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.

Yeah, she wanted him because she had decided somewhere around age 15 that she wanted him, and once she decided she wanted something she had to pursue it until she got it. Even if she really should have stopped to think at some point and realized that there was no good reason to want him.

I get that, I do. I understood that that was the point.

But I was always, ugh, REALLY? Him?

One of the things that fascinated me at 12 was that she could just smile and turn on the charm and get people to do stuff for her. It took her like a week to steal her sister's fiance. Took no time at all to convince Charles Hamilton to marry her. Ashley fell for it to some extent, but he wouldn't break off his engagement with Melanie because his feeling that he should do what he was supposed to do was even stronger. (Pretty much everything Ashley did, he did because it was what he was supposed to do. Even things that he directly said were wrong, if they were what a gentleman would do in that situation, than he did it.) Rhett was the only man who never fell for that stuff -- he could see through it every time.

That's why she liked Rhett... straightforward, no namby pamby proper malarkey. Just liquor, money, snark and that trip up the stairs.

Scarlett was alluring as hell. By its very definition, allure holds fascination.

Who do you think are the most alluring characters in fiction?

Much like the story of Buffy and Spike, the story of Rhett and Scarlet could have been that of people who really found their equals and were really able to make a go of it. Of course, that was not the sotry their creator's wished to tell or what came out at all, but just what I tended to long for.

Alluring reminds me of what I think of as the Ur- good at heart evil guy, Edmund "stand up for bastards" from Lear. But I may be crazy. I always think he informed the anti hero from Rochester to Rhett Butler to Chuck Bass.

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

Gone with the Undead, coming to a bookstore near you Spring 2010.