But what about fictional couples who get together and who we don’t believe in? Who you look at together and go ‘Nah… it’ll never last.’ I’ve got to say, for me Jane Eyre and Rochester, they are going to break up. (Well, probably not given the time they were in, but I don’t think they’re going to be happy. Because they have a lot of chemistry, but Rochester is a crazy liar, y’all.)

ROCHESTER: Gosh, I have a crazy wife hidden in the attic who occasionally breaks out and sets fires. And I’d like to bigamously marry my governess. You know what this situation needs?
AUDIENCE: … what?
ROCHESTER: MORE COMPLICATIONS! I think I’ll have a house party and have a fake engagement to a third lady. AS WELL as the secret crazy wife. And the bigamous marriage.
AUDIENCE: … what?
ROCHESTER: You’re RIGHT! I’m not giving this a hundred per cent! What if I dress up as a gypsy woman and tell fake fortunes?

I’m just saying, Jane will come home one day and Rochester will have sold the children to pirates.

The most famous line in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is “Reader, I married him.” Depending on the reader, it may also be the most puzzling, given that I is a wealthy young woman and him is a one-eyed, one-handed, pushing-40 grump who proposes to a nanny half his age only to admit at the altar that he’s already got a wife and she’s locked in his attic. Dreamy! … A fan’s rainy-day re-readings likely center on the passages set at Rochester’s estate, Thornfield, where the master’s crypto-courtship techniques include disguising himself as a fortune-telling crone and lots of monologuing in Jane’s general direction.

I mean, picture anyone trying to selectively wipe someone’s memory in Jane Eyre.

ROCHESTER: *hits Jane over the head with a chair* Do you still remember I have a mad wife in the attic?
JANE: Yes! And also, OW, you bigamous chair-wielding jackass!
ROCHESTER: *bops Jane again* Do you still remember I have a mad wife in the attic?
JANE: Stop asking me that AND QUIT HITTING ME!
ROCHESTER: *bops Jane a third time* Do you still remember I have a mad wife in the attic?
JANE: Oh my God, what, you have a mad wife? And you keep her in the attic?
ROCHESTER: … oh damn.

…Where the Red Fern Grows is actually a very good book. You shouldn’t read it, obviously, unless you are a Level Nine Masochist, but it holds out a little hope for the universe at the end. Like when, after that last X-Men movie, Magneto looks like he might be able to get his powers back? Like that.

Basically, though, this is the children’s book that Lars Von Trier would have written.

Are you still, you know, inflicting all of that horrible Ethan Frome damage, or is that off the curriculum?