It is a truth universally acknowledged that an adpation of a book, no matter how faithful, will always leave something out. Like it or not, it's just a part of the process, whether we're talking movie, miniseries, play, radio drama, musical, webseries, or comic book-- all of which Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has had, by the way. But when you fanactically consume every adaptation you can get your hands on like my sad fangirl ass, you begin to notice some patterns. Things that are consistently cut out, until they seem like almost completely forgotten parts of the story. But the more they go missing, the more I begin to realize the signifigance of why they were there to begin with and what they added to the story. So that in mind, I present you with my top eight P & P moments that seem forever doomed to stay in the "book only" column.

1. Mrs. Gardnier

Okay, technically a person and not a moment, but this a pretty important point! Lizzy's strained relationship with her mother is the source of many a comedic moment, but did you know she actually has an intimate relationship with another female relative? Mrs. Gardnier, Mrs. Bennet's sister-in-law, is very close with her nieces Jane and Elizabeth, and she often serves as their confidant and counselor. Elizabeth talks to her about boys, family drama, the works, and Mrs. Gardnier provides Elizabeth an example of a thoughtful independent woman with a loving marriage--the female guidance Elizabeth lacks at home. Not only are Mrs. Gardnier and Elizabeth an awesome example of female mentorship, an all too rare thing in fiction, but Mrs. Gardnier is one of the few characters who really stands up to Elizabeth and calls her on her hypocrisy, even before Darcy challenges many of Lizzy's preconceived notions. It helps drive home the fact that Elizabeth's changing personality has less to do with romance and more to do with the fact that her worldview is beginning to change.

2. Falling in Love (With the Family)

As clearly smitten as Darcy is with Elizabeth in the first half of the book, he still says many an awful thing about her family, both because of their lower status and because of their lack of manners. But after his sound rejection by Elizabeth, Darcy begins to rethink his life choices. Not only is he much more gracious to Lizzy when she visits his house, he's also a very warm host to her Aunt and Uncle Gardnier. He invites them to dinner and takes Mr. Gardnier on a fishing trip. Much to his surprise, Darcy finds that he loves the Gardniers' company and finds their conversation invigorating, in spite of the fact that they are only working class. In fact, Darcy spends nearly as much time hanging out with Mr. Gardnier as he does with Elizabeth. The last paragraph of the book even mentions that the new Mr. and Mrs. Darcy invited the Gardniers over frequently and that Darcy came to love them as well as Elizabeth did. His new attitude eventually extends beyond the Gardniers to the rest of Lizzy's family, even the more difficult members like Mr. Collins. But it's clear that meeting the Gardniers was a huge turning point for Darcy. This is important because it illustrates that while Darcy re-evaluated his attitudes because of Elizabeth, it was actually meeting and talking with her working class relations that caused him to realize he had been misjudging them. Darcy's evolution, like Elizabeth's, is not driven by the desire to win over the object of his affections, but because his eyes became opened to his own flaws and prejudices.

3. Mr. Bennet: A Pretty Bad Dad

It's very easy to become taken with Mr. Bennet-- not only does he easily get all the best one-liners, but we see him through the eyes of Elizabeth, his favorite child. But throughout the story, Mr. Bennet actually does quite a lot of sketchy stuff. Sure his dry wit is entertaining, but often the jokes he makes are at the expense of his wife and youngest daughters (who, granted, let these remarks bounce right off them); he also humiliates his daughter Mary, and his other daughters by association, by stopping her mid-piano recital in front of all the party guests. But by far his worst trait is his laissez fair attitude towards parenting. Mr. Bennet allows his daughters to run wild, and Kitty and Lydia often make spectacles of themselves in public by being rude or shamelessly flirting.

While these might seem like embarrassing but ultimately harmless habits to us nowadays, they were scandalous back in Austen's time, and acting that way would damage all the sisters' chances of making an advantagous match (which you'll recall the Bennet girls are in desperate need of, so they aren't forced onto the streets when their male cousin inherits their house). He was placing his children's future in jeopardy by letting them run amuck. This attitude comes to a head when he allows fifteen-year-old Lydia to go on a trip to a military base with no adult supervision (despite Lizzy and Jane's fervent protestations) ... which ends in her eloping with a gambling womanizer. Mr. Bennet clearly fluctuates from irresponsible to negiligant when it comes to parenthood. Now, many of these events also happen in film and TV adaptations, since they do tend to be major plot points; however, Mr. Bennet is never really held accountable for his actions. Part of Elizabeth's coming of age is realizing that while she loves her father, he is not a good role model, and the tragedies that befall the family are not so indirectly his fault. Yet Lizzy's gradual disillusionment with her father never seems to make it into any adaptation, which is a shame, since his awful parenting nearly always does.

4. Convincing Lydia

Darcy's greatest moment of heroism in the story and his final redeeming moment comes when he tracks down runaway Bennet sister Lydia, who is out of wedlock living with infamous sleazebag George Wickham. The fact that they are not married is a big deal, not only for Lydia, but for the whole family. By doing so Lydia has not only ruined her changes of ever getting married or finding a well paid position such as governess (aka things women, especially ones without an inheritance like the Bennets) needed to do in order to survive back then), but she has tainted all of her sisters by association, preventing them from doing either themselves. Darcy getting Wickham to marry Lydia saves the family from being blacklisted from polite society.

But believe it or not, this was only Darcy's backup plan. Initially, he tries very hard to convince Lydia to simply leave Wickham, saying they can cover up the scandal in other ways. But Lydia point blank refuses, while Wickham confesses to Darcy in private that he's planning to drop Lydia once he finds a new place to go--effectively condemnign her to being a social outcast. Once Darcy accepts that he can't change either of their minds, he decides to minimize the damage by marrying them, which would help save both Lydia and her family from public disgrace and give her actual rights as Wickham's wife, making her less easy to cast aside. Now granted, Darcy's Plan A fails pretty miserably. But showing that he did attempt to get Lydia out of the relationship altogether is a rather bold statement, considering the period, even if it's what we hope most people would do in that situation. It's a small moment, but it says a lot about Darcy's character.

5. Georgiana's Agency

While we're on the topic of Mr. Wickham being an awful predator, remember how he also really creepily tried to elope with Georgiana, Darcy's teenage sister, in hopes of getting a payday with a nice side of revenge? Yeah, he's the worst. See, in every adaptation, Darcy discovers their affair totally by chance or because he had a bad feeling something was wrong. But in the original text, Darcy finds out because Georgiana flat out tells him about her plans to run away to Gretna Green. Despite Wickham trying his best to keep their relationship hidden, Georgiana feels guilt keeping a potentially hurtful secret from her brother and guardian, and she comes clean to him as soon as they next meet face to face. This might seem like a minor detail in a backstory, but Pride and Prejudice is, in many ways, about women's agency (or lack thereof, in many cases). Lizzy chooses who she wants to marry, in spite of societal pressure. Jane chooses to chase after Bingley, despite being very limited in the ways she can pursue him because of the time period. Charlotte chooses a secure marriage over a love match. The list goes on. And so the fact that its Georgiana's choice to confide in her brother is not insignificant, nor is the fact that its her own actions that lead her to escaping a toxic and abusive relationship. It's pretty disheartening that no adaptation yet has even picked up on the importance of this distinction.

6. Burn That Letter

Although the exact contents of Darcy's letter can vary from version to version, there is almost always some form of it present in the story. This would probably make Book Darcy want to bang his head against a wall. See, Darcy wrote that letter right after being rejected by Elizabeth, and while it was mostly an attempt to clear his name, Darcy does sneak a few snide comments in there, attempting to lick his wounds. Cut to several months later where a newly engaged Darcy is horrified to learn his fiancée has kept said letter. He begs her to burn it, telling her it'll only give her reason to hate him. Lizzy is bemused by his reaction, having found it to be more eye-opening than offensive, but Darcy is insistent, citing how bitter he was during the writing of the letter. While the letter is what begins to change Elizabeth's opinion of Darcy, it's still not reflective of the development Darcy undergoes. Darcy's anxiety about the letter shows that he recognizes the person who wrote that letter isn't the person he is anymore. The letter may have been a significant moment for both parties, but this moment wonderfully shows that Darcy's letter wasn't a "oops, I was good all along" bit. There was still a lot of growing and learning to be done.

7. Elizabeth the Social Bodyguard

So while we can all agree (and Lizzy certainly would) that Darcy had some genuine asshole tendencies at the start of the story, Elizabeth realizes that a good chunk of Darcy's stand-offish behavior is due to shyness and a introverted disposition. There's a remarkable difference between Darcy among friends and family and Darcy among strangers, as Lizzy sees for herself. And while Darcy begins to make an effort to be more friendly and amiable, Elizabeth also realizes how taxing it is for him, and takes it upon herself to shield him from having to interact with the many overexcited neighbors who come to meet her new beau by dominating the conversation and giving Darcy a chance to rest. Trivial as this might seem, it illustrates nicely how change in Pride and Prejudice doesn't mean doing a total 180 and losing your original personality. Darcy's a socially awkward penguin through and through. But he's trying and Elizabeth recognizes that and does her part to accomidate him. Both partners take into account the others needs and work together as a team to balance each other out.

8. Darcy Smiling

I could probably count the number of times Darcy smiles across every Pride and Prejudice adaptation using one hand. (Probably. It's been a while since I've seen that weird 80s miniseries, okay?) And frankly, that is just ridiculous. Darcy actually smiles more than any other character in the book, excluding Jane, the character who canonically gets mocked for smiling too much! This notion of him being taciturn and forever brooding next to a window is the sad creation of pop culture. Darcy smiles all the time, especially around Elizabeth. He laughs at many of her jokes and wears a grin during almost all of his verbal spars with Elizabeth, much to her irritation, because he's trying (and failing) to flirt with her. Even Lizzy blushingly admits with the benefit of hindsight that the fact he was constantly smiling at her should have clued her into the fact that he liked her. Darcy's not some Brontë-lite hero forever struggling with inner torment over the fact that he's in love; sure, he has some misgivings about Elizabeth, but he's clearly besotted and acts like a nerd with zero chill most of the time he's around her. Painting him as the dark and troubled sourpuss does an incredible disservice to the character, as well as to the love story.