Northanger Abbey 4-6: “Top 10 Gothic Novel Betrayals”

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Catherine Morland makes a friend! Catherine Morland had better not even THINK of betraying that friend. We've got authorial tangents, boiled egg water, and infamous rom-com (not Gothic) betrayals in this second episode on Northanger Abbey.

(Very Brief) Show Notes

Lauren slightly messed up her summary of He’s Just Not That Into You in her righteous fury over Bradley Cooper’s character being terrible. He met Anna (ScarJo’s character) in the grocery store, not at work, but his wife did come to his workplace to spice things up after learning of his infidelity and trying to fix things, and he did sleep with his wife WITH ANNA IN HIDING, so the main betrayal point is still accurate. This is what happens when you try to summarize a movie you watched as a teenager through years of memory haze and anger.

Also, y’all, Northanger Abbey is such a delightful read. We promise not to compare it to Persuasion in every episode, especially once we really start to get more exciting things happening in the plot. We’re having so much fun with it and can’t wait to hear your thoughts on it, too!

P.S. the episode title is a reference to this meme ;)

Transcript

Reclaiming Jane Season 6 Episode 2 | Northanger Abbey 4-6: “Top 10 Gothic Novel Betrayals”

Emily: [00:00:00] This is Reclaiming Jane, an Austen podcast for fans on the margins.

Lauren: I'm Lauren Wethers.

Emily: And I'm Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: And today, we're reading chapters four through six of Northanger Abbey through the theme of betrayal.

Emily: I am so happy for one to be back recording in person. If you noticed that our audio quality was off in the last couple episodes, we were forced to record over Zoom. And I'm just not very good at fixing audio quality in Audacity, despite two and a half years of editing this podcast.

Lauren: This is an amateur podcast that we think we can make semi-professional.

Emily: Anyway, that's already off topic. We're here to talk about Northanger Abbey.

Lauren: We have three chapters today that go by in the blink of an eye. So I'm interested to see how much of a discussion we can pull out of these three chapters, because there's not too much to work with, if I'm being honest.

Emily: But there is just enough, I think.

Lauren: Just enough to be able to spark a discussion, especially with two people who earn gold medals in going off topic; I'm sure we'll be able to create something entertaining to listen to.

Emily: I am in a very wandering mind space this week, so yeah. We'll, we'll make something happen.

Lauren: This bodes well.

Emily: Yeah. Well, I recapped first last time. So it's your turn, miss.

Lauren: Fantastic.

Emily: Are you ready to tell us what happens in these three very short chapters?

Lauren: Honestly, no. I read them at like 11:30 PM and I was half asleep, so we're gonna see how it goes.

Emily: You're gonna do it anyway.

Lauren: We're gonna do it anyway.

Emily: All right. On [00:02:00] your mark, get set, go.

Lauren: Mrs. Allen continues complaining about how she has no friends in Bath only to realize, oh my gosh. She does have a friend in Bath except for it's a friend who she hasn't seen in like 15 years, and they don't actually like each other that much, but they like talking at one another.

Her friend who she meets has a daughter who Catherine gets along with really well. They become besties, like immediately. They're inseparable. But the one person who she really wants to see is Henry Tilney, and he is nowhere to be found.

Emily: Oh, you had six seconds left.

Lauren: Amazing. I might've forgotten some things, but that's what I remember.

So there we go. That might be like my personal record for six seconds left. In a recap. Oh, let's go. Okay. Are you ready to recap and maybe be more detailed than my recap?

Emily: I don't know about more detailed, but I sure can do a recap.

Lauren: Fantastic. Okay. You have 30 seconds on the clock on your mark. Get set. Go.

Emily: There is unfortunately no Tilney, much to Catherine's disappointment, but contrary to Mrs. Allen's complaints, they do have an acquaintance in Bath. There's one of her old school friends and her lovely three daughters. Catherine becomes very close friends very quickly with Isabella, who is the oldest and prettiest of them.

They spend all of their time together reading perfectly horrid gothic novels, and then Austen spends a huge amount of time complaining about novelists who hate on novels.

Look, that tangent was so long. It was absolutely worth a mention.

Lauren: Oh my goodness. Wait, should we, I feel like we should just read that passage 'cause it was really funny.

Emily: Absolutely, we should.

Lauren: Austen was like, I have something to say and you're all gonna listen.

Emily: It's like a full page and a half, at least in, in my edition.

Lauren: Take it away.

Emily: Alright, so it begins talking about how Catherine and Isabella are reading novels together. Yes.

"Novels, for I will not adopt that ungenerous and impolitic custom so common with novel writers of degrading by their [00:04:00] contemptuous censure, the very performances to the number of which they are themselves adding, joining with their greatest enemies in bestowing the harshest epithets on such works and scarcely ever permitting them to be read by their own heroine who, if she accidentally take up a novel, is sure to turn over its insipid pages with disgust.

Alas, if the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard? I cannot approve of it. Let us leave it to the reviewers to abuse such effusions of fancy at their leisure and over every new novel to talk in threadbare strains of the trash with which the press now groans.

Let us not desert one another. We are an injured body, although our productions have afforded more extensive and unaffected pleasure than those of any other literary corporation in the world. No species of composition has been so much decried from pride, ignorance, or fashion are foes are almost as many as our readers."

Lauren: I think what is hilarious about this to me is that Austen just decided in a way, the fourth wall no longer exists. We're busting it down and I'm going to just continue to tell you all of my personal thoughts about my fellow novelists because, at the time-- today, we think of the novel as like, an elevated art form.

Reading books is something serious people do, and engaging in media in like visual or other forms is kind of seen as less than, but that was not necessarily the case at the time that Austen was writing.

Emily: Yeah. We have to think about the, I'm gonna get very like, social analysis here. We've gotta think about the context of what is being read, and especially the fact that Catherine and Isabella are reading Gothic novels, which are very much like, the literary trash of the time. It's like someone today reading those mass produced, like the churned out romance novels or you know, any genre that's just denigrated completely. Anything that's not, you know, literary fiction. If [00:06:00] it's genre fiction, that would be the equivalent. People who are like, oh, well sure you're reading, but like, think about what you're reading.

So yeah, they're --reading can definitely be treated in the same way now.

Lauren: Yes, a hundred percent. And a lot of novelists at the time were portraying heroines who mocked novel reading and refused to participate as Austen alludes to, or they're depicting heroines who read novels with disastrous consequences.

So if they do read the book or they read the book and something terrible happens to them, or there's something terrible that's happening within the text of the book that they're reading, but they can't just be reading a book and be happy about it. There has to be some kind of consequence for them lowering themselves to read.

Fictional tale instead of something that would come with some level of morality or instruction or something like that.

Emily: It was interesting. I think this more than anything else in the book so far really stood out to me as being, this is young Austen writing. This is not a matured novelist because in most of the other books we've read, this could have been stated.

As well. And sort of is in, in some ways but it would've come through characters. It would've been set up within the narrative and not just completely like Kool-Aid manning through the fourth wall.

Lauren: You know what I just realized? This is like the equivalent of in Fanfictions, in the middle of the chapter, they put author's note.

Emily: No. Oh my God. It's a Jane Austen author's note. Incredible.

Lauren: I think the other thing that shows that it's young Austen too, is that she's kind of poking fun at the time period equivalent of 'not like other girls' syndrome.' In the passage, one of the things that she, includes is an example of things that people might say who are looking down upon the people who read or write novels or things like [00:08:00] that.

And it sounds like someone who says like, "oh, well I didn't read romance books. You know, I only read science fiction written by men." You know, something along those lines.

Emily: The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Lauren: Yeah. You know? "I am no novel reader. I seldom look into novels. Do not imagine that I often read novels. It is really very well for a novel. Such is the common cant. 'And what are you reading, miss So-and-so?' 'Oh, it is only a novel,' replies a young lady while she lays down her book with affected indifference or momentary shame."

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: Yeah. What are you reading? 'Oh, it's just a fantasy book,' or, 'oh, it's just like this. Just a romance.' Yeah, just a romance. Mm-hmm.

Lauren: Yeah. Yeah, putting down what you enjoy.

Emily: Don't do that. Lean into what you enjoy. Be cringe.

Lauren: It doesn't matter. Embrace the cringe.

Emily: Embrace the cringe. Look, I'm trying to learn how to do that again.

Lauren: I'm cringe, but I am free.

Emily: Exactly. Exactly. It's like, yeah, I do. I do enjoy these things.

They do make me happy.

Lauren: There's a good vlog Brothers playlist on YouTube. Remember when people made YouTube playlists?

Emily: Do people not make YouTube playlists anymore? Again, I'm embracing the cringe.

Lauren: I don't think that they do, but then again, I will accept that that is now an area of like internet literacy where I am old and I don't know, because I don't know what the children are watching on YouTube these days.

I'm very confused. My algorithm does not show that to me. But anyway, there's a Vlogbrother YouTube playlist that's just people who are really excited about things because they're trying to encourage people to just be earnest and excited about things because society tells us to be blase and very restrained in our love for things because it's not cool to be overly excited about things, but embrace the excitement.

Like, say how much you love romance novels. Be earnest and excited about things. It doesn't matter if society is telling you like, oh, you need to be more laid back, or you can't be excited about something. Embrace it. Love the romance novel. Love the Gothic novel. Be [00:10:00] excited. Say, "I'm reading a gothic novel, and it's really good actually."

Instead of saying, "oh, it's just a, it's just a gothic novel."

Emily: "It's only Belinda."

Lauren: "It's only Belinda. It's only Cecilia."

Emily: Take us as an example, who have sat down every two weeks for the last two and a half years to just info dump about things related to Jane Austen.

Lauren: To very earnestly love Jane Austen on a very public platform.

Emily: If we can do it, so can you.

Lauren: I think that's An excellent way in which Catherine can be an instruction to us all.

Emily: Definitely. But yeah, aside from this author's tangent, not narrator's, tangent, author's tangent, there's not too much that happens. Henry Tilney does not appear once more in the pump rooms or any other place that Catherine goes, but they do run into an old school friend of Mrs. Allen. The relationship between the two of them is very funny to me because I completely recognize that relationship.

Lauren: Yep.

Emily: Where they're both just talking at each other about the things that incite their own interests. So Mrs. Thorpe is talking about her daughters constantly, and Mrs. Allen is talking about her gowns constantly.

Lauren: And it's something that's so recognizable in conversations that people have today and the emotions especially as well.

So it takes a detour into Mrs. Allen's point of view for a little bit where she is saying. You know, at first she was a little bit thrown off in the conversation because Mrs. Thorpe could brag about her children and her sons' many accomplishments and how beautiful her eldest daughter Isabella is, and blah, blah, blah.

But Mrs. Allen doesn't have children, so she's not able to go tit for tat in the 'bragging about my kids' conversation. And then she realized that she could talk about like her gowns and the things that she can buy with her money. And so now she has a new way to like, assert power within the conversation.

But God, how many times have you heard people just go, 'oh, well my son just accepted a new job offer at Google.' 'Oh my God. Good for you. Well, my daughter actually [00:12:00] just, you know, endowed a new library at Harvard.' Like just--

Emily: I mean, I haven't heard that exact conversation, but sure.

Lauren: Nor have I. But--

Emily: the point stands.

Lauren: The point stands.

Emily: But yeah, with these two, they're not listening to each other at all. They're just sitting there and talking idly like it doesn't have to be related to the thing the other person just said, you just, something comes outta your mouth and that's recognized as being enough, like a conversation that you can keep talking.

Lauren: Mm-hmm. It's that you now have a captive audience to talk about all the wonderful things that are happening in your life, and the other person has the same, and so nobody really cares that you're not really engaging in any kind of discourse because you're both getting what you want outta the conversation, which is to talk about yourself.

Emily: Yep. They seem to be having a good enough time. And it gives Catherine and Isabella the chance to hang out.

Lauren: And they really like, it says that they start calling each other by their Christian names almost immediately. So they've dropped the niceties of Miss Thorpe or Miss Morland. It's just Catherine and Isabella now.

Emily: It's interesting to see that relationship. I was thinking about like the difference in their ages. Because Catherine's 17, and I think Isabella's like 21, they said that she was about four years older than

Catherine.

Lauren: I think so.

Emily: Which is approximately, I think, the age difference between like Emma and Harriet Smith.

And just seeing like how two girls, two young women interact across that age gap while still having shared interests. Because from a certain perspective, they are very close in age, but from their perspectives, there could be a huge difference in experience because presumably Emma or Isabella has been out for several years already and Catherine is just now out, right?

Lauren: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Emily: Yeah, so it's, it's interesting how they treat that and how much they act like just immediate peers.

Lauren: Yeah, and I think to your point of Isabella being out for a [00:14:00] bit longer, we do see kind of that like, big sister, little sister dynamic when they're talking about men in particular. They are, you know, discussing men and romance and things like that, and Isabella is able to kind of give some of her past experiences that kind of feels like a big sister giving advice to a little sister.

So she says, "My attachments are always excessively strong." So proving that sensibility that she has. " I told Captain Hunt at one of our assemblies this winter that if he was to tease me all night, I would not dance with him unless he would allow Miss Andrews to be as beautiful as an angel. The men think us incapable of real friendship, you know, and I'm determined to show them the difference."

So showing to Catherine, like, 'I know how to deal with them. Here's what men think of us. Here's how you too can work with men to be wanted and desired, but also to make sure that you kind of get them to do what you want them to do. So I wanted to make sure that Captain Hunt told my friend that she was as beautiful as an angel, and so I'm not going to give him what he wants, which is a dance with me, until he goes to compliment my friend because he doesn't think that we can actually be real friends and women can be friends,' and like giving that big sister advice to her.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Yeah. 'cause Isabella is the oldest of three girls and also has some brothers. Catherine is also the oldest of the girls in her family. And has elder brothers. So yeah, she hasn't had anyone in that sisterly role above her with the experiences to pass on. But also you mentioned Isabella's sensibilities.

Mm. She is definitely like caught up on somebody.

Lauren: Oh yes, for sure.

Emily: Yeah. She like drops these little hints. And it says in the narration too that like if Catherine knew more about that kind of close friendship, she would've known that that's where you press. Which-- relatable? Oh my God. You have to know when to bully your best friend a little bit.

Lauren: Wait, I. Also think as she's talking about, oh, men don't think that we can be friends. Speaking of Catherine doesn't know much about close friendship. She also doesn't realize that Isabella turns around and like, insults that same Miss Andrews in the same conversation because she's talking about, oh, I wanted Captain Hunt to say that [00:16:00] Miss Andrews was as beautiful as an angel, blah, blah, blah. And then she goes on to say, you know, "if I were to hear anybody speaks slightly of you, I should fire up in a moment, but that is not at all likely, for you are just the kind of girl to be a great favorite with the men."

And Catherine says, 'me?!' You know, 'whatever, what do you mean, you think that-- you think that boys could like me?' And Isabella says, "I know you very well. You have so much animation, which is exactly what Miss Andrews wants for. I must confess there's something amazingly insipid about her." Weren't you just saying that men didn't think that women could be friends and now you just insulted her?

Emily: You're not giving a great example.

Lauren: Not really.

Emily: I also thought it was really interesting. This was immediately before the, the excerpt that you read a little earlier that Isabella says, "there is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves. It is not my nature." Which, I read that and like, it rang a bell and I realized it's a title of a fan fic I read. I was like, Isabella Thorpe, really?

But I was really intrigued by that, like emphasis on people who are really my friends, like, okay, what happens when you think someone is not really your friend? It seems like you do consider Miss Andrews to be an actual friend and you're having no problem calling her insipid.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: And also, If Catherine is no longer your friend, then then what? What might happen?

Lauren: Yeah. Who knows?

Emily: Who knows?

Lauren: And we also, I love when this happens. We had the word of the theme pop up in this chapter as well.

Emily: It was so great!

Lauren: It's like, I think as we transition to talking about the theme, because I love when we get the word in the chapters themselves, and this is in this same conversation with Catherine and Isabella as they're kind of going back and forth, they're talking about what they like in men. And then Isabella eventually goes on to say, "I have not forgot your description, Mr. Tilney, a brown skin with dark eyes and rather dark hair. My taste is different. I prefer light eyes and to-- as to complexion, do [00:18:00] you know, I like a sallow better than any other? You must not betray me. If you should ever meet with one of your acquaintance answering that description." "Betray you, what do you mean?" And so then they're going back and forth, but no, you know exactly what I mean.

Don't play stupid. Like, don't give me away if you meet somebody who meets that description, blah, blah, blah. But I loved that the word betray popped up in this chapter and that it came up in relation to discussing men.

Emily: That was very good. Yeah. So well positioned. Especially 'cause they're, they're discussing a betrayal of one's feelings or preferences to a man, but it's also very much about betrayal between friends.

 What kind of confidences do you keep? What constitutes a real friendship? A true friendship. And I'd be interested to, to know their differing ideas of what that is. Because Isabella clearly has more experience than Catherine in this forming of female bonds and at least putting on the show of friendship.

I wanna see where this goes.

Lauren: Yep. Same.

Emily: There might actually be more drama in this relationship than there is with Mr. Tilney, and I can't wait to see.

Lauren: But also, speaking of Mr. Tilney, I would just like to point out the brown skin, dark hair description. And I know canonically, whatever, like whenever--

this is the same thing, I was just having this conversation with a friend because I just finished reading the fantasy novel Fourth Wing, and I had in my head that the male protagonist had some sort of melanin and I asked her about it and she goes, 'no, I don't think that's it. Remember when they say tall, dark, and handsome, they really mean pasty white boy with dark hair.' And I was like, Ugh, you're so right. And then I went back and I was like, oh, you're correct. They just meant--

Emily: tragic.

Lauren: --White boy with black hair and I know if we're just going like Canon description of what Jane Austen would've been writing about, that's what she means.

She just means somebody who's like a little bit darker complected, but still very much white.

Emily: He has a healthy tan.

Lauren: A healthy tan, but like some [00:20:00] dark hair. But if we are applying fanfiction rules slash death of the author slash history doesn't exist readings to this book. I say Henry Tilney can be whatever race you want him to be because we have Brown as a descriptor and I will take that and I will run with it.

I do not care.

Emily: Head Canon accepted.

Lauren: Head Canon accepted.

Emily: Tilney is melanated.

Lauren: That's it.

Emily: That's just a fact now.

Lauren: Henry Tilney's Brown, the end.

Emily: Yeah, this is, this is the Reclaiming Jane truth now.

Lauren: I retconned

Emily: it,

Lauren: I don't care.

Emily: I mean, Austen's not about to stop you.

Lauren: No, she can't. She can't do anything.

Emily: So yeah, that's, I guess, the sum of our chapters because they were so short.

Literally, at least in my edition, it was like 15 pages for these three chapters, which is very short.

Lauren: Yeah. There was one Persuasion chapter that was 15 pages on its own.

Emily: Yeah. Oh, Persuasion. I miss you. I'm having fun with Northanger, but I miss you Persuasion.

Lauren: Have a book hangover for sure.

Emily: Even like a month and a half later.

Lauren: I know. Were there other places that you saw Betrayal in Northanger Abbey in these four, not four. In these three chapters?

Emily: I actually marked out Austen's rant. Ah, for the theme. Because she's taking such umbrage at this betrayal of the genre by the people who are creating the genre.

Lauren: No, that's so true.

Because why are you denigrating an art form that you're participating in? That does feel like a betrayal of your fellow novelist, which is kind of what she's saying.

Emily: Did you find any other spots that piqued betrayal for you?

Lauren: I think Catherine kind of views Henry Tilney's disappearance as a betrayal.

Maybe not a personal betrayal. She does a little bit, but at least a betrayal of the story that she had already begun constructing in her brain the moment they met.

Emily: Exactly.

Lauren: So she had a picture of how this was going to go, how the romance was going to form, here was this charming young man from a great background who was paying attention to her, and so she arrives and [00:22:00] in the rooms or in the assemblies over the next couple of days, and she's ready for her love story to continue, but he's betrayed her by being totally absent.

Emily: He's completely thrown off the template.

Lauren: Yeah.

Emily: Yeah, that was actually, I had forgotten about it 'cause we got so caught up in everything else. But yeah, that was the very first thing that I noted that him refusing to show up was a betrayal of her expectations.

Lauren: Right.

Emily: Ignoring the fact that they were not reasonable expectations.

Lauren: He went off script.

Emily: How dare he.

Lauren: You can't go off script. If those are all of our topics for betrayal, what is your historical topic for today?

Emily: It's not really betrayal related. Well, it sort of is. It's the scene of Catherine's betrayal.

Lauren: Oh, okay.

Emily: By Tilney.

Lauren: All right.

Emily: Because they spend so much time in the pump rooms, which we, I think also heard a little about in Persuasion.

 But it was on the brain because we just watched 1995 Persuasion, which was also filmed in the pump rooms in Bath. So yeah, this is one of those great scenes of Georgian society in Bath in the 18th century. The pump room was built sort of alongside the Bath assembly rooms. They were new construction in the 18th century to cater to the increased traffic from fashionable crowds, which I talked about a lot more in the general topic on Bath in our Persuasion season. So if you want more on Bath overall, go and listen to that.

There was actually an earlier building on the site of the pump room that was raised in 1706 before the discovery of Roman Temple Ruins nearby. Those ruins were actually uncovered during preliminary excavations for the now existing pump room.

There was a whole temple complex down there, and they were just like, yeah, let's build on top of it, you know, as you do.

Lauren: Oh, no.

Emily: Mm-hmm. But the current pump room was designed by John Wood the younger, and built by first Thomas Baldwin and then John Palmer from about 1789 to [00:24:00] 1799. So they were very recent.

They were very fashionable at the time when Austen would've been writing this. They're built like most of the rest of the city out of Bath Stone, which is that very distinctive honey colored limestone that's quarried in the area. In style. It is, again, like most of the rest of the city, very distinctly Palladian, neoclassical.

It's got the columns, it's got a big open space and everything. They, they really, they really went hard on that aesthetic when they were like, 'Hey, we have a chance to redesign this entire city. Let's make it cohesive.' They sure did.

Lauren: They picked a theme and they ran with it.

Mm-hmm.

Emily: So the building consists of the central pump room and then north and south colonnades as well.

It's right adjacent to those ancient Roman Baths and that eponymous pump allows visitors to the pump room to drink water from the hot springs that is dispensed through a marble vase. This is just one form of taking the waters that might be undertaken in Bath, whether you are sick or not. The water was described by a visitor in 1678 as "very hot and tastes like the water that boils eggs" because it's, it's mineral water.

There's like sulfur and stuff in there, which sounds terrible.

Lauren: Yeah, it does.

Emily: You can, I think, still take the water in Bath and have a sip of that horrible mineral mineral water. I'm, I don't know whether it's advisable or not. In addition to just people wandering around drinking the water, the space hosted musical performances and displays of art and is actually home to the longest established resident music ensemble in Europe.

They're still performing, known now as the pump room trio.

Lauren: Wow. How-- wait, longest running as in how long?

Emily: I don't know. I couldn't find like the date of establishment, which does make it a little bit questionable. But

Lauren: we'll run with it.

Emily: That's, yeah. Yeah. Then to wrap up, I have an [00:26:00] 1813 description of the space from Feltham's Guide to all the Watering and Sea Bathing Places, et cetera.

I love Georgian titles. Absolutely ridiculous. But this description says, "this noble room was built in 1797 under the direction of Mr. Baldwin, architect. It is 60 feet long by 46 feet wide and 31 feet high," which is very tall, let me say. "The inside is set round with three quarter columns of the Corinthian order, crowned with an tablature and a covering of five feet.

In a recess at the West End is the Music book Gallery and in another at the East, an excellent timepiece, over which is a marble statue of King Nash," which would be Beau Nash, that master of ceremonies of early 18th century Bath, "executed by Hoare," who is a local artist, "at the expense of the corporation. In the center of the south side is a marble vase from which issue the waters with a fireplace on each side."

Lauren: Lovely. Thank you. That's a fantastic way to end with that very detailed description.

Emily: The very, the, the dimensions of the room. Okay!

Lauren: In case you had any doubt about what Emily has just been describing, here you go.

Emily: It's a real big room.

Lauren: That's giant. 30 feet ceilings?!

Emily: 30 foot ceilings. Yeah.

Lauren: That's wild.

Emily: The average ceiling height is closer to like eight or nine feet.

Lauren: Oh, okay. That makes sense.

Emily: Mm-hmm. Just for, for a little visual reference for our listeners, go get a tape measure, find out how high your ceilings are, and then multiply that by like at least three, right?

And you'll have how tall the ceiling of the pump room is. So yeah, that's a little bit about the pump room in which so much of our action takes place because where else are Catherine and Mrs. Allen going to go?

Lauren: That's the place to be.

Emily: The place to be. Drinking that boiled egg water.

Lauren: Drinking that sulfur water.

Emily: What do you have for pop culture connection today? I, I noticed there was some kind of numbering going on in your preparation.

Lauren: Top 10 anime betrayals. I'm kidding. [00:28:00] But that was my first thought.

Emily: As it should have been. That would objectively be the funniest option.

Lauren: I really was going to pursue that, but I don't watch enough anime to be able to add my like, personal coloring to it.

Emily: And I watch even less anime than you.

Lauren: Yes. So instead I have top five romcom betrayals.

Emily: Ooh.

Lauren: 'cause that also feels tied into like, Catherine's Gothic novel interests and it felt more thematic to the book that we're reading.

Emily: Definitely.

Lauren: So these are just going to be for movies since those tend to be like broader vernacular people can latch onto versus like, romance books of which there are legion and everybody has their own reference for like their romance novel betrayal.

But that this is not to say that romance novel betrayals are not just as heart wrenching. I, just not everybody always has the same books to reference. So number 5, 27 Dresses.

Emily: I was obsessed with that movie.

Lauren: I love that movie. Emily had an immediate reaction to just me saying 27 Dresses.

Emily: I clutched the pearls.

Lauren: Clutched the pearls.

But obviously this is going to be, this is not a spoiler free zone for any of the movies that I mentioned. So if I say the movie title and you have not seen it, maybe just continue skipping forward because I am about to spoil it for you. But James Marsden's character, who's the main love interest, is a reporter.

Katherine Heigel's character is the woman who's been a bridesmaid 27 times, but yet she's never made it down the aisle. And she thinks that they're just having fun and all this stuff is off the record. And then there is a front page story that comes out about her being always a bridesmaid, never a bride, and she didn't know about it ahead of time, and it is, A betrayal because honestly, how dare you.

Emily: Yeah, that is a betrayal!

Lauren: The audacity.

Emily: Yeah.

Lauren: You took all that woman's like, emotions and things that she shared with you when she thought she was building like a genuine connection. You sang Benny and the Jets together on a bar countertop.

Emily: After getting caught in the rain together!

Lauren: After getting caught in the rain and this is how you repay her?!

Emily: I need to rewatch [00:30:00] 27 dresses, honestly.

Lauren: Same. So good.

Emily: Also, James Marsden does not get his due as a romance lead.

Lauren: He does not. He doesn't get his due as an actor at all. That man is so charming. Him as Corny Collins in Hairspray altered my brain chemistry, that one, that one riff he does at the end of the movie when he's singing like, oh, that's me.

Which I will not try to replicate for the sake of everyone's ears, but it's so, it scratches my brain just the right way. It's so good. Anyway, I will also--

Emily: also was the Prince in Enchanted, let me just say.

Lauren: Yes. Justice for James Marsden.

Emily: Anyway, I'm in love with James Marsden, I guess.

Moving on!

Lauren: Moving on from his betrayal.

Number four, John Tucker Must Die. The whole movie is a betrayal pretty much, but--

Emily: I haven't seen that one.

Lauren: Oh, okay. So that is a early two thousands Teen romcom classic. So the premise of John Tucker Must Die is that John Tucker, of course, is the male lead in the movie, and he is one of those like typical high school players who's dating multiple girls but hasn't told them.

And so Brittany Snow is the new girl on the block pretty much. And so three of the girls who John Tucker is dating simultaneously, all from different cliques and like, areas of the high school, realized that he's been playing them the entire time. And so they decide to get back at him by making Brittany Snow's character into the perfect girl that John Tucker would of course go for.

But of course she's in on the whole thing. It's very Mean Girls where we're like, we're gonna have the woman on the inside to like destroy her. Brittany Snow is the woman on the inside to destroy John Tucker. So John Tucker has betrayed all the women at the beginning of the movie. They begin to betray him by like sneaking Brittany Snow in to like become his perfect little decoy girlfriend so that she can just slowly chip away at the John Tucker image. So the entire movie is a betrayal.

Emily: Amazing.

Lauren: Also a funny rewatch. I think I rewatched that last year for the first time in like ages. And of [00:32:00] course like it's the early two thousands. There are some jokes like, don't hold up. But for the most part, that movie was still good.

Coming in at number three, again with betrayals that are too many to count. Bride Wars. Did you see that movie with--

Emily: Oh yeah.

Lauren: Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson.

Emily: It's been a minute, but yeah.

Lauren: Yep. That was another like two thousands rom-com. Mostly because like. We started getting heavy into the streaming era in the 2010s and we don't get as many like good rom-coms anymore, which is a rant and pop culture connection for another day.

But in Bride Wars, Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson play two childhood friends who do everything together. They have taken like some different life trajectories, but they are still super close. They're both dating some. You know who they believe to be the loves of their lives, and they get engaged almost simultaneously, and they've always planned to get married at this one venue.

They can't get married on like back to back weeks, and there's only one day that they can do to get married at this venue. So they decide to schedule their weddings for the same day, and then chaos ensues because one gets mad at the other for something, and then the other one, one ups. And the other one ups.

So eventually they're dying each other's hair, they're stealing each other's, they're like ruining wedding dresses. They're making the other person gain weight, whatever it is to ruin the other person's day, they're doing it. So that's more of a friendship betrayal than a romance betrayal. So there is a romance betrayal thrown in there as well.

But that's not the point. This is really a friendship betrayal of betraying the relationship that you have and wanting the best for your best friend who's been there for you since you were children, when you were playing at being married in the attic together. And now instead of working together, just saying, oh, well, you know, maybe it's okay.

We can be adults and not be in the wedding venue that we envisioned when we were kids, so that we can have this person who is the most important person in my life, be at my wedding.

Emily: It just no, absolutely not.

Lauren: No.

Emily: How would [00:34:00] that hold up the wedding industrial complex?

Lauren: It wouldn't. So, so much for that. So that, that's number three.

Okay. Coming in at number two. We're getting worse.

Emily: Oh God.

Lauren: So this is from, He's Just Not That Into You.

Emily: I don't think I've seen that either.

Lauren: That was, I think 2009. So Bride Wars was 08 and then He's Just Not That Into You, it was 2009. This is another one where it is an entry into the men ain't shit category of movies.

So, He's Just Not That Into You for reference is one of those ensemble films where it follows multiple couples. Think like a Valentine's Day, a Love Actually, something like that. And so in this particular storyline, Bradley Cooper's character is married to Jennifer Connelly's character, except for he is cheating on her with Scarlet Johansson's character.

Emily: Oh, dun, dun dun.

Lauren: So the main betrayal is the fact that he's cheating on Jennifer Connelly in the first place, but, but it gets worse. So Jennifer Connelly finds out that he's been unfaithful and she goes to confront him at work, which is where he's met Scarlet Johansson's character Anna. And so she goes to confront him about it.

And while Anna is hiding in the closet, he has sex with Jennifer Connelly's character and it's a mess. Yes.

Emily: Oh my God.

Lauren: Yeah. Just betrayal upon betrayal upon betrayal. Who does that?

Emily: Bradley Cooper, apparently.

Lauren: Apparently. As, Hmm? If men have one thing, it's the audacity. Are you kidding me? I'll never get over that.

It's been like 14 years and I'm still mad. How dare you? How very dare you, sir? Anyway, that is my number two.

Emily: Oh God.

Lauren: My number one, that twists the knife into my heart every single time.

Emily: I'm gonna be upset if this is one that I haven't seen. Oh, wait. No. I think I know. I know exactly what it is.

Lauren: Do you wanna say what it is?

Emily: I'll let, I'll let you do it just in case I'm wrong.

Lauren: I think it'll be funnier if you've guessed correctly.

Emily: Okay. Okay. I think it's in Love Actually, [00:36:00] when Colin Firth walks in on his brother having sex with his wife.

Lauren: Right movie, wrong moment.

Emily: Oh no, which one is it? Oh, it's Joni Mitchell.

And she finds the necklace in his pocket.

Lauren: Exactly.

Emily: And thinks that that's what he's giving her for Christmas. And then he gives her a Joni Mitchell CD 'cause she's the woman who taught his cold English wife how to feel.

Lauren: Yes. So for those of you--

Emily: Love Actually clearly is just chock full of betrayals.

Lauren: It's, it's full of betrayals.

And I love that you knew the movie that I was going for, but also it's cracking me up that I said this twisted knife in my heart every time. And you thought it was Colin Firth walking in on his brother.

Emily: Yeah, my brain just didn't quite go far enough into the movie, evidently.

Lauren: No, it's all good. So there is a betrayal that Emily is, is thinking of where at the very beginning of Love Actually. Colin Firth's character goes to a wedding, but realizes that he wants to come back early to check on his, his poor sickly girlfriend who has begged off from going to the wedding because she just feels so, so horrid.

And so he comes back early from the wedding and his brother is there and it doesn't quite process in his mind first why his brother would be in his house and the brother is, you know, making up some excuse about, oh, she asked me to pop over to do blah, blah, blah. Except for, of course, the girlfriend then yells out something about like, yells out something incriminating, basically saying like, they've been screwing this entire time.

Emily: She calls the brother big boy.

Lauren: Yeah, like, Yeah.

Emily: Anyway, but that was not even the betrayal you had in mind.

Lauren: But that was not the betrayal I had in mind 'cause it's not the ultimate betrayal. The ultimate betrayal is between Alan Rickman's character and Emma Thompson's character. So they're a married couple, they're settled into middle aged life with their two kids and their nice house in London, whatever.

Alan Rickman has been having this weird, office tension flirtation with the new young [00:38:00] secretary who's just started.

Emily: And who is not worth it, my dude.

Lauren: It really is not. The secretary has been flirting with Alan Rickman's character for forever and for most of the movie, it looks like he's kind of stonewalling her until it gets to be the time where he's supposed to be going to go buy Christmas gifts.

He goes to buy this gold necklace in a very funny scene with Mr. Bean and then we don't know who he got the necklace for, and we're hoping that he got it for Emma Thompson's character, as is she, because she, like, checks in his pocket because he has been a little bit secretive and like clearly he went to go out shopping or something like that.

She looks in his coat pocket and she sees that he's purchased this really beautiful gold necklace and she's like, oh, finally my husband is making an effort for my Christmas gifts. He always says like, oh, well you always loved scarves or something like that. You know, like he puts in no effort into what he gets her, and meanwhile she's running the entire holiday. She's getting all the gifts for the kids. She's probably given him something lovely and thoughtful.

Emily: She's making paper mache, lobster claws, like, come on.

Lauren: Right? You know, the woman's a goddess. She's being superwoman and he's giving her the bare minimum. And so she's thinking finally, like my husband did something nice for me. And then they all open one gift each on Christmas Eve before Christmas day.

And so she picks what looks like a necklace shaped box because she's really excited because she wants to open this one. And it's a Joni Mitchell CD. Granted, does she love Joni Mitchell? Yes. If she did not know that there had been a necklace, would she probably had been like a little happy with the Joni Mitchell CD?

Probably, because it showed that he actually listened to her and that she really loves Joni Mitchell. But she knows that he has purchased this necklace and now she knows that he's given it to someone else. And she saw the secretary being all over him at the holiday party, and she knows, she puts two and two together immediately.

And then I honestly feel like if you had given the scene to a lesser actress, I wouldn't even care. But because it's Emma Thompson, she absolutely devours the scene where she realizes what's going on, and there's just like, There's no [00:40:00] dialogue. It's just a Joni Mitchell track.

Emily: Yeah. And oh my God, the one they chose.

Lauren: Oh, which hurts my heart every time. And she's looking at like the pictures of their kids and you can tell that she's just like contemplating the life that they built together and realizing that she doesn't know where to go from here. The rug's just been pulled out from under her, and so she's choosing, do I keep my happy family?

Do I choose me? What do I do? I don't know what's happening with my husband anymore, and she's just silently crying in her bedroom. And it's heartbreaking.

Emily: Like I, I listen to Joni Mitchell anyway, and every time I hear that track, I'm thinking about Emma Thompson and crying.

Lauren: As soon as I hear, 'I don't wanna talk,' I'm like, Nope.

Emily: It's so good. Yeah, absolutely. That deserves the number one rom-com betrayal spot.

Lauren: Yep, yep. It's been 20 years since that movie was released and people are still mad.

Emily: As we should be, honestly.

Lauren: It's not, it's not even just me like look up any, like Love Actually retrospective and people will ask about this scene in particular and if he actually like, hooked up with a secretary or if he just got her the necklace.

People debate those finer points as well, but people are still mad about it. It's been 20 years.

Emily: That was amazing. I won't say delightful because you know, it hurt from the very first moment. Wow.

Lauren: I am, I'm glad that I could at least provide some entertainment.

Emily: I wonder what Catherine would've thought of all of these.

Lauren: Oh my goodness. She absolutely would've been in tears at the Love Actually betrayal.

Emily: Oh my God. Completely. She would've just paused the movie and run it back and watched it over and over and over.

Lauren: Yep. A hundred percent. I think that means that we've come to final takeaways.

Emily: Yes, we have. I think my takeaway is that there's always a lot of unspoken expectations that people are hoping we live up-- live up to that we may or may not be able to just on serendipity because they're unspoken.

Lauren: That's a good takeaway. [00:42:00]

Emily: What's yours?

Lauren: I think it's that betrayals can be small, but they're still betrayals.

Emily: That's good.

Lauren: Even if it's a, 'you told this boy I liked him and I told you not to.' that's still a betrayal. And those still hurt and they can add up.

Emily: All right. Shall we pull our Tarot?

Yes,

Lauren: it is your turn to draw a card.

Emily: Yay. I love getting to do it. Alright, our card for next time is The Four of Diamonds, which is illustrated with a beautiful set of what looks like diamond jewelry.

Lauren: Yes, the four of diamonds is material wealth, and the description is, "a lady's assets give her stability, though she must be careful not to let her things possess her." Ooh, interesting. Ooh, I like material wealth. That'll be a fun one.

Thank you for joining us in this episode of Reclaiming Jane. Next time we'll be reading chapters seven through nine of Northanger Abbey through the lens of Material Wealth.

Emily: To read our show notes and a transcript of this episode, check out our website, reclaimingjanepod.com, where you can also find the full back catalog and links to our social media.

Lauren: If you'd like to support us and gain access to exclusive content, you can join our Patreon at Reclaiming Jane Pod.

Emily: Reclaiming Jane is produced and co-hosted by Lauren Wethers and Emily Davis Hale. Our music is by Latasha Bundy, and our show art is by Emily Davis Hale.

Lauren: We'll see you next time nerds.[00:44:00]

Emily: She's just so 17. And I know we said the same thing about Marianne too, but.

Lauren: Delightfully 17.

Emily: Yeah. You really feel it sometimes.

Lauren: Yeah. It reminds me of when I used to play Barbies with my family when I was like a little kid and I would not tell them that I had a script in my head because I was six. And so I didn't realize you have to tell people, "I have a script that you're supposed to follow." And then I would get really angry when they would improv because we're playing dolls, and they would say, okay, well my Barbie wants to do such and such. And I was like, no, that's not right. Your Barbie has to do whatever. And they're like, what? How am I supposed to know that?

Emily: Yeah. I was also not a yes and player. No, absolutely not. I'm the director. I won't tell you what's happening. You're supposed to read my mind.

Lauren: Exactly.

Emily: But it has to go this way.

Lauren: Yeah, that was a perfect, perfectly reasonable expectation as a six year old.

Emily: Which unfortunately gets harder when you have younger siblings who don't wanna do that, which is why I always just ended up setting up the Barbie house.