Warning: This page contains spoilers for the November 20, 2025, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category Women Authors) for Thursday, November 20, 2025 (Season 42, Game 54):
In her 2016 New York Times obituary, this author was said to have “gained a reputation as a literary Garbo”
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Kara Brown, a payroll manager from Seattle, Washington
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Blythe Roberson, a writer from Brooklyn, New York
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Harrison Whitaker, a researcher originally from Terre Haute, Indiana (7-day total: $208,201)
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Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
As the finals of the 33rd Tournament of Champions tapes today in “Jeopardy! Production Time”, “Jeopardy! Air Time” features the continuation of the run of the first player qualified for the 34th Tournament of Champions in Harrison Whitaker. Harrison’s dominance has come mostly as a result of being very strong on regular clues—averaging just under 43 attempts a game and buzzing in successfully on two-thirds of those attempts. That being said, he has struggled on Daily Doubles; it almost seems like the extra thinking time on those Daily Doubles is working to his disadvantage, as it’s causing him to potentially think of incorrect responses before choosing the wrong one. (Certainly, it’s a phenomenon I haven’t seen a lot of on the Alex Trebek Stage.)
Harrison, though, is going for “octochamp” status today against Seattle’s Kara Brown and Brooklyn’s Blythe Roberson. I’d certainly like to see Harrison’s run continue for at least a little while longer (I always do cheer for longer runs as both ratings and website traffic demonstrably increase once champions do go on a run, even though some dinosaurs online still call for a return to the old days where contestants were limited to five victories. To me, it just proves that a great number of the diehard fans don’t actually have a clue as to how to operate things.)
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Correct response: Who is Harper Lee?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2025 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
Harper Lee, best known for 1960’s To Kill A Mockingbird, became increasingly private (much like Greta Garbo) after the publication of …Mockingbird, due to feeling uncomfortable with all of the publicity surrounding the classic of modern American literature.
Honestly, though: Why couldn’t this category have been just AUTHORS? Or, AMERICAN AUTHORS? Or even, SOUTHERN AUTHORS—especially considering that the correct response’s gender is given to the contestants in the clue itself? It feels like sometimes the writers need to be reminded not to regress to their old habits of the 1990s.
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Thinking of women authors who died around then, I went with Maya Angelou. Turns out she passed in 2014.
Regarding the final category being “WOMEN AUTHORS”: sometimes the category affects how the contestant wagers in a close game.
Personally, “WOMEN AUTHORS” is a category that I would make an aggressive wager for compared to just plain AUTHORS. I would make even a more aggressive FJ wager on SOUTHERN AUTHORS.
Regarding the final category being “WOMEN AUTHORS”: sometimes the category affects how the contestant wagers in a close game.
Personally, “WOMEN AUTHORS” is a category that I would make an aggressive wager for compared to just plain AUTHORS. I would make even a more aggressive FJ wager on SOUTHERN AUTHORS.