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Middlemarch Madness

Middlemarch Madness, Elite Eight, Day One

Have you all recovered from Friday yet?  Is it safe for me to come out of the bunker?  I heard talk of pitchforks and my ass went underground.  Get your clicking fingers ready, it’s time to send two more beloved heroines home, right after the cut.

As a refresher, we’ll be voting on the Elite Eight today and tomorrow, both final four battles (YA v. YA, Adult v. Adult) will be on Wednesday, and the championship vote will be on Thursday.  We’ll announce the winner on Friday.

Here’s a link to the most recent Middlemarch Madness bracket, with 100% moar pictures, because they fit now without making the .pdf a bajillion pixels square.

I encourage those of you who love Meg, Hermione, Anathema and Esmerelda to jump in the comments with your pleas.  If the Elite Eight voting goes like the Sweet Sixteen, there will be bunches of you in the voting booth.  Sway some independents! As always, voting is open until 5:00 p.m. EST tomorrow evening.

By [E] Selena MacIntosh*

Selena MacIntosh is the owner and editor of Persephone Magazine. She also fixes it when it breaks. She is fueled by Diet Coke, coffee with a lot of cream in it, and cat hair.

9 replies on “Middlemarch Madness, Elite Eight, Day One”

I wish I could convince everybody to vote for Hermione, but my reasons for doing so are so completely personal that I’m not sure my arguments will sway anybody else. I’m voting for Hermione because I re-read the Harry Potter books almost every year just for the joy of their world. I’m voting for Hermione because, as a non-math-inclined nerd and a teenage goody two-shoes, I’m not sure I’ve ever identified with any character in any book the way I identified with Hermione. I’m voting for Hermione because she kicked ass and took names, because her character changed and developed while still saying true to herself over the course of the books, because Harry wouldn’t have got far without Hermione. I’m voting for Hermione in the name of my old online alias, “Hermione at Heart.”

I’m voting for Hermione because she is a cooler, more badass, more principled, more awesome version of me. I’m voting for Hermione because she’s who I want to be.

So I don’t have any non-personal reasons to give you, just my heartfelt plea to vote Hermione!

Okay. I thought about this a LOT over the weekend. Meg vs. Hermione.

And I am voting Meg Murray, and this is why: Meg exists, at least partially, in the real world. She herself (maybe apart from kything) has no special magical powers. She has no wand. She has her intelligence and her love for her brother (and Calvin, and everyone else) and she’s up against not just one super-evil guy, but a literally universal evil. And she fucking triumphs. We see inside Meg’s head – her insecurities, her fear – we never get that with Hermione. Because JK focused on Harry, we don’t know Hermione the way we know Meg. We can’t.

And I’m guessing for most of us, Meg was there before Hermione. Maybe if I’d read all of Harry Potter (especially the later books, when Hermione’s really kicking ass) when I was much younger and desperately needed smart, awkward girls to look up to, I would feel differently. But Meg was there for me – and I bet she was there for you too.

So, I implore you, Persephone Readers – VOTE MEG MURRAY.

I’m realizing how few “adult” fantasy-type novels I’ve read. I don’t think I’ve been able to vote in that category this entire time. If anyone wants to persuade me to cast my vote for Esmerelda or Anathema/read the book they hail from, I’m all ears.

Meg, Meg, she’s our Murray
If she can’t do it, there will be fury!

[img]http://persephonemagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/many_waters__frontcover_large_MAubuqq6W1a5L4t.jpg.jpeg[/img]
Also, who wasn’t in love with this fictional hotness in 5th grade? (I feel like a skeeve saying that now, but it was age appropriate at the time!)

I do love Hermione though. But Meg had my heart first and always. And she did not have hot brothers.

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