Literary Ladies Cage Fight: Toddlers and Tiaras -The Toast

Laura Sook Duncombe’s previous Literary Ladies Cage Fight columns can be found here.

Hey, ladies! It’s me, Aphrodite (but you can call me Dita since we’re gal-pals now). Artie is off trying to convince Elizabeth Warren to run in 2016, so she left me to do the column this time! I am so super jazzed about it, both because I get to write about awesome literary ladies but also because my sister is finally trusting me to do something important. Even though we joke a lot (well, she jokes) about hating each other, I really look up to her! I want us to be super close. We could be like Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock in The Heat, making the world a better place while being sassy and beautiful. And maybe Michael Caine can give my sister a makeover…wait, is that a different movie?

Anyway, this week I am tackling a reader request: the pint-sized heroines of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s books for young ladies, Sara Crewe of A Little Princess versus Mary Lennox of A Secret Garden!! Although both of these books have been made into several movies each (<3 u, Shirley Temple!), I have actually read these books because seriously, who hasn’t? They were a big part of my childhood and I know a lot of you readers grew up with these girls, too. One time I even caught Artie weeping while watching the 1995 movie of ALP. She’ll deny it, but she totally used a whole box of tissues. Point is, these books are special. So let’s make them fight!

Same rules as usual: five rounds. Girl with most points wins. Fight friendly, ladies, and here we go!

HARRY POTTER HOUSE: Round One

Sara starts out as a spoiled daddy’s girl who is well-behaved and sweet, which is like, no big whoop; if I had every toy known to man and a billion ruffly dresses I would be super friendly too, obvi! But when Sara’s dad dies and the mean old biddy Miss Minchin strips Sara of all her wealth, Sara is still as sweet and generous as she was before. One of my favorite parts of the book is when Sara’s out doing errands and she finds a sixpence. Girl is legit starving, but when she sees a homeless girl, she gives her five of the six buns she just bought. You can’t make this stuff up! Sara is a GRYFFINDOR through and through, incredibly brave and strong. She is the best. Like, the best best.

Mary, on the other hand, has a serious attitude problem for most of the book. I mean yeah, her parents were basically Daisy and Tom Buchanan, too into parties and being rich and oppressing Indians to take care of their daughter. She was raised by servants, who granted her every wish. Cry me a river, you know? But thanks to a cholera epidemic, Mary’s parents AND servants all die, and Mary is sent to England to live with some relatives whose family relationships are even more messed up than hers. Endlessly curious and with a penchant for not following the rules (and did I mention she’s surly? Like really surly), Mary is a SLYTHERIN.

WINNER: Mary. Girlfriend knows how to look out for herself. She would straight-up knife Sara for that sixth bun.

SIDEKICK : Round Two

Sara has a series of sidekicks, including, at one point, a rat (ew). When she’s rich she has a ton of pals, but Sara’s true friend is the scullery maid, Becky. Becky is enamored with Sara, and she’s the one who calls her “princess.” When Sara is forced to be a maid, it’s Becky who shows her the ropes and makes her job less painful. She is completely loyal to Sara and provides a willing audience for all Sara’s stories. And when Sara FINALLY gets to go live with the nice man next door, she takes Becky with her. They are besties forever, the best kind of besties that help each other through the worst times.

Mary also has a few sidekicks who overlook her surly nature. Martha the maid is the first one, but Mary’s real partner in crime is Dickon, Mary’s brother and the gardener of Sad House, aka Misselthwaite Manor. He helps Mary get outside and stop sulking already, and eventually helps her spruce up the Secret Garden. (It’s a Secret! Because Uncle Archie’s wife died there after falling out of a tree. Lamest death ever. Be sturdier, Victorian ladies! For realsies!) He has a hunky Cockney accent and probably looks super sexy gardening shirtless. Not that Mary would ever appreciate that, because she’s too busy whining about being rich. Also, I guess she’s just a child and should not be ogling shirtless dudes. Never mind, Mary, I forgive you.

WINNER: Sara. Because Becky. BECKY. I can’t even.

LOVE INTEREST: Round Three

Okay, so as previously mentioned, these books are for CHILDREN, so there are not love interests here. Instead, we will compare VILLIANS, because there are some pretty badass baddies in these books.

Sara has to face Miss Minchin, the schoolmistress who makes Miss Hannigan look like Mother Teresa. You know that one ballet teacher you had as a kid who wanted to be a professional ballerina, but didn’t make it, so now she teaches ballet to six-year-olds but secretly hates them all? That’s the Minch-meister. She’s jealous of all Sara’s good qualities and nice stuff, so she’s all “you’re the best, Sara” but probably also has a voodoo doll of her that she stabs every night. Anyway, when it turns out Sara has been ORPHANED and LEFT DESTITUTE, instead of showing the girl (who is the sweetest person on earth) a little sympathy or kindness, Minchin forces her into unpaid labor, making her wait on the girls who once fawned over her. She is a total hag and I totally wish her end was a Cinderella’s stepmom situation where she’s forced to wait on Sara or at least gets her eyes pecked out by birds.

Mary faces foes throughout, including: cholera, upper-middle-class ennui, Sad House, her creepy uncle, the ghost of her dead aunt (sort of), and her weird shut-in cousin Colin, who also suffers from a bad case of upper-middle-class ennui. Colin is so lame, he makes Mary stop being lame. She’s all, “is that what I look like? Gross. I should stop pouting like it’s an Olympic sport and do something with my life.” It’s like when you think your black square glasses and flannel Urban Outfitters shirt are totally cute, but then you see that dude at Starbucks whose Mac plug is blocking both outlets and he stays there all day blogging or something about how it’s so hard being a sensitive man these days, and you decide to return the flannel and get a sensible skirt suit instead, because you are a grownup and not an overgrown child. That is what Colin does to Mary.

WINNER: This is tough. Mary becomes a better person because of her bad guys, so her villains move the story forward, while Sara does not need any character development because she’s the coolest girl in school, and everyone worships her because she’s Heaven. But Miss Minchin is so terrible, so Old School Nasty, that this round goes to Sara.

TRAGIC FLAW: Round Four

As I’ve already said, Sara is perfect. She is the sweetest, most polite child in the whole world. When it turns out at the end that she’s actually an heiress again and is going back to her life of luxury, YOU CHEER. Can we acknowledge how weird that is? She’s the coworker who runs marathons for charity and has a cute stay-at-home dad husband and is totally great at her job and all you can say is, “She is a super great person.” You physically cannot wish her ill. Her tragic flaw is really and honestly that she doesn’t have one. One hundred points to Gryffindor.

Picking just one flaw for Mary is hard. She’s spoiled, bratty, and pretty damn gloomy for a wealthy white girl. Her biggest flaw is her sour disposition, which makes everyone around her try really hard to make her happy to no avail. How can Martha not put a smile on your face? She has an adorable Cockney accent! Look, I know she gets it together. I know she’s really plucky and fun at the end, and she helps the male members of her family deal with their feelings and stuff. And up against any other girl in the world, she’d be a no-holds-barred hero. But you can’t help but seem bitchy next to Sara “Princess” Crewe. You just can’t.

WINNER: Mary, because she actually has a flaw, which technically fulfills the requirement of this category. (Look at me, using big words! Artie’s not the only smart one around here.)

HAPPY ENDING?: Round Five

How exciting! We are tied 2-2. Whoever wins this round gets all the marbles. It will be a nail-biter, because these are books for children, which means they usually end happily after ever. But who ends happiest?

Sara’s new neighbor turns out to be her late father’s business partner, who has been searching for her to give her all of the money her dad was owed. (Is it too late to call Sara’s dad a villain? He’s super bad at math, makes bad investments, and then dies without making sure Sara is provided for. Poor Life Decisions, Mr. Crewe!) She gets to escape the hellhole of Miss Minchin’s school and gets all her fancy stuff back. She even gets to take Becky with her as her personal attendant! I always wish Becky could be freed from servitude by the neighbor…like passed off as Sara’s cousin or something. But whatever. She’s probably happy serving Sara forever, because her heart is made of gold and she’s just that loyal. Some movies have Sara’s dad come back at the end, which IMO makes the ending too sappy. But regardless—she doesn’t have to be a maid anymore, she gets to live with the kind old dude and a pet monkey (!), and she gets to stay with Becky. Her first act as a rich girl? She goes back to the baker and sets up a fund so that poor, starving girls can always be fed. Sara is the real deal, ladies.

Confession time: Mary’s ending has made me tear up more often. Her poor stupid uncle, finding his weenie son walking in the now-beautiful garden…I’m not crying, YOU’RE crying. Anyway, Mary’s life was already pretty awesome (have you SEEN the conditions of servants in your world, Mary? Open your eyes, girl!), but she does turn her frown upside-down and bring joy to the other residents of Sad House. So that’s something. And the garden is really pretty. So pretty.

WINNER: It’s a photo finish, but the winner is Sara! Because you know that if Mary ever got her house in India back, she’d ditch Colin, Dickon, and Martha in a second and never look back. You gotta admire that the girl is tough, and does what it takes to survive, but Sara survives too—while never abandoning her sparkly magical goodness.

Thank you so much for being here with me, ladies! Artie will be back next time, but I am never far away. Go read a book! It’s good for the complexion.

Laura Sook Duncombe lives in Alexandria, Virgina with her husband and a mutt named Indiana Bones, Jr. Musical theater, pirates, and Sherlock Holmes are a few of her favorite things. Her work can be found on the Toast, the Hairpin, Jezebel, and at her blog.