The Enid Blyton Society

Why were all the head girls of Malory Towers from North Tower? Was it intentional on Enid Blyton's part to ensure that only North Tower girls became headgirls or was it unitentional? Even when Darrel and Sally are discussing who might be the head girl they don't mention any girls from other towers. In fact all the girls mentioned by Miss Potts in the second book all belong to North Tower.

No, Winnie thingy was mentioned and she was not North Tower. But other than that you are quite correct and I think it was simply bad planning on Blyton's part. Also, who headed the dormies in the other towers?

I think that when she came up with the lovely idea of a school with towers she didnt think how difficult it would be to keep girls from other towers in the narrative. We need the head girl to be part of the story because she is there to keep order and give advice. Hence we have to let Enid have artistic license with this. I do think she intended to use the other towers more which is why we are introduced to Betty so early on but it just never played out. Think about it, as the reader you would rather stick with Darrel and her friends than have to get to know a whole new cast. Having said that my favourite is In the Fifth which features more girls from other towers than any other book.

chloe1 wrote:Think about it, as the reader you would rather stick with Darrel and her friends than have to get to know a whole new cast. Having said that my favourite is In the Fifth which features more girls from other towers than any other book.

Yes, one reason why I prefer MT to St. Clare's is that Blyton stuck with Darrell so closely. Pat and Isabel get less and less attention as St. Clare's progresses. I think it's fun to watch Darrell grow up.

From memory, each tower has 6 floors, one for each school year, with 10 girls per year in each tower. So 40 girls per year. It might have simplified things a little if Enid had had an A form and a B form, and ignored the Bs.

It's the same in the fifth form panto - apart from Betty, and the otherwise-ignored twins Pat and Rita, the rest of the towers might as well not have bothered.

Merged with an older thread.

I recently reread Second form at MT, and remembered one of my old questions about it. Why on earth are all the Form Head girls from North Tower? Like I understand that Enid often bent reality for the sake of convenience, but this doesn't make any sense at all. It wouldn't have been a problem for the story if a girl from a different tower was made Head, surely? The games captain, school head, form heads, everyone is from the North tower. Am I the only one really bothered by this?
Sorry to make a new thread, I simply couldn't find an MT thread.

Pick one of these, Sunskriti!

Now merged.

Yes it bothers me too - I think that the towers thing was not entirely well thought through. Even when they do the play in Fifth Form, all of the committee members apart from Betty were North Tower - you'd think the other Tower girls would have protested!

From memory, other than Betty and the twins, Pat and Rita (playing the role of the step-sisters), I think there was a girl from South Tower (Louella?) who got the role of the fairy godmother. I think it was said in the book that the girls from South Tower cheered, delighted to have someone from their tower in a good part in the pantomime. I agree that as far as the head girls and games captains go, it was very dominated by North Tower. I don't recall girls from other towers mentioned much in the books, other than Betty as Alicia's friend from West Tower. I think the focus was very much on developing the characters of the North Tower girls-which was done very well. I think it helped the plot to have Alicia's best friend in another tower, because then it allowed the triangle of Darrell, Sally and Alicia to play out in North Tower.

North Tower = Gryffindor.
The other towers simply did not measure up.