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Middlemarch Madness

Middlemarch Madness: Sweet Sixteen Voting Day Three

One of last night’s races was so close, the leader changed fifty times.   The other one, not so much.   We’ve got two more inductees into the Elite Eight, two more ladies going home and another round of votes for you, after the cut.

The Winners

In YA Fiction, Anne of Green Gables (53%)  defeats Harriet the Spy (47%).

In Adult Fiction, Jo March (82%) skunks Kate (18%), so I don’t have to build a time machine.

The Newest Bracket

Middlemarch Bracket 15

The Newest Poll

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.

23 replies on “Middlemarch Madness: Sweet Sixteen Voting Day Three”

I’m throwing in the towel. Anne won? Anne won?!?!
It’s like the National Championships all over again. The Ducks just could not pull it off and I have to sit there with my mouth hanging open thinking “WHY?! WHY!?” and mentally shaking my fist.

Damn you, Aub – I mean Anne! Damn You!

I suppose I am now team Meg. But all the classic models seem to be getting replaced with new and shiny heroines so I’m concerned for her against Katniss.

How could you ever compare Meg’s awkward, prescient grace to Katniss? Physics! And other dimensions and wind and lightening and adolescent metaphors! I liked the Hunger Games, but Katniss seemed so flat, so oblivious, so oddly selfish even as she gave up everything. Peeta deserved better. Why was Katniss so dense sometimes? Um, duh, your Mockingjay has become a symbol of rebellion. Everyone around you knew it in the last book. Idiot. She’s totally that person in the history books who gets all the credit for 50 years until the next generation of academics starts rooting around and realizes that she was just a symbol and that the real planning and heroism belonged to other people. Then all the pseudo-intellectuals will make shirts with Peeta’s face on them, and the hipster-pseudo-intellectuals will make shirts with Haymitch’s face on them. Then it will cycle back and it will be cool to like Katniss again because that will be the generation of people who don’t want to work hard, but want to get credit for it anyway, and by that time everyone will pretty much have forgotten how much their world used to suck. Fine, she could shoot a bow and skin stuff. That was totally badass. But an awesome and natural reversal of gender roles in a romantic relationship is not enough to make me embrace the newness of Hunger Games for the long-standing love I have for characters that shaped my childhood.

COME ON, MEG!!! You are the last vestige of my childhood remaining on the board. I didn’t name my cat Tesseract for nothing.

Yes! Anne Forever! Harriet is pretty awesome, but I already had to see my beloved Scarlett lose miserably, I could not stand to lose Anne as well. Two of my favorite Anne-isms:

“I don’t know, I don’t want to talk as much. (…) It’s nicer to think dear, pretty thoughts and keep them in one’s heart, like treasures. I don’t like to have them laughed at or wondered over.” -Anne of GG

“I hate going to bed now,” said Anne. “All my life I’ve liked going to bed, to have a gay, mad, splendid half-hour of imagining things before sleeping. Now I imagine them still. But much different things.” – Rilla of Ingleside (This is obviously unbelievably tragic but I think is illustrates the terribleness of war. It also shows that the Anne books aren’t all hilarious scrapes and descriptions of flowers.)

Turtle, Lyra AND Harriet? I just…I don’t even…It’s like…

No.

After Turtle was robbed (ROBBED) I was so certain it would be Lyra/Meg/Harriet/Scout followed by Lyra/Harriet and then Lyra would take the whole damn thing. Now I’m like, is the sky even blue? Is the earth even round? Can chocolate even fix this?!

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