In Defense of Jane (SEASON 4 SPOILER!!!!)

THIS IS REGARDING THE END OF SEASON 4 AND IIFY THE DARIA MOVIE:

In Defense Of Jane

<delurking> I am going to rant here...

It seems that some people are saying, more or less, that Jane deserved what happened to her in regards to her relationship with Tom..and Daria. <That is if you've been following the thread in this newsgroup "Re: Sandi as a villain. Was: Mike's Delayed Reaction Review-#4-53, "Is It Fall Yet?">

I for one feel that Jane had every right to behave as she did-after the fact. Maybe she didn't behave correctly or could have done things differently in her relationship with Tom but she *didn't* deserve what happened to her!

Let me reiterate: She felt very betrayed by what happened. Who wouldn't?! Not only did her then boyfriend start chasing (YES CHASING!) her best friend, but her best friend kissed said boyfriend and eventually ended up dating him after they had broken up.

I know "all is fair in Love and War" but in regards to friendships, you play by certain defined rules. I think the fifth rule is "Thou shalt not date thy best friend's ex"!

Or you don't stay friends!

I mean come on! What happened to solidarity? What happened to Sisterhood? I would be VERY angry if my relationship with someone ends and the very next day my *alleged* best friend turns around and goes out with that person?

TOM'S FAULT: Tom knew that they were best friends (remember the conversation he had with Daria in "Janes Addition"?). He also knew that these two had something very special between them far and beyond most teenage friendships. Not that it stopped him from going after Daria when the thrill went out of his relationship with Jane. Mr Sloane could have given *less* than a damn about anyone elses feelings but his own.

Yeah. I know. Daria and Tom had gotten "lost in the moment" in ILAP but after the smoke cleared there was no reason to stop thinking for the rest of the season. I think things started to disintegrate for Tom and Jane after that episode. Tom at that point was already making plans...and Jane wasn't included.

Look I am not some angry shipper who hates Tom. <The Trent/Daria thing was doomed from the start> I do hate what he did to Daria and Jane's relationship. I mean the show might be called "Daria" but without Jane the show wouldn't even be on right now!

Yes, I said that. Why? Because it's true!

Jane is as necessary to "Daria" as Daria herself. The show would not survive without her. To make comparison's: there's no Lucy without Ethel (although Lucy tried a couple of times and none of them worked) nor Beavis without Butthead (I had to put BB in there :=))

I can't see Tom, figuratively speaking, trying to step into Jane's Doc Marten boots and carry the show nearly so well as Jane.

Which brings me to....

DARIA'S FAULT: It wasn't Tom's betrayal that hurt the most. It was *Daria* who hurt her more than Tom ever could. She was the one, to put it bluntly, who ripped out Jane's heart and proceeded to wipe her @$ with it!

For a guy??!!

I'll go back to the scene in IIFY where Tom and Daria are at the Landon's barbecue and are confronted by Kevin and Brittany. When Tom confesses that he and Daria are dating Brittany responds with the a sly exclamation "Daria?!"

I could here what Brittany DIDN'T say in that statement "Why Daria?! You are nothing but a scheming, backstabbing, low-down, man-stealing, scandalous b$#%^&....just like the rest of us! Go Daria Go!"

As far as Jane was concerned, and anyone else for that matter including "yours truly", Daria would have been the LAST person to do something like that. Everyone on this group would have said the same thing up until the end of last season.

Anyone who saw DDMD for the first time was in a state of shock for at least a couple of weeks. You said to yourself over and over again "I can't believe I saw that?" Only to watch your copy of that episode for the <insert number here> time and try and make yourself beleive, again, that you actually saw what you saw?

<Switching gears here folks) While we're ranting here let's talk about the scene with Trent and Daria in the van in IIFY.

<"Betrayal...betrayal yeah!">

I think Trent was delivering a little pay back for hurting his little sister. In Trent's defense he handled it better than I would have if this situation happened to MY little sister.

I'm not being self righteous here (God only knows I've been on BOTH sides of nasty triangles like the one above and I wouldn't wish it on ANYONE) but cut Janey some slack folks...the little girl has definately been through hell!

Rant over <relurking>

Samyaza...off to see the Lord Of Cats...

Samyaza said:

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In fact I'd argue that Jane's ultimate reaction was very forgiving -- she's still friends with Daria and not unfriendly towards Tom. Very few people would be that nice in the same situation.

Actually, I don't think that either Daria or Jane feel much "solidarity" with most other girls. But they do with each other, so your point still stands :)

included.

I think that's quite possible.

Well, you're kind of making the assumption that romantic relationships are less significant than friendly ones. I'm not sure that either Daria or Jane would make that assumption -- though Tom would.

That assumption is based on the premise that "boyfriends come and go". While that's certainly cynical, it's not a form of cynicism that Daria's yet manifested.

ROFL!!!

Which of course wouldn't make Daria feel any better, if she understood the subtext. Which I think she _did_.

I agree. Trent's been incredibly kind and understanding about this whole situation -- he's demonstrated that he's an extremely good person.

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I will concede that point. You are right. Her ultimate reaction *was* very forgiving on a Christ-like scale! I think after what Jane has gone through it is going to make her a much better person. I think I heard it in an old country song somewhere that you grow up a little more when someone breaks your heart, and you survive it!

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Yeah well boyfriends do come and go...in high school. I think this is something Daria's going to find out next season.

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I'm pretty sure that Daria did catch that subtext. That's why she bowed her head, grabbed Tom's arm and beat a hasty retreat.

Back to that Christ-like forgiveness I mentioned earlier. Trent and Jane are incredible people even with their faults. Daria lucked out having friends like them...and she knows it.

All that sucking up to Jane she did in the bar in IIFY made that perfectly clear.

Even Daria realizes what a special friend she has in Jane and how, even with a *boyfriend*, her relationship with Jane must not be jeopardized.

Not even for *romantic relationships*. Some friends you just *don't* let go of.

They are too hard to find...

Samyaza......back from an audience with the Lord Of Cats...

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The whole sisterhood-solidarity argument rests on this. As you said. it doesn't really apply. Daria doesn't subscribe to it. And neither, I think, does Jane. Jane did make a statement of that sort near the end of IIFY, but that was in response to some (subtly nasty) teasing from Daria. It certainly doesn't fit Jane's behavior, which was to ignore their friendship immediately after meeting Tom and then including Daria mostly as part of a threesome - which was unfair to both Tom and Daria, since it meant Jane couldn't be bothered to give either of them her undivided attention, each at their own time.

If Jane really subscribed to the "don't date you friend's exes" principle, what would happen? If Daria actually refused to date Tom FOR THAT REASON it would be with the unspoken undertone "I gave up TOM for you, Jane you bitch. You owe me big-time!" Not much sisterhood there. But then, of course, if "boyfriends come and go", who cares who's dating whose ex, anyway?

Since I was one of those people in this ng very critical of Jane's behavior, and to some extent feeling that Jane got what she deserved, I must say that Jane's behavior since those four awful words "I kissed your boyfriend" has been most impressive.

She's come to terms with Tom and Daria's relationship on both an intellectual and emotional level. She no longer resents it even on a gut-level, and is even trying to help keep them together!

She seems to have given up the horrible screaming fits I though were her most unattractive behavior. Even in the immediate aftermath, her screaming at Tom was more muted, and under the circumstances, far more understandable, than the Gummi Bear or Hair-Dye blow-ups.

She's said nothing notably weird or irrational that I can think of. I don't think she'd consider an ideal relationship "watching TV and making fun of the shows" anymore.

I thought she might scream at Allison, but she was calm even when angry.

I might even have to retract my recent statement in another thread that I wouldn't like Jane if I knew her in real life. Prior to the last segment of DDMD, I wouldn't. Since then ...

Well, let's see what season 5 brings.

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Well, I don't think Trent really believes that Jane is blameless, even relatively, or Daria a scheming bitch. As much as he must feel for Jane, he's not prone to her emotional roller-coasterism and can see all this with a good deal of detachment.

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(Trotsky)

<Snip>

Look the screaming fits and the ugly scenes were a by productsof what happened up to that point.

You might not have liked Jane, prior to this season, but the blame for what happened can be divided amongst ALL parties involved.

I put the lion share of that on Mr Sloan and I quote "I should have never gotten Daria involved in this..." unquote.

*That* is what started this mess in the first place and regardless of what everyone thought Jane should have done or not done to save her relationship with Tom, the matter stands, Tom was thinking about leaving a little after ILAP (and because of what went down in that ep).

I didn't see Daria act so nobly when Jane hooked up with Tom in the first place. I saw a side of her I'd never seen before! Kind of the same unreasoning, ugly, accusatory side that Jane displayed later on.

If you have friends, and you are not romantically involved with them, they are going have romantic relationships with other people.

That's a fact of life.

Daria behaved badly because she thought Tom was taking her best friend away. Jane acted badly because....she thought Daria was taking Tom away.

And they were right on both accounts. But Tom instigated most of it.

Samyaza.....off to give oblations to the Daystar.

In article , "Samyaza" wrote:

The Gummi Bear fit? What happened to provoke that?

what

Yes. But more on Jane's head than you'll admit.

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I've always said that Tom's biggest fault was letting the relationship with Jane drag on too long. Is that what you mean?

first

Actually, she did that a bit in "See Jane Run".

With more reason in Daria's case than Jane's blow-up over the hair-dye job. Do you really think Daria botched that on purpose? But Jane really did blow off Daria for Tom when she first met him.

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And you divide your time to spend time with all of them - two people in Jane's case, not so many to accomodate. Jane didn't do that. Casual friends you may see in groups all together. But close friends and romantic partners should be seen, mostly, in groups of two- Daria and Jane, Tom and Jane. Daria could mostly see Jane only by hanging around with Tom and Jane. Tom could mostly see Jane only by hanging around when she worked on art projects or watching TV. With Daria around. Three's a crowd, but that's the way Tom and Daria had to take Jane, or not at all.

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Um, but above you say Daria was irrational and accusatory here. I somewhat agree. But her anger was misplaced - *Jane* was blowing her off, not *Tom*. Tom NEVER told Jane "lose the chick with the glasses" or anything close. Even though Daria had been nasty to him, he sought her out to smooth things over. But you blame Tom for trying to take Jane away from Daria!

How could Tom *instigate* "Daria taking Tom away"?

Samyaza said --

I never saw the episodes "Psycho Therapy" and "Mart of Darkness", but I do know that that happened BEFORE "Fire!", and I don't think Jane had any reason (as of yet) to suspect Tom was interested in Daria during those two episodes. In "Fire!" and "Dye! Dye! My Darling", she DID have reason to scream and shout.

And yes, the blame can be distributed among all three parties. Actually, I thought the blame should go more heavily to Jane and to Tom, and less so to Daria (I always believed it takes two to tango, meaning that a relationship has to have two people working together for it to work, which puts the primary responsibility on Jane and Tom in this instance), but all three made mistakes that put them in the position they were in in "Is It Fall Yet?".

You have a point about Daria's behavior in "Jane's Addition". It WAS an overreaction to a thoughtless action on Jane's part. However, Jane's actions in DDMD are even more an overreaction -- and even more unjustified -- than Daria's actions in JA, because Jane probably knew Daria would ruin Jane's hair. Of course, what she REALLY wanted was to vent her jealousy.

As for Tom, I don't think he instigated Daria's fears that he'd be taking Jane away as much as you think. I will say that he was responsible for Jane's fearing that Daria would take Tom away, however.

You make a good defense of Jane, but the fact is, she made mistakes that contributed to the mess. So did Tom, and so did Daria.

Belle Book

That I can agree with that.

I never said she was totally innocent but she did have reasons to blow as she did at least to Tom.

He was pulling away before that. I also agree that going after Daria was irrational because she hadn't done anything...yet.

Let's all agree to disagree. After all that was my 2 centavos....

In article , "Samyaza" wrote:

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Can we agree that none of the three- Daria, Tom or Jane - COLDLY or DELIBERATELY set out to hurt any of the others? Because I don't think any of them did. And they all realize it - which is why they're all getting along so well by the end of IIFY.

M Man said:

THAT I can most definitely agree with. None of them deliberately set out to hurt any of the others. And they all realize it, too, as you yourself said. Trent said that even Jane realized that Tom and Daria hadn't deliberately hurt her, Tom tended to blame himself more than Jane after the aftermath, and Daria said that Jane "was just upset" earlier on, when Jane asked what Daria thought about Jane's accusation that Daria screwed up her hair on purpose to get Tom, indicating that Daria recognized that Jane was just lashing out (and of course, trying to smooth troubled waters).

Belle Book

Then the subject is closed...along with this thread.

Samyaza

Belle Book wrote in message news:[email]...

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