Anne With An E: 10 Things That Make No Sense About Diana

Anne With An E is one of Netflix’s most popular series and one that seems to have one of the most loyal and dedicated fanbases. After its premature cancellation in November 2019, fans fought hard to save the show, but to no avail. Across its three seasons, the series introduced many new characters and allowed its original cast to evolve significantly.

Diana Barry has been an integral part of Anne’s story from the first episode. She sticks by Anne through almost everything, which actually doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, given her upbringing. She’s not quite as accepting of other people she meets, or even when she learns the truth about Aunt Josephine’s lifestyle. She’s a great character who has a beautiful journey of growth, but not everything about her or her story makes sense.

10 Her Cruelty Towards Minnie May

On more than one occasion, Diana is seen to be quite cruel towards her younger sister. Minnie May is a cheeky thing, but she’s only a young girl. Likely, she feels constrained by her parents’ overbearing natures.

Perhaps Diana is jealous that Minnie May is still a little girl, while she, as the older sister, must take on a few responsibilities and step into the place of a role model. She’s incredibly mean to Minnie May when she’s at her most vulnerable, like when she wets the bed, even making her cry and wish for a different family.

9 Why She’s Friends With The Girls

Diana immediately takes a liking to Anne, which actually makes sense, as Anne is so different from anyone she’s ever met. Anne opens up her imagination and introduces her to a new, more colorful world.

But, Diana’s friendship with the other girls, Jane, Tillie, Ruby, and Josie, doesn’t make sense. They are judgemental, mean, narrowminded, and rude. Whenever Diana tries to support Anne, they resist. All in all, they’re the opposite of everything Diana stands for.

8 Her Relationship With Jerry

Jerry makes it no secret that he likes Diana from their first meeting. He calls her the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen, but she doesn’t care so much for the flattery. In season three, they finally get to know each other better. Jerry begins to walk Diana home from school where they talk about all sorts of things and seem to forge a connection.

They exchange books, which further supports this. But soon, Diana discovers that Jerry is uneducated; however, earlier in the show, it’s implied that Diana is the one who is a bit daft. Her attraction to him feels random, given her previous lack of interest in him, and the fact that he comes from lower social standing. She also behaves rather coldly with him, which is unlike her.

7 Her Spat With Anne

Throughout the three seasons, Diana is incredibly loyal to Anne no matter what happens. She’s always willing to listen and hear her out and stands by her even when she makes mistakes.

But, when Diana is in the wrong, she makes it about Anne and her self-pity, which has never been an issue before and not something Anne has ever expressed. Diana even stays away when Anne leads the town to a freedom of speech rally, which is exceptionally selfish of Dian, and, again, completely out of character.

6 Her Friendship With Cole

Cole is introduced at the start of season two. Anne and Diana act like they’ve known him all along; that he simply hadn’t caught their attention much in the previous year.

Diana has an adverse reaction to learning of Aunt Josephine’s lifestyle, but she doesn’t seem to mind Cole being gay. She thinks that Josephine’s attraction to women is wrong until Anne explains it in simpler terms, but she doesn’t comment on Cole at all. Sometimes, Diana barely interacts with him at all, while, at others, he seems to be one of her best friends.

5 Her Intellect

In season one, Diana is presented as clueless, and, to put it bluntly, dumb. She says that she has no imagination, doesn’t know many big words, can’t invent stories, and doesn’t read much. When she’s called upon to read in class, she can barely pronounce the words correctly.

However, in season three, Diana passes the Queen’s entrance exam with no preparation whatsoever. She also offers some in-depth analysis of Frankenstein to Jerry, where normally she would be the one making the comments that Jerry does.

4 How Oblivious She Is

Diana is supposed to be compassionate, empathetic, welcoming, and nurturing, but, sometimes, she’s very inconsiderate and oblivious. For instance, she chooses to ignore certain details about her family, like her mother’s plans to send her to Finishing School.

She also doesn’t seem to heed Anne’s background or the other girls’ treatment of her. She is sometimes insensitive to other people’s issues, like when she’s with Jerry, whom she doesn’t even like for his personality.

3 Selective Kindness

Diana is first presented as a kind, caring, curious young girl, but, soon, another side of her is revealed. She is friends with some nasty girls at school, and she exhibits this kind of behavior at home towards her sister.

She’s also quite rude to Jerry and Moody, but she’s kind to Anne, Cole, and the LaCroix family. It seems that Diana is only kind when she chooses to be. When she argues with Anne in season three, she demonstrates just how cruel she can be.

2 What She Plans To Do With Her Future

Diana has no plans for her future other than to marry well—that is, until Aunt Josephine encourages her to follow her own dreams. The only problem is that she doesn’t really have any.

At Josephine’s Summer Soiree, she encourages Diana to play the piano and show off her skills, but Diana is too afraid to. In season three, she again pushes Diana to choose her own path. She gets accepted into Queen’s, but what does she hope to do next?

1 Why She Suddenly Takes Josie’s Side

In the third season, Anne makes a mistake when she tries to defend Josie in the newspaper. She writes an article about feminism and gender equality, but the town didn’t receive it well—and, least of all, Josie.

From their very first meeting, Diana is a loyal friend to Anne when nobody else would accept her. It doesn’t make sense that she would trade her own beliefs to support someone who has bullied Anne her entire childhood, even if Anne was in the wrong, too.

About The Author

Svetlana Sterlin
(256 Articles Published)

After years of relocation, Svetlana Sterlin (she/her) was raised by her Russian parents in Brisbane, Australia, where she completed a BFA and contributes to ScreenRant and Our Culture Magazine. An avid cinephile and bookworm, Svetlana also writes creatively across multiple forms and genres. Her fiction and poetry appear in several printed and digital publications. Find more from Svetlana here: https://linktr.ee/svetlanasterlin.

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