Review/Showdown: North and South vs. Pride and Prejudice

I just finished up my first week as a working woman. The funny thing is, I never expected how tired I could be after I get off work each day at 5 PM. The day seems to pass so slowly at work, but then the evening seems to zip by, and then before I know it, it's bedtime. I do enjoy the work so far though. I never thought prostate cancer research would be so interesting.

These past few nights, E and I have been watching a BBC miniseries called North and South. Not to be confused with some other TV series about the Civil War. The one I'm talking about is something like Pride and Prejudice in industrial England. And now without further ado, another one of Sophelia's reviews:

North and South (2004)

I normally have no patience to fully watch a TV series, especially when I know I have more pertinent things to do. In this case, I should be writing my secondaries for my medical school applications. However, E managed to convince me to watch North and South after she marketed it to me as a "better version of Pride and Prejudice," and we all know how I'm a sucker for enemies-turned-lovers romances.

The series is adapted from a Victorian novel by Elizabeth Gaskell, which unfortunately I have never read. I am, however, quite well-versed with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, and so inevitably I had to draw comparisons between the two as I was watching. So may I present, the deathmatch showdown you've all been waiting for:

Round 1: The Heroines

Lizzy Bennet (left) vs. Margaret Hale (right)

Margaret is quite reminiscent of Lizzie Bennet. They're both the spirited and headstrong types, which means that they tend to offend people. (Usually these people have sticks up their arses, so oftentimes I find myself cheering for them anyways.) The storylines for these two ladies are also somewhat similar, though I won't go into the spoilerish details here.

But OMFG. There were so many moments when I seriously wanted to slap some sense into Margaret. I can't remember if I felt so aggravated by Lizzie Bennet--it's been a while since I watched either the BBC version or the movie with Keira Knightley, so my memory may be faulty--but I can't remember the last time I've wanted to smack a character as badly as Margaret. There were definitely admirable things I liked about her character--she is very caring about the people closest to her, and I definitely prefer my heroines with some spunk and backbone. But I think there was something more charming about Lizzie that made me fond of her, despite her misguided prejudices. Margaret, in my opinion, possessed only a fraction of that charm, which often made me less sympathetic towards her rash behavior. There were moments when I thought she was overtly rude, even until like the last ten minutes of the series. Totally cannot read the situation... and not just sometimes. MOST OF THE TIME.

Winner: Lizzie Bennet (Pride and Prejudice)

On the other hand, I strongly suspect that the majority of my frustrations with Margaret Hale stem from her crushing rejections of the love interest, which brings me to...

Round 2: The Love Interests

Fitzwilliam Darcy (left) vs. John Thornton (right)

I must admit something blasphemous...

... but I have never sa-WOONed over Mr. Darcy. Never. Matthew McFayden reminded me too much of my Russian tennis coach, and maybe I was too young when I watched it, but the infamous wet-shirt scene with Colin Firth in the 1995 BBC version did nothing for me. He just seemed unpleasant and not all that fun to be around.

One of the other selling points E tried to make when convincing me to watch North and South was Richard Armitage. I haven't watched any of his other work (which includes the Hobbit, in which he plays a dwarf--which actually surprises me, because Richard Armitage is both 6'2" and quite handsome, neither of which are traits one would ordinarily attribute to Middlearth dwarfs).

No character has made me so conflicted about my feelings as Richard Armitage's John Thornton. Obviously, the Pride-and-Prejudice set-up requires that the heroine and her love interest leave a terrible first impression on each other that they must overcome by the end of the story. Well, North and South does an excellent job of doing this, because in the very first scene with Thornton, I was like DUDE WTF THIS GUY HAS MAJOR ISSUES.

But then I quickly found myself thinking, Damn it, Thornton is INSANELY good looking. And his voice. I think we all know that I am a sucker for deep voices (e.g. the Badass One aka T.O.P., Christian Bale, etc.). Richard Armitage's voice is right up there in the Sophelia's pantheon of "voices-I-could-listen-to-all-day," which sounds a lot creepier than it should.

But then I still felt torn about my undeniable attraction to Thornton.Why, you may ask? Because, I understand his strong love for his mother and all (explained in a sad story), but you don't go around saying this sort of shizz to your own mother after you get rejected:

"No one loves me. No one cares for me but you." Seriously, WTF.

But there's no fighting the supermagnet that is Richard Armitage. In all seriousness though, Armitage did a great job in this role. Lots of smoldering and scowling, just the way I like it. And John Thornton does have his good points as a character, especially near the end when he becomes BFFs with a certain character that used to hate his guts.

Winner: John Thornton (North and South)

Round 3: Side Characters

Pride and Prejudice (top) vs. North and South (bottom)

One of the things I've always admired about Jane Austen is her ability to create memorable secondary characters. As much as I abhor Mrs. Bennet, she is a riot and a classic. Mr. Bennet is hilariously witty, and Mr. Collins is deliciously insufferable. Bingley and Jane are kind of boring, but you can't win them all. North and South has its own cast of characters, with quite a few people to root for. Thornton's mother is a little more pleasant than Lady Catherine de Bourgh, which isn't saying much. His sister Fanny is comically ridiculous, with the best (worst?) stinkface I have ever seen. Margaret's parents are boring, especially in comparison to the Bennets. My favorite--until he made that creepy wife comment near the end--was probably Mr. Bell, who seemed to detect the slow simmering burn between Thornton and Margaret and occasionally had fun trying to meddle with the two of them... which was especially welcome, as there were several times when I wanted to knock their heads together and be like "YOU GUYS LIKE EACH OTHER OKAYYY STOP BEING SO STUBBORN!"

Winner: Tie

Round 4: Plot

I don't know fair of a category this is, seeing that Pride and Prejudice is such a popular classic that has become the basis of a TON of retellings and spin-offs. One might even regard North and South as a retelling of Pride and Prejudice, which wouldn't be too absurd because the similarities between the two are quite striking.


There were good and bad things about the storyline of North and South. I actually really enjoyed the setting of the story, and how Margaret is unceremoniously plopped from the idyllic South to the industrial North. You see her stumble through some social faux pas, which lends to the initial tension between her and Thornton. One of the things I felt was a little lacking in Pride and Prejudice was that there wasn't much of a deeper, critical look at the lopsided social hierarchy of the time. All the characters flit from party to party, with hardly any mention of the lower-class who are working their fields so that these upper-class folks can spend their days gossiping about suitors. At times, it all feels somewhat frivolous. North and South gives a much deeper look at the great divide between the cotton mill masters and the union workers who can barely scrounge up the money to feed their families. It's an intriguing element that's woven pretty tightly into the romantic storyline.

What I didn't like about North and South's plot, however, was the incoherence. There were quite a few plot points that struck me as jumpy, unbelievable, and sometimes far too deus ex machina. The death count suddenly escalates in Episodes 3 and 4, and the last two deaths were especially abrupt and almost seemed too convenient. In this regard, Pride and Prejudice flows a lot smoother, and the characters seem to behave more accordingly to their initial characterizations.

Winner: Tie

Final Verdict
Looks like it's a tie, with the Plot and Side Characters evenly matched, and it looks like Lizzy Bennet and John Thornton are in a tug-of-war on each side. Watch it yourself, and let me know what you think!