Who's the cleverest character of all?

[Lucky Star]

I see that earlier in this thread I advocated awarding this title to either Jack from the Secret series or Andy from The Adventurous Four on the grounds that they both possess excellent life skills and real leadership qualities. It's still an opinion I agree with. There is more to being clever than simply knowing trigonometry etc. Both Jack and Andy manage to feed, clothe, house and ultimately in the case of Andy, save the children with them using only ingenuity and the resources of nature. As far as pure brains is concerned I nominate Fatty but I can't help thinking he'd probably be a dead loss in the wilds of Africa or marooned on a tiny island surrounded by Nazi submarines.

[Irene Malory Towers]

For me it is Fatty - clever, good with most subjects even sports, acting detecting,writing poems, disguises and he was generous both with his money and his personality. Look how he gave Goon false credit in the Mystery of the Vanished Prince as he felt sorry for him. But resourcefulness would be Jack (Secret series) or Andy (Adventurous Four) or Philip and Jack from the Adventure Series or Barney. Also the 2 school heads (St Claires and Malory Towers) must have both been clever and all rounded. Of course Alice, Pam, irene, Belinda were all very clever or talented but not so well rounded. Darrell and Sally are nice, good people and very competent but not outstanding like Fatty.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Yes, Fatty springs to mind immediately for me too. He's positively brimming with ability, energy and creativity and is never happier than when there's a puzzling mystery to solve. His brain is always active and it's no surprise that languages and poetry come so easily to him.

I'm reminded of Imogen Smallwood's 'Our Books Are Facets of Ourselves' from The Enid Blyton Society Journal Number 6 (I was able to locate the article without any trouble thanks to Lenoir's index!) Imogen discusses how aspects of Enid can be found in characters like Elizabeth Allen, Darrell Rivers, George Kirrin, Fatty and Bets. She writes:

Can we find Enid herself in these Mystery books? I think we can. Is Enid not disguised as that master of disguise, writer in codes; that arrogant French speaking boy who plays endless tricks on stupid authority, in other words Frederick or "Fatty"?...Frederick does seem quite masculine compared to the passionate George, but Enid's feminine side (or facet) may be here too, in "little" Bets, who provides Fatty with the insights he needs to finally analyse each mystery.

Searching for aspects of Enid and her life is an interesting game: one that any reader can play. And it is a game which Enid herself surely invited us to play when she wrote the words for Peter McKellar "Our books are facets of ourselves."

[Lenoir]

Good to see a "shout-out" for the Index!
There are so many good articles in the journals.
It would be a good idea to go through them, starting at number 1, and pick out some articles to read again.

I also think Fatty must be the cleverest. Susie was bright as well.
There's a girl at St. Clare's that is very clever as well, and good at everything. Lucy Oriell, I think.

[timv]

Yes, Lucy Oriell's in the twins' form in the second St Clare's book. As far as I remember, she was the daughter of a prominent artist, so she probably inherited some of his talent ; she was in danger of having to leave the school as her father could not pay the fees after he had an accident and could not earn money by painting portraits for some time (shades of the Mr Farrell accident story in House At The Corner). Her friend Margery? , the mountaineer's daughter, discovered that there was a St Clare's school scholarship whose winner (decided by exam) would have their fees paid through that, but it was only open to Second Formers and Lucy was in the First Form - but Lucy was clever enough to be moved up to the Second Form a year early to make her eligible for the exam. In real life, one of the staff would presumably have spotted this way of keeping Lucy at the school, but the point of the plot was presumably to have Margery repay Lucy for her friendship earlier in the term by helping her to stay at the school.

This 'unable to pay the fees due to sudden loss of family income' would have been a common problem at schools in the 1930s with the Great Depression; possibly Enid used real life knowledge of this sort of situation. It recurs in more modern form in the 1970s Anne Digby 'Trebizon' series, where heroine Rebecca's brainy and musical friend Sue needs to win a scholarship after her entrepeneur father's company goes bust.

My list of the cleverest characters would be headed by Fatty, who's versatile and a good impressionist and actor as well as a brilliant detective - and despite a bit of boasting is very kind to Bets and in the later books to Ern, as well as cynical about incompetent and pompous PC Goon and good at playing on vain interviewees in his detective work to get them to spill the beans. For example, his 'leading on' Rollo the fairground boy in Vanished Prince. (Taken from Sherlock Holmes?) Also Jack from the Secret series and Andy from the Adventurous Four in terms of adaptability and practical skills - both of them would have gone to state school and had to leave early (at 14 or so?) to work on a farm/ as a fisherman, as was legally possible until the 1944 Education Act raised school leaving age, so Enid has two major likeable and ultra-competent working class heroes despite the usual cliches about her.

In terms of brainpower also Irene from MT, as a brilliant musician, though she is not very practical and she is vague and dreamy; Pam from St Clares, who is a year younger than the others in the twins' form (in the last book she seems to be likely to stay on for an extra year) but keeps up with them, though she lacks confidence and so is prey for manipulative Prudence; and probably Alicia too in MT, though she is 'hard' and arrogant and has no empathy for other people in the earlier books. Pam and Lizzie in House At The Corner seem to be pretty clever too, though P is vain and over-confident and L is the reverse.

[IceMaiden]

I would say Fatty. Fatty is obviously clever at things like lessons, knowledge and the three Rs, but more than that he is smart. You can't fool Fatty and you can't outwit him either. If he was a criminal he'd be one of those sorts that never get caught, lead the police a merry dance and always have escaped five minutes before they show up . And if he did get trapped he'd know exactly how to free himself. Academically other characters might beat him but his sharp as a tack mind and quick wit would help him out and are more advantageous skills to have really, after all if you were stuck in a locked room what's more useful - knowing your Shakespeare plays and fractions or knowing how to get out?

[Irene Malory Towers]

Again putting a plug in for Fatty I don't think you can really compared him with Lucy Oriell as she only features in one book, and briefly in the next book as I as I remember so they are hardly well rounded characters fleshed out. For me it is Fatty as he is the star in all 15 (is it) FFO books so I feel I really get to know him. Of course he does have flaws, but he is perceptive enough to realise them and to apologise when he is wrong. And to slightly contradict IceMaiden's comment about what is more useful trying to get out of a locked room - knowing your Shakespeare play and fractions and knowing how to get out, Fatty would know Shakespeare, fractions and how to get out of the locked room ! I rest my case.

[Courtenay]

I was just going to say, Fatty would definitely know his Shakespeare and his fractions as well as escape techniques — otherwise, how would he have come top of his form every term, as of course he always did? He's definitely my number 1 pick for the cleverest character in Enid Blyton.

[pete9012S]

Uncle Quentin.

[John Pickup]

I'm just imagining Uncle Quentin in modern times, flipping open his laptop containing his latest scientific experiment and realising he had forgotten his password. He would go ballistic.

[Julie2owlsdene]

I guess he'd be part of the team inventing the vaccines.

[dsr]

I'm just imagining Uncle Quentin in modern times, flipping open his laptop containing his latest scientific experiment and realising he had forgotten his password. He would go ballistic.

Or he could have gone the other way - he could have been an uber-computer geek who knew everything about how computers work but still couldn't work out how to boil a kettle.

(Though actually I tend to think your way - he would be the man who learnt to work an Amstrad and then objected to anyone else developing new operating systems. With good reason, IMO!)

[Pet]

I think it was Professor Joad on the Brains Trust who prefaced his answers with "It depends on what you mean by..." While there's an argument for regarding Uncle Quentin as clever, he strikes me as a blithering idiot for his propensity to mistrust the children and place unwarranted trust in adults. After his colossal judgement failures in Five on a Treasure Island, one might expect him to have learned a lesson and be at least a little suspicious of Mr Roland in Five Go Adventuring Again.

[Courtenay]

After his colossal judgement failures in Five on a Treasure Island, one might expect him to have learned a lesson and be at least a little suspicious of Mr Roland in Five Go Adventuring Again.

True, but if he had, there wouldn't have been any story, would there??

[Pet]

Very true. And, if ensuring that there was a story were Uncle Quentin's motivation, he acted jolly cleverly.

My own nominee for the cleverest character is Miss Grayling. The fact that there are stories in the Malory Towers books relies upon Miss Grayling being too wise to micro-manage the school.