The CBB :: View topic - Girls: Second Fiddle Girls

... and perhaps especially at the CS where so much emphasis is put on "leadership".

Verity-Anne was the one who I feel the sorriest for. She starts out with quite a decent personality and a certain amout of determination, but by the end of the series she's faded away to nothing.

Verity-Anne had a lot of potential to begin with, very strong-willed and independent - how many ten year olds could hold out against the staff as long as she did? - but then years later she's completely dependent on Mary-Lou, even to make her bed, etc, in the mornings. She definitely regressed, and I think that's a pity.

THEN she's relegated to not even being ML's best friend because Verity would always be closer to her. THEN she doesn't even get to be a prefect before ML. THEN she doesn't get her wish to be games prefect and ends up as second prefect instead.

I wonder if part of Jack's resentment of Jane was the fact that she recognised Jane was another potential leader (Jane actually stands up to Jack unlike anyone else) - in the same way that she resents Gillie?

Author:	Róisín [ Wed Feb 13, 2008 7:21 pm ]
Post subject:	Girls: Second Fiddle Girls
Girls who played second fiddle to more major characters include Vi to Mary-Lou, Wanda to Jack or Simone to Jo. Did EBD portray these girls unfairly? Did they have interesting lives of their own that should have been shown? Are their characters wholly defined by their main-player chum? Please join in the discussion below, and bring up any points of debate that you like

Author:	Alison H [ Wed Feb 13, 2008 11:52 pm ]
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That reminded me of a gang of 9 girls in our class at school, led by a Jack Lambert type leader with her best friend as her chief sidekick . I think that that kind of thing's quite common in schools, and perhaps especially at the CS where so much emphasis is put on "leadership". There's a very good point made about Joey early on, that she becomes the leader of the pack (so to speak!) because she's the only one of the Middles who's fluent in all 3 main languages. It gets a bit much sometimes - for example, why was she Marie's chief bridesmaid when Simone and Frieda always seemed to be as close to Marie as she was? - but the Quartette do all have individual personalities and get their own storylines. However, whilst Vi, the 2 Lesleys, Hilary, etc, all start off OK, and the whole group're quite interesting when they're kids in Armishire/St Briavel's, but after the first one or two Swiss books the others don't really seem to do anything except be Mary-Lou's friends. Vi is demoted from being an interesting person, originally more of a leader than OOAO was, to being someone whose main role seems to be "beating the others hollow as far as looks are concerned" (or words to that effect!). And Jack Lambert's gang are even worse: all they seem to do is follow Jack about. Having said which, it only really happens with those 2 groups. With the "Quintette" and the two "Triumvirates" (I love all these names ) and the Ailie/Judy/Janice trio there's no obvious leader, and Bride's friends and the triplets' friends all have their own lives/personalities. It just seems to be Mary-Lou and Jack who are allowed to overshadow the people around them to the extent that the "second fiddle" girls and their other friends don't seem to have much of a life of their own. IMHO, anyway!

Author:	Róisín [ Thu Feb 14, 2008 12:01 am ]
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Alison H wrote: ... and perhaps especially at the CS where so much emphasis is put on "leadership". And where there is leadership, there must be followers, so I suppose it was inevitable

Author:	Joyce [ Thu Feb 14, 2008 6:20 am ]
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Verity-Anne was the one who I feel the sorriest for. She starts out with quite a decent personality and a certain amout of determination, but by the end of the series she's faded away to nothing. Vi also tends to disappear given that she seems to have been the leader of the form with Josette before ML showed up. THEN she's relegated to not even being ML's best friend because Verity would always be closer to her. THEN she doesn't even get to be a prefect before ML. THEN she doesn't get her wish to be games prefect and ends up as second prefect instead. Always wondered whether Vi felt any resentment towards ML for that or whether she was too good natured to care? Happens in real schools though. In my high school the girl who lead my 'gang' through grades 8-11 was pretty much thought to have the school captainship in the bag for grade 12. Then halfway through grade 11 a new girl joined who was used to being a leader in her old school and she managed to split the group up so that at the start of grade 12, my friend was 'only' voted vice captain while the new girl was voted captain after only having been at the school for seven months! I don't think my friend ever quite got over it and she spent grade 12 being very quiet and don't careish about school activities whereas before she would have been at the centre of them. Cheers, Joyce

Author:	Holly [ Thu Feb 14, 2008 7:27 pm ]
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Joyce wrote: Verity-Anne was the one who I feel the sorriest for. She starts out with quite a decent personality and a certain amout of determination, but by the end of the series she's faded away to nothing. Verity-Anne had a lot of potential to begin with, very strong-willed and independent - how many ten year olds could hold out against the staff as long as she did? - but then years later she's completely dependent on Mary-Lou, even to make her bed, etc, in the mornings. She definitely regressed, and I think that's a pity.

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Author:	Sunglass [ Fri Feb 15, 2008 8:20 am ]
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Entirely agree with the comment that in a series so obsessed with leadership as maybe the ultimate admirable character quality that there also has to be a 'herd' to follow that leader. But obviously, logically, that means that many or most of the CS girls need to be followers, rather than leaders, and therefore lack the ultimate desirable quality in a CS girl. This means that EBD has to come up with various slightly weird half-measures, like that repeated assertion I'm not sure I quite get, about someone being a quiet creature, but (despite appearing never to really say or do very much) having a 'quiet influence for good' over her peers. Loveday Perowne is one of these I can think of offhand, but there are quite a few others. Enid Blyton's school stories are also quite concerned with leadership - there's Miss Grayling's famous speech to the new girls at Malory Towers annually, about the school's successes not being career women, or brilliant scholars, but 'good strong women the world can lean on'. I suppose EBD was also of her time in this sense, implicitly proving that women could and should lead, rather than taking a backseat to men. Of course, this would work better in the CS books if Jack or Jem were not called in to be leant on by strong, capable adult women in authority on all kinds of occasions, women whom they then often patronise. The one that gobsmacked me recently reading Shocks was Jack Maynard, asked for his advice on whether the school should accept Emerence, addresses Miss Annersley and Rosalie Dene as 'you girls'!

Author:	miss_maeve [ Fri Feb 15, 2008 9:47 pm ]
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Sadly, it happens. There will always be leaders and those who follow, whether by choice or just because the follower isn't as strong as the person they follow. I'm a follower, but not by choice - my BF at school was always the leader. Eventually, we went our separate ways (we're still friends though) and I got my own 'gang', but I always felt second still to my friend because her gang was better. I just had this overwhelming desire to be in charge of something, even if it was just a group of rag-tag-and-bobtails LOL

Author:	jennifer [ Mon Feb 18, 2008 7:53 am ]
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Some cases seem very natural - Joey, for example, is a much more forceful, leader type than her three friends. Simone, for example, does seem to naturally be more of a follower than a leader. In other cases, it is a case of the dominant personality pushing out people of equal leadership ability. Vi is a prime example - she's the leader of the form when Mary-Lou arrives, is pretty and personable and well liked, but ends up very much in the background mainly because Mary-Lou hogs the spotlight. I know people like that, who will always end up in charge or at the centre of attention, regardless. Wanda always struck me as rather bland, included more as a foil for the tomboy Jack than as a character in her own right. She's never very forceful even in the beginning. That could be why Jack takes such tight control, as there are no other personalities in her group that can stand up to her.

Author:	Sunglass [ Mon Feb 18, 2008 10:07 am ]
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The slightly odd thing is that we don't get to see girl (rather than, say, Headmistress) leadership in action all that often, or is that when we do, it's defined a bit differently than it is in other girls' school stories? I mean, we see Darrell Rivers in Malory Towers writing and producing a pantomime, and frequently leading her form or peer group in some form of condemnation or forgiveness of some miscreant - as well as being a forthright personality and the standard school story stuff of being Head Girl of her form and the school at various points, and choosing teams etc. Nicola Marlow in the Kingscote books (and most of the other Marlows at various points, bar Karen, who is head girl, but not much good at it) and other leaders like Tim Keith and Miranda West write and produce endless plays and carol concerts and star in them, continually form the opinions of their peer groups, galvanise teams into non-compulsory pre-breakfast practices and lead them to victory, as well as being captains of netball teams, form prefects, games captains, patrol leaders, potential head girls etc etc . But in the CS - is 'leadership' defined much less quantifiably? Mostly meaning 'having a stronger personality in contrast to peers', (but since by definition the peers get far less attention form the narrative, we can't see that for ourselves), usually being form prefect and continually 'butting in'? We keep being told about Mary-Lou's leadership qualities, but, apart from 'butting in' endlessly (sometimes on instructions from the Head or Joey), being inclined to forthrightness in speech ('It's just Mary-Lou!') because of her upbringing by older people, and doing things like bossing Verity-Anne around - what do we see her do that demonstrates real leadership?

Author:	Joyce [ Wed Feb 20, 2008 12:04 pm ]
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I can think of one example of Mary-Lou's leadership. In Kenya she devises a plan that the girls who speak fluent French and German will help out the English-speaking girls. She calls a meeting to formalise this and stamps her authority on it by simply saying it had to be doneand it wouldmake life easier for them later. Another less worthy example of her leadership was that she chooses who gets to be in the Gang. And she can be almost nasty about it. There's one passage in one of the Swiss books that says that they might be friendly with you but you were not really one of them. Cheers, Joyce

Author:	Lolly [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 11:18 am ]
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Holly wrote: Verity-Anne had a lot of potential to begin with, very strong-willed and independent - how many ten year olds could hold out against the staff as long as she did? - but then years later she's completely dependent on Mary-Lou, even to make her bed, etc, in the mornings. She definitely regressed, and I think that's a pity. I always rather liked Verity-Anne. I think her utter refusal to conform to the Chalet School mode shows a kind of quiet strength of character. After all - who would actually enjoy all the dusting, tidying & flinging about of bedclothes that they were all supposed to do before breakfast? But while all the other girls, like sheep, bend before the iron wills of Matron, prefects & peers, Verity-Anne manages to get someone to do it all for her and is never punished. If only I'd been so cunning at school!

Author:	Lesley [ Thu Feb 21, 2008 12:31 pm ]
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Doesn't one of Jennie's drabbles actually state that Verity did it deliberately? Must go and re-read that...

Author:	Loryat [ Sun Mar 09, 2008 2:32 pm ]
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Joyce wrote: THEN she's relegated to not even being ML's best friend because Verity would always be closer to her. THEN she doesn't even get to be a prefect before ML. THEN she doesn't get her wish to be games prefect and ends up as second prefect instead. I must say I always thought it utterly ridiculous that Vi was never made a prefect at the same time as Mary-Lou (fair enough, she is the OAO) but also a few other random gang members who were definitely lesser characters than Vi. Maybe it was just an EBDism? I despise Jack's gang who seem to follow her about like sheep to the extent of bullying poor Jane at her say-so. Unfortuneately though, they are pretty realistic. I wonder if part of Jack's resentment of Jane was the fact that she recognised Jane was another potential leader (Jane actually stands up to Jack unlike anyone else) - in the same way that she resents Gillie? If I had been at CS I think I would have been a quiet-type girl who was generally running late, but despite not being a 'leader' was the sort who made up her own mind about things rather than being a follower. Unfortunately CS is more or less bereft of that sort of character, since anyone whith a mind of their own is naturally either a leader or the sort with 'quiet influence'.

Author:	jennifer [ Mon Mar 10, 2008 3:07 am ]
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Loryat wrote: I wonder if part of Jack's resentment of Jane was the fact that she recognised Jane was another potential leader (Jane actually stands up to Jack unlike anyone else) - in the same way that she resents Gillie? That's an interesting idea. Jack doesn't seem to do too well with people her own age who don't follow her around like sheep. I wonder what she would have done if, when she gave her orders to her Gang about treating Jane badly, if one had stood up and said "No, that's not fair, I won't do it."

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