Why did the Secret Seven not want Susie?

[db105]

I'm reading the books now, and I feel a little sorry for the way Susie is excluded. Only a little, because she can be very annoying to the point of being obsessed with the Secret Seven. But she also can be decent, and she is very honest... The books often give the impression that if she was allowed in the club she would behave much better.

She is a great adversary for the Secret Seven, though, playing a similar role to Mr. Goon's in the Five Find-Outers, only cleverer than Mr. Goon.

Anyway, I'm reading the books as an adult, and I think feeling sorry for Susie is an adult's reaction. If I had read the Secret Seven as a boy, I'm sure I would have shared the Seven's annoyance towards her. I guess Enid Blyton was very good at knowing how children think, and excluding someone from your club is fun as a child, it makes it seem more important and exclusive, while as an adult we feel more empathy from the one excluded. Binkie is just uninteresting, though, lacking all the personality and smarts that Susie has.

[TheAngryPixie]

Susie is a bit of a brat, but she was smarter than half of the Secret Seven!

She'd have contributed more than Pam and Barbara!

[Bertie]

As regards brains, Susie would have contributed more than some of the other SS members, yeah - but she wasn't a team player at all, and always wanted everything to be about her, so she would have also hindered a lot more than them as well.

Personally, I don't see why the others should have been expected to let her join. They were a group of close, like minded friends with similar principles - why should they be forced to allow someone who wasn't a friend or a team player, and who got a thrill out of doing some pretty sneaky, nasty stuff to others?

Being a leader requires more than just brains. And being a team player requires selflessness and humility. All of which Susie lacked, which is why none of her clubs, or attempts to rival the SS, ever worked.

[db105]

In honor of Susie:

ABBA - Suzy-Hang-Around
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHFMBs6CQiU

[db105]

who got a thrill out of doing some pretty sneaky, nasty stuff to others?

Well, I'd say most of the stuff she does is not that nasty, and I wonder if it's a reaction to her rejection more than a permanent feature of her personality. Then again, I have just reached Shock for the Secret Seven, the one where Scamper is stolen, and her behaviour there, taunting the Secret Seven about Scamper's theft, is inexcusable.

[Bertie]

Well, I'd say most of the stuff she does is not that nasty, and I wonder if it's a reaction to her rejection more than a permanent feature of her personality. Then again, I have just reached Shock for the Secret Seven, the one where Scamper is stolen, and her behaviour there, taunting the Secret Seven about Scamper's theft, is inexcusable.

I guess it's a chicken and egg issue, and depends on each interpretation. To me, the reason why they aren't friends with each other in the first place, and why the others don't want Susie in their club, is because her negative points are a regular feature of her personality.

But I guess some might see it as her only acting like she does because she's 'unfairly' not allowed to join the group. That's certainly not how I read the books though, and definitely don't blame the SS for not wanting a person with her type of personality to join their group at all.

She makes for a good protagonist, like Goon, but I don't see her as a good sister, friend, club member or team player at all. And definitely think it's her negatives that are the reason why the SS don't want her around and don't trust her; rather than it being their refusal that is the reason for her negative points.

[Katharine]

It's a while since I read the first book in the series, but I seem to remember that Susie has a governess?

If that's correct, then that could explain why Susie wasn't included in the Secret Seven, as it was made up of the 4 boys who were friends at school, and the 3 girls who were friends at their school. Also, we don't know if any of the other characters have siblings, but if so, none of them are included either.

I've never seen the fact that Susie was Jack's sister to be any reason why she should be included in a group. It might have been different if they lived in a small rural location with no other children about, and she would have been left on her own while the others went off on adventures together, but she obviously had friends of her own.

I think she was simply jealous of Jack's friendship group and behaved like a spoilt brat in constantly trying to infiltrate it.

The Secret Seven don't always handle her attempts in a very mature way, but maybe they'd tried the more dignified "ignore her and she'll get tired of trying to spoil things" approach?

[Anita Bensoussane]

Susie does have a governess in the first book so you're right that she wasn't at school when the Secret Seven formed their club, Katharine. In later books she goes to school like the others (the girls and boys all attend the same co-educational school). [Edit: Actually, on checking the books I found that the girls and boys attend different schools].

[Moonraker]

As a child, older cousins/siblings weren't included within one's group of close friends. My BF had a sister 3 or 4 years older than him. A very pleasant girl - not like Susie - but we wouldn't have dreamed of including her in our circle. Likewise, my cousins were all at least 3 years older than me, and we never mixed. That is how it was, then.

[Courtenay]

Even when I was at school (late 1980s and 1990s), school friendship groups were pretty much exclusively restricted to one's own age / year level. Even kids of only one year above or below you — you just did not mix with them at playtime, even though nearly all of us lived in the same town and went through the same kindergarten and primary school. It just was not done. So even if someone in one's peer group had an older or younger sibling at the same school, even if there was only a year or two in age difference, the sibling definitely wouldn't be included. The situation with Susie makes complete sense from that perspective. And of course, with her as the recurring antagonist, it adds a bit of excitement to stories in which more than half of the main characters are pretty much characterless! (The only members of the Seven who stand out as having anything interesting about them, after all, are Peter as the leader, Janet as his sister, and Jack as — well, the one with the annoying sister who's never allowed to join in. )

[Boatbuilder]

Yes, but don't forget - there is an age-range amongst the member children in the Secret Seven and Find-outers books - they're not all the same age. Suzy was probably included in the Secret Seven books just to add something extra to the stories.

[Courtenay]

Have to admit I haven't read much of the Secret Seven (don't find them as interesting as most of Enid's other books) and I find the characters so generic that they're hard to distinguish between, so I wasn't really aware that they're not all the same age! But I've always assumed that Susie is at least a couple of years younger than Jack and is desperate to be in with the "big kids". I do agree with what others have said earlier, though — she doesn't come across as though she'd be a good team player, even if she was allowed in.

[Anita Bensoussane]

Peter and Janet don't appear to be twins so I've always had the impression that the boys are a year above the girls at school.

[db105]

Peter's a year older, according to the short story At Seaside Cottage, where Peter is 7 and Janet is 6.

[Anita Bensoussane]

True - assuming they're the same Peter and Janet. They do have a golden spaniel called Scamper!