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#1: Girls: Jack Lambert Author: Mia, Location: London

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:31 pm
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Partly prompted by the discussion about new fillers, in which somebody said one was being written around Jack Lambert. I personally think she's the least likeable character in the whole series, but presumably other people disagree Laughing

I suppose if I'm being harsh I just see her as a second-rate Tom Gay, who I do really like. So basically I was wondering, what are your thoughts on Jack?

#2: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:34 pm
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She's less likeable than Tom, certainly, and to a certain extent is the generic "tomboy" to replace her. Tom, of course, is redeemed by her determination always to be a "gentleman", and then her very deep and real faith that lead her into mission work. Jack, at the age we meet her, has no such redeeming grace. But she does grow up, and arguably, her behaviour is often more realistic than that of many Chalet girls!

#3: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 8:48 pm
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I don't like her - she is a bully and forces all her 'Gang' to bully othrs - most noticeably Jane Carew. She also is another that doesn't see the full consequences of her actions - she was saved from having a Head's Report after her assaulting Jane by the Head Girl, Len and Con colluding with some of the Mistresses - a clear case of favoritism - others had Head's Reports for far less.

Perhaps her only redeeming feature is that she is honest, but I don't find that enough against the intractable, conservative, nasty little thug that she shows in her earlier years. Others have been expelled for less, but, as she seems to be set to become the next Head Girl, she's allowed to sail through without issue.

#4: Author: JustJen, Location: Cheering on the New York Yankees

Posted: Fri Sep 21, 2007 11:51 pm
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I never liked Jack. Here's a girl who goes into a towering rage because she's put into another dorm. She encourages her gang to ignore/bully Jane. and escapes punishment when she is caught bullying Jane in the corridor. She gets into a fight over a car and escapes a head report because the Wilmot and Ferry decide it their fault If OOAO had been headgirl, things would have gone differently for Jack.

#5: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Sat Sep 22, 2007 1:35 pm
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One of the problems with Jack is that she's surrounded by a remarkably weak set of friends who contribute very little to the story. No-one stands up to her. None of her gang have their own book, so we don't get to see their characters developed - unlike the triplets' friends, for example, each of whom has her own book.

All the other leading characters have a group of friends who all have their own strengths - Frieda the peacemaker, for example. Even Jo and ML didn't dominate their groups as much as Jack dominates hers.

I do think Len and the mistresses at times were too lenient with Jack, to the point of unfairness to other pupils.

#6: Author: Jennie, Location: Cambridgeshire

Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2007 3:16 pm
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I'm another one who believes that Jack is treated improperly. We get too much of 'Oh, she's just like a boy' and 'she's a question mark'.

In some ways, she isn't treated properly because no-one sets limits for her. She ought to have been on a head's report for her attack on Jane Carew, and they covered it up, which was hardly an example of justice.

She gets away with her bullying, and with her stupidity, as borne out by her lading a group of them out in bad weather because she thonks Len has broken a promise to her.

#7: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2007 5:01 am
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I don't like Jack, partially because I was subject to that sort of bullying in school, and know how it feels.

I think Jack was someone who had the *potential* to be a strong, capable, interesting adult, but needed careful handling to get to that point. She's bright, and energetic and curious and strong willed and a natural leader. She's also impulsive and thoughtless and featherheaded and not particularly good at seeing other people's point of view, or even wanting to, and stubborn and jealous and domineering.

I think the school really let her down. They let her claim Len as her personal property and mentor. They cover up the worst of her behaviour, protecting her from the consequences for her actions. She gets away with a lot, and gets special treatment. However, she doesn't get the discipline she needs to control herself.

Jane's case is the most egregious - Jack starts out by initiating a bullying campaign against a new girl, the sole grounds being that one of the mistresses made the decision to put the girl in Jack's personal dormitory spot. She shuns the girl, insults her, calls her names, physically attacks her, and gets all of her friends to shun her as well, and all she gets is a talking to from Len, who is not even a prefect. Jane, who's totally innocent in this case, gets a talking to as well, for defending herself from attack!

#8: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:27 pm
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Lesley wrote:

I don't like her - she is a bully and forces all her 'Gang' to bully othrs - most noticeably Jane Carew.

I wouldn't say that she forced the gang to bully Jane. They, the nasty little sheep, just copied her (as girls do). Very realistic behaviour, if depressing!

I don't like Jack very much, though I like that EBD tries to get into the head of a really 'bad' girl - we get a lot more insight into Jack's problems than into Margot's. I didn't mind her in Leader, but in Jane she's not very nice at all - though not past redemption, I'd say.

She's not my least favourite character, but maybe only cos I hate Joyce Linton so much!

#9: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:41 pm
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At least with Joyce we're supposed to dislike her. Jo doesn't like her, and EBD makes it clear her behaviour is unacceptable and threatens her with serious consequences - and Joyce does have the excuse of all the upheaval of her mother's illness and suddenly being uprooted from her normal life, and being led astray by Thekla.

We're supposed to like Jack (I assume). She has no mitigating factors for her bad behaviour, but EBD still invites us to regard her as a character to be identified with and sympathised with, and everyone else regards her indulgently as just another Naughty Middle.

#10: Author: Sarah_K, Location: St Albans

Posted: Tue Sep 25, 2007 4:51 pm
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I quite like Jack and reading all your comments I'm wondering why. It isn't a logical thng at all and I really dislike her behaviour towards Jane but overall I quite like her.

I suppose, if you put Jane aside for a moment, Jack's behaviourtowards her gang isn't so very different to Mary Lou's except that there were stronger personalities areound OOAO. She's naughty and cheeky and a pain in the neck to Len but I think if you look at the last books she's clearly growing up fast, perhaps she left it alter than the others but she is getting there (think about the Motor Boat stuff and her patience with Feelicity when she' really not that sort of a person and Len was)

The Jane stuff I have my own theories about anyway Razz

but it wasn't nice at all and Jane really shouldn't have been punished for it. I just don't think it writes Jack off as horrible altogether.

#11: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Sep 27, 2007 2:57 pm
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I want to like Jack because she dares to be different - a girl who's interested in cars etc (which still seemed to be regarded as weird right up until Charlene in Neighbours popularised the idea of female mechanics in the late '80s!) - but I can't because she's so domineering and she's a bully. Having said which, there were plenty of girls like that - leaders of "gangs" who picked on people they didn't like - at my school and at all other schools I know of, so I find her quite realistic.

#12: Author: tiernsee, Location: Devon

Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 12:45 pm
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I have only just read Jane at the Chalet School and was very shocked by Jack's behaviour and how she was allowed to get away with it. Obviously Jack was one of EBD's favourite characters and therefore allowed the odd misdeamenour that would have got other girls expelled. What happened in Jane was straightforward bullying and if this happened at my children's school I would expect them to act straight away!
Saying that before I read Jane I had read Heather Paisley's "New beginnings" with Jack as Head Girl and actually quite liked her there. I think Heather must have a knack of reforming characters because I liked her Reg as well.
Also I don't think Jack benefitted from being in the later books which are inferior in writing style and content to the earlier books in the series.
Jack - favourite character - no. Least favourite character - also no. Verdict - pretty indifferent to her.

#13: Author: Sunglass, Location: Usually London

Posted: Wed Feb 13, 2008 2:41 pm
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tiernsee wrote:

Also I don't think Jack benefitted from being in the later books which are inferior in writing style and content to the earlier books in the series.

While I find Jack intensely irritating - and surely her 'novelty value' as a mechanically-minded girl was usurped much earlier by Noel Streatfeild's Petrova Fossil in Ballet Shoes? - I agree with tiernsee that it's hard to think of her as a character without also taking into account the very weak plotting of the late books. All the most maddening things about Jack - the arbitrary bullying campaigns based on a fairly arbitrary motive like the perceived usurping of a dormitory cubicle etc etc - are all less to do with Jack than with what seems to be the general running out of steam of the series at this point.

(HTML fixed, Róisín)

#14: Author: Mrs Redboots, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:06 pm
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I always thought Jack was a rather inferior Tom Gay, without any of Tom's redeeming characteristics!

#15: Author: miss_maeve, Location: Buckinghamshire, UK

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:44 pm
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The first book I read that had Jack in it was 'Jane' and I didn't like her in that, at all.
She seemed a thoroughly unlikeable character - jealous, mean and a bully.
I felt she got better with the presence of Felicity, but still I don't warm to her very much.
I have read a filler in which Jack is Head Girl (though I forget the name) and it surprised me - rather like Darrell Rivers surprised me in 'Malory Towers' - in that both had been guilty of being bullies in some way, and yet eventually became head Girl.

#16: Author: Pat, Location: Doncaster

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:56 pm
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She was Head Girl in New Beginnings.

#17: Author: miss_maeve, Location: Buckinghamshire, UK

Posted: Fri Feb 15, 2008 11:48 pm
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Pat wrote:

She was Head Girl in New Beginnings.

So it was - thanks *is very bad with names sometimes*

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