jordaisy thoughts
things i thought about bc of @j-gatzby and @echoflare831's jordaisy post
i personally love jordaisy but NOT as a happy ending couple
*note: my interpretation of the gatsby characters are a mix of the book and the musical
when jordan tells nick about how she first met gatsby as a former lover of daisy's, she talks about her and daisy's girlhood in louisville directly,
while talking about their adult friendship sort of indirectly.
we know that:
jordan was a bridesmaid at daisy's wedding + was the (seemingly only) one to find her when daisy was mid-breakdown
she saw them when tom and daisy lived in santa barbara, met them in Cannes and Deauville when tom and daisy went to france for a year, and was with them in Chicago
she currently lives with tom and daisy in a guesthouse
daisy regularly enters jordan's room to wake her up for her golf tournaments and sometimes wakes her up at night just to chat
Jordan kinda talks around the fact that she's basically seen tom and daisy every single time/place they've moved -- of course she travels for her golf tournaments, but the fact that it's almost every single place is... interesting...
we know tom doesn't like jordan (+ jordan seems not to like tom, either), so I figure it's probably jordan intentionally going places where daisy is
also! more on why tom doesn't like jordan:
jordan, though part of the upper class that tom and daisy are a part of, does not have very strong familial ties (she has no family except a single, old aunt. she briefly mentions her father passing, and we assume that her mother passed as well)
she has a shady reputation
unmarried bachelor
she's a "working woman" (golf)
which makes it once again very interesting that daisy, someone who has nothing but her "perfect reputation," her pristine absolute rose aura, chooses, again and again, to associate with jordan
I also really like this line:
and jordan trails off, seemingly in thought, before cutting herself off
we've heard nick describe how daisy just interacts with everyone, including people she's not attracted to (like nick, her cousin), in a flirty and coquettish way
but it's interesting how jordan lingers on this, the fact that she noticed it in the first place, and mentions it together with the fact that daisy didn't have any affairs/slept with anyone in chicago...
anyway all this to introduce you to my headcanons/analysis of jordaisy:
one sided love on jordan's side
jordan fell in love with daisy as a 16yo girl, proceeded to follow her around + become her best friend
daisy lets her do this despite her "shady reputation", and she defends jordan in front of tom (actually just canon)
however, daisy does not reciprocate jordan's feelings, at least in the way that jordan loves her
daisy is a tragic character - she only knows love as a means of security and as a means of ego-inflation
jordan cannot provide the security that tom/even gatsby provides, so daisy does not let herself feel "love" for her
but she knows that jordan's in love with her, and it makes her feel good, so she just leads her on without any intention of reciprocating/establishing a more serious relationship, because that would cost her everything (sound familiar?? yeah jordan got gatsby-ed before gatsby did - yet another instance of men taking credit for things women did first)
BUT! it is slightly different on the jordaisy front, because unlike gatsby, jordan actually is in love with daisy for daisy
jordan is the only one who actually knows daisy, has seen her at her most pathetic, her weakest -- as her closest confidante and frequent roommate (to the point daisy probably sees jordan more than tom most days lmao) she sees daisy's failures that she hides from everyone else
and unlike gatsby, jordan wouldn't gain any status or respect by being together with daisy - their love would need to stay below the radar forever, but jordan still wants it
i think daisy probably does genuinely treasure jordan because of this
which is why they split up when jordan ends it, not daisy
daisy never would've ended it, and she's likely heartbroken jordan left (maybe she realizes that she did love jordan in some sort of way, but it's too little, too late)
jordan left after seeing what daisy did to gatsby, whom she couldn't help but identify with
she realized daisy would never choose her, would abandon her at the drop of a hat to maintain her comfortable lifestyle, and daisy leaving gatsby to die alone was jordan's wake up call
the first person she calls to tell this is nick, who also just lost the person they were obsessed with (natsby!)
but nick's lumped her together with tom and daisy as part of the rotten bunch, so she can't find solace in his company either
worse, he rejects her
pride is all jordan has, and nick insults it ("I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor." - nick, which was sick work ngl)
genuinely i looooove fics where nick and jordan have pining gay solidarity and do a lavender marriage/courtship where they both just cry about gatsby and daisy respectively
i think nick and jordan are great foils for each other (sincere/cynical, honest/dishonest, humble/prideful), even though they're alike in other ways (alone and grieving (jordan for her parents, nick for gatsby) in an unfamiliar place, pining for someone who they cannot have (though i see natsby working out where jordaisy does not))
also daisy never chases after jordan after jordan leaves out of a deep, deep self-hatred and self-flagellation because of course she left, of course the only person who's ever known her left because her real self is too ugly to be shown to anyone
and maybe she regrets not holding onto her tighter, not reciprocating jordan's love, when daisy is once again unmoored, alone in a new place with only tom (who never really sees her, not the way jordan did) for company
and so what are their sexualities?
DAISY is i-need-to-be-loved-because-if-i-am-not-loved-i-am-nothing-sexual
and
JORDAN is a lesbian who needs to get more gay friends
