Philippa Blake (née Gordon) by Rebekah Walton

This is how important Phil Blake was, without her, Gilbert would have likely died and Anne and Gilbert would have never married. 

You may have guessed that the next character I was going to talk about as underrated character of the Anne of Green Gables series was Philippa (Gordon) Blake. If you did, you are correct and Philippa is my favorite secondary character in the series. Phil is funny, beautiful, and rich. She is a mankiller. She has multiple guys hanging around her at all time. I cannot believe I have to say this, she is not a lesbian unlike both of the web series based on Anne of Green Gables: Project Green Gables and Green Gables Fables. Her story is not a coming out story at all, it is instead a rich girl marrying for love, a man, that was thought to have no chance at first glance. Jonas Blake is a man thought to be definitely below Philippa’s league.

"She was certainly very pretty, with a vivid, irregular, bewitching type of prettiness. There was a gloss as of brown nuts on her satin-smooth hair and a soft, ripe glow on her round cheeks. Her eyes were big and brown and velvety, under oddly-pointed black brows, and her crooked mouth was rose-red."

                                            —Anne and Priscilla's first sight of Phil

Philippa by all descriptions was very beautiful and could have easily be the most beautiful girl in the series. She has not chosen to go to college because she cares about learning but rather her father decides for her, because she hates making decisions. This is why Phil has a hard trouble choosing between the men that hang around her at first. Phil’s wish to marry a rich man only is because she cannot imagine herself without the fine things in life, and so, it shows her character development when she chooses Jonas, a poor minister who wishes to be a missionary. Good actresses to play Phil would be:

Phil is one of the most important secondary characters in the whole series, she single handedly gets Shirbert together and is essentially all the comic relief of any book she is in. The audience understands Phil and loves her, because we feel that Phil is us looking at the situation of Anne and Gilbert and telling Anne to marry Gil. Phil says the things we wish we could say to Anne.  For example:

Right after the first proposal which both Phil and Anne knew was going to happen, this happened: (Anne had been trying to avoid being proposed to by Gilbert.)

Anne did not answer. At that moment she wished Phil were a thousand miles away.

"I suppose you've gone and refused Gilbert Blythe. You are an idiot, Anne Shirley!"

"Do you call it idiotic to refuse to marry a man I don't love?" said Anne coldly, goaded to reply.

"You don't know love when you see it. You've tricked something out with your imagination that you think love, and you expect the real thing to look like that. There, that's the first sensible thing I've ever said in my life. I wonder how I managed it?"

Phil also sent a letter to Gilbert telling him he had a second chance with Anne which helped his speedy recovery.

Another time, after Anne rejected Gilbert the first time, Phil told Anne, ‘’I’d marry Gilbert Blythe if he were rich.’’

As for the actresses who have played Phil in the past:

  

The web versions would have made LMM roll in her grave. Nothing was essentially wrong with the look of any one of them but, as mentioned above the two web series went wrong by not understanding that if Phil were translated to today she would still not be a lesbian. Just because Phil did not like the boys she was previously met does not make her a lesbian or a bisexual. My sister who hung around guys and was friends with them for several years, never fell in love with any one of them until she met her now husband.Serious, I can name so many people that did not fall in love with anyone until they met their husband, that this whole thing is not even an issue. Instead, Phil finally found a guy who was not as superficial as all the other guys she met.  He was nothing like the hot boys she met on a daily basis and saw Philippa for who she truly was as a person. Other men had seen her for her looks or her riches, but he understood her. Phil instead would be one of those classic pastor wives, infact, she was a Pastor’s wife, who is a hot model and her husband is an average looking dude. Which is very common in all the churches and congregations I have been to over the years. The pastors look like average dudes who are most likely balding and their wives look like hot models. I have no understanding of why anyone would want to change my favorite character besides Anne into a woman with this type of sin constant in her life, but, they did anyway. 

Just to show you how funny Phil can be, I decided to show clips from the BBC tv series who got this character completely right:

Start watching at 30:22: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoJ0ulg4qn0

Start watching at 34:29: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1non31kOh7k

Also, I will quote some of her lines from the books.

Phil asks Anne and Priscilla what they think of her looks:

Phil acknowledges that Gil likes Anne:

Phil is not a perfect girl in the books, but, she is a very honest girl. Phil may have scolded Anne about leading on Roy, but, I think this was mostly because we tend to dislike the traits we see in ourselves when we see them in other people. Immediately after scolding Anne, Phil decides that was not the thing to do and she regrets it.

Phil would rather have a guy with humor and character rather than just have him be handsome and rich. She had to go against her mom’s expectations of her in order to marry Jonas. Although, her father was not against it since Jonas was a minister and his dad was a minister. Phil is not someone to use to champion an agenda, but instead a clear declaration of someone who realizes what is important in life, not money or even beauty. She realized that her husband did not need to have his treasure on earth, but, rather having a treasure in heaven was far more important.

                   She firmly believed that Christians did not just have to be serious and solemn but, could also have fun and joke and laugh. She is able to learn from her mistakes and is very intelligent in most subjects and Anne only beats her in English. Phil is not only a real important character to Anne and Gilbert and the reason why Gilbert proposes to Anne again, but, also she was a good mother to her two sons and her two sons later go off to war in the books. Anne may have been what I wanted to be when I was younger, but, Phil is what I truly wish to be now. A caring friend who is there for others and maybe I put up a front of superficial but, I am really not that way in my heart. I marry the man I love regardless of the material items he has on earth, but, rather consider the treasure he has gained in heaven. And if I do get married and have kids, I would like them to be brave enough to go to war if need be for the sake of the country and the world.