skygiants

The thing about Rochester is that yes he is a garbage fire but also he is Jane's particular garbage fire

Ahahaha yes. I think a big part of it is he sees her, who she really is, and like lizrael says, that delights him -- she knows she's plain, she doesn't think he's handsome and flat out says so, she's his dependent but she also won't take any shit. I don't think any adaptation I have seen really sells it, but there's that moment when he talks about the men in green and her spreading ice to make him fall, and she replies "just as seriously as he had done." They meet as equals psychologically and they can't really have a conventional relationship -- there's trouble even before his bigamy is revealed, when he's trying to control what she wears and how she looks. He has to be brought low and she has to be raised up for them to be actually married. Otherwise, when she goes back to him it looks like she's doing it as a caretaker thing, or it just makes her look weaker somehow (to me, anyway).