supportive.

MARTHA: At last all my dreams have come true! I am the prettiest girl at the prom! I'm going to be homecoming queen!
CONNAN: ???? : (
MARTHA: Or some Gothic equivalent of same.
PETER: May I have this dance?
CONNAN: I kiss you!
GUESTS AT BALL: Are you Team Peter or Team Connan? Is there a place to buy a T-shirt?
MARTHA: Come on, wrestling match in fountain… come on…

ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Oh no, Sir Thomas Foxypants has died on his way home from our ball! I bet Connan and Lady Foxypants will soon be wed.
MARTHA: … Buzzkill. Is anyone using this tray of drinks? No? Good.

GILLY: Hey dead Alice.
MARTHA: You people are laugh riots! I'm going to go up to my room and find something to drink! Maybe paint thinner!

CONNAN: Hey sexy, thinking about you, come visit me at another of my houses. I have loads of them. My estates are extensive. I know how the Gothic ladies like that. Yours, C.
MARTHA: I believe your letter meant to imply I should visit with both the children?
CONNAN: Uh… sure. How about we have a candelit dinner and I talk to you about… wait for it… architecture.
MARTHA: Oh my. You do know the way to a Gothic heroine's heart!
CONNAN: Some houses are built into the shape of an 'E' for Queen Elizabeth. Yeah, baby. How do you like me now?
MARTHA: This improper conversation has left me all weak about the knees. If you talk about buttresses, I shall swoon.

CONNAN: These are the actual words of my proposal, from the actual book. 'I want to marry you because I want to keep you a prisoner in my house.'
MARTHA: Hotttt.
CONNAN: Your mouth says no but your eyes say yes.
MARTHA: Incorrect, my sexy presumptuous friend! My mouth ain't saying no.
CONNAN AND MARTHA: *make out*

MARTHA: But tell me, Connan, I need some reassurance. Are you a ho?
CONNAN: I am a ho fo' sho'. I have been with like every lady in-
MARTHA: Uh—great. Have you been with Lady Foxypants?
CONNAN: I banged her like a screen door in a hurricane many, many times. Many, many-
MARTHA: Okay, good talk! Very reassuring.

MARTHA: I'm going to be the mistress of Mellyn.
GILLY: Yay dead Alice!
MARTHA: You know what? Sure. Fine. Someone pass me the brandy.

ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: So word is that Connan and Lady Foxypants murdered Sir Thomas Foxypants and he's marrying you to evade suspicion and like, hanging and stuff.
MARTHA: You still got that whisky?
ELDERLY HOUSEKEEPER: Maybe we should save it for after the autopsy.
MARTHA: By then I'm planning to be on the opium.

CELESTINE: Oh my gosh you're marrying Connan.
MARTHA: Oh my gosh you're crying. You're such a good friend to be so thrilled for me!

PETER: So if you change your mind about marrying Connan for any reason—such as, a shot in the dark here, just throwing this out there—he's a murderer in love with Lady Foxypants who killed his wife and her husband? Consider me still in this love triangle.
MARTHA: What's that? Have some more wine? Don't mind if I do!

GILLY: Come look at this
MARTHA: Oooh, pretty architecture, thanks, kiddo.
GILLY: What is WITH the people in this house? I'm like 'HEY, LOOK AT THIS PEEP HOLE OF DEATH' and they're like 'So many fancy fittings!'
MARTHA: I especially like the crenellation of doom on the ceiling. Look, child!
GILLY: … I want a drink.

MARTHA: So if Connan and Lady Foxypants killed Alice, and Sir Thomas, are they going to kill me? I wonder how? Oh my God, what if they poisoned the whisky? Those MONSTERS!
MARTHA: Oh well. In actual words taken from the actual book, 'I do love him. So much that I would rather meet death at his hands than leave him.'
READERS: … Oh, Martha. Drunk again.

EX-GOVERNESS ACCUSED OF STEALING: Hi Martha. I am totally innocent of the crime I was accused of.
MARTHA: I bet Lady Foxypants framed you.
EX-GOVERNESS: Sure. Celestine was also there the whole time. Also Celestine got me this new job.
MARTHA: She's a peach.
EX-GOVERNESS: Celestine and I are both super interested in architecture.
MARTHA: Let's face it, we're ladies in a Gothic novel, who isn't a little bit hot for houses?
EX-GOVERNESS: You'd better tell her all about how the peep hole at Mount Mellyn is actually a priest hole!
MARTHA: Okay. I'm so glad we've got off the boring subject of murder and adultery, and we're talking about truly fascinating stuff like architecture. Waiter, more drinks! You, tell me all you know about… renovations…

CELESTINE: Hi Martha. I hear that Sir Thomas Foxypants died of natural causes! Great news, huh?
MARTHA: Sure, sure, but more importantly, did you know our peep hole might be actually a priest hole, for priests to hide in? Weird, right?
CELESTINE: That is totally new information to me! Let's go investigate at once!
MARTHA: Boy, something in this priest hole smells awful, like someone got buried alive in here and rotted for a year.
CELESTINE: That is totally new information to me!
DOOR: slam.

MARTHA: Celestine? Celestine, I think the door fell sh… Oh. Oh, right. I see. Oh spit.
DEAD ALICE: …
MARTHA: Buried alive, I see. What's that like?
DEAD ALICE: You are about to find out.
MARTHA: So far I'm not a fan. I don't suppose you have a drink on you?
DEAD ALICE: …

GILLY: Come quickly she's been buried alive!
CONNAN: What's that little girl? Timmy's in the well?
GILLY: Your latest girlfriend has been buried alive in your HOUSE OF DEATH, just like the last one was!
CONNAN: Well, one must humour the children… oh my God, hey baby! Sweetie, don't worry, Connan's here! Connan to the rescue!
GILLY: Connan to the rescue? Gilly's getting a drink.

MARTHA: And that was how I was saved from being a governess and also being buried alive, very similar things. Before she went conveniently mad and was shut up forever—that's what you gotta do with mad ladies--Celestine confessed that she wanted to marry Connan—because she was hot for his house, not because she was warm for his form, which let that be a lesson to all of us! You've got to at least pretend to be into the dude as well. Connan and I had a ton of kids, and also a ton of fights where I accused him of being faithful! LOL, you know what I am saying? And here comes Gilly with the drinks, because what better payment for saving my life is there than for her to serve me forever? … Gilly, over here! Heavy on the gin, light on the tonic.
Governesses, brooding dudes, jealousy, big big houses, people getting buried alive. The usual Gothic stuff. But in the Mistress of Mellyn, the actual evildoer is a woman—not a woman shut up and mostly helpless like in Jane Eyre, or a dead woman like in Rebecca—there is a woman scheming and murdering up the joint to get what she wants, and this woman reminds the heroine of herself. Actually, the book is full of the heroine being scared of and hostile towards other women, seeing all of them as threatening reflections or shadows of herself. She's scared of her love interest, yes, but it's not a case of 'Somebody's Trying To Kill Me And I Think It's My Husband' (Joanna Russ) but 'Somebody's Trying To Kill Me And I Think It's A She' (Brooke Willig).

In the Mistress of Mellyn, the heroine keeps seeing a sinister shadow and not knowing whose it is: the heroine herself keeps getting mistaken for a ghost, and compared to the other women in the book.

There's a pair of lady doppelgangers in the Vampire Diaries TV show. There's a song (music by Schubert, words by Heine) called 'Der Doppelganger' – that famously begins 'Still is the night…'

'It chills me, when I behold his pale face
For the moon shows me my own features again!
You spirit double, you specter with my face…'

Being scared of yourself is something I wanted to do with Unspoken for both the hero and the heroine: but part of having the Gothic heroine be the boy means there isn't jealousy of other ladies competing for your house, or a dude.

But the idea of a shadow self, a specter with your face, someone like you or better than you, someone whose very existence poses a threat to you, whose coming into your life is meant to be the warning of your own death. Well, that's something I wanted to keep. The hero of Unspoken has a cousin. They're very alike.

Oh pallid companion. But which is which? Would you even know, if you were the doppelganger? Would you want to know? Or would you want a drink?

Sleuth Thursday... for 2012!

I was thinking since this is a NEW YEAR, and a new year I am super excited about because I have for the first time ever oh my gosh TWO BOOKS coming out in one year, and I am also super terrified because oh my lord, they are both first books in a series...eseseses, which is scary! Two sets of strangers to introduce people to! Gosh I hope they will like them.

I am also possibly still a little delirious, because I've been very ill and also working to deadline.

So in the name of 2012's excitement, terror and potential delirium--my first lady sleuth choice for 2012 is a very modern one.

It is a lady from a book published in 2010. It is Georgia Mason, from Mira Grant's Feed.











(This is not a cover of Feed but some lovely fanart of Georgia and her brother Shaun, chosen because in it Georgia is looking super cool and reporter-y. Both pieces used here can be found via this link: http://feed-fanclub.deviantart.com/gallery/)

I already expressed my love for this book and its premise (Zombie Apocalypse in which only bloggers report the news of the zombie apocalypse reliably, the world is changed forever!) describing it as the ideal zombie book for nerds.

I also wrote out some crazy dialogue, as is my way, for our heroine.

GEORGIA: I have zombiefied eyes so must wear sunglasses, a dry wit and a relentless commitment to the truth. Also, I am named after George Romero... the saviour of mankind.

Yes, George Mason is a snarky internet journalist. She's the one who's ice-cool under pressure and sharply professional (unlike her brother Shaun, the thrill-seeker who runs around in a cardigan). She has an in-book excellent reason to always wear sunglasses, dark clothes, and in our first introduction to her, she drives a motorcycle off a makeshift ramp over the heads of slavering zombies, with her brother cheering on the back of her motorcycle. Which pretty much cements the fact that she's the badass. Her determined pursuit of her goals is what drives the plot of this book.

Here are some things she actually says in the book...

"Get your opinions the hell away from my news."

"I've merely engaged in standard journalistic practice. He entrapped himself."

"I am, in fact, immortal when annoyed."

"Now you've insulted our patriotism, our sanity and our intelligence, how about we move on?"

"Everything is 'just a story.' Tragedy, comedy, end of the world, whatever, it's just a story. What matters is making sure it's heard."

George Mason is a lady who knows what she wants. She asks for what she wants repeatedly, and she really thinks she can handle it. She is correct.

"The difference between the truth and a lie is that both of them can hurt, but only one will take the time to heal you afterward."

"You can't kill the truth."

"You tell the truth as you see it, and you let the people decide whether to believe you. That's responsible reporting."

"I wanted the truth, and I wanted the news, and I'd be damned before I settled for anything less."

Once she gets the truth, she knows what to do with it: share it.












(Another fanart, this time of Georgia in her rarely-used electric-blue-and-spooky contact lenses, making a face. When the rest of the world makes that face thinking 'THE PRESS' George makes that face almost constantly thinking 'THE REST OF THE WORLD.')

But she is not a badass lady who cares for nothing but her mission: she cares very much about her friends: asks for their opinions, supports their romantic decisions, and when they are infected with a zombie virus she shoots them in the head. (What more can one ask for?)

She loves Shaun very much, and is able to talk about the importance of love to her.

"Shaun's the only thing that concerns me more than the truth does."

And in return he says this about her, which I am pretty sure goes for both of them:

"… At the end of the day, there's got to be somebody you're doing it for. Just one person you're thinking of every time you make a decision, every time you tell the truth, or tell a lie, or anything.

I've got mine. Do you?"

And when put to the test, Georgia Mason proves that she entirely believes in everything she has said.

...seriously
big
spoilers...

George Mason is infected with the zombie virus, and while dying, she writes an article to be thrown up on the web revealing the plot that led to her own death.

"They made a mistake in killing me because, alive or dead, the truth won't rest...
... my name is my name is Shaun I love you"

It increased my love for Georgia greatly, that she wrote this article at all, and that some of her last words were a commentary (by the author, I mean, George wasn't really up for commentary on this point) about true names, and about identity and what defines you.
Justine Larbalestier was like 'Clever idea to do a Sleuth Thursday, because both your heroines in 2012 are sleuths.'

At which point I was like 'Oh... of COURSE Mel of Team Human is also a sleuth!' (I almost never do clever things on purpose.) I knew that, because she does a lot of sleuth stuff, which is fun to write. But she is sleuthing for love of her friend, to protect someone she loves, rather than for a story. A classic sleuthing reason of course. It is the reason inspiring our next sleuth heroine, Marian of A Woman In White.

There's also thrill seeking: Kami of Unspoken is having fun, because someone in a Gothic novel should be, this stuff is crackers! Nancy Drew, also a fun-loving girl. That's why her dad keeps saying to her 'Oh, no more solving crimes for you, Nancy' in the same way a father might forbid any treat: 'no more late nights, you little scoundrel and I mean it, no more jazz hands till dawn, midnight movie showings or assisting in the apprehension of criminals!'

George Mason sleuths for the same reason Lois Lane (also kind of a thrill-seeker) and Lynda Day do--because it is her job.

And because she has a passion for the story, for the truth of a situation and a particular way of telling it. I think everyone who loves books can understand that.

So there's a lot of overlap with all sleuths' motivations - story, love, thrills. It's usually at least one of those three.

In fact for me, with most characters I love, one of their main motivations is love.

In the words of Philip Larkin, from one of my favourite poems, An Arundel Tomb, about death and identity and time and love--'Prove our almost-instinct almost true: What will survive of us is love.'

That's what makes a character live on in my head long after the book is shut. And also cry on airplanes, damn it, Georgia Mason.

Queen of the School Newspaper

It is the last Thursday in December. And that means that it's Sleuth Thursday.

It is also the Season, and I hope all those who celebrate Christmas had a fabulous one, and are about to have a marvellous New Year!

Speaking of Christmas, here is a link to a Nick and Alan Christmas interview.

Also in the name of HOW UNSPEAKABLY MUCH I wish for people to meet my newwwwww characters, Unspoken excerpt and a giveaway of a pretty thing, as well as fiction ramblings, here.

So, I have a roommate who is a Museum Detective and who for the sake of her internet privacy I nicknamed the Durham Lass. I used to have another roommate, a stylish DJ lady I called Jennet Wilde. One day the Durham Lass came up from her family home in the blameless countryside full of rolling hills and sheep and suchlike, back to our townhouse of sin and shops.

DURHAM LASS: I brought up some box sets of a TV show I used to love when I was a kid. It's called Press Gang, and it's about a group of misfits who run a school newspaper-
JENNET WILDE: Uh, I don't really want to watch a kids' show from 1989.
SARAH: ... I do...
DURHAM LASS: Their leader is this bossy girl called Lynda Day.
SARAH: ... GIRL REPORTER...
DURHAM LASS: I used to really love the romance-
JENNET WILDE: We're not interested, sweetie.
SARAH: ... I am...
JENNET WILDE: Who's for tea?
SARAH: Okay, we're going to barricade ourselves in this room and watch the WHOLE THING!
JENNET WILDE: Guys? Guys, this door won't open. Guys?

Some time later, I was totally mad about Press Gang. We used to watch it in the hour before Jennet Wilde got home from work.

The show: An ace reporter arrives in town to edit the local newspaper, and sets up a junior version of that newspaper to be produced by pupils from the local school. The Junior Gazette is to be edited by star pupil Lynda Day, though there are also delinquent students forced to work on it. Nobody ever cares about the ace reporter because the kids are much more interesting! There is a beautiful, blonde, brilliant graphic designer and a money manager entirely devoted to greed and evil!

But most importantly there is Lynda Day. What to say about Lynda Day?











"Because I've never been a 17 year old girl, it's rather interesting to think like one, or rather to force yourself to consider the world from that perspective. And it actually started to make me angry. I'd never really thought about it before, but you know, when I'd consider the world from the viewpoint of this dynamic, highly intelligent, highly talented 17 year old girl, and think what's going to happen to her, think about how much harder it's going to be for her than it would be if she'd been a boy, it made me SO angry." - Steven Moffat on writing Lynda Day in Press Gang.

Steven Moffat is pretty well known for creating the BBC Sherlock and writing for Doctor Who. Press Gang was actually his big break into show biz: his father, a school teacher, got chatting with some producers about his idea for a TV series about a school newspaper, and when the producers asked for a sample script he was like 'My boy Steve will write it!' So, Steven Moffat, a talented dude! Obviously a big nerd! I don't think he's ever written a character as good as Lynda Day.

Ruthless, brilliant, frequently annoyed, prone to swearing like a sailor and hiccupping when asked to schmooze.

A lady with a little bit of a temper.

LYNDA: I'm not being unreasonable, I'm keeping my cool. All I want is simply for this person to be removed from the studio and shot dead.

A lady with a lot of self-confidence.

LYNDA: Got a problem, sir?
MR HOWARD: This exam started fifteen minutes ago!
LYNDA: Well, it was supposed to! Relax, you're doing fine.
MR HOWARD: Why weren't you here?
LYNDA: Oh come on, sir. I always finish half an hour early, and you said no sandwiches.
MR HOWARD: Go to your seat, Lynda.
LYNDA: I'm top every time, and this is the thanks I get!

She has a sweet, blond, inoffensive and mild-mannered Best Friend Forever called Kenny, who is tormented by having to do Lynda's bidding, but also obviously cares about her and has fun with the madness she trails in her wake.

Kenny is not in the least, ever, at any time, secretly pining for Lynda's love. He would clearly find Lynda's love an appalling present that would give him a migraine. They're just close, loyal, loving friends: the actor who played Kenny exiting the show was really the Beginning Of The End, because Kenny and Lynda's relationship was part of the heart of the show.

KENNY: If I get killed doing this you're gonna feel really guilty.
LYNDA: Why would I? You won't be around to tell me to.

KENNY: Oh well I'm sorry if my problems are not providing enough entertainment for you!
LYNDA: Oh don't be like that Kenny, they usually do.

SPIKE: I guess you're looking for the bitch editor from hell, right?
KENNY: I never call her that, she likes it.

KENNY: Thanks.
LYNDA: For what?
KENNY: I don't know. Everything.
LYNDA: I'm not responsible for everything. I just make it look that way.

Lynda's ambitious and competitive, and that's not portrayed as a negative thing or always a positive thing: it was just a constant facet of her personality. (In later seasons it is seen as more of a negative, which is why I suggest just watching the first three seasons. Because Lynda never needs to be punished for being who she is. Lynda is EXCELLENT. But Later Seasons Not Being As Good, kind of the nature of television.)

JULIE: You're late.
LYNDA: You're fired. I win.

JULIE: Why don't you just tell Spike you give in?
LYNDA: Because I'd rather die than let Spike win anything ever.
JULIE: Why?
LYNDA: You know what he's like, he's so competitive.

SPIKE: Lynda, you're the only person I know who eats dinner to win.

I love a lady in charge.












LYNDA: See where it says ruler? That's who it belongs to!

LYNDA: I don't do conversation. Anything I say comes out like an order. I say hello and people salute.

She also had just shocking dress sense. I mean it was the eighties so everyone did, but it was a plot point that Lynda's was awful. You have to have talent to be considered a bad dresser in the eighties. (Trust me, I was alive then and I rolled my socks up the legs of my leggings. I was six but it's no excuse.) It causes her devoted swain no end of distress.

SPIKE: Lynda, you've got the dress sense of a clothes line. I mean those cardigans, even I wouldn't look good in those.

SPIKE: I like your dress.
LYNDA: What about the jacket?
SPIKE: I like the dress.
LYNDA: You think the jacket goes?
SPIKE: I hope it does.












Of course, Lynda has a roooooomance. Spike Thompson, American leather-jacket-wearing juvenile delinquent and perpetrator of an incident at the school dance which is too disgusting to ever spell out, is assigned to the Junior Gazette as punishment for his many crimes. He is devoted to the pursuit of total idleness, until he sees Lynda Day, is smitten on sight, and devotes himself to the cause of journalism as a knight would slay a dragon for his lady.

They're both smart, though Spike is quite committed to hiding it. Furthermore, he's the one who's super concerned with physical appearance, he's the one who cooks, he's the one who's easy in social situations, he's the one who's wistfully pining, and she's the one not ready for romantic commitment.

SPIKE: Hey Frazz, Frazz. What's with the negative attitude?
FRAZZ: What?
SPIKE: Get involved, man.
FRAZZ: Who is she?
SPIKE: What?
FRAZZ: Which one is it?
SPIKE: What are you talking about?
FRAZZ: It's Lynda Day, isn't it? You always did like the bossy types.

SPIKE: I looked in the mirror this morning, I was looking so great, it just gave up.

LYNDA: You're shaking.
SPIKE: What? Me? I'm steady as a rock. That's just the world moving.
LYNDA: Spike, I think you're getting the wrong idea about this kiss.
SPIKE: Ah, no no, absolutely not. This is just a goodnight kiss. A thank you kiss between friends, right? I understand.
LYNDA: I knew you were getting the wrong idea.

SPIKE: Do you love me Lynda?
LYNDA: Of course I do.
SPIKE: What?
LYNDA: Of course I love you. But what good does that do either of us?
SPIKE: What do you mean, what good does it do either of us?
LYNDA: I don't want this. I'm not ready for it. I just want to make a newspaper.

Plus, Lynda and Spike had BANTER. My most favourite of all the things.

SPIKE: You don't happen to be jealous of a girl I've never even met, do you?
LYNDA: Of course I'm jealous, Spike. I wish I was the girl you've never even met.

SPIKE: I'm temporary acting assistant editor - is that a come on or not?
LYNDA: Spike, you weren't exactly my first choice. I asked everyone I liked first.
SPIKE: That's encouraging. Out of everyone you don't like at least I'm your favourite.

LYNDA: For what it's worth... the l-word.
SPIKE: I 'l' you too... We gotta get better at saying that, Lynda.
LYNDA: How about anagrams?
SPIKE: I vole you?
LYNDA: Me too.

Here is a thing about me! I love fan-made videos. I watch a ton of them. I think they are great! They're kind of the essence of fan-created material for me--you take this source material, and this song, and you make something new! So I went on a noble youtube quest, and I found myself a Lynda Day tribute.



Suffice it to say, I watched all of Press Gang and loved it, and talked to the Durham Lass about it.

SARAH: And then Lynda took the chopstick and-
JENNET WILDE: Hi ladies.
SARAH AND THE DURHAM LASS: *conspicuous silence*
JENNET WILDE: ... What were you talking about?
DURHAM LASS: Nothing.
SARAH: Hiring assassins to kill you! No, I mean, nothing. That's better. Nothing.

A few months afterwards, my friends Mark and Donna (a writer and an actress) were getting married, and they sent me the password to their register for gifts.

It was 'lyndaspike.' I felt like I'd been given a password to a secret club for awesomeness.

So of course when I was writing Unspoken, I thought, self, you want to write about a bunch of teens getting into a Gothic adventure? This is how you write about a Crack Team pitching itself into adventure. And a lady who passionately wants to run a school newspaper will stop at nothing.

Jane Eyre, Or: The Bride of Edward 'Crazypants' Rochester

I was hoping to finish this Tuesday, but I didn't manage it, I'm sorry! In the spirit of Christmas, I hope you can all forgive me, and celebrate a belated Gothic Tuesday with me.

For it's time to rock Jane Eyre, Gothic Tuesday style.

JANE EYRE: I am but a poor orphan, being brought up by relatives in a Gothic manor. You know what that means.
AUDIENCE: Not really, no. Not so much.
JANE EYRE: My relatives are evil. No poor orphans are ever brought up by nice people. Specially not in Gothic manors. What do you take this novel for?

EVIL RELATIVES: Jane, Jane, where are you? We want to persecute you!
EVIL RELATIVES: We were thinking first we'd physically abuse you, and then we'd lock you in the Red Room.
JANE EYRE: BUT IT'S HAUNTED!!!
EVIL RELATIVES: Uh, yeah. This is a Gothic manor, hello.
JANE EYRE: Why are you persecuting me?
EVIL RELATIVES: We're your evil relatives? Really, Jane, try to keep up.
JANE EYRE: ...
EVIL RELATIVES: Also you're not the least bit hot. We hate ugmos. We're just really, really shallow. And evil. Also that.
JANE EYRE: ... I shall have a fit. I mean this literally. Madness, red glare, black bars, death!
AUDIENCE: Things could look better for our heroine.

EVIL RELATIVES: Wake up, lazybones, you can't lie around in a terror and blood-loss-induced coma all day! We're sending you away.
JANE EYRE: Away... from the Gothic manor? That's not usually how it goes.
EVIL RELATIVES: You're going to a school. It's another large house... in a dark valley... in a dark wood.
JANE EYRE: Sounds like a Gothic manor to me.
EVIL RELATIVES: Enjoy the change of venue in your persecution!

EVIL SCHOOL: Hi Jane. Psychological and physical torture?
JANE EYRE: God damn.
HELEN BURNS: Would you like to be friends? I love you, Jane, and I also love Jesus.
JANE EYRE: I'm getting a bad feeling about who's going to be enjoying your company like, next week. I see Jesus's name written all over your dance card.
HELEN BURNS: Nonsense. *coughs up blood* It's just a touch of TB, I'll be right as rain in no time!
JANE EYRE: You know what happens to people with hearts of gold. Hearts of gold really don't transplant well. Besides, I'm a Gothic heroine, I've got to be lonely and persecuted for ages yet.
HELEN BURNS: Suck.
JANE EYRE: But hey. I'm like, twelve? We've got to wait until I'm grown up so I can meet my man, if you know what I mean.
HELEN BURNS: I don't know what you mean, Jane. Unless you mean Jesus.
JANE EYRE: ... Never mind. The point is, you could last years yet.
THE PLOT: Suddenly, typhus!
JANE EYRE: ... Ah, spit.
HELEN BURNS: HERE LIES HELEN BURNS, DEAD OF NARRATIVE INEVITABILITY.

THE PLOT: Suddenly, time skip!
JANE EYRE: So evil school, now I'm a grown-up, I'm going to leave!
EVIL SCHOOL: Where will you go?
JANE EYRE: Literally anywhere else. Like, anywhere in the world. I mean, what are the chances my governess job will be at a third Gothic manor?

JANE EYRE: ... Ah, spit.
THE PLOT: You know how people really like love triangles?
JANE EYRE: With HOUSES?
THORNFIELD HALL: Hiiii. I'm bachelor number three, tall, dark and brooding!

HOUSEKEEPER: Hello Miss Eyre, welcome to Gothic Manor No. 3! Let me introduce you to the kid you're going to governess. Don't worry, you won't come to love her and protect her with your life. She's not possessed or anything interesting. She's just stupid and probably going to be immoral when she grows up.
JANE EYRE: Yo... Adele is eight.
HOUSEKEEPER: Yes, but you see, she's French.
JANE EYRE: I can speak French.
HOUSEKEEPER: Awesome. Translate her heathen gibberings! All she does is babble nonsense morning noon and night! I really don't think she's very bright.
ADELE: Je suis francais!
JANE EYRE: She says she's French.
HOUSEKEEPER: Well that's nothing to boast about.
ADELE: My mom was a hooker.
JANE EYRE: ...
HOUSEKEEPER: What's she saying now?
JANE EYRE: ... Basically heathen gibberings. Nothing to see here! Come Adele, let's go learn the English for 'X-nay on alking-tay about ookers-hay.'
HOUSEKEEPER: My, Miss Eyre, your French is marvellous!

JANE EYRE: I had a bad dream full of like, mad women screaming and laughing.
HOUSEKEEPER: That'll be the eel pie we had last night. It gave me gas.
JANE EYRE: I don't think that was it.
HOUSEKEEPER: Or the pipes.
JANE EYRE: Are you kidding me?
HOUSEKEEPER: Or the servants. Oh, that Grace! Drunk again!
GRACE POOLE: Whoopee! One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor!
JANE EYRE: ... Okay, that seems plausible.

JANE EYRE: Just chillin', having a nice walk in the dark woods, across the lonely moors, at dusk. I'm sure nothing's going to happen, everything's just atmospheric for no reason!
MR ROCHESTER: You made me fall off my horse! I THINK YOU'RE AN EVIL FAIRY.
JANE EYRE: Um, do you need a hand? Any bones broken?
MR ROCHESTER: Step aside, evil fairy! It's just a sprai-aaaaaaaaaaurrrrggggggh. I'm totally fine.
JANE EYRE: You seem surly, and also sort of crazed.
JANE EYRE: And this is your lucky day, because that's what gets me hot beneath the petticoat.

MR ROCHESTER: So, evil fairy, what's your sign?
JANE EYRE: I'm not sure I understand.
MR ROCHESTER: Where y'at?
JANE EYRE: I reside in Thornfield Hall, sir.
MR ROCHESTER: Do you? Well, well, well. Everything's coming up Edward Crazypants Fairfax Rochester today!
JANE EYRE: I'm going to go now.
MR ROCHESTER: See you soon, hot stuff. Er--have you been hearing any mad laughter from my, I mean the, attic? It's probably dry rot. You know, dry rot mocking you.

HOUSEKEEPER: Let me introduce the master of the Gothic mansion, that cranky lunatic you met earlier!
JANE EYRE: Dammit, narrative inevitability, why you got to do me this way?
MR ROCHESTER: Hey foxy new employee. Hey.
JANE EYRE: Uh, so let's talk about the child I'm teaching...
MR ROCHESTER: Jane, Jane, come now, the child isn't important to the story! You've been teaching her for months: surely you've noticed that she's French!
JANE EYRE: ...
MR ROCHESTER: Come over here and show me your etchings, girl.
JANE EYRE: Uh, okay. Let me go get them.
MR ROCHESTER: Yeah, that's right. You know what I like. Slip into something a little more comfort-oh.
JANE EYRE: This is a picture of a horsie! This is a picture of a hill!
MR ROCHESTER: Yeah. Yeah, awesome.
MR ROCHESTER: ... Actually they are pretty good.

JANE EYRE: Does Mr Rochester, like, come here often?
HOUSEKEEPER: Actually he shuns it like he has a horrible, dark secret locked away in the attic or something. Weird, right?

MR ROCHESTER: Jane, Jane, Jane. Come sit by me. Let's you and me converse. Guess what, Jane? I hate children. I hate old people. I hate housekeepers. And I hate the French.
HOUSEKEEPER AND ADELE: Dude! We're right here.
MR ROCHESTER: Yes, that's what I'm complaining about!

MR ROCHESTER: Do you think I'm sexy, Jane?
JANE EYRE: Whaaaaaaat?
MR ROCHESTER: Would you tap this ass?
JANE EYRE: Uh, we've only just met.
MR ROCHESTER: You warm for this form, baby?
JANE EYRE: Look, dude, you're just not that hot!
MR ROCHESTER: That's ridiculous--are you aware that in the latest movie version, I'm played by Michael Fassbender?
JANE EYRE: I'm going to go upstairs now.

MR ROCHESTER: Let me tell you about my tour of Hookerlandia!
JANE EYRE: Do you mean France? You mean France, don't you.
MR ROCHESTER: That's what I said. Hookerlandia. That's where something happened to me. Do you know what it was, Jane?
JANE EYRE: Er... the syph?
MR ROCHESTER! No! Like almost definitely not. No, a longing came upon me for pure, gentle, beautiful, true, English love. With a girl who was like... English. That's how I like them, Jane. Rule Britannia, babe.
ADELE: Hi I was thinking perhaps my governess and my father might want to spend a little time with m-
MR ROCHESTER: Well you thought wrong Adele! Get you gone so I can get me some!
JANE EYRE: ...
MR ROCHESTER: Sorry, baby, where were we? The French are so pushy.

JANE EYRE: Holy crap Mr Rochester's bed is on fire! Don't worry my cranky little damsel in distress! I will save you!
MR ROCHESTER: Jane, I am saved! Hold me!
JANE EYRE: We'd better find out who the arsonist is.
MR ROCHESTER: Jane, Jane, Jane. Why does it always have to be about 'who the arsonist is' and 'who's laughing up in the attic'? Can't we just LIVE, Jane? Can't we just smile as our beds burn around us?
JANE EYRE: This is not responsible home ownership.
MR ROCHESTER: Okay, look. Probably... the pipes set fire to...
JANE EYRE: Maybe it was that drunk servant?
MR ROCHESTER: Yeah, no, that's better. Let's go with that.
JANE EYRE: We should fire her, dude.
MR ROCHESTER: Fire a servant for a little thing like being constantly drunk and setting fire to people's beds? That's not how we do things at Thornfield Hall.
JANE EYRE: Damn, son, I have got to get me into Grace Poole's union.
MR ROCHESTER: Oh Jaaaane where are you going, when I am so scared and cold and lonely and cold, and my damp nightgown is clinging to me so fetchingly?
JANE EYRE: Sleep tight, buddy!
MR ROCHESTER: Jane, come back! WE CAN JUST CUDDLE!

MR ROCHESTER: Wooing my employee is for some reason not going totally smoothly! I wonder why that could be.
MR ROCHESTER: Let's see, she's obviously shy and has low self-esteem and has been physically and psychologically abused a bunch... the house is filled with mad laughter and screams because I'm keeping my crazy wife locked up in the attic, all the beds are on fire and I talk about hookers around the clock...
MR ROCHESTER: I've got it! This situation is not complicated enough.
MR ROCHESTER: What if I hatched an elaborate plot to make Jane JEALOUS? But that requires another lady. Okay, already got a crazy wife, now I have to get me a fake girlfriend...
MR ROCHESTER: I know, I'll have a house party and invite a bunch of people to come hang out with me at Casa Death and Flames!
MR ROCHESTER: Edward Fairfax Crazypants Rochester, you are a GENIUS.

HOUSE PARTY: Whoo party in the Gothic manor! Let's all play 'Psychologically Torment the Governess!'
BLANCHE INGRAM: Boy, I love that game.
JANE EYRE: Boy, I hate that game.

MR ROCHESTER: Jane seems super upset! This is going super well: the people who advise silly things like 'bring her candy and flowers, treat her right' are so wrong! But I gotta step up my game. What do the chicks like? Oh right. Cross-dressing.
FOOTMAN: Uh... hi... house party. There's a gipsy... lady, yep, totally a lady... in the other room who wants to tell people's fortunes?
BLANCHE INGRAM: Oh great. The dude I'm trying to marry likes wearing bonnets and crinolines. I cannot believe this is happening to me again.
MR ROCHESTER: Hee hee! I am totally a gipsy lady! I can tell the future! That Edward Fairfax Crazypants Rochester, what a jerk, am I right? Whee! Hold my hand, Jane. Look into my eyyyyyes. Would you describe your employer as a hottie or a nottie?
JANE EYRE: This is the weirdest thing you have ever, ever done.
MR ROCHESTER: Baby, I'm just gettin' started. *finger guns*

JANE EYRE: By the way, you have a new guest called Mr Mason waiting for you.
MR ROCHESTER: Ahhhhh all my crimes will be discovered and I didn't even get to commit bigamy yet!
JANE EYRE: What?
MR ROCHESTER: Uh, nothing! Say, let me go see this Mason dude.
JANE EYRE: Maybe take off your bonnet first...? Just a suggestion.

HOUSE PARTY: We all hear eldritch screams in the night, what on earth is going on?
JANE EYRE: Y'all just have no idea how we roll at Thornfield Hall, do you?
MR ROCHESTER: Everyone go back to bed! That eldritch scream was... um, the pipes again... Maybe rats? Screaming rats, who finds that believable? Raise your hand, don't be shy.
JANE EYRE: I'm going back to bed.
MR ROCHESTER: I could maybe use your help with Mr Mason. He's a little bit... bitten...

JANE EYRE: Oh dude, this guy really was bitten!
MR MASON: Help me, lady. I don't want to be a werewolf!
JANE EYRE: Did Grace Poole try to eat you?
MR MASON: A mysterious lady kept in the attic... Mr Rochester's secret crazy wife...
MR ROCHESTER: Don't listen to him! He's obviously delirious.
JANE EYRE: We should fire Grace Poole.
MR ROCHESTER: Nonsense! We don't fire people for little things like cannibalism here at Thornfield Hall!
JANE EYRE: 'Dear Miss Manners, when is the appropriate time to dispense with a maid's services, before or after she graduates from gin to human flesh? Yours sincerely, Jane Eyre.'
GRACE POOLE: Tastes like chicken! Anybody using that vodka? Hey, it's five o'clock somewhere, kids. Bottoms up!
MR ROCHESTER: You have a job for life, Miss Poole.

JANE EYRE: I gotta go visit my dying aunt in a Gothic manor full of suicide and despair.
MR ROCHESTER: Wait a second. Wait a second. Are you saying that you're seeing another manor?

MRS EVIL RELATIVE: So you have a rich uncle who wanted to adopt you, but I told him you were dead.
JANE EYRE: Uh, why would you do that?
MRS EVIL RELATIVE: I'm evil. And I don't want good things to happen to ugly people! Plus you were so uppity as a child.
JANE EYRE: Jeez, the way these people carry on, you'd think I was French or something.

MR ROCHESTER: So, I'm marrying someone else, and I'm shipping you off to Ireland!
JANE EYRE: Oh my God! Not Ireland! How can you be so cruel?
MR ROCHESTER: And of course by 'I'm marrying someone else, and I'm shipping you off to Ireland' I mean I love you!
JANE EYRE: ... I did not get that.
MR ROCHESTER: How could you not know that I loved you, when I paraded around a hot chick in front of you and told you I was going to marry her?
JANE EYRE: Um, frankly the housekeeper gave me a book called 'He's Just Not That Into You' and that is textbook!
MR ROCHESTER: How about when I dressed up like a lady and told everybody's fortunes?
JANE EYRE: ... Well, I didn't really know what to make of that one either way. It was weird.
MR ROCHESTER: So will you marry me?
JANE EYRE: Sure! Just please, please stop courting me. My heart can't take it.

MR ROCHESTER: Thank goodness you have nobody to love you, and are all alone in the world and helpless in my hands!
JANE EYRE: Huh?
MR ROCHESTER: I plan to commit bigamy against all laws of God and man! Whatever, I spit in God's eye, I am going to have this sweet honey all for my own!
JANE EYRE: ... Uh, what are you talking about?
MR ROCHESTER: Normal romantic stuff, babe. Normal romantic stuff.

MR ROCHESTER: Adele, Jane and I are getting married! And we're sending you to school because we don't love you! Because you're French. Also Jane is a fairy and we're going to live on the moon.
ADELE: I seriously advise against marrying this dude. Il est massively fou-pants.
MR ROCHESTER: Little bit less French lip from you, missy.
ADELE: Soon as I turn eighteen, je suis outtie.

JANE EYRE: Last night a strange woman who looked like Morticia Addams came into my room, did a crazy dance, and tore up my wedding veil.
MR ROCHESTER: Just a dream, poppet!
JANE EYRE: Uh, but seriously, my wedding veil is all torn up.
MR ROCHESTER: That was probably the pipes.
JANE EYRE: The pipes tore up my wedding veil?
MR ROCHESTER: Um. Uh. Oh that Grace Poole, drunk again!
JANE EYRE: We're not going to fire her for wanton property destruction, are we?
MR ROCHESTER: Lord no.
JANE EYRE: I ain't even surprised at this point. But really, Ed, I thought it was a completely different lady. Are you absolutely certain that there isn't a murderous madwoman on the loose in this house, at any point able to viciously kill the woman you supposedly love or an innocent child?
MR ROCHESTER: Cross my heart and hope to get bigamously married in the morning!

VICAR: If there is any reason why Edward Fairfax Crazypants Rochester and Jane Come On Baby Be My Bad Boyfriend Eyre should not be wed, speak now...
MR MASON: Uh, speaking? There's the small problem of a crazy wife.
VICAR: She looks fine to me. The groom's a little wild about the eyeballs, mind you.
MR MASON: He has a different crazy wife locked up in his attic.
VICAR: I don't know, that seems a bit far fetch-
MR ROCHESTER: CURSES, ALL IS DISCOVERED!
VICAR: All righty then. Wedding adjourned.
MR ROCHESTER: Anyone want to come up to the house and meet my crazy wife I have locked up in the attic?
MR MASON: Oooh, will there be tea and cake?

BERTHA ROCHESTER: I'm going to rip your throat out with my teeth. Let me out of this goddamn attic!
MR ROCHESTER: See? She's totally crazy. There's no other reason for a woman to try and kill her husband who's locked her up and kept her in isolation in her own home! I mean, I'm good to her. I couldn't send her to a madhouse, or to a house in a bad location where she might die! Bertha really likes it here in the attic. And I give her all the knives and matches to play with that she wants!
EVERYONE: Can we send you to the madhouse?
MR ROCHESTER: What silly talk, I am a man and I have a big pile of money! Nobody can lock me up anywhere.
BERTHA ROCHESTER: You're going to reap the WHIRLWIND, mofo.

JANE EYRE: Actually, this explains a lot.
MR ROCHESTER: Yeah, so it wasn't the pipes.
JANE EYRE: No, I got that. And Grace Poole isn't really a drunk.
MR ROCHESTER: Oh no, actually that bit is true. Grace is an alcoholic.
GRACE POOLE: Wheeeeeee candy is dandy but liquor is quicker!
JANE EYRE: So all of our lives depend on Grace not getting drunk and passing out?
MR ROCHESTER: Sweetie, you worry too much.
JANE EYRE: It's already happened like five times!
MR ROCHESTER: You're going to get frown lines.
JANE EYRE: SOMETIMES SHE EATS PEOPLE!
MR ROCHESTER: There, there. All this silly fussing over nothing will make your pretty little head hurt, you know.

MR ROCHESTER: I get what this is about. You're mad because of the whole bigamy thing. But honey, I can explain.
JANE EYRE: Okay. You didn't really lock your wife up in an attic, hide her from everyone at risk of their lives, invite guests around to be murdered, make one of the guests your fake girlfriend, and trick me into bigamously marrying you this morning?
MR ROCHESTER: Oh, I did all that. Like, all of it. And you've forgotten the time I dressed up like a lady and told your fortune.
JANE EYRE: I haven't forgotten. I TRY TO FORGET, BUT IT NEVER HAPPENS. I need a drink.
MR ROCHESTER: Great idea! This will all make much more sense once you're drunk.

MR ROCHESTER: Mistakes. I've made a few. But then again... too few to mention.
JANE EYRE: I have a list right here.
MR ROCHESTER: Maybe I should have sent Adele to school instead of to live in the house with a crazed killer. Maybe I should have been honest with the woman I love instead of committing all the crimes. Hindsight's 20/20.
JANE EYRE: I think the wine and I should go back to my room.
MR ROCHESTER: Wait wait wait! You see, my wife was a ho.
JANE EYRE: ...
MR ROCHESTER: She was a ho fo' sho'!
JANE EYRE: Am I talking to the man who refers to France as 'Hookerlandia'?
MR ROCHESTER: Baby how often do I have to tell you, it's different because I am a man! Women are property! Now please come away with me to a foreign land and be totally at my mercy.
JANE EYRE: Tempting, but...
MR ROCHESTER: My wife isn't even English, you know. She's from the West Indies! You can't tell me that counts.
JANE EYRE: Look, I had this friend called Helen Burns, and Jesus was kind of her boyfriend, so believe me when I say, the Lord is uncool with adultery.
MR ROCHESTER: Are you absolutely positive about that?
JANE EYRE: Way uncool.
MR ROCHESTER: Your lips say 'No, please respect my decision, also you are a mad criminal' but your eyes say yes!
JANE EYRE: There's only one way to solve this, as a Gothic heroine. No recourse to the law for me. To the moors!

JANE EYRE: Man it's awfully hard to find your way on the moors. Everywhere you look it's just moor moor moor. More moor.
JANE EYRE: Starting to feel awful dizzy. Catherine Earnshaw died of moor, you know.
JANE EYRE: Oh, Edward! Edward! ... Heathcliff!
ST JOHN RIVERS: Hey lady dying on my doorstep. Hey.

JANE EYRE: Rescued by a kind clergyman and his two nice sisters who feed me, dress me and find me a job! This is so lucky! I wonder if I've reached the part of the book where wildly improbable good stuff starts happening?
ST JOHN RIVERS: Your rich uncle has left you a big pile of money, and we are your long-lost relatives.
JANE EYRE: Aw yeah.

JANE EYRE: What am I going to do with all my new cashola?
ST JOHN RIVERS: You could marry me.
JANE EYRE: Huh. Unexpected. Is this a love triangle?
ST JOHN RIVERS: Nah, I don't fancy you. I just think you'd be a good missionary's wife.
JANE EYRE: Look, if I'm going to marry a jerk, I might as well marry a jerk who gets me hot beneath the petticoat. Jane out!

JANE EYRE: Just thought I'd wander over and check out Thornfield Hall and any foxy but crazy-eyed inhabitants of... HOLY CRAP.
THORNFIELD HALL: I got burned up.
RANDOM DUDE: Yeah, apparently a crazy lady lived there who liked to set fires.
JANE EYRE: Yeah, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.
RANDOM DUDE: I heard the lady who was meant to guard her was drunk.
JANE EYRE: There's a shocker.
RANDOM DUDE: And Mr Rochester ran into the fire. Maybe to save his wife? Maybe because he just likes doing crazy stuff?
JANE EYRE: That second one. That sounds like him.
RANDOM DUDE: Anyway, now he's blind and missing a hand, so...
JANE EYRE: Aw yeah. That'll slow him down. It's going to be way harder for him to pick bonnets that suit him now. Everything's coming up Jane Come On Baby Be My Bad Boyfriend Eyre!

MR ROCHESTER: Hello? Hello? What's up? Housekeeper?
JANE EYRE: Hey baby. Hey baby, you so blind.
MR ROCHESTER: Uh, housekeeper, I never knew you felt this way about me...
JANE EYRE: Kiss me, you mad fool.
MR ROCHESTER: Never has that saying been more appropriate!
Jane Eyre made me have a lot of thoughts about Gothic boyfriends. Gothic boyfriends have secrets. But it is Rochester who is the king, the champion secret-keeper uncontested since 1847. Edward Fairfax Crazypants Rochester was keeping the quadruple (I love you) (my girlfriend is fake) (I have a crazy wife in the attic trying to kill us all) (PS this marriage ceremony is also fake) secret, while being pretty open about the crossdressing and all the hookers. (What a man!)

I think he and Jane have great chemistry in the book. I love seeing people fall for each other through conversations. I think he's a compelling character and he brings out the best in her, she sparkles around him.

It's just a big problem that HE'S AN INSANE PERSON. One day Mrs Jane Rochester is going to come home from the modiste's with a charming new hat and he'll be all 'Hey baby. Hey, you might be wondering where the kids are. Funny story: I sold them to pirates.'

I am not the only one who has had this thought. There is a whole book of essays entitled Can Jane Eyre Be Happy?. And there's also a long line of Gothic heroes, acting all sinister like, keeping secrets.

I thought that it would be fun in Unspoken to reverse that: to have two people who are actually unable to keep secrets from each other, and see all the problems that causes.

The long tradition of people running around being totally crazy in Gothic novels is, of course, sacred to me.