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ETA: I decided to post up the super long RomeoxJuliet list. It's long because it's the most recent of my fandoms, so I remember more or less what happens in every episode and could share my thoughts more specifically; I could also rely on what I wrote for my last watch to check for errors. I ended up interspersing my thoughts with summaries of the relevant scenes. Sorry to make you wait, dear writer! And for making this so long.
Dear Yuletide Author:
Thank you for writing me a story. I hope you will enjoy writing it and have a wonderful holiday. I also hope that this list will help and not hinder you.
So, since I think I put up most of the fic details intended for the letter into the signup optional details, I’m going to go a little into what I see the canons and characters as.
.
For RomeoxJuliet, I did a rewatch writeup earlier this year with thoughts. Some of them are different from now, as I kept marinating but didn’t write them up. This letter will refer to the anime and not the manga, because that’s the original and better version and because that’s the one that stays in my mind the most. Not to mention it’s the only one legally available online. Basically I ended up wanting to know more. It’s true what I said about TybaltxJuliet, but what I found interesting about that in canon is that while they’re not close at all, they’re arcs directly influence each other and have parallels. They are both Capulets who lost the people who would have been their parents, and would have been killed if discovered to be so, but handled things differently. Juliet was still raised with people who loved her and didn’t know her heritage, while Tybalt’s childhood is mysterious but implies that he was raised badly. Juliet was kept from the role she was meant to have as a Capulet and as a girl, as she has to hide and we see that she very much wants to dress and live like a girl, while I suspect that Tybalt is bitter about not fitting in any social circle because of being an illegitimate son. They’re both on the margins of a society with no place for them and choose to act like vigilantes in response, although with different reasons. And he saw those parallels in the beginning of the series, and I think he saw Juliet as a more naïve version of himself. She’s a masked vigilante using the name Red Whirlwind, who tries to protect people from the military police, and he’s…not given a position specifically, but he has a network of spies and enough money to bribe guards, so he navigates the criminal underworld of the city. He knew about an assassination and might possibly have been the one to alert the Capulet faction about it, so they could rescue the target family. He showed up to help and handled the assasins more easily than the others, then rode away on his black unicorn pegasus. When he took her to that bar, he said she had as much hatred as him under ‘pretty words and actions’ (I’m paraphrasing, it’s been a while, but he knew about her activities as the Red Whirlwind.) He encouraged her to throw knives at Duke Montague’s picture as he did, but Juliet chose the crest instead. Then when he took her to kill someone who had betrayed her friend, she couldn’t and broke down after he did it. His assumption was not that she lacked the hatred – at least I don’t think it was – but that she was too weak for the job, even as Tybalt tried to give her comfort.
Juliet internalizes his words and the expectations of the Capulet vassals who raised her, and that is what leads to the failed coup. Camillo, the man we’ll later find raised Tybalt, encouraged them in an assassination attempt and then told; on the Capulet side of things, Juliet was asked for her approval – I think with the way they raised her, she’s pretty much their symbolic puppet at the moment – and she gives it without thinking because that is what the man who has been in charge of her wants, and she doesn’t know what else to do that will be right. These feelings are compounded by her impossible love for Romeo, which she believes is making her weak and lacking in judgment. Before, she had ignored admonishments and gone out as the Red Whirlwind, but the betrayal of her friend, the one who believed in her as this figure, and the way her attempts (and her love for Romeo) were denigrated by her family led her to stop. When this earnest attempt at doing what’s right is ruined – and she still can’t kill her enemies at this point – Tybalt shows up because of the one person who showed uncertainty at the coup called him in (which is interesting, given his refusal upon meeting Juliet to introduce himself to one of Juliet’s vassals with an allusion to the latters’ position; one wonders what kind of relationship they have.) He hides her in a brothel, where the madam knows him but says it’s been a while. He explicitly blames Juliet and not her vassals for the disaster, after she asserts that it is her fault, and tells her to leave it to him. Throughout this, he has been smirking and acting like he doesn’t care if she goes back to die with her vassals; when he sees her not eating and in a depressive slump while blaming herself, he takes on a more serious tone. The scene has some parallels to their last encounter: his initial smirking indifference followed by brooding about how hard this job really is, except for his lack of comfort this time around. Juliet seems to give up; she can’t fight, her people are scattered and maybe all dead, and she can’t have the person she loves with her. She wanders away and collapses near a convent, where Tybalt, who has been following, decides to leave her saying it is fate. That’s a rather ambiguous statement: I think it’s connected to his previous one about how he should be the one taking down Montague. He believes she can’t get it right, that she’s a weaker version of him, and that it’s best if she exit the story.
Of course the convent is the one where Romeo’s mother is after she left her husband for being a bloodthirsty murderer, and Romeo comes to visit at this time. Juliet is perked up by something going right, and I believe she just went with this, because what else could she do. He’s her first and only love right now, he makes her happy, and everyone else is gone and she’s useless to them anyway. They run away and have happy healing time, getting married in an abandoned church without a priest and finding a house to live in after Juliet tells him about how she always wanted to be a bride. Unfortunately Romeo can’t just disappear, and when tracking down comes to burning the village where he was last seen to get answers, he of course has to show up. Juliet dramatically follows. This seemed rather stupid to me. I have to rationalize it using the context: he’s pretty much the only person she thinks she has left and she intends to stick to him according to their vows, even though she knows these people have been out for her relentlessly for ten years by now. She must have been thinking she might not see him again, and couldn’t think straight. Leaving him to his father and trusting that they will be together again later is something she will only do after being captured, sentenced to death, and rescued, after a brief moment of reaffirming their love. This is also when the Escalus seed is implanted inside her, and Ophelia starts to be more explicit about it being Juliet who is necessary to save the tree that keeps the world up and the land fertile. Over the next few episodes there will be little focus on Juliet. Before leaving for Mantua, she will tease Cordelia about her own budding relationship and encourage it. On her departure, she is mostly getting weird sensations regarding her connection to the natural world, thanks to the seed, and sighing somewhat over Romeo. Until Hermione comes inadvertently to Mantua and attacks her.
Hermione had been built up as a sweet girl in love with Romeo, and she’d previously saved his pegasus Cielo from being killed with an earnest plea about wanting to ride him. Given Montague’s ruthlessness, it seems he has a fond spot for Hermione to accede to her request so easily, so there might be a story there). But Romeo’s disinterest in her, standing her up, and her finding out about Juliet was wearing her down, especially after he was exiled upon being letting himself be brought back. Hermione had taken a carriage to go visit Romeo by herself, after hearing that there has been a disaster there and that he was all right. Carriage stolen, she walked toward Mantua, ran into Juliet, the apparent source of her pain, and attacked her before fainting. Juliet took care of her and was kind even after Hermione’s second attempt to kill her, before winning her over by begging for news on Romeo’s fate at the mines. Hermione decides to protect her and gives a standoffish act about how inappropriate it was for her to be here and how she’d never speak of it and wished to be sent back. Juliet lets her go. Hermione will only be seen three times after this; once listening to gossip about Mercutio’s father, murdered by Montague, again leaving the city with her parents, and once in the epilogue holding an iris and a rose while vowing to find her own happiness. We get closeups of her each time, but what she’s thinking about the death is ambiguous, though I think it’s implied she suspects the truth.
In Juliet’s case, this event further showcases her kindness and empathy for people. There’s also a surety there. She doesn’t seem torn between her love and what’s right, or finding herself inadequate. Soon after this, Camillo is spotted and she along with her friends follow him to his house, where it turns out Tybalt is. He makes a comment about entering houses uninvited, perched on the side of the stairs, but when the traitor goes up them he accuses him of going behind his back and threatens to kill him, while Camillo nervously asks if he would kill his father. When let go, he runs away. This is a contrast to the last time we saw Tybalt deal with a traitor. He exhibits mercy despite his unfriendly and threatening demeanor suggesting no affection. This man is the man who raised him. That they did not have a good relationship, or that if they did, it failed, is apparent from this scene. There’s nothing to suggest that Tybalt feels betrayed, except for his anger and phrasing ‘sneaking behind my back.’ Of course this is Tybalt, but even so. He confirms this in the scene immediately following, because Juliet goes after him alone, and finds him reclined with his eyes closed, willing to tell her his backstory and Montague’s. He tells her he was raised here, but ran away at fifteen. She asks him about the portrait of the Capulets in the room they’re in, and that’s when starts talking about how Montague was the bastard son of a Capulet by a prostitute, who somehow got adopted by the Montague’s and poisoned their heir. Then he got close to Tybalt’s mother but left her pregnant and married someone else. She died in childbirth. Until now he’s been very cool and calm in every scene, with the possible exception of threatening the man who adopted him. But even then he was restrained. Now he’s spitting when he yells, demanding for Juliet to say she hates this man who took their families away, and her very calm, sure statement that she loves him because she loves his son shocks him and makes him let go of her arm. Previously I didn’t really get his angst and didn’t have much sympathy for him, despite that I’m obviously interested in him as a character and have wanted Tybalt/Juliet fic since I first watched the show. He was raised in a mansion and seemed to have an easier life than Montague, to the point where he was pretty snobby when he only introduced himself at Juliet’s question. But it seems that his relationship with Camillo was very bad if he ran away at fifteen and is threatening him, even if not willing to kill him yet. And I don’t know much about medieval Italian history, but being a bastard, and a Capulet bastard at that, he had no chance of getting acknowledged by his father and having a legitimate position in society as he was, and he lost his mother in the bargain. Yet he was raised by someone who’d lived in the world of nobles, and he must have felt very aware of his situation as someone cutoff from that world while being so close to it. I wonder how he found out about his heritage, and what his relationship with Camillo was like. I thought he’d had an idea before meeting Juliet that he was like her and she was like him, and they would have their hatred and suffering in common and bond together, fight together, while he taught her stuff from his cynical view of the world. He expected it and seems to believe it until now. It seems this his was his last attempt to unite with her on this, since until now he’s been disappointed in her not fitting his idea, and while he’s been assuming she’s weak because of her angst instead of lacking in hate, he needs validation of his feelings through some proof or admission of her sharing them. He’ll reveal more about his feelings later. As for Juliet’s feelings, she thinks hatred and vengeance will lead to more of the same, and points out the parallels between Tybalt and his father. She wants love and peace for the people, and this is where we can see that’s taken a stand. Before, she was torn about loving Romeo, feeling inadequate as a Capulet heir because she didn’t want vengeance and as the Red Whirlwind, because the hunt for her as the Whirlwind led to the death of her friend. Now, she’s completely sure that vengeance is not right and she will take a different path. She’s stronger and more decisive, and I think Tybalt is reacting to that. It contradicts his views completely, both of her being weak and her being like him.
Next episode, Juliet’s gone back to acting. She’s having a love scene with Emilia, who wants to act with her and wants her in the boy disguise. Emilia’s a girly assertive actress who at the beginning of the show pushed the main love story by getting Juliet to accompany her to a Montague ball dressed as a girl, even though she ended up getting left behind herself. Emilia was interested in being at a fancy ball with nobles, and seems to actively pursue men. At the festival in the first half of the series, she asks Juliet as Odin to accompany her until she gets a date. She thought Juliet was a boy named Odin and found her attractive; she still does, and is eager to kiss Juliet under the guise of acting, even though she was shocked and seemed upset when she discovered she was a girl. At least that’s how I understand it. And Juliet seems embarrassed and to ignore or not get Emilia’s interest, but she still goes along with her.
Juliet gets to meet Romeo again, and they’ve both matured. Juliet’s sure they’ll get to be together eventually. She’s full of hope. Then during the play, she becomes the Red Whirlwind again, making a speech to the people as a symbol of revolution. As a side note, I wonder if Tybalt watched it. It would tell him even more about where Juliet stands. It seems her vassals are finally accepting her Red Whirlwind role – it really is good strategically and they should have seen it before. It didn’t start as a strategy and she didn’t always have a clear direction aside from wanting to help, but it was obvious by the beginning of the show that the Red Whirlwind was beloved and important, whilst from a few lines here and there we know that the Capulet name was smeared after their fall. The vassals seem to have divorced themselves from the people for the most part, being interested in avenging their family and restoring the Capulet name, not so much in the wellbeing of the people. Juliet was always the opposite, and now when she states that the people are what’s important, not the houses, not the feud, they accept it. The transition is so clear: the Capulet vassals by themselves got betrayed, and Juliet trying to be the Capulet heir going along with their plans caused disaster, but Juliet making her priority the people and reaching out for their support caused a successful revolution. She gave them a symbol to unite behind, that they chose. And she remembers the man who died during the hunt for this symbol, the one who chose this death because he was inspired by her and believed in her, because he saw what could happen with the Red Whirlwind before anyone else did and made sure Juliet lived so it could, along with fulfilling his duty by saving people’s lives with his death. We also get a flashback to when she began this. She went out with Curio – and I’m going to go back and put names in for ‘vassals,’ it sounds really impersonal and I’m used to using their names to refer to them – and he lost his eye protecting her from a guard. So even with his disapproval at the beginning of the series, he did support her enough to teach her fighting, and from his saying ‘this is the last time’ as he helped her escape a guard, he’s being doing it even if he had doubts. He’s the one who slapped her and accused her of being too busy loving a noble to care about the city earlier, but he’s the most supportive of her vassals according to this backstory and his scene right before the coup when he says tries to help her with her doubt. And he’s the first one to mention Juliet’s happiness, before the scene with the play, wondering if it conflicts with taking down Montague.
Moving on, back in the main city Juliet goes to her parents’ graves to pay her respects, where Ophelia comes to tell her she has to die. So Juliet has brand new angst. Then Montague orders that the city be burned, so she does everything she can to save the people, running into Romeo again along the way. Tybalt is watching from above. In another parallel with his father, he seems not to care about the citizens. They both mention the fire being good because it’s ushering their enemies out: the ghost of Capulet and Montague, respectively. They’re both wrapped up in themselves so much they don’t value the citizens. This is paired with Juliet’s and Romeo’s instant help to create contrast.
Juliet’s happy to see Cordelia get married and decides that for the sake of everyone she loves and this whole world, she will die. Tybalt shows up to tell her his plans haven’t changed, and she explains that she will die thanks to the tree, asking him to take care of Romeo and to not pursue revenge. In the writeup I said I didn’t understand her reasoning. I now think it was partly because she didn’t want to even if she’d accepted it, and was looking for a way out to see if he knew anything. He tells her about Capulet girls having to suffer eternal torment in the tree, though apparently it was just a rumor to him because he was shocked. She couldn’t have told anybody else because they would have stopped her; unless she thinks her vassals did know and didn’t want to tell her? And wonders if they want her to die for them or wish to protect her? But I think it’s a bit of a stretch, considering that even I think they care about her, that they always want to protect her even when putting their goals first, and lastly, they know nothing when she disappears later and the land undergoes its death throes. I think Juliet didn’t want to deal with having to tell them and didn’t want to be stopped, and maybe she thought Tybalt’s ruthlessness would make him safe to tell. And that she felt she had to tell someone, regardless of whether she thought he could help her, and that she did care about him though they weren’t close, that she wanted him to not suffer. Adding what she did about Romeo was just a last wish, because who else was available to ask? She might not have felt right asking her vassals, and they could take care of each other, but Tybalt was alone and Romeo had only a fiancé he didn’t want and his mother. Like in their last meeting, she’s calm and sure even if much sadder, and this has a clear effect on Tybalt as she leaves. He’s shaken, and it will alter his plans for tomorrow. I think he was already unsure, because he came to see her just to tell her what he’d already told her he would do. He’s already been thrown off-guard by her and comes to reaffirm that he hasn’t changed at all, but I think if he hadn’t started to he wouldn’t have ended up ceding his confrontation with Montague to Juliet and watching from the sidelines, even if her words to him here were the final push.
Back in the writeup, I was unsure as to his motivations. It’s already clear he’s no humanitarian, or he wouldn’t have been shown as satisfied by the fire destroying the citizens’ homes and lives. But he wants to prevent Juliet’s fate, and puts that above his vengeance. His later speech to Romeo will make it sound as if he does believe in being selfish and caring about specific people more than anyone else, so maybe he cares about Juliet too. She’s not who he thought she was, but he seems to come to respect her and worry about her safety, and he believes in being selfish then he wouldn’t try so hard to help and risk his life if he didn’t care.
Tybalt goes to confront Montague and tells him his backstory. His words about his feelings are, paraphrased: “I hated myself and wondered what my purpose was, until I knew it was to kill you.” So there he gives proof. He definitely had an unhappy life, and being a bastard might have put him in the margins of society even though he was raised in a fancy house. Again, I wonder how Camillo treated him. Tybalt then asks about the tree and Juliet, trying to find a way to save her. Because of this delay he is interrupted by Romeo, whom he essentially tells to mind his own business, and by Juliet immediately after. While he didn’t stop fighting at Romeo’s arrival, he treats Juliet with respect by heading off to watch intently from the sidelines and letting her confront Montague. He could have just done it because he wanted to save her, but if that were the case he could also have just announced the whole thing and kept trying to get information. So he’s backing down out of respect, for her way of dealing with the situation, for her telling him what would happen, or both. Also, I suppose that given Juliet’s previous attitude in their last two meetings he thought Montague would come out alive and he’d get to question him more.
Juliet throws down her sword as she approaches. She says she wants peace, and that Montague should leave the city. It looks like he will attack her, and I note that Tybalt is shown as one of the people frantically moving forward to defend her, but instead Montague surrenders peacefully. Mercutio suddenly shows up and kills him, and Juliet holds him while he talks about how glory fades away and why wasn’t he ever loved. She asks if he did what he did because of that, and he responds that he wanted to be feared. Tybalt then mirrors Juliet. Upon Montague’s death, he throws a knife at the crest, just like she did when he took her to that bar at their second meeting. This is a symbolic proof that he has changed, and on top of everything shows how he is taking Juliet’s lead and choosing to be more like her, even if he’s not completely aware of it. Meanwhile his early pushing along with other things led to the failed coup and drove her to eventually confront what she needed to do, if only because after all those events she realized his way, and the way of her vassals was not the right way. He tried to teach her something she couldn’t and ultimately refused to learn, and ended up being taught by her instead. He chose to learn himself, even if as I said he might not be totally conscious of this, because he wanted to after seeing her beliefs; at no point was she suffering while waiting for him to change or trying to force it on him. Then he tells Mercutio to leave, that it’s not worth the effort to kill him. His goal was to kill his father, he delayed it greatly at the very least even if you don’t interpret his deference to Juliet as giving that up, and Mercutio killed him instead. But he makes no attempt to kill Mercutio and tells him to go. Incidentally, at least in the sub version (I can’t remember exactly what was said in the dub), Juliet pronounces in this scene and in Mantua with Tybalt that she no longer hates Montague. But I never thought she did? She never seemed to have Tybalt’s feelings or be into the vengeance and restoration of the Capulets. Maybe she hated him a little, as is natural, and she just came to realize that it wasn’t as much as she thought it should be. It certainly wasn’t her driving force or conviction at any point in the show.
Now the whole confrontation’s over with, she’s slowly heading off to where the tree is. Slowly because she doesn’t want to even though she’s decided to, and because it seems it is actually hurting her physically. Meanwhile, Tybalt goes to Romeo. Right now I can’t remember if there’s any indication he was looking for Romeo or if he was looking for his father’s body, which Romeo was attending to. But I always thought he was looking for Romeo and I still think it. That other thought only occurred to me just now, in case he might have not have decided to tell Romeo about Juliet dying until he saw him. Though…my memory fails again, because I can’t remember if he expected Romeo to know or not. He’s rather aggressive with him and tells him off about being so selfless and not valuing his love for Juliet more than that. Then he speaks about Juliet’s fate.
When Romeo goes off to confront Juliet, there are flashbacks to all their times together. She says she will kill him if she has to, but loses their swordfight and I think it’s because she wanted to lose. She didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to leave him, and she didn’t want to break their vows. But she gets taken by the tree.
There’s this whole struggle with her deciding she doesn’t want to go with the tree because Romeo’s convinced her, then Tybalt, Curio and Francisco join Romeo to help rescue her, Juliet decides to accept it again because Romeo’s getting hurt, Tybalt says at some point to have faith in Romeo and Juliet’s love and tells Conrad to help the people evacuate the city, and Romeo finally succeeds in rescuing Juliet right before he dies. She’s in horrible pain at his death and chooses to die when Tybalt asks her to get on his pegasus because the place is crumbling. She says she still has to save the world, a world that is worth saving because she met them all and loved Romeo in it, because it could contain so much love. He closes his eyes and accepts it. Right before this, he also showed respect for Romeo trying to take Juliet’s burden onto himself. Juliet sprouts great wings associated with the Goddess and lands the continent.
In the epilogue, Tybalt is relaxed and happy in a white shirt instead of his usual black, and weaponless. He’s fulfilling Romeo’s request, the one he made when Tybalt before Tybalt told him about Juliet’s fate, that he find Cielo and the little siblings of a friend Romeo had to take them on a ride. He even tells them Cielo was his little brother’s. So he’s had a full arc from unhappy and angry to being able to smile and not have weapons while doing something for someone else. Earlier he showed respect for Juliet, and now he’s showing respect for Romeo even though he never had the chance to get close to him. I also think it’s partly influenced by Juliet’s request to take care of Romeo. He pretty much botched that by letting Romeo know about Juliet, but this is an indirect way of doing it. He’s letting them both influence them because he trusts in their love, thanks to Juliet’s efforts and Romeo proving him wrong about not valuing his relationship with Juliet. I think that because he saw similarities between him and Juliet, when he saw her so strong while being so different, and he was so unhappy, he decided that if she could see things in such a good way maybe he could follow her lead, and that’s part of why he wanted things to go well for her so badly he’d risk the world ending. And he was so angry at Romeo before because they were both being so selfless and giving up on their happy ending. He’s a new convert, he already cared about Juliet and is at the beginning of caring for Romeo, he doesn’t want to see them give up or die.
Juliet shows up in the epilogue, standing in front of an arch that’s before a giant tree, holding Romeo’s hand. I’m not sure if that’s her ghost moving on, visiting, being stuck forever where she died or her in paradise.
You can find more of what I think of these characters if you click on the tag (http://tigerlily.dreamwidth.org/tag/romeo+x+juliet), particularly in this roundup (http://tigerlily.dreamwidth.org/1894.html#cutid1). I’ve already said my thoughts have changed since that post, and that’s truer with regards to Juliet and Tybalt than for Hermione and Emilia. Though even with all my inferences, I still think there should have been more exploring of Juliet apart from her love story, and of Tybalt.
With respect to Spellsong Cycle, while I would be interested in AUs and such as I wrote in the optional details, what occurs to me for prompting is filling in the gaps. We get Anna’s point of view throughout the first three books, but what she thinks as she ages is filtered through Secca’s. Apart from their loving mother-daughter relationship, Secca finds her wise and in control, but sometimes mysterious. This is less because Anna sets herself up that way, I think, than because Secca looks up to her so much and respects Anna’s goodness and powerful influence in making people’s lives better. Anna’s thoughts in the first three books indicate that she doesn’t think that highly of her goodness and actions. A frequent doubt of hers is whether she really did the best thing, or was there something better she could have done and didn’t because she couldn’t see it. She’s always in competition with herself, trying to do better and feeling the burdens of the consequences of her actions. However, Anna does know that everything in the world isn’t her fault. She’s keenly aware of what other people do and have done to create problems, and is tired of the constant stupidity and sexism that infect behavior and cost lives. For her, my prompt is what happened between the third in fourth books? We knew she’d inherited Brill’s keep and would move there once she stepped down as Regent of Defalk for Jimbob, but how did was it when she came back, how did she raise Secca as well as mentor her and other girls in sorcery? Her spell development according to what she knew of how the world worked thanks to education in Earth science? Her idea to commit secret assassinations to avoid wars between lords, something influenced by how sickened she was at all the bloodshed justified by honor in the first three books? In those books she says (paraphrased by me) that honor is a nebulous concept that meant anything men wanted it to mean, that it meant it was okay to start bloody fights over any perceived insult or to keep abusing women. She had a deep contempt of lords going to war against her because they didn’t like her elevation of women or being stopped from raping them. This and her hatred of having to kill meant she was ruthless in conflict and in how she tried shaping situations, which is how Secca became as well. She thought of her power as a tool to reduce abuse and bloodshed, and was respected by her own people and the Matriarch of Ranuak for risking herself and not just the ones who followed her. Her relationship with Jecks before he died? Her relation with Jimbob once he became Lord, which wasn’t good although he professed respect for her? There’s also the issue of her death. She dies in book four, which along with other things makes the Sturinnese feel ready to attack, but it was rather sudden. It’s true that she was in the place where she would contact Elizabetta, her daughter back on Earth, and that doing this as much as she did wore her down, but I remember a detail when one of her enemies spoke of her death afterwards, and it seemed to be a murder. Even though Secca didn’t believe she had been killed, I wondered.
For Secca, some of those questions apply. But they also include Secca when she came to Anna in Falcor, while she was little and Anna was Regent. We know she was essentially the Cinderella of her family, aside from the glamorous fairytale ending, and that Anna was the first person who treated her right, who both loved her and was strong in that love, in what she believed, and in worldly power, so the first person to truly and effectively defend her. This is when their mother-daughter relationship starts, in Anna’s maternal feeling and protectiveness (and because Secca reminds her somewhat of Elizabetta) and Secca meeting that first person who valued her enough to treat her well. Secca becomes interested in learning from Anna, and from their personal meetings to spend time and play games together secretly gathers knowledge of magic to impress her. She does, suddenly performing a small spell for Anna that puts the idea of teaching in her mind. Secca also defends Anna from Jimbob when he disparages her personality and methods, even knowing he’s the future lord of her country. She believes Anna is a good person who she only kills when she is forced to do so to protect them, and has no hesitation in pointing that out regardless of rank. Her respect and love for Anna are great, and she’s an observant, perceptive girl who’s aware of her circumstances and the world around her. She keeps that up as an adult, though she compares herself to Anna and feels inferior. One of her observations is that she’s less cool-headed than Anna, less in control of her anger. It may be true, but that was partly because Anna already had so much practice having to hide anger and naturally Secca didn’t get to see her grow up and be sure that Anna was always like that. She’s sometimes unsure about what she was doing after Anna’s death, wondering how Anna would have done things (not that she failed to do things or that she wasn’t tough), but a dream of her helps Secca think. At the end of the first book she becomes more decisive and also chooses to be with her love interest Alcaren, whom she marries. By the fifth book she decides to take proactive action against the Sturinnese, going to their own country to destroy their power. She succeeds, rendering them unable to be a threatening conquering nation if they lose in the continent of Liedwahr. Then she heads back home to face the Sturinnese remnants, who are still dangerous, and uses one of Anna’s emergency spells in the final battle. Jimbob, who had changed his name, tried to bring Secca back earlier (she pretended she hadn’t received the message so she could go wreck the Sturinnese homeland) and decided to surrender Defalk, died a traitor at her hands and the people who’d allied with her wanted her as ruler. So she became Lady of Defalk.
Clayre and Veria are more minor characters. Veria is the daughter of the Matriarch of Ranuak in the first three books and sister of the succeeding Matriarch of the last two. She was repeatedly shown in chapters from the first Matriarch’s point of view, as someone who was opposed to Anna and associated her with Darksong, especially when Anna used it. Darksong is the kind of magic that directly controls living things, as well as the name of one of the moons of Erde. It’s associated with bad omens and general wrongness. Actually, sorcery in general is regarded with suspicion by many in Liedwahr, particularly in Ranuak, because sorcerer’s wars long ago destroyed the people and the land to the point where there are poisoned areas no living thing should approach for fear of disease. So while the Matriarch herself uses sorcery in small amounts, Veria in particular fears and denounces it, which caused her to think Anna was an abomination, very much like a religious extremist (the belief in Harmonies and Dissonance as a religion is fluid throughout Liedwahr and the existence and continuance of Harmony is very important in Ranuak in a religious way). She wants Ranuak to distrust Anna and sends weapons to a city of freewomen in the country of Ebra for them to fight the Sturinnese. This was against the Matriarch’s wishes because she believed the women would lose and suffer more, which they did. In the second book the Matriarch, although it hurts her, uses Darksong to banish Veria to the city of the freewomen unless and until she survives the conflicts there. She does it so that Veria can see the necessity of what Anna does in person and most importantly because to teach her about sending weapons for others to fight when she does not fight and hasn’t grasped the situation. Veria reacts with pain and betrayal, of course. By the fourth book the Sturinnese are back in Ebra after Anna’s death, whilst Veria is a leader in this country and supports Secca upon her arrival to deal with them. It’s implied she doesn’t have a close relationship with her sister, but her experience has taught her that Sturinnese need to be defeated and sorcery is all right for that. She’s become tough and practical. My questions for her are how did she become a leader, how did her opinions change? I said I don’t want rape or anything completely bleak and I meant it. The Sturinnese are depicted as the most extreme of the misogynistic societies in Erde, and rape was frequent in all of them, but I think it’s possible to write a story without including rape. Or at least only mentioning or alluding to it, while not making it the focus or making it explicit.
Clayre gets less attention than Veria. She was one of the fosterlings in Falcor while Anna was Regent. Anna met her at her home, where she seemed to have discussed Anna’s doings with her younger brother, judging from their exchanged glances whenever something Anna did was confirmed. She’s mostly quiet and polite in the second book, but lets Anna know she feels inferior as the youngest daughter, and less beautiful than her older sister Lysara. She’s treated as the least of the children in the family, below her brothers older and younger and because she has an older sister. She also expressed interest in becoming a sorceress before coming to Falcor, and Anna considers teaching her along with Secca. By the fourth book, while there are three main sorceresses taught by Anna if the apprentices are excluded, Clayre is the Sorceress of Defalk who stays at Falcor with the Lord. She was the one sent to Neserea when trouble began there. She went alone. Her enemies described her as more like the sorceresses of the past, in that she taught no one, and that that made her easier to kill. Clayre was intelligent, tricked them, and fought them off for a long while, but was killed in the fifth book. Secca was wounded by her death and had thoughts of Clayre being a lonely woman. I wonder how lonely she was, and how she got to be Sorceress of Defalk. I think her value was underestimated, by her family when she was young and then by her enemies in her adulthood, though she proved herself a dangerous enemy to them. I wonder what she really thought about Anna during her training, and before and after.
For W.I.T.C.H., I liked how firm and confident Cornelia is, and even her criticizing Will early on has a good basis. She’s worried about Elyon, whom she was closer to than any of the other girls and vice versa, while they are more willing to see her as an enemy, and she is also not easily convinced that because Will has the special magic artifact she gets to say what’s right and wrong. Cornelia does come around in both series and grows to respect Will. In this letter I assume that the version nominated (by someone else, even though I’m requesting it) is the comic, because Orube is comic-only and I thought the cartoon was ineligible.
In the comic, I like her trust in herself, her self-reliance, and her how she’s both talented and skilled at varied things. She maintains an elegant appearance with an interest in fashion, does very well in class and as an ice-skater. History is her favorite subject and she prefers classical music and music with intelligent lyrics. Her demeanor is also elegant, as she is calm and friendly. This version of her has her more friendly to Will, though they are still friends at the beginning in the cartoon, and in the comic she along with Hay Lin and Irma readily accept Will and Taranee. The person she has consistent conflict with is Irma, who is less serious and makes bad jokes, sometimes inappropriately. The practicality of her attitude means she’s the realist of the group, and though she has been chastised for not being positive, she doesn’t do it to be depressing and is not a person who gives up easily. She has a rational outlook. Cornelia’s also very devoted. She went after Elyon despite the latter treating her like an enemy and in the comic this actually worked to get them back as friends. When Caleb became a flower, she shut herself up with him for days and tried to restore him, even though there was danger in cutting herself off from her friends. This relationship in particular was special in that it seemed to contradict her practical personality, because it was something out of a dream. They dreamed of each other and were in love when they first met, but she was so into it. Upon seeing Cornelia as an ordinary girl, Caleb had doubts about their compatibility, while she was upset because to her, she was the same person in or out of guardian costume. She thought that at this point he only stayed with her because he saw her as weak, and upon their breakup she called him a monster. I also liked her slow relationship with Peter, how she was cautious about getting into a relationship again after her very first one ended painfully. Even after the Oracle gave her and Caleb dreams of the negative futures if they hadn’t broken up, Cornelia had little hope in love, and Peter found her selfish and spoiled at first. Cornelia also had little experience, because Caleb was her first and she hadn’t even flirted with boys because she had been waiting for Caleb as per her dreams. Her and Peter is a sharp contrast with her fairytale impossible love, in the slowness and the realism of it. It became strong and close; aside from Will/Matt it’s the longest relationship any of the girls have had.
Her element as Guardian is Earth, meaning she has power over stone and dirt as well as plants. She also has a telepathic connection to plants, so she can speak to them. Another power she has is telekinesis. Her wikia page: http://witch.wikia.com/wiki/Cornelia_Hale
Taranee went through an obvious change in the comics. She was shy, afraid to disobey her strict mother even when it made her unhappy, and studious, though also laidback. Her intelligence and skill, like Cornelia’s, is varied, as she loves math, classical music, photography and basketball. Taranee also loves dancing, which will be explored more when she starts attending the Jensen Dance Academy. Her best friend from the beginning was Will, as they bonded over being the new to the school and town and their shy temperaments. This continues to be true even in the later issues, and though as a telepath she can connect mentally with all the Guardians, and eventually read other people’s minds as well, her strongest mental connection is with Will. Her friendships with the others are still close and important to her, with the power of their friendship as a whole being repeatedly associated with their strength as Guardians. Her element is fire, which in the early issues was called the most dangerous element by a villain.
Even early on, she was brave and didn’t mind showing her anger when it was called for, as when she was captured and tormented by Elyon. She was determined and thought quickly. By the time of the third arc she is the only one to rebel against the Oracle, openly refusing to be a Guardian if the Oracle will withhold information from them while interfering in their lives. She felt being a Guardian was interference from Kandrakar, but she was willing to accept the role until he hurt Cornelia by not telling her Caleb had left, refused to help in their current mission and discovered that her eyesight had been cured without her permission, an invasion of her body and something that made her have to pretend to still need glasses in her ordinary life.
Her development also shows in her love life. She was interested in Nigel, a boy who was part of a gang of bullies. She has trouble with her mother because of this, but Nigel leaves the gang and proves himself to her. Nigel later broke up with Taranee and harassed her when his older brother, judged by Taranee’s mother (an actual Judge) returned, but when he apologized Taranee took him back. Then her dancing became more serious to her, becoming a student at the academy and making new friends. By this time she is more confident. Taranee began to have problems balancing dancing with her previous friends and Nigel, as she tries not to leave that behind while dedicating herself to the new important aspect of her life. She meets a boy named Luke and they become friends, while Nigel in particular is annoyed with her new life. Her relationship with Nigel starts to fray and she becomes interested in Luke, without noticing her changing feelings for a while. At one point she does, and Nigel too realizes she now prefers Luke. It’s rather painful for him and I think to her, because she really cared about him and they went through so many conflicts, and it must have been confusing as well to sort out these feelings. But I think she was moving on in her new life, and Nigel while understandably was having problems adjusting, his annoyance was making it harder for her. So she ended up letting him go without realizing it was happening at first. The later issues drop some continuity for both her life and the other girls, as Luke is gradually not mentioned and instead she gets short crushes on boys and men whom she meets in one-shots. She even gets caricaturized sometimes in her pursuit of them. But by then the stories aren’t really interested in the girls having real and ordinary lives instead of stereotypes with a special message. Here’s her page at the wikia: http://witch.wikia.com/wiki/Taranee_Cook
Orube is an alien from Basiliade who starts of serious, dedicated and stoic. She loses some of the stoic demeanor, since it was part of her initial standoffishness. She is an excellent fighter, the best pupil of Luba’s – an Elder in the Council of Kandrakar – and was selected as Guardian when Taranee refused to keep her role in the third arc. She’s an adult, as when she goes to Earth she is enrolled in a college instead of school like the other girls. At first she is standoffish and doesn’t respect the other girls, thinking them childish. As someone who lived in Kandrakar for much of her life during her training, she respects the Council and defers to the Oracle’s wishes. Taranee’s actions don’t give her a good impression of the girls. This isn’t helped by the fact that Luba had a very low opinion of them in the first two arcs, and the way she acted on this led to her death. I think, while it isn’t mentioned in the series, that Orube might associate Luba’s death with the girls. She’s not shown as thinking it or saying it and she is actually a rational woman, rather like an older Cornelia in that sense (she is even the Guardian of Earth for a while in the alternate future where Cornelia goes to Meridian with Caleb, until Cornelia returns), but it’s possible she might have felt it somewhat when Luba died and/or when she became a Guardian, and so it could have influenced her feelings towards the girls. During the third arc Orube will become less standoffish and learn to trust and respect them, though she will still sometimes think they behave childishly and say so, when it is earned. Her fighting is hand-to-hand, though she can also emit energy blasts and has very good senses. She is shown being able to track people by scent. Orube never had Taranee’s element – it appears that the Oracle was sure Taranee would come back, so he didn’t need to make another Guardian of Fire and take Taranee’s powers away.
Her alias on Earth is Rebecca Rudolph, niece of a former teacher at the girls’ school who was also an alien. She lives in her house and is enrolled as journalism major in college. Her adjustments to Earth are played for laughs, and Irma in particular had fun with her taking things literally or lied to her about how to behave, while calling her a cat. She also had a budding friendship with a neighboring pianist. Orube found the playing mysterious, but they began to get along and she enjoyed it. Unfortunately, after Taranee comes back Orube is less present as Guardian and alien friend on Earth. The comics’ focus on her life becomes about her relationship with Cedric, a villain who was given the chance to reform without his powers as a bookshop owner in Heatherfield. He has plans for revenge that drive the fifth arc, but he and Orube become friends and eventually fall in love, so that when his involvement with another villain, Ludmoore, causes Orube to be targeted he sacrifices his life for her. Heartbroken, she decides to return to Kandrakar to heal even though she will miss the girls, and after that she’s never mentioned again. I find this unfortunate because she was an interesting character, and while her arc with Cedric was good, I wanted her to have more focus outside of a romantic sense, as the other girls did. There was also good opportunity to bring her back as a teacher, since two arcs later there’s a surprise reveal that Matt, Will’s boyfriend, has received training in Kandrakar to be their teacher and mentor. Orube would have been better for that and it would have given her a definite role in the lives of the Guardians, when I think not having one after Taranee came back was the reason she was put aside even though they had started exploring her and giving her depth and relationships. Her wikia page: http://witch.wikia.com/wiki/Orube
Dear Yuletide Author:
Thank you for writing me a story. I hope you will enjoy writing it and have a wonderful holiday. I also hope that this list will help and not hinder you.
So, since I think I put up most of the fic details intended for the letter into the signup optional details, I’m going to go a little into what I see the canons and characters as.
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For RomeoxJuliet, I did a rewatch writeup earlier this year with thoughts. Some of them are different from now, as I kept marinating but didn’t write them up. This letter will refer to the anime and not the manga, because that’s the original and better version and because that’s the one that stays in my mind the most. Not to mention it’s the only one legally available online. Basically I ended up wanting to know more. It’s true what I said about TybaltxJuliet, but what I found interesting about that in canon is that while they’re not close at all, they’re arcs directly influence each other and have parallels. They are both Capulets who lost the people who would have been their parents, and would have been killed if discovered to be so, but handled things differently. Juliet was still raised with people who loved her and didn’t know her heritage, while Tybalt’s childhood is mysterious but implies that he was raised badly. Juliet was kept from the role she was meant to have as a Capulet and as a girl, as she has to hide and we see that she very much wants to dress and live like a girl, while I suspect that Tybalt is bitter about not fitting in any social circle because of being an illegitimate son. They’re both on the margins of a society with no place for them and choose to act like vigilantes in response, although with different reasons. And he saw those parallels in the beginning of the series, and I think he saw Juliet as a more naïve version of himself. She’s a masked vigilante using the name Red Whirlwind, who tries to protect people from the military police, and he’s…not given a position specifically, but he has a network of spies and enough money to bribe guards, so he navigates the criminal underworld of the city. He knew about an assassination and might possibly have been the one to alert the Capulet faction about it, so they could rescue the target family. He showed up to help and handled the assasins more easily than the others, then rode away on his black unicorn pegasus. When he took her to that bar, he said she had as much hatred as him under ‘pretty words and actions’ (I’m paraphrasing, it’s been a while, but he knew about her activities as the Red Whirlwind.) He encouraged her to throw knives at Duke Montague’s picture as he did, but Juliet chose the crest instead. Then when he took her to kill someone who had betrayed her friend, she couldn’t and broke down after he did it. His assumption was not that she lacked the hatred – at least I don’t think it was – but that she was too weak for the job, even as Tybalt tried to give her comfort.
Juliet internalizes his words and the expectations of the Capulet vassals who raised her, and that is what leads to the failed coup. Camillo, the man we’ll later find raised Tybalt, encouraged them in an assassination attempt and then told; on the Capulet side of things, Juliet was asked for her approval – I think with the way they raised her, she’s pretty much their symbolic puppet at the moment – and she gives it without thinking because that is what the man who has been in charge of her wants, and she doesn’t know what else to do that will be right. These feelings are compounded by her impossible love for Romeo, which she believes is making her weak and lacking in judgment. Before, she had ignored admonishments and gone out as the Red Whirlwind, but the betrayal of her friend, the one who believed in her as this figure, and the way her attempts (and her love for Romeo) were denigrated by her family led her to stop. When this earnest attempt at doing what’s right is ruined – and she still can’t kill her enemies at this point – Tybalt shows up because of the one person who showed uncertainty at the coup called him in (which is interesting, given his refusal upon meeting Juliet to introduce himself to one of Juliet’s vassals with an allusion to the latters’ position; one wonders what kind of relationship they have.) He hides her in a brothel, where the madam knows him but says it’s been a while. He explicitly blames Juliet and not her vassals for the disaster, after she asserts that it is her fault, and tells her to leave it to him. Throughout this, he has been smirking and acting like he doesn’t care if she goes back to die with her vassals; when he sees her not eating and in a depressive slump while blaming herself, he takes on a more serious tone. The scene has some parallels to their last encounter: his initial smirking indifference followed by brooding about how hard this job really is, except for his lack of comfort this time around. Juliet seems to give up; she can’t fight, her people are scattered and maybe all dead, and she can’t have the person she loves with her. She wanders away and collapses near a convent, where Tybalt, who has been following, decides to leave her saying it is fate. That’s a rather ambiguous statement: I think it’s connected to his previous one about how he should be the one taking down Montague. He believes she can’t get it right, that she’s a weaker version of him, and that it’s best if she exit the story.
Of course the convent is the one where Romeo’s mother is after she left her husband for being a bloodthirsty murderer, and Romeo comes to visit at this time. Juliet is perked up by something going right, and I believe she just went with this, because what else could she do. He’s her first and only love right now, he makes her happy, and everyone else is gone and she’s useless to them anyway. They run away and have happy healing time, getting married in an abandoned church without a priest and finding a house to live in after Juliet tells him about how she always wanted to be a bride. Unfortunately Romeo can’t just disappear, and when tracking down comes to burning the village where he was last seen to get answers, he of course has to show up. Juliet dramatically follows. This seemed rather stupid to me. I have to rationalize it using the context: he’s pretty much the only person she thinks she has left and she intends to stick to him according to their vows, even though she knows these people have been out for her relentlessly for ten years by now. She must have been thinking she might not see him again, and couldn’t think straight. Leaving him to his father and trusting that they will be together again later is something she will only do after being captured, sentenced to death, and rescued, after a brief moment of reaffirming their love. This is also when the Escalus seed is implanted inside her, and Ophelia starts to be more explicit about it being Juliet who is necessary to save the tree that keeps the world up and the land fertile. Over the next few episodes there will be little focus on Juliet. Before leaving for Mantua, she will tease Cordelia about her own budding relationship and encourage it. On her departure, she is mostly getting weird sensations regarding her connection to the natural world, thanks to the seed, and sighing somewhat over Romeo. Until Hermione comes inadvertently to Mantua and attacks her.
Hermione had been built up as a sweet girl in love with Romeo, and she’d previously saved his pegasus Cielo from being killed with an earnest plea about wanting to ride him. Given Montague’s ruthlessness, it seems he has a fond spot for Hermione to accede to her request so easily, so there might be a story there). But Romeo’s disinterest in her, standing her up, and her finding out about Juliet was wearing her down, especially after he was exiled upon being letting himself be brought back. Hermione had taken a carriage to go visit Romeo by herself, after hearing that there has been a disaster there and that he was all right. Carriage stolen, she walked toward Mantua, ran into Juliet, the apparent source of her pain, and attacked her before fainting. Juliet took care of her and was kind even after Hermione’s second attempt to kill her, before winning her over by begging for news on Romeo’s fate at the mines. Hermione decides to protect her and gives a standoffish act about how inappropriate it was for her to be here and how she’d never speak of it and wished to be sent back. Juliet lets her go. Hermione will only be seen three times after this; once listening to gossip about Mercutio’s father, murdered by Montague, again leaving the city with her parents, and once in the epilogue holding an iris and a rose while vowing to find her own happiness. We get closeups of her each time, but what she’s thinking about the death is ambiguous, though I think it’s implied she suspects the truth.
In Juliet’s case, this event further showcases her kindness and empathy for people. There’s also a surety there. She doesn’t seem torn between her love and what’s right, or finding herself inadequate. Soon after this, Camillo is spotted and she along with her friends follow him to his house, where it turns out Tybalt is. He makes a comment about entering houses uninvited, perched on the side of the stairs, but when the traitor goes up them he accuses him of going behind his back and threatens to kill him, while Camillo nervously asks if he would kill his father. When let go, he runs away. This is a contrast to the last time we saw Tybalt deal with a traitor. He exhibits mercy despite his unfriendly and threatening demeanor suggesting no affection. This man is the man who raised him. That they did not have a good relationship, or that if they did, it failed, is apparent from this scene. There’s nothing to suggest that Tybalt feels betrayed, except for his anger and phrasing ‘sneaking behind my back.’ Of course this is Tybalt, but even so. He confirms this in the scene immediately following, because Juliet goes after him alone, and finds him reclined with his eyes closed, willing to tell her his backstory and Montague’s. He tells her he was raised here, but ran away at fifteen. She asks him about the portrait of the Capulets in the room they’re in, and that’s when starts talking about how Montague was the bastard son of a Capulet by a prostitute, who somehow got adopted by the Montague’s and poisoned their heir. Then he got close to Tybalt’s mother but left her pregnant and married someone else. She died in childbirth. Until now he’s been very cool and calm in every scene, with the possible exception of threatening the man who adopted him. But even then he was restrained. Now he’s spitting when he yells, demanding for Juliet to say she hates this man who took their families away, and her very calm, sure statement that she loves him because she loves his son shocks him and makes him let go of her arm. Previously I didn’t really get his angst and didn’t have much sympathy for him, despite that I’m obviously interested in him as a character and have wanted Tybalt/Juliet fic since I first watched the show. He was raised in a mansion and seemed to have an easier life than Montague, to the point where he was pretty snobby when he only introduced himself at Juliet’s question. But it seems that his relationship with Camillo was very bad if he ran away at fifteen and is threatening him, even if not willing to kill him yet. And I don’t know much about medieval Italian history, but being a bastard, and a Capulet bastard at that, he had no chance of getting acknowledged by his father and having a legitimate position in society as he was, and he lost his mother in the bargain. Yet he was raised by someone who’d lived in the world of nobles, and he must have felt very aware of his situation as someone cutoff from that world while being so close to it. I wonder how he found out about his heritage, and what his relationship with Camillo was like. I thought he’d had an idea before meeting Juliet that he was like her and she was like him, and they would have their hatred and suffering in common and bond together, fight together, while he taught her stuff from his cynical view of the world. He expected it and seems to believe it until now. It seems this his was his last attempt to unite with her on this, since until now he’s been disappointed in her not fitting his idea, and while he’s been assuming she’s weak because of her angst instead of lacking in hate, he needs validation of his feelings through some proof or admission of her sharing them. He’ll reveal more about his feelings later. As for Juliet’s feelings, she thinks hatred and vengeance will lead to more of the same, and points out the parallels between Tybalt and his father. She wants love and peace for the people, and this is where we can see that’s taken a stand. Before, she was torn about loving Romeo, feeling inadequate as a Capulet heir because she didn’t want vengeance and as the Red Whirlwind, because the hunt for her as the Whirlwind led to the death of her friend. Now, she’s completely sure that vengeance is not right and she will take a different path. She’s stronger and more decisive, and I think Tybalt is reacting to that. It contradicts his views completely, both of her being weak and her being like him.
Next episode, Juliet’s gone back to acting. She’s having a love scene with Emilia, who wants to act with her and wants her in the boy disguise. Emilia’s a girly assertive actress who at the beginning of the show pushed the main love story by getting Juliet to accompany her to a Montague ball dressed as a girl, even though she ended up getting left behind herself. Emilia was interested in being at a fancy ball with nobles, and seems to actively pursue men. At the festival in the first half of the series, she asks Juliet as Odin to accompany her until she gets a date. She thought Juliet was a boy named Odin and found her attractive; she still does, and is eager to kiss Juliet under the guise of acting, even though she was shocked and seemed upset when she discovered she was a girl. At least that’s how I understand it. And Juliet seems embarrassed and to ignore or not get Emilia’s interest, but she still goes along with her.
Juliet gets to meet Romeo again, and they’ve both matured. Juliet’s sure they’ll get to be together eventually. She’s full of hope. Then during the play, she becomes the Red Whirlwind again, making a speech to the people as a symbol of revolution. As a side note, I wonder if Tybalt watched it. It would tell him even more about where Juliet stands. It seems her vassals are finally accepting her Red Whirlwind role – it really is good strategically and they should have seen it before. It didn’t start as a strategy and she didn’t always have a clear direction aside from wanting to help, but it was obvious by the beginning of the show that the Red Whirlwind was beloved and important, whilst from a few lines here and there we know that the Capulet name was smeared after their fall. The vassals seem to have divorced themselves from the people for the most part, being interested in avenging their family and restoring the Capulet name, not so much in the wellbeing of the people. Juliet was always the opposite, and now when she states that the people are what’s important, not the houses, not the feud, they accept it. The transition is so clear: the Capulet vassals by themselves got betrayed, and Juliet trying to be the Capulet heir going along with their plans caused disaster, but Juliet making her priority the people and reaching out for their support caused a successful revolution. She gave them a symbol to unite behind, that they chose. And she remembers the man who died during the hunt for this symbol, the one who chose this death because he was inspired by her and believed in her, because he saw what could happen with the Red Whirlwind before anyone else did and made sure Juliet lived so it could, along with fulfilling his duty by saving people’s lives with his death. We also get a flashback to when she began this. She went out with Curio – and I’m going to go back and put names in for ‘vassals,’ it sounds really impersonal and I’m used to using their names to refer to them – and he lost his eye protecting her from a guard. So even with his disapproval at the beginning of the series, he did support her enough to teach her fighting, and from his saying ‘this is the last time’ as he helped her escape a guard, he’s being doing it even if he had doubts. He’s the one who slapped her and accused her of being too busy loving a noble to care about the city earlier, but he’s the most supportive of her vassals according to this backstory and his scene right before the coup when he says tries to help her with her doubt. And he’s the first one to mention Juliet’s happiness, before the scene with the play, wondering if it conflicts with taking down Montague.
Moving on, back in the main city Juliet goes to her parents’ graves to pay her respects, where Ophelia comes to tell her she has to die. So Juliet has brand new angst. Then Montague orders that the city be burned, so she does everything she can to save the people, running into Romeo again along the way. Tybalt is watching from above. In another parallel with his father, he seems not to care about the citizens. They both mention the fire being good because it’s ushering their enemies out: the ghost of Capulet and Montague, respectively. They’re both wrapped up in themselves so much they don’t value the citizens. This is paired with Juliet’s and Romeo’s instant help to create contrast.
Juliet’s happy to see Cordelia get married and decides that for the sake of everyone she loves and this whole world, she will die. Tybalt shows up to tell her his plans haven’t changed, and she explains that she will die thanks to the tree, asking him to take care of Romeo and to not pursue revenge. In the writeup I said I didn’t understand her reasoning. I now think it was partly because she didn’t want to even if she’d accepted it, and was looking for a way out to see if he knew anything. He tells her about Capulet girls having to suffer eternal torment in the tree, though apparently it was just a rumor to him because he was shocked. She couldn’t have told anybody else because they would have stopped her; unless she thinks her vassals did know and didn’t want to tell her? And wonders if they want her to die for them or wish to protect her? But I think it’s a bit of a stretch, considering that even I think they care about her, that they always want to protect her even when putting their goals first, and lastly, they know nothing when she disappears later and the land undergoes its death throes. I think Juliet didn’t want to deal with having to tell them and didn’t want to be stopped, and maybe she thought Tybalt’s ruthlessness would make him safe to tell. And that she felt she had to tell someone, regardless of whether she thought he could help her, and that she did care about him though they weren’t close, that she wanted him to not suffer. Adding what she did about Romeo was just a last wish, because who else was available to ask? She might not have felt right asking her vassals, and they could take care of each other, but Tybalt was alone and Romeo had only a fiancé he didn’t want and his mother. Like in their last meeting, she’s calm and sure even if much sadder, and this has a clear effect on Tybalt as she leaves. He’s shaken, and it will alter his plans for tomorrow. I think he was already unsure, because he came to see her just to tell her what he’d already told her he would do. He’s already been thrown off-guard by her and comes to reaffirm that he hasn’t changed at all, but I think if he hadn’t started to he wouldn’t have ended up ceding his confrontation with Montague to Juliet and watching from the sidelines, even if her words to him here were the final push.
Back in the writeup, I was unsure as to his motivations. It’s already clear he’s no humanitarian, or he wouldn’t have been shown as satisfied by the fire destroying the citizens’ homes and lives. But he wants to prevent Juliet’s fate, and puts that above his vengeance. His later speech to Romeo will make it sound as if he does believe in being selfish and caring about specific people more than anyone else, so maybe he cares about Juliet too. She’s not who he thought she was, but he seems to come to respect her and worry about her safety, and he believes in being selfish then he wouldn’t try so hard to help and risk his life if he didn’t care.
Tybalt goes to confront Montague and tells him his backstory. His words about his feelings are, paraphrased: “I hated myself and wondered what my purpose was, until I knew it was to kill you.” So there he gives proof. He definitely had an unhappy life, and being a bastard might have put him in the margins of society even though he was raised in a fancy house. Again, I wonder how Camillo treated him. Tybalt then asks about the tree and Juliet, trying to find a way to save her. Because of this delay he is interrupted by Romeo, whom he essentially tells to mind his own business, and by Juliet immediately after. While he didn’t stop fighting at Romeo’s arrival, he treats Juliet with respect by heading off to watch intently from the sidelines and letting her confront Montague. He could have just done it because he wanted to save her, but if that were the case he could also have just announced the whole thing and kept trying to get information. So he’s backing down out of respect, for her way of dealing with the situation, for her telling him what would happen, or both. Also, I suppose that given Juliet’s previous attitude in their last two meetings he thought Montague would come out alive and he’d get to question him more.
Juliet throws down her sword as she approaches. She says she wants peace, and that Montague should leave the city. It looks like he will attack her, and I note that Tybalt is shown as one of the people frantically moving forward to defend her, but instead Montague surrenders peacefully. Mercutio suddenly shows up and kills him, and Juliet holds him while he talks about how glory fades away and why wasn’t he ever loved. She asks if he did what he did because of that, and he responds that he wanted to be feared. Tybalt then mirrors Juliet. Upon Montague’s death, he throws a knife at the crest, just like she did when he took her to that bar at their second meeting. This is a symbolic proof that he has changed, and on top of everything shows how he is taking Juliet’s lead and choosing to be more like her, even if he’s not completely aware of it. Meanwhile his early pushing along with other things led to the failed coup and drove her to eventually confront what she needed to do, if only because after all those events she realized his way, and the way of her vassals was not the right way. He tried to teach her something she couldn’t and ultimately refused to learn, and ended up being taught by her instead. He chose to learn himself, even if as I said he might not be totally conscious of this, because he wanted to after seeing her beliefs; at no point was she suffering while waiting for him to change or trying to force it on him. Then he tells Mercutio to leave, that it’s not worth the effort to kill him. His goal was to kill his father, he delayed it greatly at the very least even if you don’t interpret his deference to Juliet as giving that up, and Mercutio killed him instead. But he makes no attempt to kill Mercutio and tells him to go. Incidentally, at least in the sub version (I can’t remember exactly what was said in the dub), Juliet pronounces in this scene and in Mantua with Tybalt that she no longer hates Montague. But I never thought she did? She never seemed to have Tybalt’s feelings or be into the vengeance and restoration of the Capulets. Maybe she hated him a little, as is natural, and she just came to realize that it wasn’t as much as she thought it should be. It certainly wasn’t her driving force or conviction at any point in the show.
Now the whole confrontation’s over with, she’s slowly heading off to where the tree is. Slowly because she doesn’t want to even though she’s decided to, and because it seems it is actually hurting her physically. Meanwhile, Tybalt goes to Romeo. Right now I can’t remember if there’s any indication he was looking for Romeo or if he was looking for his father’s body, which Romeo was attending to. But I always thought he was looking for Romeo and I still think it. That other thought only occurred to me just now, in case he might have not have decided to tell Romeo about Juliet dying until he saw him. Though…my memory fails again, because I can’t remember if he expected Romeo to know or not. He’s rather aggressive with him and tells him off about being so selfless and not valuing his love for Juliet more than that. Then he speaks about Juliet’s fate.
When Romeo goes off to confront Juliet, there are flashbacks to all their times together. She says she will kill him if she has to, but loses their swordfight and I think it’s because she wanted to lose. She didn’t want to die, she didn’t want to leave him, and she didn’t want to break their vows. But she gets taken by the tree.
There’s this whole struggle with her deciding she doesn’t want to go with the tree because Romeo’s convinced her, then Tybalt, Curio and Francisco join Romeo to help rescue her, Juliet decides to accept it again because Romeo’s getting hurt, Tybalt says at some point to have faith in Romeo and Juliet’s love and tells Conrad to help the people evacuate the city, and Romeo finally succeeds in rescuing Juliet right before he dies. She’s in horrible pain at his death and chooses to die when Tybalt asks her to get on his pegasus because the place is crumbling. She says she still has to save the world, a world that is worth saving because she met them all and loved Romeo in it, because it could contain so much love. He closes his eyes and accepts it. Right before this, he also showed respect for Romeo trying to take Juliet’s burden onto himself. Juliet sprouts great wings associated with the Goddess and lands the continent.
In the epilogue, Tybalt is relaxed and happy in a white shirt instead of his usual black, and weaponless. He’s fulfilling Romeo’s request, the one he made when Tybalt before Tybalt told him about Juliet’s fate, that he find Cielo and the little siblings of a friend Romeo had to take them on a ride. He even tells them Cielo was his little brother’s. So he’s had a full arc from unhappy and angry to being able to smile and not have weapons while doing something for someone else. Earlier he showed respect for Juliet, and now he’s showing respect for Romeo even though he never had the chance to get close to him. I also think it’s partly influenced by Juliet’s request to take care of Romeo. He pretty much botched that by letting Romeo know about Juliet, but this is an indirect way of doing it. He’s letting them both influence them because he trusts in their love, thanks to Juliet’s efforts and Romeo proving him wrong about not valuing his relationship with Juliet. I think that because he saw similarities between him and Juliet, when he saw her so strong while being so different, and he was so unhappy, he decided that if she could see things in such a good way maybe he could follow her lead, and that’s part of why he wanted things to go well for her so badly he’d risk the world ending. And he was so angry at Romeo before because they were both being so selfless and giving up on their happy ending. He’s a new convert, he already cared about Juliet and is at the beginning of caring for Romeo, he doesn’t want to see them give up or die.
Juliet shows up in the epilogue, standing in front of an arch that’s before a giant tree, holding Romeo’s hand. I’m not sure if that’s her ghost moving on, visiting, being stuck forever where she died or her in paradise.
You can find more of what I think of these characters if you click on the tag (http://tigerlily.dreamwidth.org/tag/romeo+x+juliet), particularly in this roundup (http://tigerlily.dreamwidth.org/1894.html#cutid1). I’ve already said my thoughts have changed since that post, and that’s truer with regards to Juliet and Tybalt than for Hermione and Emilia. Though even with all my inferences, I still think there should have been more exploring of Juliet apart from her love story, and of Tybalt.
With respect to Spellsong Cycle, while I would be interested in AUs and such as I wrote in the optional details, what occurs to me for prompting is filling in the gaps. We get Anna’s point of view throughout the first three books, but what she thinks as she ages is filtered through Secca’s. Apart from their loving mother-daughter relationship, Secca finds her wise and in control, but sometimes mysterious. This is less because Anna sets herself up that way, I think, than because Secca looks up to her so much and respects Anna’s goodness and powerful influence in making people’s lives better. Anna’s thoughts in the first three books indicate that she doesn’t think that highly of her goodness and actions. A frequent doubt of hers is whether she really did the best thing, or was there something better she could have done and didn’t because she couldn’t see it. She’s always in competition with herself, trying to do better and feeling the burdens of the consequences of her actions. However, Anna does know that everything in the world isn’t her fault. She’s keenly aware of what other people do and have done to create problems, and is tired of the constant stupidity and sexism that infect behavior and cost lives. For her, my prompt is what happened between the third in fourth books? We knew she’d inherited Brill’s keep and would move there once she stepped down as Regent of Defalk for Jimbob, but how did was it when she came back, how did she raise Secca as well as mentor her and other girls in sorcery? Her spell development according to what she knew of how the world worked thanks to education in Earth science? Her idea to commit secret assassinations to avoid wars between lords, something influenced by how sickened she was at all the bloodshed justified by honor in the first three books? In those books she says (paraphrased by me) that honor is a nebulous concept that meant anything men wanted it to mean, that it meant it was okay to start bloody fights over any perceived insult or to keep abusing women. She had a deep contempt of lords going to war against her because they didn’t like her elevation of women or being stopped from raping them. This and her hatred of having to kill meant she was ruthless in conflict and in how she tried shaping situations, which is how Secca became as well. She thought of her power as a tool to reduce abuse and bloodshed, and was respected by her own people and the Matriarch of Ranuak for risking herself and not just the ones who followed her. Her relationship with Jecks before he died? Her relation with Jimbob once he became Lord, which wasn’t good although he professed respect for her? There’s also the issue of her death. She dies in book four, which along with other things makes the Sturinnese feel ready to attack, but it was rather sudden. It’s true that she was in the place where she would contact Elizabetta, her daughter back on Earth, and that doing this as much as she did wore her down, but I remember a detail when one of her enemies spoke of her death afterwards, and it seemed to be a murder. Even though Secca didn’t believe she had been killed, I wondered.
For Secca, some of those questions apply. But they also include Secca when she came to Anna in Falcor, while she was little and Anna was Regent. We know she was essentially the Cinderella of her family, aside from the glamorous fairytale ending, and that Anna was the first person who treated her right, who both loved her and was strong in that love, in what she believed, and in worldly power, so the first person to truly and effectively defend her. This is when their mother-daughter relationship starts, in Anna’s maternal feeling and protectiveness (and because Secca reminds her somewhat of Elizabetta) and Secca meeting that first person who valued her enough to treat her well. Secca becomes interested in learning from Anna, and from their personal meetings to spend time and play games together secretly gathers knowledge of magic to impress her. She does, suddenly performing a small spell for Anna that puts the idea of teaching in her mind. Secca also defends Anna from Jimbob when he disparages her personality and methods, even knowing he’s the future lord of her country. She believes Anna is a good person who she only kills when she is forced to do so to protect them, and has no hesitation in pointing that out regardless of rank. Her respect and love for Anna are great, and she’s an observant, perceptive girl who’s aware of her circumstances and the world around her. She keeps that up as an adult, though she compares herself to Anna and feels inferior. One of her observations is that she’s less cool-headed than Anna, less in control of her anger. It may be true, but that was partly because Anna already had so much practice having to hide anger and naturally Secca didn’t get to see her grow up and be sure that Anna was always like that. She’s sometimes unsure about what she was doing after Anna’s death, wondering how Anna would have done things (not that she failed to do things or that she wasn’t tough), but a dream of her helps Secca think. At the end of the first book she becomes more decisive and also chooses to be with her love interest Alcaren, whom she marries. By the fifth book she decides to take proactive action against the Sturinnese, going to their own country to destroy their power. She succeeds, rendering them unable to be a threatening conquering nation if they lose in the continent of Liedwahr. Then she heads back home to face the Sturinnese remnants, who are still dangerous, and uses one of Anna’s emergency spells in the final battle. Jimbob, who had changed his name, tried to bring Secca back earlier (she pretended she hadn’t received the message so she could go wreck the Sturinnese homeland) and decided to surrender Defalk, died a traitor at her hands and the people who’d allied with her wanted her as ruler. So she became Lady of Defalk.
Clayre and Veria are more minor characters. Veria is the daughter of the Matriarch of Ranuak in the first three books and sister of the succeeding Matriarch of the last two. She was repeatedly shown in chapters from the first Matriarch’s point of view, as someone who was opposed to Anna and associated her with Darksong, especially when Anna used it. Darksong is the kind of magic that directly controls living things, as well as the name of one of the moons of Erde. It’s associated with bad omens and general wrongness. Actually, sorcery in general is regarded with suspicion by many in Liedwahr, particularly in Ranuak, because sorcerer’s wars long ago destroyed the people and the land to the point where there are poisoned areas no living thing should approach for fear of disease. So while the Matriarch herself uses sorcery in small amounts, Veria in particular fears and denounces it, which caused her to think Anna was an abomination, very much like a religious extremist (the belief in Harmonies and Dissonance as a religion is fluid throughout Liedwahr and the existence and continuance of Harmony is very important in Ranuak in a religious way). She wants Ranuak to distrust Anna and sends weapons to a city of freewomen in the country of Ebra for them to fight the Sturinnese. This was against the Matriarch’s wishes because she believed the women would lose and suffer more, which they did. In the second book the Matriarch, although it hurts her, uses Darksong to banish Veria to the city of the freewomen unless and until she survives the conflicts there. She does it so that Veria can see the necessity of what Anna does in person and most importantly because to teach her about sending weapons for others to fight when she does not fight and hasn’t grasped the situation. Veria reacts with pain and betrayal, of course. By the fourth book the Sturinnese are back in Ebra after Anna’s death, whilst Veria is a leader in this country and supports Secca upon her arrival to deal with them. It’s implied she doesn’t have a close relationship with her sister, but her experience has taught her that Sturinnese need to be defeated and sorcery is all right for that. She’s become tough and practical. My questions for her are how did she become a leader, how did her opinions change? I said I don’t want rape or anything completely bleak and I meant it. The Sturinnese are depicted as the most extreme of the misogynistic societies in Erde, and rape was frequent in all of them, but I think it’s possible to write a story without including rape. Or at least only mentioning or alluding to it, while not making it the focus or making it explicit.
Clayre gets less attention than Veria. She was one of the fosterlings in Falcor while Anna was Regent. Anna met her at her home, where she seemed to have discussed Anna’s doings with her younger brother, judging from their exchanged glances whenever something Anna did was confirmed. She’s mostly quiet and polite in the second book, but lets Anna know she feels inferior as the youngest daughter, and less beautiful than her older sister Lysara. She’s treated as the least of the children in the family, below her brothers older and younger and because she has an older sister. She also expressed interest in becoming a sorceress before coming to Falcor, and Anna considers teaching her along with Secca. By the fourth book, while there are three main sorceresses taught by Anna if the apprentices are excluded, Clayre is the Sorceress of Defalk who stays at Falcor with the Lord. She was the one sent to Neserea when trouble began there. She went alone. Her enemies described her as more like the sorceresses of the past, in that she taught no one, and that that made her easier to kill. Clayre was intelligent, tricked them, and fought them off for a long while, but was killed in the fifth book. Secca was wounded by her death and had thoughts of Clayre being a lonely woman. I wonder how lonely she was, and how she got to be Sorceress of Defalk. I think her value was underestimated, by her family when she was young and then by her enemies in her adulthood, though she proved herself a dangerous enemy to them. I wonder what she really thought about Anna during her training, and before and after.
For W.I.T.C.H., I liked how firm and confident Cornelia is, and even her criticizing Will early on has a good basis. She’s worried about Elyon, whom she was closer to than any of the other girls and vice versa, while they are more willing to see her as an enemy, and she is also not easily convinced that because Will has the special magic artifact she gets to say what’s right and wrong. Cornelia does come around in both series and grows to respect Will. In this letter I assume that the version nominated (by someone else, even though I’m requesting it) is the comic, because Orube is comic-only and I thought the cartoon was ineligible.
In the comic, I like her trust in herself, her self-reliance, and her how she’s both talented and skilled at varied things. She maintains an elegant appearance with an interest in fashion, does very well in class and as an ice-skater. History is her favorite subject and she prefers classical music and music with intelligent lyrics. Her demeanor is also elegant, as she is calm and friendly. This version of her has her more friendly to Will, though they are still friends at the beginning in the cartoon, and in the comic she along with Hay Lin and Irma readily accept Will and Taranee. The person she has consistent conflict with is Irma, who is less serious and makes bad jokes, sometimes inappropriately. The practicality of her attitude means she’s the realist of the group, and though she has been chastised for not being positive, she doesn’t do it to be depressing and is not a person who gives up easily. She has a rational outlook. Cornelia’s also very devoted. She went after Elyon despite the latter treating her like an enemy and in the comic this actually worked to get them back as friends. When Caleb became a flower, she shut herself up with him for days and tried to restore him, even though there was danger in cutting herself off from her friends. This relationship in particular was special in that it seemed to contradict her practical personality, because it was something out of a dream. They dreamed of each other and were in love when they first met, but she was so into it. Upon seeing Cornelia as an ordinary girl, Caleb had doubts about their compatibility, while she was upset because to her, she was the same person in or out of guardian costume. She thought that at this point he only stayed with her because he saw her as weak, and upon their breakup she called him a monster. I also liked her slow relationship with Peter, how she was cautious about getting into a relationship again after her very first one ended painfully. Even after the Oracle gave her and Caleb dreams of the negative futures if they hadn’t broken up, Cornelia had little hope in love, and Peter found her selfish and spoiled at first. Cornelia also had little experience, because Caleb was her first and she hadn’t even flirted with boys because she had been waiting for Caleb as per her dreams. Her and Peter is a sharp contrast with her fairytale impossible love, in the slowness and the realism of it. It became strong and close; aside from Will/Matt it’s the longest relationship any of the girls have had.
Her element as Guardian is Earth, meaning she has power over stone and dirt as well as plants. She also has a telepathic connection to plants, so she can speak to them. Another power she has is telekinesis. Her wikia page: http://witch.wikia.com/wiki/Cornelia_Hale
Taranee went through an obvious change in the comics. She was shy, afraid to disobey her strict mother even when it made her unhappy, and studious, though also laidback. Her intelligence and skill, like Cornelia’s, is varied, as she loves math, classical music, photography and basketball. Taranee also loves dancing, which will be explored more when she starts attending the Jensen Dance Academy. Her best friend from the beginning was Will, as they bonded over being the new to the school and town and their shy temperaments. This continues to be true even in the later issues, and though as a telepath she can connect mentally with all the Guardians, and eventually read other people’s minds as well, her strongest mental connection is with Will. Her friendships with the others are still close and important to her, with the power of their friendship as a whole being repeatedly associated with their strength as Guardians. Her element is fire, which in the early issues was called the most dangerous element by a villain.
Even early on, she was brave and didn’t mind showing her anger when it was called for, as when she was captured and tormented by Elyon. She was determined and thought quickly. By the time of the third arc she is the only one to rebel against the Oracle, openly refusing to be a Guardian if the Oracle will withhold information from them while interfering in their lives. She felt being a Guardian was interference from Kandrakar, but she was willing to accept the role until he hurt Cornelia by not telling her Caleb had left, refused to help in their current mission and discovered that her eyesight had been cured without her permission, an invasion of her body and something that made her have to pretend to still need glasses in her ordinary life.
Her development also shows in her love life. She was interested in Nigel, a boy who was part of a gang of bullies. She has trouble with her mother because of this, but Nigel leaves the gang and proves himself to her. Nigel later broke up with Taranee and harassed her when his older brother, judged by Taranee’s mother (an actual Judge) returned, but when he apologized Taranee took him back. Then her dancing became more serious to her, becoming a student at the academy and making new friends. By this time she is more confident. Taranee began to have problems balancing dancing with her previous friends and Nigel, as she tries not to leave that behind while dedicating herself to the new important aspect of her life. She meets a boy named Luke and they become friends, while Nigel in particular is annoyed with her new life. Her relationship with Nigel starts to fray and she becomes interested in Luke, without noticing her changing feelings for a while. At one point she does, and Nigel too realizes she now prefers Luke. It’s rather painful for him and I think to her, because she really cared about him and they went through so many conflicts, and it must have been confusing as well to sort out these feelings. But I think she was moving on in her new life, and Nigel while understandably was having problems adjusting, his annoyance was making it harder for her. So she ended up letting him go without realizing it was happening at first. The later issues drop some continuity for both her life and the other girls, as Luke is gradually not mentioned and instead she gets short crushes on boys and men whom she meets in one-shots. She even gets caricaturized sometimes in her pursuit of them. But by then the stories aren’t really interested in the girls having real and ordinary lives instead of stereotypes with a special message. Here’s her page at the wikia: http://witch.wikia.com/wiki/Taranee_Cook
Orube is an alien from Basiliade who starts of serious, dedicated and stoic. She loses some of the stoic demeanor, since it was part of her initial standoffishness. She is an excellent fighter, the best pupil of Luba’s – an Elder in the Council of Kandrakar – and was selected as Guardian when Taranee refused to keep her role in the third arc. She’s an adult, as when she goes to Earth she is enrolled in a college instead of school like the other girls. At first she is standoffish and doesn’t respect the other girls, thinking them childish. As someone who lived in Kandrakar for much of her life during her training, she respects the Council and defers to the Oracle’s wishes. Taranee’s actions don’t give her a good impression of the girls. This isn’t helped by the fact that Luba had a very low opinion of them in the first two arcs, and the way she acted on this led to her death. I think, while it isn’t mentioned in the series, that Orube might associate Luba’s death with the girls. She’s not shown as thinking it or saying it and she is actually a rational woman, rather like an older Cornelia in that sense (she is even the Guardian of Earth for a while in the alternate future where Cornelia goes to Meridian with Caleb, until Cornelia returns), but it’s possible she might have felt it somewhat when Luba died and/or when she became a Guardian, and so it could have influenced her feelings towards the girls. During the third arc Orube will become less standoffish and learn to trust and respect them, though she will still sometimes think they behave childishly and say so, when it is earned. Her fighting is hand-to-hand, though she can also emit energy blasts and has very good senses. She is shown being able to track people by scent. Orube never had Taranee’s element – it appears that the Oracle was sure Taranee would come back, so he didn’t need to make another Guardian of Fire and take Taranee’s powers away.
Her alias on Earth is Rebecca Rudolph, niece of a former teacher at the girls’ school who was also an alien. She lives in her house and is enrolled as journalism major in college. Her adjustments to Earth are played for laughs, and Irma in particular had fun with her taking things literally or lied to her about how to behave, while calling her a cat. She also had a budding friendship with a neighboring pianist. Orube found the playing mysterious, but they began to get along and she enjoyed it. Unfortunately, after Taranee comes back Orube is less present as Guardian and alien friend on Earth. The comics’ focus on her life becomes about her relationship with Cedric, a villain who was given the chance to reform without his powers as a bookshop owner in Heatherfield. He has plans for revenge that drive the fifth arc, but he and Orube become friends and eventually fall in love, so that when his involvement with another villain, Ludmoore, causes Orube to be targeted he sacrifices his life for her. Heartbroken, she decides to return to Kandrakar to heal even though she will miss the girls, and after that she’s never mentioned again. I find this unfortunate because she was an interesting character, and while her arc with Cedric was good, I wanted her to have more focus outside of a romantic sense, as the other girls did. There was also good opportunity to bring her back as a teacher, since two arcs later there’s a surprise reveal that Matt, Will’s boyfriend, has received training in Kandrakar to be their teacher and mentor. Orube would have been better for that and it would have given her a definite role in the lives of the Guardians, when I think not having one after Taranee came back was the reason she was put aside even though they had started exploring her and giving her depth and relationships. Her wikia page: http://witch.wikia.com/wiki/Orube
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