The Wind Done Gone is Gone with the Wind retold from the perspective of Scarlett O'Hara's mulatto sister Cynara, who is jealous of how their father shifted his doting from her to Scarlett the moment the latter was born and how Scarlett forms a bond so sincere and special with Cynara's mother Pallas.
Alice Randall wrote it in 2001 as social commentary on the original novel (and film) romantic portrayal of the U.S. South. As the story follows black slaves and recently-freed servants, the tone goes from Sweet Home Alabama to a morally corrupt Deep South. Consequently, its themes revolve around internalized racism.
It's written in African-American vernacular English, which employs tenses and grammar differently from mainstream English. The title is how the phrase Gone with the Wind would be built in that dialect. Additionally, very few characters are referred to by their names, as Cynara calls them by all sorts of nicknames. Scarlett, for example, is "Other", as in "the other daughter". Cynara and Scarlett's father is "Planter", an impersonal moniker he probably earned after starting to neglect Cynara. Scarlett's mother is "Lady", an allusion to her regal demeanor. The only exception seems to be Prissy, who is addressed as Miss Priss.
The Mitchell estate sued it, forcing Randall to label it as a parodynote in order for it to be protected under the Fair Use doctrine. It's nonetheless a literary Fan Work.
Tropes:
- Deconstruction: Of the Southern Belle trope. The original already deconstructed it by having everyone be too fed up with Scarlett that, when she finally changes, nobody cares. Here, it's taken further as The Wind Done Gone shows not only the dysfunctional and damaging aspects of Scarlett's upbringing but also the crippling aspect the belle psychology has had on her own mind, twisting her into a nigh-sociopath.
- Irony: Played for Drama. Scarlett and her wet nurse Pallas keep their canonical mother-daughter dynamic, tinted darker because of Pallas' neglect of her own daughter Cynara. Meanwhile, Scarlett's mother Ellen and Cynara bond over their shared jealousy of the aforementioned relationship. Furthermore, Ellen would sometimes breastfeed Cynara.
- External Retcon: Alice Randall is not related in any way to Margaret Mitchel and writes this book as a social critique and extensive commentary on the original novel because of its liberal usage of harmful black people tropes. So, here, the O'Hara sisters gain a mixed-race, extramarital sister called Cynara. She's evidently the product of the unfaithfulness of the sisters' beloved father, who is portrayed in a negative light. This also causes a love triangle to appear between the two sisters, Cynara and Scarlett, and their Love Interests.
- Fan Sequel: Of the P.O.V. Sequel flair, Alice Randall publishes it in The Noughties (the source material having premiered in 1939) and is in no way endorsed by the original writer's state. It has an Original Character for a protagonist, which greatly impacts the plot and the canonical characters play similar —if deconstructed— roles.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Far from being the idiotic slave most people think she is, Prissy/Miss Priss purposely acts stupid to throw off white people. She's actually a crafty woman who causes the death of Melanie/Mealy Mouth as revenge for the death of her two brothers, for which she blames her.
- Restricted Expanded Universe: Both the novel's themes and dialect are an explicit refutation of the limitations imposed by Margaret Mitchell's estate on those wishing to write sequels to her original novel.
- Twice-Told Tale: The book portrays Scarlett as a spoiled, self-centered brat by retelling her story through the eyes of a newly invented character: a slave who is her illegitimate half-sister. Though it should be noted that the original book also went to lengths to portray Scarlett as a spoiled, self-centered brat, and part of the point of her character arc is by the time she shapes up no one is willing to listen.
