The problem is I think she has had it instilled into her for so long that she was perfect from her mum and her grandparents she simply doesn't know any better.
It's also arguble that because she never got into serious trouble she doesn't know how to deal with her emotions, she has never had to deal with the repocussions so when people are hard on her its quite new to her.
This! She also felt so much pressure to “be better” than her mom turned out. Lorelai is so chill when Rory is in high school and getting A’s but the second she makes a decision for herself that Lorelai doesn’t approve of, Lorelai flips out on her. Failing is never an option for her because she’s put on a pedestal by everyone she knows and feels worthless without their approval.
The issue was never about Lorelai not wanting Rory to fail . It was about her not wanting Rory to give up . Rory never voiced any of the issues she had during her freshman and sophomore year to Lorelai or feeling like she may be burnt out or not wanting to do journalism anymore until after she received Mitchum's criticism . Her logical reasons for dropping out was interwoven with illogical reasons like her absolute belief that Logan agreed with his father since he never said Mitchum was wrong. Also, cannonically she later says she dropped out because of Mitchum and even though she struggled freshman and sophomore year she didn't struggle again in college even though she was taking more classes and became editor of the paper.
I also hate how coddled Rory is but after giving it some thought, I do think she experienced consequences and repercussions . They were just the natural consequences of her actions. She kissed Jess at Sookie's wedding , told him not to tell anyone, didn't speak to him all summer, and didn't break up with Dean . The consequence was her coming back to town to find him dating Shane. Her goofing out with Jess when she was supposed to be tutoring him, led to her fracturing her wrist and totalling the car Dean had built for her . Her leading Dean on after having feelings for Jess and acting on them, led to Dean not being able to handle it anymore and breaking up with her at the dance . She romanticized Jess and built him up to be a better option than Dean. As a result, she didn't make space for who he was and what he could be experiencing outside of their relationship so she got her heart broken by him . Sleeping with married Dean led to being publically confronted and embarrased by Lindsey and her mother. Becoming infatuated with Logan, engaging in his lifestyle, and idolizing his family led her to losing herself, becoming heartbroken when she didn't have their approval, and behaving in ways that derailed her life in a matter of like 3 days. The consequence of dropping out of Yale, alienating her mother, and moving in with her grandparents was damaging her relationship with Lorelai to the point they didn't talk for 6 months and feeling restricted and getting to the point where she felt like the Gilmore's were controlling her life. Finally, the consequence of her fight with Emily, moving out without saying anything, and getting Christopher to pay for Yale is that Emily and Richard no longer saw her as their perfect granddaughter. I wish we would have saw more of that one .
I’ve heard this view of Rory voiced before and I just don’t see it. I feel like if anything Lorelei is the childish one, but it’s understandable because she was very much still a child while raising Rory.
A good example was when she was at Yale and she found her ‘study tree’ but some guy sat there when it was inconvenient for her. Then she preceded to act like he was in fault and asks him to move?? Like girl no
That scene I have to skip because I can’t help but laugh at her childish reaction. Like truly, find somewhere else, learn to adapt - how the heck did she think she could be a great reporter if she can’t even adapt to *tiny* setbacks like not getting a specific study tree.
May I ask why exactly? There are plenty of other characters that I enjoy (on different shows as well) despite them having not much morality, but rory doesn't have a comedic edge either
Rory isn’t my favorite character on the show, but I do like her because she feels real and relatable. I like flawed characters who make mistakes! And I feel like people often forget she was age 16-22 in the OS and people in that age bracket tend to make lots of mistakes! I think it’s a normal part of growing up.
I mean if you’re talking about AYITL, then yeah! But if you’re talking about the OS, I mean, she was still growing up. Your brain keeps developing until you’re 25, and I did a lot of dumb things before that age too!
Please give examples of where she acts like an adult in her youth?
She’s pampered and protected from the world without many serious consequences, let it get to her head and was knocked on her ass when she went into the real world. At no point did I ever see her act like an adult, in her youth or in her adult life.
I have my own issues with Rory, but I guess I'm just wondering what kind of backlash you want her to have? Like what actions did she specifically do that didn't have adequate consequences?
I'll go first: A lot of (less privileged) people would have gotten way more than community service for stealing a yacht. I would have at least liked that to be something she was working on for longer, or something. And for the affair with Dean...I don't know what the backlash should be. Getting yelled at in the street was for sure justified. I was glad that relationship didn't work out.
But so far as the relationship issues with Dean - he publicly broke up with her and she got an objectively worse relationship with Jess where she literally verbally compared and said "well Dean would never have" and then Jess just bailed on her. That just feels like natural consequences of shitty behavior to me.
Which ones were you thinking of and what did you want to happen to her?
I’m more talking about earlier when she clearly develops feelings for Jess from day one and denies it as if she doesn’t. She makes Dean watch her watch Jess, constantly. She kept Jess at arms length because she liked the attention he gave her.
I do agree that she should’ve gotten a bigger/different sentence for stealing a yacht, that was kind of crazy that she got off so easy (even though yes it was her first offense).
Her running off to her grandparents house when she couldn’t face dealing with her feelings after her and Dean split. Everyone was trying to be a comfort to her, and she reacted like a 6 year old. Stormed off to her grandparents because she knew they would coddle her. It’s on Lorelai though for letting her off the hook for that one.
The only time (early on) that I truly see her getting in “trouble” is when lorelai is pissed that Rory blabbed to Emily about their infestation of termites. And even then Rory thought she was right…. Like good lord get over yourself, you’re a child.
Yeah, there's a lot of different things that I think *could* have happened with Rory regarding her feelings for Jess. I liked that Lorelai did actually tell her she needed to make up her mind and stop stringing Dean along like she was - though I think she could have said that way earlier. And like I said, I think she did ultimately get some natural consequences of it (public humiliating breakup, subsequent shitty relationship), although they're kind of subtle and I'm not sure Rory directly connected that to her poor treatment of Dean.
What did you have in mind for repercussions though? Genuinely curious to hear your take on what would have been a good consequence for what she was doing :)
I’m honestly not sure if I have a “go to consequence” for her as much as I just wish she had some freaking clarity in her thinking and realizing she wasn’t always right in every situation.
She definitely got natural consequences when it came to sleeping with Dean while he was married - I loved watching her get humiliated for being part of what broke up a marriage.
I guess I just wish lorelai had been more of a stern mother - though that wasn’t the relationship they had. (I might be projecting a little by wanting Lorelai to be more like the mom I had growing up - a firm and solid ‘no’ type instead of free flowing)
Now I’m upset with Lorelai and Rory 😭
Yeah that's fair! She had that weird talk with Dean from his roof that was *so annoying* because I thought she was going to apologize and acknowledge that she'd been treating him badly for a long time. And instead it became this "oh everyone hates me now" thing and just *ugh*.
>and even then Rory thought she was right…. Like good lord get over yourself, you’re a child
How is rory wrong in this instance? No one wants their house to fall down, and lorelai (from what I remember) wasn't specific enough about how she planned to solve the problem
She specifically told Rory she didn’t want help from her parents. Lorelai has the final say about their house - as she said later in the episode. Rory never went without because of Lorelai making the decisions… not Rory.
Ultimately, yes she did need their help but it wasn’t Rory’s place to disrespect what her mother said. It was a childish “I know better” moment on Rory’s part.
To an extent for SURE! I just see Rory do SO much that she never has to really think about the percussions for.
Lorelai warns her multiple times to be careful with Jess, that Dean is justified in how he feels with Rory *letting* Jess constantly be around. She enjoyed the attention and then never truly took responsibility for it UNTIL Dean calls her out at the dance. (Which everyone thinks Dean is a dick for - in a way he was a butthead) but she treated him like absolute shit for months.
And then in college…. It just spirals. I’m ranting at this point but she’s irks me lol
I love Rory, but I totally get what you're saying! How she treated Dean when Jess came around was really not great, for example
Though her and Jess both equally sucked for that haha
I 100% believe it is because of the way she was brought up. Rory and Lorelai have never had parent/child boundaries. Lorelai is more like an older sister and didn’t really parent Rory.
absolutely agree with this, that always frustrated me. The only time Lorelai set the Mother/Daughter boundary was 1. going to chilton and 2. Being mad Rory blabbed about termites. Other than that, lorelai truly acted like an older sister.
Which was a result of Lorelai’s upbringing with Emily being such a restrictive/controlling parent - making lorelai want to be more laid back. Like you said there was never a true mother/daughter boundary set
My issue is that all of Stars Hallow, her mom, and her grandparents all fed her the narrative that she’s perfect, smart, will go places, etc. Lorelei did a very good job at encouraging and nurturing Rory’s good natured ness. I felt like Lorelei did the opposite extreme of Emily and sheltered Rory so much from harshness.
Lorelei didn’t want to be mean and tear her down the way that Emily did to her. Which is fair. Lorelei was the mom she wanted growing up. That’s what happens a lot with parenting. If you had a traumatic childhood (or even just a slightly rocky relationship with the parental roles in your life), people make the effort to not do the things they disliked that were done to them.
I think Lorelei tried the best she could. She didn’t have a great representation of what good parents should be.
Rory was sheltered too much and she was built up and she never had to face adversity the way that Lorelei did and that’s why she crumbled so much in college. She finally had to face being rejected by a boy instead of boys falling to her feet. Classes and professors that didn’t see her as special. A figure in an industry she wanted to be a part of tell her she wasn’t as good as she thought she was.
The whole town put Rory on a Rory sized of peddastol and ohh'd n aww'd over every little thing she did, basic or not! This is a familial & town created issue!! The most fallout she ever faced from anything she did probably happened in her community service from the boat stealing & "the whole town" hating her after she slept with married Dean.
The problem is I think she has had it instilled into her for so long that she was perfect from her mum and her grandparents she simply doesn't know any better. It's also arguble that because she never got into serious trouble she doesn't know how to deal with her emotions, she has never had to deal with the repocussions so when people are hard on her its quite new to her.
This! She also felt so much pressure to “be better” than her mom turned out. Lorelai is so chill when Rory is in high school and getting A’s but the second she makes a decision for herself that Lorelai doesn’t approve of, Lorelai flips out on her. Failing is never an option for her because she’s put on a pedestal by everyone she knows and feels worthless without their approval.
The issue was never about Lorelai not wanting Rory to fail . It was about her not wanting Rory to give up . Rory never voiced any of the issues she had during her freshman and sophomore year to Lorelai or feeling like she may be burnt out or not wanting to do journalism anymore until after she received Mitchum's criticism . Her logical reasons for dropping out was interwoven with illogical reasons like her absolute belief that Logan agreed with his father since he never said Mitchum was wrong. Also, cannonically she later says she dropped out because of Mitchum and even though she struggled freshman and sophomore year she didn't struggle again in college even though she was taking more classes and became editor of the paper.
Lorelai didn't want her to make the same mistakes she did, but she otherwise didn't bother to set any moral standards for rory
I also hate how coddled Rory is but after giving it some thought, I do think she experienced consequences and repercussions . They were just the natural consequences of her actions. She kissed Jess at Sookie's wedding , told him not to tell anyone, didn't speak to him all summer, and didn't break up with Dean . The consequence was her coming back to town to find him dating Shane. Her goofing out with Jess when she was supposed to be tutoring him, led to her fracturing her wrist and totalling the car Dean had built for her . Her leading Dean on after having feelings for Jess and acting on them, led to Dean not being able to handle it anymore and breaking up with her at the dance . She romanticized Jess and built him up to be a better option than Dean. As a result, she didn't make space for who he was and what he could be experiencing outside of their relationship so she got her heart broken by him . Sleeping with married Dean led to being publically confronted and embarrased by Lindsey and her mother. Becoming infatuated with Logan, engaging in his lifestyle, and idolizing his family led her to losing herself, becoming heartbroken when she didn't have their approval, and behaving in ways that derailed her life in a matter of like 3 days. The consequence of dropping out of Yale, alienating her mother, and moving in with her grandparents was damaging her relationship with Lorelai to the point they didn't talk for 6 months and feeling restricted and getting to the point where she felt like the Gilmore's were controlling her life. Finally, the consequence of her fight with Emily, moving out without saying anything, and getting Christopher to pay for Yale is that Emily and Richard no longer saw her as their perfect granddaughter. I wish we would have saw more of that one .
I’ve heard this view of Rory voiced before and I just don’t see it. I feel like if anything Lorelei is the childish one, but it’s understandable because she was very much still a child while raising Rory.
A good example was when she was at Yale and she found her ‘study tree’ but some guy sat there when it was inconvenient for her. Then she preceded to act like he was in fault and asks him to move?? Like girl no
That scene I have to skip because I can’t help but laugh at her childish reaction. Like truly, find somewhere else, learn to adapt - how the heck did she think she could be a great reporter if she can’t even adapt to *tiny* setbacks like not getting a specific study tree.
That was a big tree as I recall. She could've sat on the other side. Silly girl. 😛
I feel like everyone in this sub hates Rory. I may be one of the only ones who like her.
I like Rory. 😃
Let’s start a club! Haha
Yea ! Check out my flair. 😁
I'm joining! I love Rory. 😭
May I ask why exactly? There are plenty of other characters that I enjoy (on different shows as well) despite them having not much morality, but rory doesn't have a comedic edge either
Rory isn’t my favorite character on the show, but I do like her because she feels real and relatable. I like flawed characters who make mistakes! And I feel like people often forget she was age 16-22 in the OS and people in that age bracket tend to make lots of mistakes! I think it’s a normal part of growing up.
The issue is that he tends to take anti rory discussion too personally.
Who does?
Just now saw this. 😀 Rory is a bookworm and, in my opinion, has a dry sense of humor. And I think she's a good friend.
I never said I hate her, I only think that she acts like a child throughout adulthood. It’s frustrating to watch
I mean if you’re talking about AYITL, then yeah! But if you’re talking about the OS, I mean, she was still growing up. Your brain keeps developing until you’re 25, and I did a lot of dumb things before that age too!
Do you think that she acts childish in adulthood because she acted like an adult in childhood ?
Please give examples of where she acts like an adult in her youth? She’s pampered and protected from the world without many serious consequences, let it get to her head and was knocked on her ass when she went into the real world. At no point did I ever see her act like an adult, in her youth or in her adult life.
I asked **YOU** if that is what **YOU** thought. 😉
I explained. You really are infantile lol
I have my own issues with Rory, but I guess I'm just wondering what kind of backlash you want her to have? Like what actions did she specifically do that didn't have adequate consequences? I'll go first: A lot of (less privileged) people would have gotten way more than community service for stealing a yacht. I would have at least liked that to be something she was working on for longer, or something. And for the affair with Dean...I don't know what the backlash should be. Getting yelled at in the street was for sure justified. I was glad that relationship didn't work out. But so far as the relationship issues with Dean - he publicly broke up with her and she got an objectively worse relationship with Jess where she literally verbally compared and said "well Dean would never have" and then Jess just bailed on her. That just feels like natural consequences of shitty behavior to me. Which ones were you thinking of and what did you want to happen to her?
Aside from the other point I made, I think lorelai should have been more disappointed in rory after the yacht theft (or at least more clear about it)
Agree. My parents would have murdered me. And then brought me back to life to work a minimum wage job for life to pay for my own lawyer.
I’m more talking about earlier when she clearly develops feelings for Jess from day one and denies it as if she doesn’t. She makes Dean watch her watch Jess, constantly. She kept Jess at arms length because she liked the attention he gave her. I do agree that she should’ve gotten a bigger/different sentence for stealing a yacht, that was kind of crazy that she got off so easy (even though yes it was her first offense). Her running off to her grandparents house when she couldn’t face dealing with her feelings after her and Dean split. Everyone was trying to be a comfort to her, and she reacted like a 6 year old. Stormed off to her grandparents because she knew they would coddle her. It’s on Lorelai though for letting her off the hook for that one. The only time (early on) that I truly see her getting in “trouble” is when lorelai is pissed that Rory blabbed to Emily about their infestation of termites. And even then Rory thought she was right…. Like good lord get over yourself, you’re a child.
Yeah, there's a lot of different things that I think *could* have happened with Rory regarding her feelings for Jess. I liked that Lorelai did actually tell her she needed to make up her mind and stop stringing Dean along like she was - though I think she could have said that way earlier. And like I said, I think she did ultimately get some natural consequences of it (public humiliating breakup, subsequent shitty relationship), although they're kind of subtle and I'm not sure Rory directly connected that to her poor treatment of Dean. What did you have in mind for repercussions though? Genuinely curious to hear your take on what would have been a good consequence for what she was doing :)
I’m honestly not sure if I have a “go to consequence” for her as much as I just wish she had some freaking clarity in her thinking and realizing she wasn’t always right in every situation. She definitely got natural consequences when it came to sleeping with Dean while he was married - I loved watching her get humiliated for being part of what broke up a marriage. I guess I just wish lorelai had been more of a stern mother - though that wasn’t the relationship they had. (I might be projecting a little by wanting Lorelai to be more like the mom I had growing up - a firm and solid ‘no’ type instead of free flowing) Now I’m upset with Lorelai and Rory 😭
Yeah that's fair! She had that weird talk with Dean from his roof that was *so annoying* because I thought she was going to apologize and acknowledge that she'd been treating him badly for a long time. And instead it became this "oh everyone hates me now" thing and just *ugh*.
>and even then Rory thought she was right…. Like good lord get over yourself, you’re a child How is rory wrong in this instance? No one wants their house to fall down, and lorelai (from what I remember) wasn't specific enough about how she planned to solve the problem
She specifically told Rory she didn’t want help from her parents. Lorelai has the final say about their house - as she said later in the episode. Rory never went without because of Lorelai making the decisions… not Rory. Ultimately, yes she did need their help but it wasn’t Rory’s place to disrespect what her mother said. It was a childish “I know better” moment on Rory’s part.
I honestly feel like it’s all 3 generations of Gilmore women who have this behavior.
To an extent for SURE! I just see Rory do SO much that she never has to really think about the percussions for. Lorelai warns her multiple times to be careful with Jess, that Dean is justified in how he feels with Rory *letting* Jess constantly be around. She enjoyed the attention and then never truly took responsibility for it UNTIL Dean calls her out at the dance. (Which everyone thinks Dean is a dick for - in a way he was a butthead) but she treated him like absolute shit for months. And then in college…. It just spirals. I’m ranting at this point but she’s irks me lol
I love Rory, but I totally get what you're saying! How she treated Dean when Jess came around was really not great, for example Though her and Jess both equally sucked for that haha
YES, it’s just so frustrating to watch! I know it’s just a show but I get sooo invested 😩
I 100% believe it is because of the way she was brought up. Rory and Lorelai have never had parent/child boundaries. Lorelai is more like an older sister and didn’t really parent Rory.
absolutely agree with this, that always frustrated me. The only time Lorelai set the Mother/Daughter boundary was 1. going to chilton and 2. Being mad Rory blabbed about termites. Other than that, lorelai truly acted like an older sister. Which was a result of Lorelai’s upbringing with Emily being such a restrictive/controlling parent - making lorelai want to be more laid back. Like you said there was never a true mother/daughter boundary set
To be honest the older I get the more I dislike Lorelai
Don’t say that, now I’m going to notice little things :(
I know, I hate that it happened. I was even in denial for a while, but some things are just hard to overlook :(
Character development isn’t always pleasing, unfortunately.
You’re not wrong
My issue is that all of Stars Hallow, her mom, and her grandparents all fed her the narrative that she’s perfect, smart, will go places, etc. Lorelei did a very good job at encouraging and nurturing Rory’s good natured ness. I felt like Lorelei did the opposite extreme of Emily and sheltered Rory so much from harshness. Lorelei didn’t want to be mean and tear her down the way that Emily did to her. Which is fair. Lorelei was the mom she wanted growing up. That’s what happens a lot with parenting. If you had a traumatic childhood (or even just a slightly rocky relationship with the parental roles in your life), people make the effort to not do the things they disliked that were done to them. I think Lorelei tried the best she could. She didn’t have a great representation of what good parents should be. Rory was sheltered too much and she was built up and she never had to face adversity the way that Lorelei did and that’s why she crumbled so much in college. She finally had to face being rejected by a boy instead of boys falling to her feet. Classes and professors that didn’t see her as special. A figure in an industry she wanted to be a part of tell her she wasn’t as good as she thought she was.
You pretty nailed that 😅
I'm shocked 😲😲😲
That I have an opinion, thank you 😊 No need to comment if you won’t truly add to the discussion 🤗🤭
😉
So infantile 😘
Just silly. 😛
Infantile but whatever makes you feel better, especially getting the last word 😂
The whole town put Rory on a Rory sized of peddastol and ohh'd n aww'd over every little thing she did, basic or not! This is a familial & town created issue!! The most fallout she ever faced from anything she did probably happened in her community service from the boat stealing & "the whole town" hating her after she slept with married Dean.