I don't know; I don't think these stories necessarily HAVE to be cautionary tales. I guess one thing that might have really helped would be to have some of the other female characters have positive sexual relationships that existed alongside Lydia's, which unfortunately the show hasn't done. For example, I always thought it was a bit odd that Jane emphatically denied she and Bing had ever slept together, considering they're both in their mid to late twenties. Not that people HAVE to have sex, but the "good girl" implications behind it kind of worried me (obviously this would be completely different if she'd been identified as a romantic asexual). But anyway, I'm wary of saying there's absolutely no way to tell a story like this without propping up sexism, because if we do that we run the risk of silencing and erasing women who actually have had that kind of horrible experience. Would a book about, say, a girl like Amanda Todd be sexist by definition? On the other hand, there's a compelling case to be made about these not being the ONLY stories we tell about female sexuality, so once again we return to my favourite mantra of "all the stories, please" :P
As for the matter of agency, I'll be disappointed if they follow a "Darcy saves the day and Lydia just goes along with his plans" path that's too close to the original and never take her will into account; but telling a story where a woman is victimised doesn't bother me in itself. Again, people (and especially women) are placed in situations where they're robbed of agency every day, and to have fiction not acknowledge that would erase something that I think is important. This is actually a kind of story I'm personally very drawn to, and it's the reason why I love books like Tender Morsels, The Brides of Rollrock Island, Thank Heaven Fasting and Consequences by E.M. Delafield, etc. The female characters in those stories are robbed of their choice and they're definitely acted on, but the books do a really job of showing that this is the result of a seriously messed up social system and NOT of individual weakness (whatever that means). They're all creepy books, and they're supposed to be. As long as the story doesn't take any sort of horrifying victim-blaming turn (which we're still not sure about here - time will tell) I don't mind lack of agency so much.
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As for the matter of agency, I'll be disappointed if they follow a "Darcy saves the day and Lydia just goes along with his plans" path that's too close to the original and never take her will into account; but telling a story where a woman is victimised doesn't bother me in itself. Again, people (and especially women) are placed in situations where they're robbed of agency every day, and to have fiction not acknowledge that would erase something that I think is important. This is actually a kind of story I'm personally very drawn to, and it's the reason why I love books like Tender Morsels, The Brides of Rollrock Island, Thank Heaven Fasting and Consequences by E.M. Delafield, etc. The female characters in those stories are robbed of their choice and they're definitely acted on, but the books do a really job of showing that this is the result of a seriously messed up social system and NOT of individual weakness (whatever that means). They're all creepy books, and they're supposed to be. As long as the story doesn't take any sort of horrifying victim-blaming turn (which we're still not sure about here - time will tell) I don't mind lack of agency so much.