I don't really have much to say about the Gone With the Wind debate except that when I first read the passage Hil posted for the first few sentences I thought it was about Twilight...which was confusing

Also when I first read Gone With the Wind I only liked Rhett and Melanie and would have rather read about them together than chuck Scarlett.

I am not saying she is a feminist ideal by any means, is that she had sort of a fire burning in her that she didn't know how to reconcile with how she was supposed to act.

This. I actually think that there are a lot of parallels between her and Betty Draper in this respect.

Huhn. I remember being a young teen completely enamoured by Scarlett's beauty and power and ability to take damn near anything in stride and come out on top of the situation. At that time, I just thought that if Scarlett hadn't wanted Rhett, she would have bitten his ear and made him drop her.

Later, of course, I came to question all those old timey social mores down there in the land of Dixie. I remember seeing GWTW at the Castro Theatre and becoming annoyed with all the PC types whistling at the screen during offensive content. And I remember wishing heartily that all those self righteous people would shut up and enjoy the movie as a time traveler from a place and time society has managed to improve upon.

If I could have met any character in GWTW, it would have been Miss Melly.

Also when I first read Gone With the Wind I only liked Rhett and Melanie and would have rather read about them together than chuck Scarlett.

The book would have been better if Ashley had come back as a zombie. I still hold this to be true.

Ashley Wilkes was kinda zombielike as a living man. He kind of stayed inert while great things happened all around him.

That wasn't enough for my 11 year old, horror-reading self. I wanted monsters and the shambling undead. (I've mentioned that I was forced to read GWTW, right? To say I didn't like it is a bit of an understatement.)

Well, the thing about Scarlett, and I am not saying she is a feminist ideal by any means, is that she had sort of a fire burning in her that she didn't know how to reconcile with how she was supposed to act. I think she was certainly (at least in the movie) at her best when she was picking cotton and running the household at Tara post war. Even though she desperately wanted to get out of it, she was able to be almost a good person at the time.

Oh, I agree, and that fire about her was the thing that made me more sympathetic. However, I think her basic personality would make her unlikeable to me, even if she were born today.

Ugh, Ashley was a zombie. I never, NEVER got why Scarlett wanted him so badly. Milquetoast.

I don't like Melly, either. I think I would have like Belle Watling the best.

I never, NEVER got why Scarlett wanted him so badly.

To be fair, this was kind of the point. She wanted him because he was some kind of ideal something-or-other, but she had no idea what he was really like as a human being, and as soon as she found out she realized she didn't want that after all.

When I first read the book as a tween, probably the strongest resonance for me was Scarlett being better with numbers than with people. (Same reason I identified with Anya in the latter seasons of BtVS, really.)

To be fair, this was kind of the point. She wanted him because he was some kind of ideal something-or-other, but she had no idea what he was really like as a human being, and as soon as she found out she realized she didn't want that after all.

This. Ashley was everything she was *supposed* to want.

...and the tragedy to sixteen year old Katie was how unhappy Scarlett was with everything she'd been supposed to want, once she had it.