Rory Gilmore started out as an aspirational teen who made it seem cool to get good grades and be friends with your mom, but by the revival, she was the epitome of the faltering millennial. So what went wrong?

Everyone in her life has always been in awe of Rory, just because she’s a pretty good student

“Rory, you are tailor-made for Harvard. They’re lucky to have you.”

Over time, Rory starts to believe her own hype and comes off as entitled and arrogant, with a shockingly poor work ethic…

“Sorry I didn’t have a pitch prepared.” “That’s a little weird, thought you’d have some ideas.”

She’s got an intense case of main character syndrome that leads her to justify things like affairs with married and engaged men. Even though she’s a vision of white privilege, complete with rich grandparents who can pay for university buildings, she paints herself as a scrappy underdog. So, years before the “avocado toast” “annoying millennial” narrative took off, Rory showed the perils of failing to acknowledge your privilege or take responsibility for your choices. Her problem isn’t that she makes mistakes, but that she never learns from them.

So what can we learn from Rory? Maybe that we should take time to figure ourselves out, and understand that detours from the plan can be good —because maybe the life you decided you wanted as a teen isn’t actually what’s right for you as an adult.