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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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Thursday, November 20, 2025 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: A.I. Is Coming For You; Homophones; Caldecott Medal & Honor Books; Anniversaries; Goodbye, Fish & Chips; International Hoops Terms With Cleanthony Early)
Harrison picked up 8 correct—including a correct Daily Double—to lead at the opening commercials. At that break, the scores were Harrison $6,200 Kara $1,800 Blythe -$200.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Harrison 8 correct 2 incorrect
Kara 4 correct 3 incorrect
Blythe 1 correct 1 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Kara enjoys Seattle’s 14/48 theatre festival.
Blythe exchanges letters with her father every week.
Harrison had a French teacher who allowed classmates to ask Harrison trivia.
Harrison picked up another 10 correct after the break to extend his lead.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Harrison 18 correct 3 incorrect
Kara 4 correct 4 incorrect
Blythe 3 correct 1 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Harrison $9,200
Kara $1,400
Blythe $200
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Appropriately Named Places; Settle Down; Americana; Funny People; After U; 1929)
Kara found both Daily Doubles, and while she got one of them incorrect, a pair of other $2,000 correct responses meant that Harrison didn’t have a runaway entering Final Jeopardy.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Harrison 26 correct 4 incorrect
Kara 14 correct 6 incorrect
Blythe 10 correct 5 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 6 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Harrison $16,400
Kara $11,200
Blythe $3,000
Final Jeopardy was a triple stumper, which should have been advantage Kara. But she bet too much in Final, and that makes Harrison an 8-day champion! He’ll go for win #9 tomorrow.
Tonight’s results:
Blythe $3,000 – $3,000 = $0 (Who is Alice Monroe?)
Kara $11,200 – $5,201 = $5,999 (Who is Wolfe?)
Harrison $16,400 – $6,001 = $10,399 (Who is Well, it’s been fun!) (8-day total: $218,600)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) ANNIVERSARIES $1000 (clue #13)
Harrison 3600 +2600 (Blythe -200 Kara -200)
2) SETTLE DOWN $1200 (clue #8)
Kara 5800 -3000 (Harrison 10800 Blythe 1400)
3) APPROPRIATELY NAMED PLACES $2000 (clue #13, $17200 left on board)
Kara 2800 +2800 (Harrison 13600 Blythe -200)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: 120
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Harrison 4 3 3 4 4 3 5 4 3 5*
Blythe 3
Kara 4 3
DJ! Round:
Harrison 3 4 3 4
Blythe 3 4 4
Kara 3 3 3* 4† 4 5*
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Harrison 3.71
Kara 3.63
Blythe 3.50
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 6 (0.11 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Harrison $14,800 Coryat, 26 correct, 4 incorrect, 40.35% in first on buzzer (23/57), 6/6 on rebound attempts (on 9 rebound opportunities)
Kara $13,400 Coryat, 14 correct, 6 incorrect, 26.32% in first on buzzer (15/57), 2/3 on rebound attempts (on 9 rebound opportunities)
Blythe $3,000 Coryat, 10 correct, 5 incorrect, 24.56% in first on buzzer (14/57), 1/1 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $31,200
Lach Trash: $8,800 (on 9 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $14,000
Lead Changes: 0
Times Tied: 2
Player Statistics:
Harrison Whitaker, career statistics:
228 correct, 24 incorrect
17/18 on rebound attempts (on 35 rebound opportunities)
45.61% in first on buzzer (208/456)
10/18 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: $11,400)
6/8 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $23,375
Blythe Roberson, career statistics:
10 correct, 6 incorrect
1/1 on rebound attempts (on 8 rebound opportunities)
24.56% in first on buzzer (14/57)
0/0 on Daily Doubles
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $3,000
Kara Brown, career statistics:
14 correct, 7 incorrect
2/3 on rebound attempts (on 9 rebound opportunities)
26.32% in first on buzzer (15/57)
1/2 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$200)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $13,400
Harrison Whitaker, to win:
9 games: 66.517%
10: 44.245%
11: 29.431%
12: 19.576%
13: 13.022%
Avg. streak: 9.987 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Harrison $16,400 Kara $11,200 Blythe $3,000)
Harrison: Standard cover bet over Kara is $6,001. If you really think Kara is going to bet small, you can defend against that by betting between $2 and $4,398. (Actual bet: $6,001)
Blythe: If Kara bets $5,201, you could take second here by going all in. Do so. (Actual bet: $3,000)
Kara: Bet between $0 and $799 and hope that Harrison gets Final Jeopardy incorrect. (Actual bet: $5,201)
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Thinking of women authors who died around then, I went with Maya Angelou. Turns out she passed in 2014.
I went with Toni Morrison, but she didn’t die until 2019. Had it been something like “Southern Authors”, that would have eliminated Morrison, at least.
I didn’t even realized that Harper Lee died!
Well, her ‘Go Set A Watchman’ was released the same year she died and much of the interest in it and reviews of it (and even criticism of it) were after she had died, so “having published another book” might have been more memorable than “died”. A book of her short stories was just published this October, which I am assuming the clue writers knew about before hand, inducing them to plan a related clue, but this game may have been taped before the publicity around that release.
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.
MEN AUTHORS isn’t a category. So, WOMEN AUTHORS shouldn’t be either. End of story.
(I also don’t particularly feel like spending my evening debating everyone on this point, either.)
If the category was not gender specific, I would’ve been torn between JD Salinger and Harper Lee, both well known for reclusive behavior. Even then, I could’ve worked it out that JDS died some years before Lee.
See, that’s why I suggested SOUTHERN AUTHORS in my post; Salinger wasn’t a Southerner.
I’ve complained before when someone doesn’t at least chance a guess at FJ when it could mean the difference between winning and losing. Just pick a dead woman author – you have a better chance of being correct than not guessing. And as for Kara’s wager – she’s seen him play three games, and should know that when having a runaway, he wagers to lock out second by 1 dollar if wrong, and when he doesn’t have a runaway, he wagers to lock second by one dollar if correct – and she should’ve wagered accordingly.
I guessed Nora Ephron, although I was pretty sure she wasn’t a recluse. She actually died in 2012.
I’m an even bigger fan of Harrison now that I know he is learning bridge. Wish more people knew how to play. Jeopardy James is of course a world-class bridge player.
Considering that his winning streak was in jeopardy (as well as on “Jeopardy!”), I was shocked and surprised that Harrison didn’t, at least, hazard a guess. You miss one hundred percent of the finals that you don’t have a proper response.
It also pained me that no one knew or even guessed the author of one of my all-time favorite books. Not only have a loved “To Kill A Mockingbird” for many years, I even read it to my children. I was blessed that they both liked it, too, and we had some good discussions about it. With my history with her classic, I easily came up with Harper Lee.
I had expected it to be a triple-get, but then I am a southerner.
Note to MasterDoge, Thank you for your response to my reply to you on your comments regarding my post on Tuesday. I think we are in agreement. I’m also glad that you took the time to look back a day or two as I frequently do. Looks like we both do that, too. Thanks for your clarification and understanding of my points. Take care.
I was able to guess this one based on the year — I remembered the controversy surrounding the release of “Go Set A Watchman”, and that Lee had passed not long after.