FuriosityShell

S3: Speaking for myself, I think in the beginning of the season, it's a lot easier to get frustrated with Eric for the things he says. But as the season goes on, I get more frustrated with Donna. A lot of that is because she reminds me of a friend I have who always had problems with their significant other. She was often justified in her anger and I would be on her side, but after so many times, I would get annoyed and just be like, "Okay, why don't you break up with them?!" It's another reason why their break-up in "The Promise Ring" feels so cathartic.

I also feel that the writers often wrote Donna getting angry just to write Donna getting angry. Her anger at Eric in episodes like "Too Old to Trick or Treat, Too Young to Die" and "Ice Shack", while realistic and in line with the behavior of a 17-year-old, was ridiculously unprovoked. It doesn't help that the narrative never really calls her out on it and it does cheapen the instances where Donna has valid reasons to be pissed.

I just see Laurie as road-not-taken for Jackie because it would have been SO easy for Jackie to become like Laurie, but Jackie refuses to let herself be. I think Jackie's disdain for Laurie comes from, not only the whole Kelso affair, but because she grew up around Lauries. Her mother is very Laurie-like. The Jackie/Laurie interactions in "Vanstock" and "Laurie Moves Out", in my opinion, gives us a lot of insight into what Jackie's interactions were like with her non-Donna female friends. She gets along with them and bonds with them over superficial things, but at heart she still doesn't trust them and looks down on them ("I think my good taste was really rubbing off on you!").

Laurie strikes me as the type of girl who tried to fit in so hard amongst her peers in high school/college that she sort of lost herself in her persona. Her S1 characterization shows that there was a lot more to Laurie than her Promiscuous Trouble-maker act suggested, but she lost that because of desires to fit in and no one around her really challenging her to be better.

Whereas Jackie was the type of girl who didn't want to fit in with the other girls, she wanted to be BETTER than them. I think a lot of Jackie's attitudes toward sex came from the way the lesser (in Jackie's opinion) women around her used it. And just as sleeping around can help you build popularity and fit in with people, it can also destroy your reputation. I think Jackie picked up on that and, in addition to issues with her mother, it explained a lot of her shaming and disdain towards women who were more sexual. I think Laurie wanted to be the same as everyone else to validate her feelings of not being good enough, but I think Jackie wanted to differentiate herself from everyone else. She didn't want to be another Pam Macy or another Laurie. She didn't want to be just like her mother. She wanted to be better ("It's not enough that we know I'm better than everyone else, I want the world to know!").

And whereas Laurie lost herself in the Promiscuous Troublemaker act, Jackie doesn't get lost in the Controlling Ice Queen persona she puts on because she had people around her challenging her and motivating her to be better--not in the sense of being better than other women--but just being a better person, in general, than who she could have been.

Yeah, perhaps this is a better way to sum it. While not the moral center, I do think Eric might have been the core of the group. It's his basement, it's his family that essentially adopts the other members of the group. And I get the sense that it was him who brought the core members of the group (him/Donna/Hyde/Kelso) together. For instance, I can't imagine Little!Hyde and Little!Kelso becoming friends. I have a head canon that it was them being mutual friends of Eric that brought them together. And Hyde seemed to sort of take over as 'friend adopter' as they got older. He was the one who brought Fez into the group, and he was the first one to show genuine compassion to Jackie.

Eric's animosity to Jackie stemming from Red's affection of her is something I've never thought about, and another thing that also connects her to Laurie in Eric's view. You know, I'd also like to think that Eric's increased meanness to Jackie when Laurie's not around is because he misses his sister.

Yes. It got to the point where the creators even called out those fans on the show by having Walter Jr. label her being a "bitch". Of course, it seemed that those fans didn't get the hint because the misogyny and hatred of her character only got worse as the show went on.

TFTNT, by the way!