First up, Thursday night’s big winners.
YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Dystopia
Coraline comes around to upset Alice.
YA Fiction
In a surprise end run, Jessica “Not So” Darling defeats Melinda. (and Twitter goes wild!)
Adult Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Dystopia
Karin Murphy beats Harry (our comments go wild!)
Adult Fiction
Lady MacBeth beats Mulan (Selena goes wild, Mulan was robbed!)
Here’s your latest bracket-y goodness!
http://persephonemagazine.com/images/Middlemarchmadnessbracket4.pdf
Ready for tonight’s votes? Go!
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Scarlett haters to the left, seriously. She is amazing.
I will be sad if Eowyn doesn’t win this one.
Me. Too.
Oooh, I had to go with Vicky. A Ring of Endless Light has to have been the most important book of my childhood.
Seriously. Vicky showed me how to grow up throughout the Austin Family series.
I idolized Eowyn when I was a little girl! She was the reason I started fencing. :)
Eowyn lovers unite!
But my childhood experiences are the only ones that are valid! Fight! Fight! ;)
Ack! I think the internet just became self-aware!
Are we fighting with swords, or proper knowledge of growing up? ;)
I love that Celie was pitted against Scarlett O’Hara. Sorry entitled, spoiled white bitch, you will lose.
Is the Scarlett in the book different from in the movie? Because I don’t think movie Scarlett is likeable at all.
Unfortunately, movie Scarlett is pretty accurate as far as general Scarlett insufferability. Most unsympathetic book heroine ever.
I don’t think that is true at all. I think the ultimate lesson of the book is that though success/money is important and Scarlett isn’t totally wrong for doing what she did – she took it too far. Her success is hollow because in the end she has no one to share it with. Her experience of extreme poverty has warped her so much, how can you not feel bad for her? And when her child dies?! When she is raped?! When she miscarries the baby she hopes will save her marriage?! You’re seriously telling me that you don’t feel bad for her in any of these situations? Or that she ‘deserved’ it somehow? The woman grew up in a life of comfort and security and was unexpectedly thrust into a new world, in which she bravely made her way, though it made her bitter. Even as she mocked the old guard who pined for a lost time, she did the same thing herself in pining for Ashley. How can you not feel for Scarlett?
Eh. No one deserves abuse, but I just really struggle to empathize with a character who never saw anything but her own misfortune– even after years when she enjoyed a life of privilege that was sustained only by the misery of others.
//endrant
So I was talking with a good friend of mine the other day. His grandparents are Chinese immigrants, who came from pretty poor beginnings. Their reaction to Scarlett eating the dirty turnip (or whatever) out of the ground? “Why doesn’t she just eat the horse? Such a waste!”
Really puts that white privilege in perspective.
Go Celie!
“Why doesn’t she just eat the horse?” Because she lives in an extremely rural area and needs it for transportation. They also need the horse to plow their fields so they have cotton to sell. In the book she actually walks several miles to find that turnip, she doesn’t ride around on the horse for fun. In fact there is a passage in the book where she thinks about all the horses Tara used to have, and how she can’t ride their one skinny horse anywhere because it needs to rest as much as possible.
Man, I hated Gone With the Wind. I’ve only read the book, but book Scarlett was horrible. I read it around 6th grade and remember thinking, “Wait, everyone sucks and everything goes to crap, nobody learns anything, and that’s the end?”
Sadly, no. The Scarlett in the book is actually a bit more annoying, if that is even possible, than the movie Scarlett, because you get to know her better.
Boo! Scarlett FTW! Not that the book and some of her actions aren’t problematic, but Scarlett is an amazing woman. The book Scarlett is definitely different. There is much more time spent on her getting Tara functioning again, much more time spent planning her sawmill business, and lots of internal strife over being forced to have children and having to behave like a lady in public. There is also a beautiful scene with Grandma Fontaine where she talks about how scared she is and about how part of her wants to give up and leave, but a bigger part of her wants to succeed. Scarlett isn’t about being likable, that’s the point. /rant
Your pro-Scarlett passion is inspirational. Maybe I need to read the book and reconsider my position!
I second that emotion
Please do, but stay far away from the ‘sequel’ written by Alexandra Ripley.
Yay for Jessica Darling!
Yessssss! So happy. I totally identified with Jess Darlin’ throughout my angsty teen years.
With the exception of Karana’s victory, I have lost every round. Claudia v. Scout is just cruel and Turtle v. Harriet will break my heart. But I hope it comes down (on the left side) to Lyra v. Meg v. Harriet v. Scout. I’ll never recover from Leslie’s defeat (come ON) though.
I’m okay with everything that happens as long as Lyra comes out the champion.
P.S. Where’s Winnie Foster? :(
Winnie! OMG! How did we forget her?
The YA Fiction group is so cruel because we started with only 17 names, instead of arranging them by number of votes, like the others, I arranged them alphabetically. It makes for some vicious competition.
Man, that WAS vicious! I’m soo impressed with the game though. My friends and I are way too into it to admit to anyone in real life…
Thanks for creating such an awesome competition!
Jo March v. Lyra will be the final two, inshaallah!
TEAM LYRA FOREVER
You’re right! Where is Winnie Foster!
I vote this becomes an annual Persephone feature, particularly so that all those left out this time around can make it in next time.
…There was another crucial omission mentioned sometime last week, so obvious that now I’m forgetting who it was….
I don’t even know how I’m going to handle Claudia v. Scout. It makes me so sad.
Coraline won! Neil Gaiman fans FTW.
Neil Gaiman fans will come out of every tiny hole in the woodwork if there’s voting to be done…which is why his fans are the bestest fans ever!
True! The best group o’ nerds I’ve ever been associated with.
Nancy Drew? Pff. Harriet all the way.
Also, Harriet the Spy the Movie featured Michelle Trachtenburg before her annoying stint on Buffy, which is always fun to see.
Definitely Harriet over Nancy. See:
http://www.harkavagrant.com/index.php?id=293
Nancy Drew 4 Lyfe.
Nancy Drew 4 Evah.
That is all.
I had to go with Nancy. She was pretty iconic in my formative years, so it was kind of a nostalgia vote.
Whose cruel idea was it to pit Harriet the Spy against Nancy Drew, anyway? *grumble grumble grumble*