Bad Boys & Bitches Redux, part 2: the Bad Boys | a colorful conversation

As you're probably aware by now, every year I gather some Austen authors together and ask them a series of playful, weird or otherwise BookRat-y questions about Jane Austen. I then take those answers, split them up, and work them into a conversation between all of the authors (and myself), like we're sitting around in a Regency parlor, gabbing.
This year, I wanted to revisit some of my favorite former "colorful" questions, about Austen's bad boys and girls, but with Austen in August readers instead of the featured authors. This is part one of the result.
I asked:

Same question as the ladies, but for the men: who would win the title of biggest, baddest Austen rake?

MISTY: We all know I don't always go the traditional route on this, but how about the rest of you?
KAYLA: Wickham.
BOOKS & BABBLE:  Definitely Wickham, 100%
DEBBIE: John Thorpe is the absolute worst - not only bad but stupid.
BETH: Wickham. He's absolutely unredeemable. Even Willoughby realizes his mistakes and regrets his actions. But Wickham is just a navel-gazing YOLO boy for life.
SOBOTHERSOME: Wickham would lose hence he's really terrible at everything he does not to mention his gambling would eventually lead to his demise
MISTY:  So. . . Wickham, then? ;)
CERI: Wickham is controlled by his weakness for money and though he's scored a big point by ending up being related by marriage to Darcy, he will pay for it in having to put up with Lydia!
JESSICA: In a physical fight it would be captain Tilney. To me he would just shot them and be done with it. He to me wouldn't even blink an eye. He has so much malice in his heart that one wonders if he even has one.
CERI: Frederick Tilney is the worst one I think, because he's still free as a bird at the end of NA.
MISTY: VERY good point!
CERI: In the 2007 adaptation (which is fantastic, for anybody who hasn't watched it) it's clear that he has completely ruined a young lady in both deed and reputation and couldn't care less about it, but in the book it's possible that he isn't that bad, and it might just be expectation raised but not fulfilled.
MISTY: But either way, he's an ass. Any other good contenders?
SOPHIA:  Ooh, yeah, that's a toughy. However, in keeping with my Persuasion bad girl, I'll go with the matched set and back Mr. Elliot of the smarmy smiles and speeches fame who married for wealth, stole it from his best friend leaving his widow poverty stricken, and schemed to block Mrs. Clay while setting up to take over the Elliot family title and land as soon as Sir Walter takes the dirt nap. A rat's work is never done, whew!
JULIE: Mr Elliot is a slimeball. He is the worst! His flirting in Persuasion makes me sick now that I know how terrible he is.
VERONIKA: Sir Walter Elliot, because Anthony Head.
MISTY:You know, that I can completely agree with. I mean, I love Giles, but damn. He played him like he might secretly be an axe murderer. . .
BRANDY: If I try to think of the biggest rake as the one who actually wins by being a rake, I guess I have to go with John Willoughby because he manages to marry the wealthy Sophia even after impregnating Colonel Brandon’s ward and breaking Marianne's heart.
CERI: Willoughby is pretty horrible, he's ruined at least one girl and trifles badly with Marianne, but he is redeemed a little by genuinely caring for her.
BRANDY: He's smooth enough to eventually make Elinor, the one person who had been suspicious of him, feel for him in the situation he created for himself. Sure, he claims to have loved Marianne and loses in the sense that he'll have a loveless marriage without her, but one wonders if he can really love anyone but himself. He only says otherwise because he needs to have every woman in range think of him as charming. Between the appropriate wealthy wife and getting back into his aunt's good graces, he manages to be rewarded for using his charm to avoid negative consequences.

---

MANY THANKS TO:
Beth W
Books and Babble
Brandy
Ceri at Babblings of a Bookworm
Debbie
Jessica Bolton (bookrockgoddess)
Julie H
Kayla
SOBOTHERSOME
Sophia Rose
Veronika

Click here to return to the Austen in August Main Page