#superqueerdanvers

beatrice’s main flaw is that she’s judgmental and critical. she prides herself on her wit and her lack of involvement, the fact that she’s an observer rather than a participant in the culture of courting and familial duty. she considers herself above it, and she considers that a mark of her own wisdom and acuity. 

her aversion to marriage is founded in her aversion to being controlled. she does foster real relationships, though: she loves her cousin and her uncle genuinely and engages with them as equals, even as she exalts herself for being free of the system they perpetuate.

she values knowledge, truth, she thrives on being one who knows people, one who is trusted with sensitive information. she’s all about “i’ve a good eye, uncle; i can see a church by daylight” and “disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes, misprising what they look on” and “he is now as valiant as hercules who only tells a lie and swears it.”

benedick’s main flaw is that he’s fickle in interpersonal relationships. he’s obnoxiously, vocally against forming any kind of romantic attachment, and though he seems to be loyal to his friends, his allegiance is fleeting: “he wears his faith but as the fashion of his hat.”

he’s also quite critical of people at times, but only insofar as they interfere with his own comfortable way of living. he judges hero harshly because she threatens his friend’s bachelorhood, not because he actually has anything against her. he trades barbs with beatrice because they’re too similar in all the wrong ways, and she threatens his solitude by being perfectly companionable.

his perpetual alienation isn’t for any particular reason to do with other people; it’s his own issue. he refuses to marry because he believes that he would never be happy or comfortable in a marriage, and he won’t subject another person to what he would become in that situation: “because i will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, i will do myself the right to trust none.”

and then when you put them together, you get beatrice’s shrewd judgment with benedick’s fear of attachment: “but that my lady beatrice should know me, and not know me!” you get the masterful manipulation of their insecurities to make them realize and admit their love: beatrice is said to be too judgmental to accept benedick’s love, benedick too prideful for beatrice. they say she will receive his love with criticism, and he will receive hers with mockery.

you get “i do suffer love indeed, for i love thee against my will” and “to bind me or undo me, one of them” and “a miracle! here’s our own hands against our hearts,” because this love goes against everything they profess and stand for, but it’s true and deep; they love each other despite themselves. the progression of their relationship is about beatrice learning how to let herself be vulnerable and benedick learning how to let himself care and be cared for.