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she's raised in conventionality. it is what she knows because it is what's been accessible to her. but she has an inclination to rise above that, or at least remove herself from it. she may not know how. she has lofty ideals, principles, but cannot or does not really apply them. she challenges victor but is also drawn to him. he is absolutely unconventional. elizabeth can come across as sanctimonious. victor is the most unsanctimonious man in the continent.

neither of them have much in the way of friends or companionship. interviews for this movie describe all the characters as lonely and illiterate on how to give or receive love. her and victor become friends. neither of them know how to really be a friend. what neither of them can communicate or resolve is that they want the same things from life, but they approach this from opposite paths. generally, most of the time, victor is honest; outside of the one grand lie regarding harlander's death, victor may be considered, in practical terms, the most honest character in the story: he is outspoken and open about who he is, what he thinks, what he wants, what he's willing to do to pursue it. with anderson, he paints himself the villain in his own telling: i made him, i hurt him, the one to kill (even if indirectly by the crew) is me.

this is consistent with elizabeth; he is open about his attraction and willingness to pursue something with her. there is a reason why elizabeth, who never has an issue condemning or challenging victor's shortcomings and misdeeds, does not do that with him here in this scene. honesty isn't something to condemn, only to reject if she so chooses, and she does. but notably, she does not stand her ground as she does in every other scene with him. she responds to his honesty here by running.

again: they want the same thing, whether a viewer "ships" these characters or not, ie. interprets them or her tie with william or the creature as romantic or platonic – elizabeth also wants to step out of the norm, away from convention, to be honest about what she wants, to figure out what she'd be willing to do to pursue it. it is why she is drawn to the creature, who is so far out of scope from the world she's known and had access to that he comes across, to her, as "other" – as other to her world as she feels she is because of all she yearns for. when she rejects victor, she is still at a point where, when confronted with contending paths, she chooses the conventional choice. she is already engaged. this should be important to her, for whatever reason a viewer may choose. the consideration over whether she's really happy where she is and what her choice is isn't the basis of her decision. but it's the conventional one, the one she knows; she doesn't know how to pursue the things she wants. both her and victor do not know how to communicate these sorts of things, and mutually, in different points of the story, they do not ask the harder but more effective questions or share their feelings in ways they'd know how to receive and understand. they have both been lonely, alone, for a long time.

when the night of the wedding comes, she doesn't care about it. she has little regard for the wedding, for the groom, for anyone in the building. the creature exemplifies the "otherness" she feels and understands, admires and yearns for. she has until this point tried to commit to the decision she made when she rejected victor, because it was not solely a rejection of a romantic pursuit. the decision was as much, if not more, to remain conventional, familiar, to remain in an accessible role to her rather than risk pursuing some other route that is more strange and unknown and risky. but as the commitment draws near, her consideration and value for it deflates. she does not ask after william or anything or anyone, only that she be removed from all of them and the situation entirely as her final request. she wants to be with something, someone, she feels a kinship with, that she finds some "understanding" in, as she says in the tower. her arc is that she felt like the butterfly that she herself chose to keep in a glass case, but when the night to fully & completely commit to that decision comes, she changes her mind. her priorities shift. in a real way, she becomes more honest.

and i see it, i see all of that, it's on the screen, but my hangup is that so much of it risks getting lost regardless. and in this case, i really don't think it's because of an inattentive audience. i think it's the execution of it, how the movie itself lands with her. elizabeth can be sanctimonious. her perceptions, her words, her actions, oftentimes contradict. and there are playful directions one can go from that. is she aware of all this? or that in an extreme, it can come across as hypocrisy? like the others, she contains both external limitations and her own faults, both of which hurt her and have an effect on the world/characters around her as much as her influence and virtues do. she can be, is, a substantial character with weight, fully-fledged and grounded and messy who can be played with.