Geeky Mary Bennet
#################

:date: 2023-06-25T18:03:43
:category: literature
:tags: review, austeniana, blogComment, storyPrompt

I have originally commented on “`Mr. Collins, a male lead??? Is
this possible?`_” by u/JenniferRAKim on That Site, but now I
think I would just leave it here as a prompt:

.. _`Mr. Collins, a male lead??? Is this possible?`:
    https://www.reddit.com/r/JaneAustenFF/comments/142qfn9/comment/jn89we8/

That’s one way, or of course if it leads to my preferred ship Mr
Collins/Mary Bennet (and religion taken seriously, not as an soon
to be discarded after thought).

Something like “`Far Above Rubies`_” by Beatrice_Otter or “`Let
Her Own Works Praise Her in the Gates`_” by ChronicBookworm.

I have in my head this scene::

    INT. Netherfield dinning room, evening after the dinner,
    small groups of people are talking, sound of general chatter in
    the room. Camera wanders through the room looking at those
    groups. MARY BENNET talks quietly with MR COLLINS.
    Interrupted by
    
        MARY BENNET
        (shrieking)
    Mr Collins!
    
    MR DARCY, MR BENNET, some SOLDIERS run towards the pair
    and threateningly surround them.
    
        MR BENNET
        (threateningly)
    Mary, what did he do?
    
        MARY BENNET
        (looking excited, even perhaps a bit aroused,
        face flushed, her bosom is heaving heavily)
    Can you imagine? Mr Collins declared that he finds
    interesting Luther’s concept of temporary existence of
    the church rising up in the congregation of believers under
    The Word being preached. How shocking!
    
    Camera slowly shows faces of people surrounding them,
    completely confused and unbelieving what they hear.

(BTW, Luther’s `concept of Church`_ is truly interesting, perhaps
not in the arousing level, but quite remarkable nevertheless).

----

I don’t have a good plot, and most of the stuff have been already
written. There are two thoughts which I have, but these were
already written couple of times:

* Elisabeth (or Mr Bennet, when Mr Collins comes for permission
  to ask for her hand) suggest to Mr Collins that their marriage
  is completely stupid idea, because:

  1. there is absolutely no love from Elizabeth to him,

  2. Elizabeth is constitutionally unfit to be a pastor’s wife

  3. there is a third Bennet’s sister, Mary, for whom being a
     pastor’s wife is actually a wet dream, and for whom visiting
     sick parishioners would be the dream coming true.

  That was written by many, for example (aside from those
  stories I linked before) “`If Only`_” by DesertVixen, “`The Second
  Chance`_” by violet_baudelaire, or “`This is what we’ve sown`_” by
  Kissed_by_Circe.

  That is however just a setup of the relationship, we could get
  then to this relationship of two theology geeks (as shown in the
  scene above; kind of Sheldon or Lisa Simpson meets theology), I
  don’t have enough plot to make it into real story.

* Alternative would be just opposite: yes, Mr Collins is as inept
  as Miss Austen suggests he is, and all Bennets sisters unite
  in one thing in their life and that is they don’t want to have
  anything to do with him. In the end he is kicked away (and
  marries Charlotte if you want, or marries a other random girl,
  later from sexual frustration starts to visit prostitutes, gets
  STD, and dies as complete wreck in the ruins of his supposedly
  holy life).

  Fortunately, whole issue of entail is made moot by three
  sisters marrying and two of them very well (Jane and Elisabeth)
  as in the canon. In the end, nobody knows what to do with Mary
  (and her parents are getting too old and sick to take care for
  her), so she moves to live with Elisabeth and Mr Darcy at
  Pemberley. There she meets some distant cousin of Mr Darcy (or
  some random man) who is a theology student, and Amy Farrah
  Fowler meets her Sheldon Cooper with geekiness abounding. With
  “a little” help of Mr Darcy, the guy (now all done pastor) gets
  a position of the pastor for the church in Lambton and they get
  their HEA perhaps combined with happily observing the ruin of
  Mr Collins, bankruptcy of completely incompetent Lady Catherine
  de Bourgh etc.

  And of course, the Regency Era was also time of `William
  Wilberforce`_, `Clapham Sect`_, or for the more social work
  part of the Church `Sunday School Society`_. Why they cannot
  participate in that and make it slightly cross-over with those
  real movements? Something like that is suggested in “Let Her Own
  Works Praise Her in the Gates”, but I think one could make a lot
  of fun with it more.

The End

**{update 2023-10-05}**

`@Basic_Bichette@reddit.com`_ reminded me also that this was the
time of `weird relationships between the Victorian England and
Roman Catholicism`_.

----

.. _`Far Above Rubies`:
    https://archiveofourown.org/works/15181952

.. _`Let Her Own Works Praise Her in the Gates`:
    https://archiveofourown.org/works/15122771

.. _`If Only`:
    https://archiveofourown.org/works/20184559

.. _`The Second Chance`:
    https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014291

.. _`This is what we’ve sown`:
    https://archiveofourown.org/works/43535736

.. _`concept of Church`:
    https://www.biblicaltraining.org/learn/institute/ch643-martin-luther/ch643-18-luthers-view-of-the-church

.. _`William Wilberforce`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

.. _`Clapham Sect`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clapham_Sect

.. _`Sunday School Society`:
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunday_School_Society

.. _`@Basic_Bichette@reddit.com`:
   https://www.reddit.com/user/Basic_Bichette/

.. _`weird relationships between the Victorian England and Roman Catholicism`:
   https://www.victorianweb.org/religion/cath1.html