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Speculation post.

Where would you see Bertie and Jeeves in the future? Canonically speaking *cough*. I just mean, can you envision Bertie ever getting married? Things like that. Little toddler Woosters running around? Or would he be indeed as Jeeves claims "not the marrying type" and happily live in his London flat for the rest of his life under the care of Jeeves?

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Raising bees in Sussex.

I can see Bertie eventually marrying a woman approved of by Jeeves...

Actually I had an idea for a short fic I'll almost certainly never write, about Bertie marrying, his wife dying soon after in childbirth, and Bertie and Jeeves living as a sort of couple after that (it wouldn't look so odd to other people if Bertie was a widower, I guess).

Or of course Bertie could do what Watson probably did and marry for appearances while cheerfully carrying on his bachelor lifestyle ;)

I really can't see Bertie getting married. Even putting my slash inclinations aside.

All slashy-thoughts aside (well, most of them *g*), I can't see Wooster ever getting married. First, Jeeves would never approve. Second, Jeeves destroyed Wooster's entry into the club book, signifying that he was not expecting to leave and Wooster agreed. Third, Wooster enjoys his bachelor life too much. If Wooster ever did get married, I can see him being divorced in a few years. I can picture him happy in Britain, Europe, the US, or Canada (depending on where he gets exiled next), and Jeeves being there until the end. And more depressingly, I don't picture Wooster living much longer after Jeeves. At this point, whether or not they are lovers is immaterial. They have been partners (of a sort) for a long time, albeit one more dependent on the other than vise versa, and when one dies, the other often does, too.

I can absolutely see Bertie getting married if it came to an issue of money and the needing some more of it.

And I suspect that Jeeves would assist him in remaining solvent and then find it very difficult to leave, very likely finding some way to convince the woman that she'd be happiest with Bertie ensconced in an apartment far from her household, living on a reasonable allowance and under his care, while she pursued her own interests.

i think he'd end up married. TO JEEVES! no, seriously, i think when/if he got tired of london they'd both move somewhere quieter and enjoy old age together, and all his friends would joke that they were married. i can't see him getting married to a woman, but i can definitely see him being as close to married to jeeves as was socially acceptable.

Setting aside all canonical possibility of Bertie and Jeeves entering into a life-partnership, I've always thought that the only situation in which Bertie would marry a woman is if Jeeves chose her. She would, of course, have to accept Jeeves as a permanent part of the household, be strong and independent enough to let each of them have their own seperate lives, but loving enough to find Bertie sweet, charming, and perfect just the way he is. I'd like to think she'd be an American (oh noes! getting vaguely Mary Sue!), mainly because she wouldn't understand the British class system and would be more apt to treat Jeeves like a friend than a British girl of the time. Of course, a lowerish middle class British girl could fit the bill too, in that regard.

However, the only reason I could truely see Jeeves doing that is if Bertie did get really, permanently lonesome, pining for a wife (and once again, if the whole great and t00by gay love did not happen between them)

When you say "canonically" are you talking only what the books include, thus excluding real life and the time frame? Because honestly, those books are so darn cheery, completely barring any sort of social hardships or revolutionary changes that were also going on, that I expect Bertie's life to proceed in much the same way that it has. Always coming close to, but never actually marrying. After awhile, assuming they age, because of course Plum kept them always in the same era, never allowing too many years (no more than eight) to go by in the whole series, I expect Bertie will tire of the Drones (when most of his chums are finally married and a younger crowd will take over the club) and actually prefer a stay at home life. At that time he won't be meeting so many other females and I believe he'll be perfectly content with that. His aunts may still pressure him, I'm sure even his Aunt Dahlia will add to it by then, but I think with Jeeves at his side he will find the courage to oppose them. I expect he'll always live in the city, with Jeeves, attending various plays and whatnot, and that their relationship will grow more chummy and less of the strict employer-employee. I think the "Tie That Binds" episode really set all that in stone. Along with Wodehouse's "absolute refusal" to marry off Bertie and/or Jeeves. They stay together. That's canonically.

Now if we venture into RL, then we have more options to toy with. I for one agree with a previous post, that I wouldn't write "slash" between the two of them if there wasn't already the potential. Once again, considering the time frame, Bertie's social class, Plum's own "asexual tendencies", etc., etc., it is actually more than possible.

I believe I left a post a while ago explaining my theories in more detail when someone else brought this up, of course now I can't FIND IT, which is driving me nutty. It was when someone mentioned their professor letting them do a research project on Jeeves & Wooster slashability. I can't even remember if I had my user name yet... Oh dear, if I ever find it I'll post the link and...yeah...help?

The post I found referring to age is here: http://community.livejournal.com/indeedsir/20638.html

Frankly, I'd get Bertie married just so he could have a kid. He would then lose the wife in a suitably tearjerking and bizarre accident (examples: pecked to death by a swarm of wild pigeons, pushed off a cliff by Professor Moriarty, shot in the chest by an angry bird dog with opposable thumbs, eaten by an anachronistic pterodactyl.)

Bertie would wallow about with his adorable small child until Jeeves swooped in to rescue them. Socially acceptable slash would abound. All would be fluffy.

... Not going to happen, is it?

Over time Bertie goes through a great many changes, most notably his opinion on matrimony. When we first meet him he's a semi-ladykiller, keen to hook up with a suitably dishy female and propagate the Wooster line, though his admiration of his various fiancees lacks any hint of carnality. There are reasons for that, of course, which are a different discussion altogether, but it still counts as evidence for this discussion, IMO.

By the end of, say, "Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves" I'd say he's definitely in the "Nature's bachelor" basket. Putting Jeeves's machinations aside, all the girls Bertie fancies fade out of the canon pretty early on - Bobbi Wickham, Pauline Stoker, etc. The only ones who remain are those he wouldn't be seen dead in a ditch with, or else they get him into such trouble that he breaks out of the love-spell pretty quickly.

Sticking as close to the canon evidence as possible, therefore, I can only speculate that while Bertie may at some point want children (unlikely, given his opinion after visiting the girls' school), he wouldn't be terribly keen on marrying to get them. I could see him adopting a small boy and perhaps taking a house in the country until the kid was old enough to go off to school, then returning to the flat except for the holidays.

Jeeves would probably stick with him in this scenario: really, by the time we get to "The Tie That Binds", regardless of your views on slash, they are a couple in all the important ways. So no, I don't ever see Bertie getting married, and Jeeves's position is made pretty clear in JATTTB.

Sidebar: Isn't it odd that in this situation, it's Bertie's motives that are unclear while Jeeves's heart is well and truly on his sleeve?

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