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After an exciting week of voting, March Cadness has officially come to a close. There were some truly despicable contenders in this year’s bracket, but only one cad could take the crown. Before we announce the winner, let’s take a look at how things played out:
This year’s Final Four all featured cads in novels from the nineteenth century, which, in hindsight, may not be a coincidence. After all, cad is itself a nineteenth-century term that comes with a loaded set of social anxieties, gender norms, and moral codes of that era. In trying to be clever and, of course, punny, did we unintentionally bias the bracket from the start? It’s possible. Or these characters have endured precisely because they defined the archetype and gave rise to the cads that followed.
Either way, the Final Four ultimately brought us back to four defining figures of nineteenth-century cad lit: Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, George Wickham from Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, Dorian Gray from The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde, and Edward Rochester from Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Along the way, there were a few close calls. Dorian Gray eked by Lestat de Lioncourt from Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice by just 10 votes, and Edward Rochester managed to dispatch early favorite Nino Sarratore from Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels by 14 votes.
In the semifinals, Heathcliff and Edward Rochester were eliminated, depriving us of any Brontë sisters in the final round and leaving a championship matchup between Dorian Gray and George Wickham.
And who won? In a close battle, with just 12 votes separating the two, the title of best (worst?) cad of them all goes to: George Wickham. Congratulations! And shame on you!
See below how the full bracket played out:
Thanks to everyone who joined in! We’re already looking forward to doing it again next year with another pun-based bracket.
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