Hi Everyone,

So we just had our pivotal “The Insistent Proposal” episode where Mr. Collins “proposes” to Lizzie. In this blog post I want to give you the background on our adaptation choices for Collins and how this arc is playing out.

Before I begin I’d like to shout out to these awesome tumblr/fans/supporters who took the time to write out their thoughts about how we’re adapting this arc.

Katastrophicallynerdy - Ruanchuxian - Thbrogan - Kiusallinen

A lot of what they wrote is in line with our thought process so check them out. (If there are more of you who wrote blog posts let me know. Those are the ones I could find through the tags)

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So let’s talk about Collins.

In our era, Mr. Collins is a young, ambitious, naive, and self conscious guy. He has good intentions and believes that everything he’s doing and saying is right, complimentary, and mannerly. Of course this isn’t true, he overly praises himself, he barges into rooms with nothing more than a courtesy knock, and continually criticizes those he’s trying to praise. For the viewers we tried to make him into someone you love to watch, but would hate to actually be around in real life. So like how we evolved Lydia and then Caroline into likable characters with conflicting interests to Lizzie, Mr. Collins ideally comes off similarly.

One of the critiques we continually get is that our Lizzie is too openly and unjustifiably rude to Mr. Collins. Frankly, I’m a little perplexed by that criticism. Clearly this critique has been repeated several times, so it is definitely a thing, but I believe Lizzie being “rude” to Collins is completely earned and justified because Collins is being just as rude (or ruder) to Lizzie.

In Episode 25 (Vidcon) Collins bursts into Lizzie’s video blabbers on about himself and though Lizzie asks him to stop because she’s filming, he instead starts revealing an embarrassing childhood memory. Lizzie’s only play is that she has to forcibly remove him from the video.

In Episode 36 (Return of Collins). Collins bursts into Lizzie’s bedroom. (Let’s rephrase that, a man bursts into a woman’s bedroom through her closed door). Then Collins forces a conversation on her that not only does Lizzie try to respond respectfully she even tries joking with him but NONE of it works! The guy just keeps talking until finally Charlotte swoops in and saves her from slapping Collins in the face. After a few moments Collins bursts back into her room (CLOSED DOOR AGAIN) and starts up another conversation before having to be forcibly removed.

In Episode 37 (Collins vs Lydia). Collins AGAIN bursts in through a closed door (now for third time). Lizzie is already tempermental for having to deal with Lydia, and now that her nerves are at a boiling point, she “storms out!”

Now in Episode 39 (The Insistent Proposal) - AGAIN Collins bursts into her bedroom. He goes off on his speech (which is clearly long and irritating). He proposes the partnership, Lizzie tries to politely turn it down TWICE before the third time having no choice but to be forceful. Collins then FIRES back with backhanded criticisms until again Lizzie has NO choice but to forcibly remove him from her OWN bedroom.

I’m not a girl, but I feel that if a guy forcibly (good intentions or not {non-sexual or not}) bursts into a girl’s bedroom not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 times she’s allowed to treat him however the “efff” she pleases.

Good guy or not, Collins’ actions justifies Lizzie’s “rude” reactions towards him. - I’m also going to point out that as 1800 Lizzy Bennet did things that were appalling to normal society back then, 2012 Lizzie will ALSO do things that buck traditional societal trends today. Things like “being rude” aka taking no S#it and being SUPER vocal and participating in unconventional activities like VLOGGING ;)

To us, Lizzie is a modern woman. Whatever you want to say about how she should be “polite”, Lizzie is someone who bites back when she’s bitten. Collins bites, Lydia bites, Darcy bites, Lady Catherine will bite. It’s not being vengeful or rude or whatever. It’s standing up and defending yourself.

As for the proposal itself. The idea of adapting Collins’ intentions into a business partnership was decided way early in our development process. I mean this was something the team had talked about way back last October. We knew that adapting the “practical marriage arc” word for word would be anachronistic for our era.

Let’s revisit the book version of this arc.

Collins (Lizzie’s COUSIN) comes to town seeking a wife. Mrs. Bennet is worried that if her hubby dies they lose the house because the estate goes to a male heir in the family (in this case Collins). So Mrs. Bennet pushes Collins to marry one of the daughters so they won’t end up homeless. Collins does his wordy/self appraising/drives everyone up the wall/Collins thing and proposes to Lizzie in what would be a financial/practical marriage, guaranteeing the house stays with the Bennet’s while getting Lizzie married off.

All this other stuff happens after that but just look at those three beats and imagine them today in western society. Kind of absurd right?

As I’ve said before, we don’t want this entire story to be about marriage. It’s the 21st century, women don’t absolutely need to be married to have a good/happy life; a theme that we will continually explore.

So that’s it for this behind the scenes post. As always, thanks for watching the show.