#even though it is a scene in trr2 canon

[lizzybeth1986]

Protagonist-Centered Sexuality

(Read the rest of the "Hana Lee: A Study In Erasure" series here!)

Previous: Power Dynamics, Part 3 - Lorelai and Xinghai

CW: Mentions of Bullying, Homophobia, Bi-erasure.

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"To be clear, Hana is bisexual, but at this point in the story, that's something she's still figuring out for herself!" - Kara Loo

I don't think there's any better way of starting this essay than the story behind this quote.

(Note: Some who were around at the time of this story mentioned that that the team was under pressure to say Hana was bi instead of gay, partly from discourse with "people who took offence at Hana being coded lesbian". Being in the fringes of this discussion at the time, I cannot completely confirm the veracity of this, but just for clarity I thought I'd add this context as well. For the purposes of this essay, though, I will be mostly referring to Hana as bi and focusing to a larger extent on depictions of bisexuality, but will attempt to discuss whether that is reflected at all in the writing).

Sometime in October of 2017 (a few weeks after TRR2 released), a player had posed a question to the Choices Support Team. Does Hana Lee have a canon sexuality? The response was... bizarre - if I were to put it in the kindest way possible - even if you were someone who barely paid attention to Hana's scenes:

There was plenty of backlash over this response, of course, because when the hell had Hana ever tried to "pursue the prince" and how the hell would that make her straight! Kara Loo, one of the book leads, almost immediately posted a response, apologizing and maintaining that "this doesn't reflect how we view bisexuality at Pixelberry". It was clear from her post that Hana wasn't out to herself yet, forget anyone else, and it seemed to hint at a journey of sorts.

It's 2021 now, and we're on the seventh and final book of the series. The word "bisexual" hasn't appeared in the story once.

Mechanical vs Canonical Bisexuality

Different types of media write about expressions of sexuality in different ways, but the distinct discomfort that comes with openly talking about queer-related issues can be found across the board. A lot of visual media, esp film, has had a long history of erasure when it comes to LGBTQ+ representation, leading to either a lack of depictions of those stories, or having them heavily couched in innuendo. And even though there is more openness to such rep now, the discomfort often remains.

It is possible for showrunners/filmmakers/writers to attempt to cater to two very distinct audiences: the homophobic audience that is uncomfortable with even a hint of something that isn't heteronormative, and the LGBTQ+ audience that would like to see themselves in the characters they watch. Several strategies are employed to gain the attention, and money, of both: queerbaiting, queercoding or queercatching, all of which involve some form of catching the latter audience's interest with tantalizing hints about a character's sexuality, while still being vague enough to make it "safe" for the former type to watch. (Do watch Rowan Ellis' video essay "An Evolution of Queerbaiting: From Queercoding to Queercatching".) An infamous example of this is how J K Rowling announced Dumbledore being gay after her books released, yet you would never learn this outright from either the original HP books nor in the subsequent Fantastic Beasts film series.

For games however - especially choice-focused RPGs - the mechanics of this are somewhat different. For instance as a queer woman playing Choices, I can tell which sexuality is the default and which one is barely written with any thought at all...but what I'm complaining about wouldn't fit too well in the category of "queercatching" because a gay/bi/pan character's relationship is still at the center of the story, if I should so choose. So how do I explain why I'm so dissatisfied with what I'm getting, if at least I'm getting a full relationship with a woman out of it?

This is where we separate the way relationships fuelled by the mechanics of the game, from LGBTQ+ stories that are stitched into canon. Verilybitchie, in her video essay "How Bisexuality Changed Video Games" (seriously, watch it. It's a real eye-opener) goes into detail about this, but here's a small screenshot just to give you a rough idea:

(The essay breaks down many, many concepts - such as how sometimes the games view bisexuality and polyamory as almost interchangeable, and how some of the games negatively equate polyamory to cheating by taking away the option to be honest with the partners. One of the reasons this video focuses on bisexuality is to show how monosexuality is often viewed as a norm in the game mechanics themselves, even equated to faithfulness. But that is not relevant to this essay).

Mechanical Bisexuality - basically put - moulds the sexuality of your romanceable characters to suit yours. If you're gay/bi/pan, and want to romance a same-sex character, they will respond to you romantically and based on what they say in those playthroughs they may be either gay or bi. But if you play the same  game as a straight person, you will probably never know. There are ways this can be done well, and still be respectful to those  characters. But if done badly, this means that the romanceable character's sexuality is important only in relation to the player and not on its own. Which is to say that as long as you're using fictional bisexuality for my coin as a queer player, but not bothering to explore bisexuality as a lived experience, you're still engaging in a form of bi erasure.

Canonical Bisexuality, on the other hand, establishes a character (who is not the player) as bi regardless of the player's choices. Which is to say that their sexuality - like in real life - exists independent of the player-character's actions or desires, and is a part of their character history by default. Again, this doesn't mean it's completely perfect - Verilybitchie's video shows us examples upon examples of how a lot of canonically bi characters are villainized and othered in gaming culture. But if used well, it can be extremely empowering to see a bi person proudly and by default establish their identity within the framework of that game. 

The video establishes three main criteria that a game must meet to be viewed as showing canon bisexuality - the showing of bi attraction across the board, not centering the player-character in the character's bi identity (ie I should see it even in playthroughs where I'm not romancing the character) and - the most important - we shouldn't take into account Twitter canon.

What is Twitter canon? It's when the developers/story leads "out" the character in their interviews, but continue to not address their sexuality in canon. As Verilybitchie explains it, "game developers are much more likely to call their characters bi in interviews than in the actual games themselves. Using the word "bi" is not everything, it's not the be-all or end-all of representation, but games do tend to avoid the word "bi" like the plague. You know, like in real life!"

What Kara Loo essentially did, in the example above, was exactly that. Twitter canon. 

LGBTQ+ Rep and PlayChoices

Before we go into whether Hana has a journey related to her sexuality or not, it helps to take a brief look at how queer characters are depicted on the basis of both being aware of their identity, and being public about it. In a game like Choices that has long considered its diversity in representation its USP, you will have at least one LI who is considered canonically gay/bi, at least two books have a trans character, and in a book with a gender-customizable MC, every LI should be assumed at least bi. That isn't even counting side characters who are canonically gay, bi, pan, aroace and non-binary.

So it's not about whether these characters exist. That is the game's setup. What is important then is the way their queer identities are contextualised. And I find that this manifests in four different ways (note: I'll be sticking to LIs here):

1. Mechanical Bisexuality: In Choices, the texts that show this most, are the ones that have gender-customizable MCs. Because the MC could be either male or female (or nonbinary, in one case), it is assumed that the LIs are automatically bi (there is a section of the fandom that would rather view them as "playersexual" but I'm going to pretend they don't exist). In books where the LIs are viewed by their writers solely as male romancing female MCs, the heteronormativity is apparant in the way they're written, esp their sex scenes (eg. when you see carelessly-written pronoun changes for a gender-customizable character). However, we do have examples that show the writers clearly putting some level of thought into that LI's interactions with a male MC. Think of how PM2 has Damien's ex Alana refers to him wanting a "partner" rather than a girl/boyfriend, or the scene where Ethan Ramsey has sex in OH1 with a male MC. However, these strategies are sometimes used in tandem with ones that make the character's queerness less apparent to players who may not be comfortable: think of how, in both OH2 and BSC - Rafael Aveiro and Dallas James' other partners/ex-partners are given the same gender as the MC, meaning that their sexuality would rarely or never be addressed across canon. There is also a disrespect from PB itself in the way coded sexuality is viewed - think of how, for instance, TE allowed for us to choose the MC's sexuality in the beginning, yet in the service of a diamond scene claimed "you can change your mind" and used the split-attraction model as an excuse for this framing.

2. Out and Proud: Queer characters who are either confirmed or assumed to already be out in public. Often this includes characters who romance female LIs in genderlocked books but who never reference their sexuality in the books and aren't treated any differently when they openly romance the female MC. Generally it is assumed that they are comfortable in their identity and publicly identify as such. In most cases, PB does this as a way to not talk about sexuality, but in comparison to the categories following, it can be somewhat mitigated by the implication that this character is out and proud.

There are examples where the character can hint at, or talk about their journey though. Lily Spencer (BB) starts out dating another woman, and tells us by Ch. 3 that she was a "nerdy, bi black girl growing up in rural Wisconsin". You have Emma Hawkins (HSS) mentioning her coming out to her parents, and Zig Ortega (TF) casually coming out to his friends when he says he finds James' friend Teddy attractive. You also have Teja Desai (RCD) speak of romantic escapades with a girl in the first book, and confirming she is lesbian to her friend Seth in the second. We have two transpersons (Aisha Bhatt of BP and Andy Kang of ILITW), two nonbinary people (Cameron of HSS and Wren of AME) and one aroace (Zephyr Hernandez of TE) who are also comfortable in their identities and give us small insights into their journeys. These moments and dialogues may be fleeting, and may have very little to do with the character's current arcs, but they add a lot of rich detail to the characterization and give us an insight into their journey as queer people.

3. In the Closet: Characters who are out to themselves but still in the closet. Usually, they are aware of their sexuality, have been for a long time, but cannot - for personal or professional reasons - come out. The MC is often faced with someone who knows they are gay/bi, but is navigating a relationship with, or supporting them while they deal with whether they can be so in public or not. Struggling with coming out can be a character arc in itself for these characters, and notably PB has focused on some of their journeys.

An excellent example of this is Kaitlyn Liao (TF). In Book 2 she tells us she's been aware of her sexuality since school but had never been in a relationship before the MC ("I knew I liked girls, but it seemed like a total fantasy that anyone would like me, you know?"). The entirety of the second book is dedicated to her coming out - first to her friend from Texas, Arjun, then to her parents - one of whom takes time to get used to this truth, but who unequivocally supports her at the end of the book. You also have Eiko Matsunaga (MoTY) who cannot come out at her workplace but is outed by the homophobic Vanessa. This is also a subplot often used in some of PB's historical stories (as well as the next category) - Annabelle Parsons (D&D) and Gemma Montjoy (TUH) imply their awareness of being attracted to women, but have to keep their sexuality a secret because in their time their identity is not only deemed unacceptable, but also invisible (at least in Annabelle's case).

4. The fourth category is what I sometimes dub as "Baby Gay/Bi/Queer".

Unlike "In the Closet", these characters start out unaware of how they identify, and their realization that not only does the (female, in all these cases) MC capture their attention in a way they don't expect, but that it goes beyond her into who they are and who they feel romantic attraction for. In at least two of these cases, those LIs (both are lesbian) openly say they will never again lie with/date another man.

I won't talk about Hana now, but I will briefly touch upon Sabina (ACOR) and Ava Lawrence (MFTL). Sabina lives in ancient Rome, was married off as a child and is under the thumb of an abusive man. She is a deeply traumatized woman when we first meet her, and the MC must peel through her many layers of pain and repressed anger to finally help her find freedom. A fan-favourite Sabina scene references the poem "One Girl" by Sappho, the poet from ancient Greece so intimately tied to the history of LGBTQ+ literature that two terms came both from her name (sapphic), and the name of her birthplace (lesbian, from Lesbos). Ava, on the other hand, is still in school, overcompensating in her relationship with Mason, battling her confusion and feelings for the MC, before coming out to their classmate, Bayla. In a rare instance of inspired writing from the MFTL team, Ava describes the words as being "ripped out" from her, and Bayla becomes a source of comfort and solidarity when she reveals that she, too, is a lesbian. She is paired either with her or with the MC, who is also written as canonically bi. We are also told that she comes out to her parents later on, and gets their support.

As you can see, Sabina and Ava being "Baby Gays" allows for some great scenes, where they can strongly assert their identity as lesbians and find a happy future. The problem lies in how the writing teams often write them and their journeys as if they are outside the scope of the story, not valuable enough for consistent exploration. In their respective books, both Ava and Sabina are often written out of the events and rarely given much attention. Financially they are given far less chances to rake in money because the scenes are so few and far between, and structurally, they are overshadowed by their male counterparts. Of course that is a factor that affects female LIs across the board, but in the case of this particular type of character, it is even more damaging.

It is important, especially for these characters, to have more space and attention given to this arc in particular, because it is their central arc. We are watching their coming out journey, their discovery that they are not straight, in real time. And it is essential in such cases - if you're a company that cares about representation - to allow that arc to blossom outside of the MC, and to center these LIs first and foremost in this story. And it is important because they tend to be the most vulnerable - often coming from familial/societal structures that don't allow them to even question what their families expect them to feel (in at least two of these examples). In their stories they deserve support, they deserve space to explore that aspect of their identities - with or without the MC - and if narratively possible, they deserve to know that they are a part of a large community. Depriving them of this can send a damaging message, esp if you're a company that benefits from being viewed as acting "inclusive", with a "lack of heteronormativity" in your stories. (HAHAHA)

Hana as a Baby Bi

Hana gets her first proper kiss, ever, in TRR1 Ch. 16 (optionally). She sleeps with someone for the first time, ever, in TRR2 Ch 18. While this is par the course if you're not the person the MC was joining the competition to win (Drake, too, gets his kisses and love scenes late in the story), the story is insistent that these are things she's never experienced before. What does this mean, and why was it necessary in Hana's case to take this long?

If you choose every single romantic option with Hana in TRR1, you will notice a slow, but subtle progression. She blushes and doesn't directly comment on how this affects her in almost all these scenes, but from her room to the Cronut shop to our dancing lessons to playing piano, to...finally...confessing her feelings before the Coronation, we find Hana slowly getting comfortable with the intimacy of touch.

If we were to go by Hana's own account, most of the girls/women she'd interacted with thus far hadn't shown much of a desire to interact with her: they're described as either privileged, pampered women who saw her as a rival (much like Olivia and the other noble women do in the beginning), or as people too wrapped up in their own interests to notice her (as she hints in the dressage scene). Even a "nice woman" is a novelty to her.

The MC turns her notions of how other women act on their head as soon as the two meet, and we find that every word that indicates attraction, and every touch, seems to surprise her with how much it affects her. In the bakery where they have cronuts, she is shocked enough by her own response to immediately withdraw her hand, and she seems to have an experience she didn't at all expect when she teaches the MC the romantic Cordonian Waltz. But by the time she plays piano for the MC, she seems to feel more comfortable around her, allowing the touches to now linger. By the time of the Beaumont Bash, she is enthusiastic to retry her first kiss, showing us just how much she's progressed in establishing a sense of comfort with this woman she is learning to love.

Romantic, sensual touch is a novelty to Hana not only because she's new to the idea of a woman being with her. It's because she is new to the whole concept of sexual desire itself, beyond the books she may have read. She is so new to what it's like to passionately love and be loved by someone, that when she finally confesses her feelings to the MC in her Ch. 17 diamond scene, her words come out confused and almost inarticulate:

In the second book, while she is comfortable with kissing and light makeouts in most of their diamond scenes, she places boundaries when it comes to sex, because the experience is not only new but something she can only feel comfortable doing when she's confident of her relationship with the MC (as implied by the way the narrative stops short of sex in her last two individual scenes before her proposal). But this is perhaps something I will be addressing later on in this essay.

Touch and romance with the MC is central to how we read Hana's sexuality - mostly because it's the only way we can get a clear idea of her sexuality journey overall. The narrative doesn't want to even think about it otherwise. There is no dialogue that refers directly to it, no interactions with other people that directly references her having feelings, no indication of this part of her identity. So a lot of my reading of Hana as a woman learning other sexualities besides "straight" exist...is based mostly on her interactions with the MC.

There is one huge catch to this, though.

There is no scene of Hana's, across the seven books of this series, that references her sexuality - lesbian or bi - by default.

The Discomfort Around A Sapphic Hana

To elaborate on that last sentence - most of the scenes I mentioned above? Are part of diamond scenes. With friendly options. Some of them have more friendly options than romance, in fact.

In the sub-essay on LI!Hana and Friend!Hana, I made a comparison between the three confession scenes at the Coronation Ball. It was clear that the MC would learn about the male LIs' feelings for her by default, and can have Hana openly confess in the free option for the scene, but you have to push the romantic options consistently for Hana to state it in her diamond scene. Her "confession scene" can absolutely be played without ever once referencing her attraction to the MC, simply by the MC friendzoning her first. And unless you choose a romantic option in TRR2, Hana never, ever talks about this attraction for you again. Perhaps the only indication of her feelings that happens by default, is Olivia's calling out of the MC prior to Coronation Ball ("It might be fun to buddy up with Hana...but at the end of the day, she's going to go away heartbroken. And have you ever considered that you might be the cause?"). It hardly even sticks because it's brushed off so casually afterwards.

It is possible - even easy - for you to go through this entire series and the subsequent one, without hearing a single word from Hana herself, about either her love for the MC, or what it means for her to realize that she can love women.

What is absolutely striking about this when you look at these bits of writing as a whole, is how much the comfort of a straight (and possibly homophobic) female player is prioritized in the way Hana interacts with the MC. Hana's love for the MC has to be tailored to fit the player's comfort - Liam's and Drake's do not. A Hana who is told that the MC doesn't love her back is supposed to return immediately to "best friend" mode - no lingering sadness, no regret, her feelings are simply not allowed to have value on their own.

This is disturbing in itself. But perhaps this would be mitigated by seeing Hana's sexuality play a role in other exchanges that may have at least a romantic aim, right? So let us further explore other possible relationships, even the ones where she has no interest yet must enter in with the intention of marriage:

Peter

The Cordonian Waltz scene with Hana in TRR1 is perhaps the only one where Hana's queerness is at the center - or at least hinted to be. There is a compelling collision between her growing feelings for the MC (if you choose to romance her) and the memory of a man who almost married her - who we never see in the actual book, but who is referenced in later scenes as a looming example of her "failure".

Hana speaks of Peter with a mixture of gratitude and pain - she is careful to tell us that he was a nice man who handled their situation more kindly than she expected him to, but is also aware that he had the privilege to expect sweeping romance from a relationship in a way that she never could. Her description of their engagement cuts into the pain of living in the closet - not only does she not love the man, she also feels immense confusion and guilt at her "inability" to do so ("even though I told him what he wanted to hear, I couldn't hold back the tears"). Whether or not the MC flirts with her in this scene, this story (thankfully) features, and has all the power and intensity that you'd expect from a scene about a queer person in a closet.

Back when TRR1 was the only book out, many players found this scene hinted strongly at Hana being lesbian, and I'm inclined to agree. There is an emotional intensity that suggested a realization that she couldn't love a man, couple with her attraction for a woman. And while honestly Bi Awakenings can be just as powerful, I can see why it would be read this way more.

(This is not the only time we learn about Peter. Hana's subsequent stories about him tell us one very interesting thing about her life with her parents - that she is not only closeted, but also a virgin. At truth-or-dare, she describes her first kiss with Peter as a staged performance that crashed into disaster when he missed and punctured his lip on her earring. The first time the MC seriously makes out with her, Hana tells her that her relationship with Peter had always been chaste. Canonically, she has never had sex nor actual sexual contact before the MC. This puts her in a doubly vulnerable position because not only is she in the closet, but she also has no rubric for what sexual dynamics are like, and that can change how certain LI scenes could be read. For instance, when the MC who is engaged to someone else sleeps with Hana, there is an added layer of exploitation, considering there was no readiness for sex when they were not official.)

We are never given a default scene that even picks up on the threads Hana leaves with this story. But ironically, Peter is referenced twice by other women to label Hana a failure. It really goes to show you what the team thought the most important takeaway from this scene was.

Liam

The two things to keep in mind with any interaction that features Hana and Liam is that 1. They're both LIs, and 2. Hana is a lady of the court, and ladies of the court are often given limited interactions with Liam (at least, if you're not Olivia) because the focus of his story is so trained on the MC. So they're friends in group scenes, have a handful of interactions independently, can speak positively of each other to the MC - but there is never going to be any closeness that can be misinterpreted as romance.

Hana's stated purpose when she enters Cordonia is that she hopes her chances at marrying Liam will be better than that of marrying Peter. Yet, romance wise Liam is a non-factor for Hana early on. There is no question of her having romantic feelings for him, and because Liam's story is (from the beginning) primarily about the conflict between doing his "duty" and loving the MC, there is no expectation from his end either, which means the transition into stating they are friends happens pretty soon after the social season ends.

We have dialogue from both of them speaking about each other even outside of group scenes (Liam telling us why he appreciates Hana as a friend in NY, Hana telling us an adorable story of Liam helping her on her first day in Cordonia) but very little that references the brief time when she was supposed to woo him. Which is alright, because it hints at an easier and less painful dynamic than what she had with Peter, and a far less annoying one than what she has with Neville.

Unfortunately, however, the narrative seems to add her not being picked as Liam's bride on her "failure" list, which is egregious when you realize that literally no other woman from the same social season is measured by that ridiculous, sexist standard. It also points to a disturbing aspect of the worldbuilding in general, but I'll get back to that a little later.

Rashad and Neville

These two characters enter at a rather interesting point in Hana's story. She is either interested in the MC, or not interested in any relationship at all, but faces threats from both her parents and Madeleine to either get a male suitor or leave Cordonia. Even the MC, regardless of her feelings for Hana, is viewed positively in this scene only if she stands in as Hana's wingwoman, with her optional offer to be a suitor not even seen as a viable option. No matter whether there is a romance or not - the MC seems strangely distant from the very real possibility that her potential lover may be forced to marry another man, which is a real contrast to the possessiveness and scorn Drake's MC can optionally show when it comes to Kiara.

The one good thing that comes out of this subplot is an awareness from Hana, that these two are not viable options for her anyway. Straight off the bat, she can by default consider them boring, and the few times she speaks about them she can articulate what she finds dissatisfying in her interactions with them. Rashad recedes in the background once it's clear that Neville likes her more (though he briefly features in TRR3 to help Hana with a contact for her father's business). She is eventually allowed to push back at Neville, independent of her argument with her father, and let him know exactly what she thinks of him (on the flip side? She does this in defence of Drake, and Neville becomes the main antagonist in Drake's TRR3 subplot from that point on).

As I mentioned in the previous essay, Neville is Hana's final straw when it comes to obeying her parents. He is disagreeable enough to her that she has to put her foot down. Whether or not the MC takes an interest in her, Hana clearly feels marrying Neville is beyond even her limits of endurance, and the prospect of marrying him coupled with her defence of the MC is part of what propels her to defy her father in Shanghai (Sadly, what could have been a default coming out moment is instead turned into an vague argument about friendship and self-reliance).

This may work...as long as it is a springboard to Hana's self-discovery both within and outside of her romance with the MC. If it is something that opens her up to either dating, or figuring out who she is and what she likes romantically. Which...doesn't exactly happen.

These are the men we see with "relationship possibility" in Hana's story, yet it is clear that she has no romantic interest in any of them. The dynamics with some of the men (esp Neville) revolves around her discomfort with those relationships. We do not see any other examples of this furthermore in the text, and often this is used as an example of how she can't possibly be bi (which is honestly a legitimate argument when you take into account what we said earlier about "Twitter canon"). The MC is the clearest indication for her preference for women...except that it centers the MC more than her, and mostly depends on the player's comfort with her sexuality to even be seen.

With that said, do we have any examples of her having anything romantic with women? Women who aren't the MC??

Madeleine

"But Lizzy," I can hear some of you say, "what about Madeleine?"

Which is a fair point. Every LI had an alternative LI (though Maxwell's was scrapped almost as soon as he became an LI) and Hana was no different. Madeleine was very clearly intended, by TRR3 at least, to be Hana's alternative LI. On the surface, this should sound like a good thing, right? Hana's sexuality and feelings for women could be acknowledged beyond the romance with the MC, right??

Well...if you like bully-victim "romances" that revolve around the bully, I guess.

If you squinted, maybe you could see something that would pass for a hint of romantic symbolism in TRR2 (the bachelorette activity Hana had planned for Madeleine hints at her believing the two are supposed to have a date after the chocolate fondue party), followed by a handful of scenes in TRR3 where Madeleine could imply having a crush on Hana (these scenes only appear in her single playthrough). In between these two things...is Madeleine's admission about wanting to "break Hana".

I've already addressed the chocolate incident and its implications in the essay of "The Ladies of the Court", so I'll be skipping straight to the "romantic" implications of that scene and how that "romance" is framed thereafter.

Many Madeleine stans often treat the chocolate incident as a one-off, which is not only wildly inaccurate but callous in its minimization. Madeleine in her position as Queen-to-be, constantly reminded Hana of their power dynamic and in fact threatened to send her back to China if she didn't manage to get a suitor. The source of a lot of Hana's anxiety in TRR2 revolves around very real threats Madeleine had made. The chocolate incident wasn't just one bad thing Madeleine did that one time, but an escalation in a string of abusive and threatening behaviours. Which means that once the writers established Madeleine and Hana as possible endgame (as they clearly wanted to do), they were faced with the choice to either address what Madeleine had done to her and have her face consequences, or retcon it completely to make the romance easier for Madeleine. They chose the latter.

On the surface you can tell exactly which trope the team might have been going for - the Armoured Closeted Gay/Bi that usually involves a gay/lesbian/bi character dealing with their discomfort of their sexuality by harming another gay/lesbian/bi character. (We've seen a variation of this in ILITW, with Lily Oritz and Britney - except that the situation revolved more around Lily's unresolved feelings for a bully who was once her friend, and she had the freedom to choose differently when Britney disappointed her at the end. It's still problematic, but Lily is given a healthy sense of agency within this dynamic). This trope often involves bullying, which is justified as them coping with their confusions and possible self-hatred. There are ways to ensure the victim is centered in such a dynamic and not the perpetrator (which you can see, to an extent, in an example like Lily's), but it can also center the bully and ignore the victim's perspective. In Madeleine's case, this trope was part of a bigger "redemption" arc - one in which she was a patriot with a neglectful and overly critical father, grieving her lost chances and learning to find purpose in her new job - with Hana being subtly positioned more as a prize for her dedication, rather than as a person with her own opinions and agency. It shows in the way their interactions in TRR3, when the narrative was trying to subtly push the ship, are framed.

There are five distinct scenes total in Hana's single playthrough that hint at the possibility of this relationship in TRR3. Madeleine's "stupidly perfect" dialogue in Fydelia, Hana and Madeleine cross-referencing each other in their scenes at Costume Gala, Madeleine's nonapology and offer for a dance in Vegas, Madeleine's reaction to the Hana MC asking if she's "jealous" prior to her wedding reception (she reacts a bit flustered about Liam - the man she was going to marry - and Hana, versus her casual dismissiveness at the same question from a Drake or Maxwell MC). I'm not including the finale conversation, as that was an attempt from the team to backtrack on the ship completely, post backlash, and therefore features excuses that contradict canon to make Madeleine's reasoning sound legitimate. Three out of these five feature Hana, and you'll find a common thread in at least two of those scenes:

In both scenes, Madeleine hints at her attraction for Hana, but Hana is only ever allowed to be surprised and at the very most say that she never expected that from Madeleine (and while Hana can - thankfully - sound a slight bit suspicious of Madeleine's motives in Vegas, the "tricks" she mentions do not match the intensity of what Madeleine actually did in TRR2. Which makes sense, considering they were already retconning the chocolate incident altogether). The end result usually has Hana say...very very little about what she feels.

There is only one scene among these five that even allows Hana to vaguely imply any interest in Madeleine at all, in fact - at the Costume Gala while talking with the MC and Olivia:

The writers made a subtle distinction between her compliments for Madeleine in her single playthrough, and Kiara in her LI one, by having them be more personal for the former, and more neutral with passive language for the latter. But it is one in four scenes that have Madeleine talk more, express more, articulate her feelings more, with little space or agency left for Hana. Hana almost feels like an afterthought in these scenes.

In each scene that features the two in this "romance", Madeleine is the one whose thoughts and feelings matter. She feels Hana is "stupidly sweet and perfect". She thinks Hana's company is more bearable than most people's and that she would "be willing to let bygones be bygones" when the MC speaks of her earlier behaviour. She feels that mayyyybe she mayyyy have wronged Hana. She is asked if she feels jealous of the Hana!MC. She feels her abominable behaviour towards Hana would actually be justified if Hana had been "fake" like she'd suspected. And you will see this even in the way many fans who support the Madeleine x Hana ship frame the "romance" - Madeleine's feelings are explored more, Madeleine's actions are justified, excused or downplayed, and Hana's feelings and journey are clearly not as worthy of exploration.

We hear so much about what Madeleine thinks of Hana and almost nothing of what Hana thinks of her (until the epilogue, and even then Hana is allowed only a few lines about needing time to forgive Madeleine, while Madeleine's assumptions and excuses dominate the conversation). So even in the one other relationship that would have confirmed Hana's sexuality, the feelings of the woman who harmed her have far more value.

This leaves us with the MC, who is the only person Hana is actually allowed to express a clear attraction for, and who functions as the catalyst for her LGBTQ Awakening (another trope, which shows a queer character emerging into a realization of their own sexuality), yet there is no real space for Hana to move forward if the MC isn't interested. There is no real attempt to have her awakening lead anywhere if it doesn't benefit the MC. The narrative wants to give the MC the credit of being Hana's first, in every way possible, but cannot be bothered to move it away from the MC if she doesn't want to be.

And even if the MC decides to romance and marry Hana, the fact that they're a queer couple is hardly ever addressed. Questions that Hana could have as a wlw, are hardly ever brought up. In TRH1, while the writing changes to accommodate alternative ways of getting pregnant for a wlw couple, a lot of the dialogue seems to remain the same as it is for the male LIs (esp the ones about "making babies" and sex). When she marries the MC, the narrative forgets that Hana was ever in that damn closet to begin with!

In the end what Hana gets is a story that moulds the importance of her sexuality according to the comfort of the player, but that won't allow her to explore her sexuality on her own terms outside of the MC. It's a sexuality that centers the protagonist, rather the the actual person experiencing that journey. The only two romances PB allows her are about the other person, and very rarely about her.

But romances aren't the only way one can highlight a sexuality journey, though they are one of the most effective. Being part of the LGBTQ+ community...is also about community: about realizing that there are many others like you, and that you can find solidarity among people who have experienced similar journeys, about the LGBTQ+ culture of the place you're staying in. So...does TRR attempt to do at least that?

Heteronormativity and Cordonia

There are ways you can address sexuality if you don't want to push forward a romance. Have the closeted character meet other queer people. Have them join communities dedicated to LGBTQ support, and engage in activities that support queer people. Hana is a voracious reader so having someone recommend her books by queer authors wouldn't have looked out of place either (ACOR did a variation of "lesbian character reading lesbian literature" by having Sabina and the MC read out Sappho's poetry). Have her rethink feelings she may have misinterpreted as closeness or hero-worship of someone (eg. maybe a famous female celebrity) to realize that what she had was a crush. Sure, this may not center the MC, but if Drake can spend chapters whining about his sister and Maxwell can spend more chapters believing in the goodness of his obviously-evil dad, then dammit Hana could have been allowed space to see her sexuality beyond how it could benefit the MC.

Not only does the narrative NOT do any of this, but they also reinforce heteronormativity in several sequences, while aggressively retconning previous indications of it so to avoid addressing possible past homophobia.

I've mentioned before that the Cordonian Waltz scene is perhaps the closest Hana gets to speaking about her sexuality, in a roundabout, unaware way. While her engagement with Peter, and the reason behind their subsequent breakup is the center of her story, it is just as much about her parents' heteronormativity - where they would throw only men at her for marriage, where Hana had clearly never even thought loving a woman was possible before, where the traits her mother assumes to be attractive to suitors tend to appeal to men in the court (acting like a damsel in distress, for instance). Everything about her parents' training screams heteronormativity.

The Cordonia of the first two books seems to reinforce this somewhat. It is depicted as a stiff-upper-lip sort of society that focuses on "propriety" and is squeamish about PDA, and most of the relationships we get to see in its world seem to reinforce heteronormativity. Perhaps the closest someone ever gets to openly mentioning they're queer is Maxwell in his TRR2 finale scene, where he speaks about flings with "people", which gave rise to the hc that he was pansexual. Hana herself gets to engage with a queer character or two (such as Marguerite from TH:M in TRH1) and even gets to encourage Kiara during truth-or-dare when the latter is asked to choose women she can date.

In TRR3, the narrative seems to lean more towards theories about TCaTF (equating the Great Houses to the Five Kingdoms, showing us weapons from those times, having more Duchesses than Dukes and having Liam remind us that one of their most iconic rulers was a woman), which didn't seem as heteronormative (eg. Tevan can casually talk about his male and female suitors in the middle of battle, Annelyse is openly flirting with Kenna when they first meet). In addition to this, the choice to make the reception from the public, of the Hana x MC relationship, the same as the other LIs...allowed readers to view Cordonia itself as a society that views relationships that are not openly hetero, as normal. Queer dynamics are okay, I guess, as long as the narrative doesn't have to work to show it.

Unfortunately, the lack of real thought and planning that strategy suggests, leads to moments that would seem out-of-pocket or strange in such a world, yet not treated that way.

A clear example of that is this scene. Cordonia at this point is supposed to not discriminate between men and women, and okay with same-sex relationships. Yet Hana - the closest we have (until the hints about Madeleine) to a canonically queer character - is considered a failure for two men not choosing her! In a narrative where, optionally, she is marrying a woman and on the verge of becoming a Duchess! And this persists even after her goddamn marriage when the queen of a neighbouring country can mock her the same way!

This is bad enough already. But from the same chapter emerges something even more insidious - the erasure of Hana's own background, especially the components of heteronormativity we saw in her Cordonian Waltz scene and the argument with her father:

"New money" was never a factor in Hana's family's reasons for choosing the matches they did - direct or implied. The gender of her expected partner was. Not once did Hana's parents ever try to put forward a powerful, titled woman of old money, and this story was filled to bursting with them. Hell, even the Cordonian Waltz scene shows us that Hana was never even allowed to think in the direction of loving women! Yet the narrative thought it appropriate to wrap up Hana's arc with her parents - whose isolation of her and control over her relationships led to her being unaware of her own sexuality for years - by erasing that very important detail.

The narrative itself treated even Hana's wedding as an afterthought. She was never really viewed as another bride, never given all the perks that the MC got. Their wedding was written (like Maxwell's) with glitches galore, including the infamous "husband and wife" label from the officiant that openly ignored the player's own choices just a few chapters before. And as I've mentioned in previous essays, the writers made no distinctions between bride!Hana and bridesmaid!Hana at the reception, resulting in the uncomfortable image of Hana doing bridesmaid duties in her wedding gown. One book later, people were teasing Hana and the MC about all the sex they were having to make babies, and the only real difference between Hana's single and married playthroughs...was that married!Hana could learn she couldn't get pregnant. In her single playthrough, despite the core theme of her story being self-discovery, she was hardly given any life of her own.

When this is the way the narrative itself treats Hana's sexuality, what hope is there that they will allow her any sense of community with her queer identity, outside of the MC??

Lesbian or Bi?

It is a testament to how little Hana's sexuality mattered to the writing team, that even after the end of TRR3 the fandom was still debating over whether Kara's Twitter canon had any weight.

It didn't need to be this way. They could have made Hana's confession to the MC actually default. They could have allowed her to actively show interest in a woman (or a woman and a man) and center her in the story with that alternative LI, rather than treat her as a prize in a former antagonist's story. They could have even peppered the story with hints that she was going out, meeting other people, learning on her own that she was not straight and letting us know clearly what she identified herself as. And while sure, this may be too much to ask from a company that often sidelines its female LIs, the fault still lies with them for making her a person so deep in the closet that she had to come out to herself first. (Which, btw, they never allowed to openly or subtle reference in canon).

Hana was called bi by a story lead of the book. The same story lead claimed she was going through a journey of discovering this, yet nothing in her actual story supports that. She shows no attraction to any man in the books, but we also never see her show any real, obvious, consistent, canon-supported attraction to a woman that isn't the MC either. The only other possibility of a relationship revolves around someone who'd found joy in harming her, with little to no agency for Hana. Her sexuality was spoken of as "something she is still figuring out for herself" yet it's been six books since and we've heard nothing about what it is she's figured out.

The narrative would have lost absolutely nothing by making her a canonical lesbian, or even a canonical bisexual, yet pushed her into a version of the "mechanical bi" template where she could either show her attraction to ONE woman in particular, or just keep that aspect of herself hidden forever. And while one may assume that her "figuring out" of her sexuality happened offscreen, it is clear that her writers were too uncomfortable with her sexuality themselves, to provide clarity, to even want to give it any value beyond the MC's needs and desires.

In closing, if I were to sum up how TRR treats Hana's sexuality, it would go something like this:

Hana isn't allowed past romances. Hana isn't allowed future romances. Twitter canon claims she's bi yet only has her briefly talk to four men she's not even interested in. The only woman she's allowed to actually date is the MC and even that is moulded for the MC's comfort levels. The only other romance she's "allowed'' is with someone who wanted to break her, and she's hardly even allowed an opinion on that person's interest in her. Her parents are shown to be homophobic but when the team wants to soften them further they erase their homophobia. And then she is never, ever, EVER allowed even a sense of community with other queer people because the fucking world they built is actually so fucking heteronormative!!!!

It is clear, therefore, that even Hana's sexuality is written in a way that it's never about her - it is written for the MC. If the MC romances her, Hana's whole sexuality story begins and ends with this one person, with no future reference to what her closeted past was like or how her journey progresses beyond her marriage. If the MC rejects her, the narrative never bothers with what happens next for that story. It is the MC who romances her that benefits from her attraction, and the MC who doesn't want her love that benefits from her silence.

Hana's story of her sexuality - as with many other aspects of her writing - begins in uncertainty, but ends in erasure.

Next: China, Cordonia and "Home"

#hana lee #hana lee: a study in erasure #long post #lgbtq #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale

[lizzybeth1986]

Power Dynamics Pt 2 - The Ladies of the Court

(Click here to read the rest of Hana Lee: A Study in Erasure!)

Previous: Power Dynamics, Part 1 - The MC

"White feminism swears it will unlock the door to equality and let us all in if we will just hoist her through this window

on our backs

and ain’t that just like white feminism, always getting up on someone else’s back." - Rachel Wiley, "The Dozens".

--

From the beginning of the series, the Ladies of the Court - Madeleine, Olivia, Kiara and Penelope - have represented "the court". All four were born and brought up in Cordonia, all are noblewomen from prominent estates. Of them, two already possess titles (Duchess Olivia and Countess Madeleine) and two are heirs to the estate, whose parents run the Duchies. The MC joins the ranks of these women in TRR3, when Liam gifts her the province of Valtoria.

Hana, however, does not. Even though she is part of the court, and one of their most versatile courtiers, she is the only woman who gets neither titles nor lands of her own in canon.

Why? This is an important question, and is in fact the whole point of this section - but before I get down to answering that, I think we need to look into how the narrative situates the other women, and empowers them (or not).

I will be looking at the kind of treatment these women get, on two counts:

1. Political Power: What status and titles do they hold within the heirarchy of Cordonia, how do people interact with them both when they're in power and when they're out of it. If they cause harm while in power, how often do they face the consequences? Does the narrative try to mitigate these?

2. Narrative Agency: How does the narrative handle their personal issues? When they're in a moment of crisis, what opportunities does the narrative offer to help them? If you have a choice to not take up those opportunities, do you face consequences?

And most of all - what does the narrative allow them that they rarely ever allow Hana? How does this affect Hana's story?

Penelope

I start this essay with Penelope, because while she doesn't have much political standing, the narrative has figured out how to frame her positively while still retaining her in a "follower" sort of role, which otherwise would be seen as a liability. This wasn't a framing they had planned, or had worked towards from the beginning. For instance if you look at TRR1, Penelope starts out like most of the courtiers - gossipy, classist (in response to one dialogue option, she even calls the MC a "commoner wench"), laughing if the MC fails.

She changes into the "ditzy", poodle-loving courtier in the second half of the book, completely shedding her "I'm-not-nice", classist outlook by the finale so that the only thing we remember about her is her love for poodles. But even then, there is zero indication of her eventual role in the plot against the MC - none of her scenes in TRR1 show any signs of discomfort or guilt. It is entirely possible that she was included in the list of people involved long after the end of Book 1.

Interestingly, by the time we find out she was guilty both of sending Tariq to our room and paying the photographer, we're also given hints that she suffers from social anxiety. I've written before about the great lengths the narrative has us take to make her comfortable, so I will not elaborate on those here. But it is important to note how things change immediately after we question her:

1. After TRR2 Ch. 10, Penelope's involvement in the plot against us is never mentioned again. The narrative treats it as if it had never happened

2. Madeleine treated Penelope like a servant during the engagement tour, and constantly berated her. The narrative reminds us of this during our first visit to Portavira, and during our own bachelorette party, if we simply point out that she hasn't followed the dress code.

3. Multiple options are given to the MC, to make Penelope feel comfortable in TRH. Whether it is helping her dance at a Texan bar, or helping her decide what question to ask during truth or dare. In TRH3 we wind up so involved in her wedding that we become both her bridesmaid and her officiant, our child becomes her flower girl, we can give her a bachelorette party if we spend diamonds, and we even help her pick out lingerie (this is not even to talk about how we can encourage her to handle the situation with her ex-husband). All so her father will not vote to have our child snatched from us.

A lot of her storyline after the TRR2 reveal revolves both around her deciding whether she wants to be part of court or not, and her relationship with Kiara's brother Ezekiel, which culminates into marriage in TRH3. In both of these arcs, her comfort is tantamount. In the latter case, one can even say that Ezekiel himself - despite being Kiara's elder brother - exists solely to be Penelope's love interest.

Penelope doesn't have a lot of political power - but a lot of that is out of choice. Her parents run the estate that will one day pass on to her. She has no prominent positions in the royal council, and is generally seen more often at balls, functions and parties. TRR1 and 2 have her (reluctantly) be part of the court, and in both cases one could say that the narrative has someone more powerful prey on her. In TRR1 (though I'm pretty sure it wasn't planned when they were writing it), it was Constantine and Bastien...in TRR2 it was undoubtedly Madeleine. But once we find out about her social anxiety and how deeply uncomfortable she feels in public settings, the MC can provide solutions (such as bringing her poodles along) and keep her safely away from court. She eventually turns her talent for sewing pet fashion into a profession, and spends very little time on the politics of the country. Her father, instead, becomes Portavira's representative to the Royal Council and we later find out her mother has joined the Via Imperii.

Penelope is clearly not the type of character that leads others, or takes a lot of initiative. Unlike Madeleine or Olivia she doesn't have a lot of strong opinions, and when mistreated she struggles to push back. Despite this, the narrative makes sure she has agency within the text. Until TRH3 with Madeleine, Penelope was the only courtier the narrative made script-diversions for, depending on the MC's behaviour and words. She could refuse to engage with us (despite being guilty of betrayal) if we weren't nice to her in Paris, she could reject our offer to join the Unity Tour if she couldn't trust us to protect her. Interestingly, even if the MC is not interested in being nice to Penelope, other people in the core group step up to that role. In the investigation it is Hana, and from Book 3 onwards, it is Drake who becomes protective of her, and angry when someone tries to harm her (he tells a worried Penelope that they won't let Madeleine do anything to her at the Unity Tour. At Penelope's wedding he seems bizarrely invested in the whole Guy-Penelope-Zeke drama. Yes, the same trauma-minimizing Drake Walker). The narrative ensures that she has protection, both in the group and with her parents, and she is allowed to reject things she feels uncomfortable doing. The MC is often expected to accommodate her, and the general consensus seems to be that she's "been through a lot" and deserves the world.

You know who else has been through a lot and deserves the world? Hana.

Hana and Penelope may be very different people, and both clearly have very different moral compasses. But we can often see parallels between their stories in canon. Some of this is unconscious - but in at least one case the narrative makes an obvious connect.

The parallels come up most in two instances - one, about Madeleine's bullying during her engagement tour, and two, when Penelope's ex tries to blackmail her. Both Penelope and Hana were at the receiving end of Madeleine's bullying, and both Penelope and Hana had a broken engagement/marriage. The MC comforts Penelope, but ignores the magnitude of what Hana went through - even to the point of normalizing Olivia's mockery of it.

The difference between the two is that Penelope is allowed to voice her grievances, and everyone else has to readjust their expectations to accommodate her. In Hana's case the narrative either engages in complete erasure, or in using her to highlight someone else's plight. When it came to Madeleine's bullying, Hana was forced not only to pretend that she was okay with her, but to outright lie about the events of Madeleine's bachelorette in a dialogue option.

The narrative gives Penelope the space to react negatively to people who harm her, while never needing to take full responsibility for how she harmed an innocent person. The same narrative robs Hana of this space, both for the comfort of the characters at fault, and for the MC's benefit. Penelope can expect kindness and support, Hana is expected to only give it. There is a pattern of giving Hana as much pain as possible that then goes unresolved, because working on that would be inconvenient to whatever the group's goals are at the time. So when they use Hana's broken engagement only to drum up sympathy for Penelope, while subjecting Hana herself to scorn and mockery for the same...what else can such a narrative be called, but heartless?

Madeleine

Madeleine is perhaps the only recurring peer-age character who comes from TRR's parent series, Rules of Engagement. In both series' one writer, Jeffrey, was assigned her scenes. This is what he had to say about her in an interview before TRR2 dropped:

It's fun to write someone who's constantly trying to spin a situation to their benefit, and making power plays along the way. I've actually been writing for Madeleine since her appearance in Rules of Engagement: Book 2, so we're practically besties.

And this sentiment was obvious from the way Madeleine was written. She may be just a Countess, but whenever she makes an appearance, the writing places her in a position of power and authority among peers no matter the title the other person holds. She is a clear frontrunner from the moment she enters, and commands absolute respect and obedience from the courtiers as Queen-to-be (especially in the face of her taunts and insults). It is worth noting that in TRR3, when she is the MC's employee, she is allowed to order her around, insult her intelligence, and blame her for "not learning" without any exploration into her own poor work ethic (eg. the 100-or-so notecards she expects us to learn in 10 minutes). She is never really required to treat the MC - Queen or Duchess - with the same respect she'd once demanded of other courtiers. It is no wonder then, that in TRH we have to "tiptoe around her fragile feelings" to gain her "loyalty", and that the narrative blames us for her betrayal. Yet this principle was never once applied to Madeleine when she held power - not when she treated a lady from a Great House like a servant, not when she enjoyed breaking the spirit of one of her courtiers. In fact, her behaviour as Queen-to-be gets to be described by the MC as "not lying or cheating to get her way, just playing smart"(!)

From the moment she enters the social season, she is viewed by the others with a mixture of intimidation and awe. Even Olivia, who hates her the moment she realizes Madeleine is a rival, insists at first that we call her by her title (Countess Madeleine of Fydelia). Olivia and the MC become frontrunners as a result of their personal equations with Liam, but Madeleine gets ahead through her connections with his parents. If the MC doesn't gain anyone's alliance, Madeleine is deemed the only real choice (Olivia, too, is viewed as unfit for the role). She is so confident of her win, in fact, that she doesn't even bother to communicate with Liam until it's clear he prefers the MC, after which she makes an offer pre-coronation to allow his relationship with the MC to continue, under the condition that he marries her and makes her Queen. And it is Constantine's machinations that turn this imaginary scenario into a reality.

Madeleine's engagement to Liam changes court dynamics: the arrival of a new Queen-to-be brings with it a structured court, with ladies-in-waiting who must pledge their loyalty to her to survive. At the beginning of TRR2, both Kiara and Penelope approach the MC nervously to inform her that they can no longer be seen talking to her. Kiara can even admit that they could "get into trouble for talking with you this long" if the MC is understanding enough. And while being a LIW is a position of honour, Madeleine doesn't hesitate to treat them like servants instead, and compares women like the MC and Hana to dogs.

Her power becomes most prominent when it comes to Penelope and Hana, who are viewed as the "sweeter" ladies in the court. She constantly berates Penelope for her mistakes and labels her a disappointment, suggests Kiara exoticize herself to two suitors, and finds the idea of "breaking Hana"…fun.

She does this knowing she isn't Queen yet, knowing that her entourage includes women from the Great Houses. Her depiction in TRR2 is that of a power-hungry, sadistic woman, whose duplicity and self-interest towers over any sense of duty, and who doesn't seem to care that her actions may have consequences for herself and the Royal Family. It wouldn't be too far-fetched to say that had she and Liam stayed engaged by the Homecoming Ball, recruiting the other duchies into an alliance would have been an impossible task given the bridges she'd burned.

Yet, by TRR3, the same narrative tries to convince us that she is a patriot, a capable politician and brilliant when it comes to identifying what would be good for optics. How did the writers manage this?

I wish I could say it was just plain retconning, but that would be too simplistic and imply that the writers merely forgot. To understand how we got here, we need to see her appearances from the beginning of TRR2 to the early chapters of TRR3.

The narrative begins with the MC determined to clear her name and free Liam from his engagement with Madeleine (whether she loves him or not). In the first chapter itself, Bertrand tells us that the only way Liam can break this engagement is by presenting evidence that doing so would be in Cordonia's best interests. Which means that his current choice has to be proven guilty of something, not his past one proven innocent. This builds up some expectation that Madeleine may be involved in the plot.

Now, whether or not they originally intended that, is a mystery...but all the writing before Ch. 7 points to Liam getting out of the match through a discovery that Madeleine or her family was involved in something shady. The sharp pivot to Penelope doesn't even get build-up until Ch. 6, just one chapter prior. Whether this has to do with Madeleine being a particular writer's favourite, is anyone's guess, but the truth is that if Madeleine was really just meant to be a red herring, they wouldn't have waited till Ch. 6 to provide buildup for Penelope's betrayal.

Scattered throughout the first half of TRR2, are comparisons between the MC and Madeleine - much of it related to power, diplomacy and crisis-management. The MC is still the underdog at this point, but she is asked about - or placed in - situations where she can choose to act differently from the current Queen-to-be, or claim an equal level of competence. Her charm and friendliness is an alternative to Madeleine's power-mongering coldness. Madeleine's bachelorette is the tipping point of this dynamic, where her behaviour crosses over from merely calculating to downright sadistic. Her craven pleasure in hurting Hana achieves nothing but momentary self-gratification, and her response to the MC's (optional) accusation about it being "a low blow for a queen" proves that she has no real respect for the role bequeathed to her.

However, once this scene is over with and the focus shifts to Penelope, Bastien and the royals themselves, Madeleine recedes to the background. From the tea party in Paris to her disastrous wedding shower in New York, we see very little of her, and none of her past actions come up in the story. Instead, we hear about her from her mother Adeleide, who conveniently leaves us sympathetic hints about the stress she is under, and the finale shows us a Madeleine devastated by her failure, giving us warnings. By the time we got to the TRR2 finale, the constitutional clause that seemed to hint at implicating her was forgotten, and by TRR3 she magically became a Patriot with Daddy Issues. I was playing this series as it was coming out, and by the time we met her again in Fydelia, memories of the "chocolate incident" seemed vague (a chunk of fandom constantly downplaying the incident didn't help either).

The structure of the narrative facilitated this: when the incident itself was still fresh in our memories, we were being bombarded with other incidents (Penelope's betrayal, discovering Savannah), and the "resolutions" given for Hana in comparison were rushed and half-baked. Once we got some distance from the events of that bachelorette, the narrative could then subtly rewrite the entire episode, both in Madeleine's dialogue and that of others, so that Madeleine's own words, own actions, could be erased.

And yet...Penelope - Madeleine's other victim - is never forced to sugarcoat what Madeleine did to her, nor does the group forget/minimize it. Penelope doesn't go into lurid detail about it - she doesn't need to. The narrative makes it clear to us that Madeleine's behaviour affected her. The entire point of gaining her alliance in TRR3 is to prove to her that we aren't Madeleine. Even though Madeleine herself never has to personally bear the consequences of what she did to Penelope, it is clear that the latter will be protected if she chooses to come with us.

Hana's case couldn't be any more different, and part of that has to do with the narrative not permitting her to have a voice in this. At the beginning of TRR2 itself, Hana is made beholden to Madeleine, because Madeleine "brought her back" and therefore has the power to send her home in disgrace anytime. But we find out that very night that this is, at best, a half-truth. Not from Hana, not from Liam who made that deal with Madeleine. The person who got to tell us this was Drake and it is never discussed outside of his scene.

Hana is never allowed to tell us herself the full truth of her return. The narrative never lets her acknowledge this to anyone, instead making her play along with Madeleine's half-truth rather than use that knowledge as leverage. Within that time, she does whatever Madeleine tells her, expresses gratitude, and doesn't push back in the face of multiple threats. Nor do her friends bother to protect her. Had the flashback scene with the three LIs gone to Hana instead, and it had been openly acknowledged by the MC in conversation with Hana: all of the above would have sounded very, very bizarre. The narrative itself seemed to want Hana in a position of servitude, and therefore grants her absolutely no agency in the face of her suffering. Even the MC's choice to call Madeleine out, results in a situation where only half the truth comes out, and the MC makes no further efforts to set the record straight. This leaves Hana in a potentially dangerous situation that even she is never aware of. In the next book, the MC minimizes what Madeleine did to just "mean things" (and this is only by option), Madeleine claims that Hana would be willing to "let bygones be bygones", and Hana herself is made to (optionally) lie about the events of that night (and throw Kiara under the bus as well).

It isn't surprising that this erasure occurs around the same time as Madeleine's (optional) admission of her own feelings to Hana in Vegas. This is, after all, a romance that centers Madeleine - that views Hana as a prize for her dedication to Cordonia, her years of pain thanks to her father, and her alliance with the MC. Most of the hints for this romance are about Madeleine's feelings, Madeleine's journey, and - when a lot of us protested - Madeleine's guilt. In the few scenes that promote this romance, Hana is mostly relegated to looking shocked at Madeleine's admissions, or not even there (for instance, Madeleine can imply she wants Hana to the MC in both her scene at the Costume Gala, Ch. 9, or before the MC's reception [if the MC has married Hana]. Hana is absent in both scenes). Hana only gets a chance to say something in their finale scene, which clearly was added in the last minute due to fandom backlash and (from Madeleine's end) is riddled with weak excuses and retcons. Eventually in TRH, the only time Hana gets to even criticize Madeleine is when the latter complains about wearing a country outfit for Savannah's bachelorette, or if Madeleine badgers Hana's wife about getting pregnant (See? Even her criticism of her former bully's entitled behaviour has to benefit someone else, not herself).

Madeleine herself is never subjected to such a lack of care - the MC is rewarded for understanding Madeleine's pain and standing up for her to her parents, and TRH punishes her with betrayal if she doesn't coddle Madeleine for two books straight. And while (if you treat her nicely) Madeleine expresses a recognition that she's getting more kindness from the MC than deserved, such a recognition is purely conditional. In a playthrough where the MC is rude to her, she never needs to introspect or find fault with her own behaviour. Her own betrayal only results in her loss of a job - she is not stripped of her lands and estate, she still stays the Countess of Fydelia. Some may claim this to be a redemption arc, but I don't see what growth or "redemption" is actually feasible, in a narrative that keeps the perpetrator of the abuse safely away from the harsh judgement she should get for the same. The work for her so-called "redemption" comes mostly from us.

The MC is often viewed as a counterpoint to Madeleine, whether there is a romance or not. Both the women are titled ladies, both have some measure of power (in the MC's case, at least by the end of Book 2). Hana is considered socially less powerful than both of them. But the MC is Hana's friend: she is benevolent, she is earthy and relatable, and she has actual people skills, and at least on the surface can behave like her newfound role doesn't change who she is. The narrative uses Hana as yet another indicator that the MC, in a position of power, would be a far better option. But it never actually considers Hana's own journey in the middle of all this, or whether she'd truly be comfortable in the presence of one who found pleasure in harming her. Or whether she can ever trust a friend who kept that information from her. This is just one more source of pain that Hana is meant to bear mostly alone, and when it disappears Hana is expected to be grateful. 

Because there is such a lack of thought in the way Hana is written, a pattern exists of the MC showing a lack of concern as well. This is especially obvious in the way she treats the whole Hana and Madeleine episode. Her speaking about it is itself an option, she is allowed to withhold the most damning part of Madeleine's admissions, she doesn't think twice before including Hana in a conversation with Madeleine in Fydelia (TRR3 Ch.3), and she even forgets that Madeleine was fully intending to torment Hana until she broke in the finale. She can be a little insensitive to Madeleine too in TRH, sure, but the narrative punishes her for that. The narrative never punishes her for either hiding the truth, or telling a half-truth to Hana. Hana is expected to make do with whatever little is given to her.

While Madeleine and the MC are viewed as poles apart by canon, and while nothing the MC does can ever measure to the cruelty of Madeleine's behaviour, it is clear that both equations suffer from a gross power imbalance.

Olivia

Olivia starts out in the first book as a catty, classist, and impulsive Duchess - not too different from the original depiction of her ancestor and lookalike from TCaTF, Zenobia. But even then, the narrative is very, very eager for us to see her from the get-go as special.

How do we know this? The use of relationship points. We're introduced to the concept through the love interest, but the only person who is coded consistently for three books straight with relationship points is Olivia. We get multiple opportunities, from the encounter in the dressing room before the Derby, to the famous TRR3 scene where we scream her House Motto back to her, to gain her favour and get her to trust us. Gaining her trust is a slow, gradual process, made all the more attractive by the diamond scenes, the little moments where she can acknowledge she likes being our friend, and the background information on her family and her estate Lythikos. She has the added benefit of having one of the story leads involved in her writing, who happens to like the exact character type that she is. Here is what Kara Loo, who has been involved in writing her, said long before TRR was even born (here, she was talking about Val Greaves, but the description fits Olivia perfectly):

I love writing for characters that are a little meaner and will really just say what they’re thinking, even if it isn’t exactly tactful.

Before I get into the Olivia-MC and Olivia-Hana dynamic in particular, it is essential to note what it means when a writer/team leans more towards a particular ideology/political outlook than another, in the course of their worldbuilding. Besides being not-very-diplomatic, both Val and Olivia are written as coming from societies that value physical/military strength - Val is a mercenary (the strong lead, the weak bleed) and Olivia is from Lythikos (if you can breathe you can stand, if you can stand you can fight). A lack of patience for tact and diplomacy, and a tough exterior, tends to be an inherent part of the their worldview (Val however is more open with her emotions, as one can see from her relationships with the other mercenaries, Kenna and Raydan, and eventually her bond with Bubbles). TRR shows us a militaristic way of doing politics through Olivia, and a more diplomatic way through Liam, Hana and Kiara. But it is clear, from the focus given to each and how seriously the writers frame what these characters say, which one the narrative seems to favour more.

Olivia's glorification of violence and toughness is seen as part of her appeal, and while the narrative doesn't outright say so - there seems to be less respect for diplomacy and more peaceful pursuits (eg. How Kiara's family is framed vs Olivia's estate and traditions. Compare the Therons' "Flower Festival" to the tournament Olivia fights in, in TRH3. Which one is framed as vapid and ridiculous? Which one is depicted as a show of strength, and in a more dramatic way?). The books spend far more time and resources in giving Lythikos unqiue Christmas traditions, but hardly has the patience to show traditions that focus on peace, prosperity or art in other places. It is pretty obvious that Olivia's background is viewed as better, and is allowed more space, even though her way of doing things has serious, serious drawbacks. And the excessive pandering to her way of doing things, unfortunately, affects the way Hana is written as well.

From the beginning, the narrative shows a lot of the kind of thrust-and-parry that can occur between a character like Olivia, and a new person like the MC. Unfortunately, the first person to be caught between a confrontation with them is Hana. At the Masquerade, Olivia rakes up the scandal of Hana's broken engagement and calls her "damaged goods", leading to the MC standing up for Hana by default. This is a breakthrough moment in Hana's story with the MC, whether the latter follows her to her room or not. She begins actively offering help whenever possible from this point on. Given her lack of friends, how much the scandal affected her and how much it meant to her to see the MC push back against Olivia, it isn't surprising that her closeness with the MC occurs pretty quickly.

Olivia, on the other hand, needs to face rejection and potential humiliation before getting to such a point with the MC. She overplays her hand while hosting the ball at Lythikos - mistreating the MC and her friends, forcing a kiss on Liam to send a message to the other courtiers - which leads to Kiara immediately (if the MC convinces her) switching over to the MC's side and to her becoming significantly less popular by Applewood (this is only obvious in the failplay version of Book 1, though).

At Applewood, she seems more open to the possibility of confronting less, communicating more with the MC. Whether it is bitching about Madeleine, calling the MC out on not noticing Hana's feelings for her, or the finale where she can break down in the MC's arms after withdrawing (when Constantine sends her documented evidence of her parents' treachery), Olivia leaves open the doors to friendship by the end of the book. And a lot of this happens in tandem with her loss of social clout. She starts out as the most obvious choice, is threatened by a new woman that Liam seems to prefer more, and her downfall begins at the point when she is the most openly hostile to the MC. She forges a tentative new bond with the MC before she leaves (if the MC so chooses). What doesn't necessarily change is her attitude towards Hana.

Hana, too, is made to sit at the back of the ballroom at Lythikos along with Drake and the MC, consuming the same cold food and subjected to the same poor service. Olivia doesn't fail to insult Hana when she gets the chance - telling the MC at one point that she isn't "as mangy as Hana". The MC has the opportunity early on - if she pays for the scene - to tell Hana to hit back at Olivia the next time she says something rude to her, but Hana maintains even in that state that that isn't the way she does things. And what is commendable about Hana is that she sticks to her way of setting people straight when they assume her to be weak and sheep-like, as one can clearly see in her final diamond scene at Liam's Coronation. She doesn't resort to name-calling, she doesn't try to act tough but instead is honest about the fact that those words hurt her, and she closes by telling Olivia that her words no longer have power over Hana. The only downside to it is that it isn't for free - and given how they allow Olivia to speak of Hana later on in the series - it should have been.

Sidenote: This is a pretty accurate take on Olivia (besides the "pampered brat" bit, considering her childhood), and I wish the narrative had addressed this instead of taking the route they did with the Olivia/Hana dynamic. Because it is important to acknowledge that Olivia has tons of privilege. It is important to call her out on her sense of entitlement, not once but several times. Hana shouldn't have had just this one opportunity to call Olivia out on her shitty behaviour, because Olivia never really learned from it, and both the narrative and the MC like her too much to actually bother correcting her.

In TRR2, Olivia occupies the position of the Outsider, alongside the MC. In the eyes of the court, Olivia mysteriously withdrew from the social season and the MC was disgraced - therefore they're not part of the new social structure that has formed around the future Queen. Both are not beholden to Madeleine, and Olivia herself has the freedom to come and go from the events as she pleases. Whether or not the MC liked Olivia before, their positions bring about some measure of solidarity. This - along with her friendship with Liam - leads her to becoming part of the core group.

Maxwell and Drake both express wariness when Olivia is first included in the group, but not so for Hana. The narrative instead has Hana constantly reach out to include Olivia in the group's activities; in fact in the chocolate party diamond scene, Hana is the first to invite Olivia to stay. This is a pattern consistently repeated both in this series and in TRH (for instance, Hana can convince Olivia to join her at a dance during Savannah's reception). The dynamics, too, tend to lean more towards benefitting Olivia. The MC and Olivia have to work to gain each other's respect (though honestly even without the relationship points Olivia winds up supporting you in the end), but Olivia never has to put in that amount of work for the rest of the group. They're all made to accept her into the fold without her changing her stance towards them (though Drake initially puts up a bit of a fight).

The subsequent books involve Olivia as a central character, with several important scenes. She is confronted with the truth of her parents' and Lucretia's plans (the childhood betrothal with Anton Severus), and is given a redemption arc that ensures that the final battle scene between the LIs and Anton is largely focused on her (eg. the watershed moment in that scene is when the MC can scream back the Nevrakis House Motto to encourage her), and has the Queen Mother herself confirm that she truly embodies Nevrakis spirit as a force for good. To make Olivia's image as a warrior-like figure even stronger, the narrative even retcons her ancestor Zenobia. The woman who gave up her kingdom over the fear that her hair would be chopped off, who was more comfortable watching bloodshed in the form of entertainment rather than in serious battle, whose most important moment in the war was to throw objects at soldiers who invaded her room...is suddenly hailed as a fierce warrior who hid daggers in her Winter Festival outfit.

At the end of TRR3, Olivia tells us she will read up to see if there are any "hidden deals or laws that will come and bite us later". She rarely follows through with this unless a crisis actually blows up, but TRH uses this as a springboard to involve her in various "spy missions" so as to give her more individual scenes. (To give you an idea of how invested the narrative was in giving her this space - Olivia had 2 individual "spy" scenes and a childhood scene in TRH1, and three "spy" scenes and a childhood scene in TRH2. Hana only got one childhood scene, in TRH2. Which means...that for all of TRH1 she got no solo scenes, and no solo childhood scenes).

Very few of these "spy" missions thus far culminated in much useful action (eg. Olivia finds out about Operation Swan in TRH1, sits on that information, and the next time we hear about it, it has already been enacted and Olivia's contact with the Queen of Rivala occurs only after the Auvernese have all but taken over Cordonia). Like Drake's own diamond scenes - Olivia's scenes are often pretty self contained. They're really more about the knife jokes, seeing her be "badass" in a leather jacket, and comparing herself to other spies like Jin and Amalas. The information she could gain is often secondary to this.

The dynamics of the group with Olivia from TRR3 onwards shows her more comfortably settled into the group, but the "spy missions" allow her to have storylines independent of them too. Her equation with the MC herself, while warm and friendly (Bestieeeeeee!!), seems to have a few similarities to the equation with Madeleine - the narrative allows her to assume superiority over the MC, and often the preferred dialogue options involve the MC herself deferring to her superior talents (eg. The book reading at Lythikos). This remains even though the MC can be her Queen. This could be due to the thrust-and-parry nature of their relationship, but it does tell us how invested the team (and the fandom, who easily lap up these scenes) are in centering her in the equation with the MC.

The writers were in fact so enamoured of Olivia and Lythikos that they gave her an entire mini-book, The Royal Holiday, where the entire core group visit the duchy to comfort/support their desolate friend after most of the Great Houses seem to have abandoned her (in the wake of the information about Anton Severus and the Nevrakis plans for a coup). It extols the wintertime traditions of Lythikos and has all of them keep her company and lift her spirits. This is indeed ironic, given her own attempts to mock someone else whose reputation was dragged through the mud.

Hana's equation with Olivia begins with the latter looking down on her, and effectively ends with the same. Only Hana's attitude is expected to change.

She implies Hana didn't show a backbone until the public fight with her father. She issues backhanded compliments about Hana's diplomacy. She calls Hana a failure in front of her mother for the broken engagement/not being chosen by Liam, even when Hana is on the verge of becoming a Duchess. She looks down on Hana's "delicate nature'' and seems skeptical of her capabilities. There is an extra level of vitriol in the way Olivia speaks of Hana, that doesn't match either the way Hana is, or the way she's allowed to talk to Olivia. Not only this - Olivia seems to relish speaking of Hana with disrespect and scorn. And the MC, who is supposed to be her friend/spouse, doesn't so much as bat an eyelid in most of these scenes.

Hana gets one solitary chance to push back against Olivia, in a 30-diamond scene at the end of TRR1, and is never given any more opportunities to do so from that point on. What is even more egregious about this is that this scene itself is never acknowledged thereafter. Or else why would Olivia, in my playthrough where Hana did the verbal equivalent of ripping out her spine, quip about Hana "discovering a backbone" after the confrontation with Hana's father in Shanghai?? One may claim that this has something to do with the previous scene being paywalled, but it wasn't impossible to have a similar free one. The team has done that before for other scenes. Hana is also made to acknowledge Olivia's talents, credit her for the good things she does (eg. She credits Liam for finding the loophole and Olivia for voting 'no' at the Coventus Nobilis), and to even include her in the group's activities. All without getting much in return from Olivia herself.

This isn't helped by the dichotomy the narrative creates between the two women. Olivia is the tough warrior, Hana is the generous negotiator. If done well, a dynamic like this one would position the two as equally worthy of respect in their own right.

A good example of this would be this dialogue from Hana's playthrough during her child's Anointing Ceremony. Hana doesn't insult or undermine Olivia's interests, but emphasizes that hers are just as important (a pity there is no equivalent of this in her Single playthrough). Another good example (and a rare one from Olivia's end) is Olivia's response to Hana's outburst at Neville in the Beer Garden (TRR2 Ch. 17), where she tells Hana she should be proud of herself for facing him "with courage". Unlike their discussion at the Costume Gala, she does this without needing to attach insults. But the narrative very very rarely allows Hana to benefit from this kind of solidarity. And the most she is allowed when Olivia rakes up a scandal that Hana had no control over in front of her mother, gleefully aware that Hana is listening - is to glare at Olivia as the MC downplays the insult ("Well. At least Olivia got the job done". Interestingly, the MC can hit back at Isabella when she says literally the same thing, but the narrative has Olivia act angry about it as if she never said that!).

What the narrative does instead, is to position - without actually saying the words - Hana's emotions, Hana's diplomacy, Hana's silent way of working through these issues, as weakness. What it does is attempt to make Olivia sound like she is better, and this is achieved by ensuring that Olivia gets away with this behaviour, and that Hana continues to accomodate for Olivia in a way that the latter will never do for her.

But perhaps the worst thing about this dynamic is how the narrative tries to erase and rewrite Hana herself, to make Olivia better in comparison. The Hana who is a master at researching other cultures, is suddenly made to look small and scared if she and the MC visit Auvernal without Olivia's help, whereas Olivia is made to appear knowledgeable. The Hana who carried a large part of the TRR2 investigation on her back, bears no resemblance to the silly woman who talks about "romping" and adventure, and quips about "only killing when necessary" in the middle of a stealth mission, just so Olivia can look like she's the one leading the group ("Stealth! Right!"). We must remember that in the previous series, esp TRR3, Olivia showed an inability to read the room in tense situations (eg. Her calling the Ebrims "cowards" when they decline the invitation for the wedding due to an environmental crisis in their estate. The group has to scramble to cover up for her, and even then she fails to take a hint). While she has good deduction skills, she tends to be rash and impulsive. To make way for Spy!Olivia, and to ensure Hana couldn't steal her thunder, they practically retcon Hana's own skills, and give Olivia qualities she didn't exactly possess earlier - and this is never more obvious than in the TRH2 Olivia-MC-Hana spy scene, where Hana's behaviour borders on bizarre and OOC. I mean, there are ways to incorporate flaws into a seemingly "perfect" character, but this way of doing it sounds more like it was meant to benefit Olivia than Hana herself.

One should not ignore the role class and race (which I will speak of in another essay) play in these dynamics as well. As I've mentioned both in this essay and the last, that Hana starts out as a Lady, and (unless the MC chooses to marry her) stays that way all through the end of the series. Despite her lengthy list of qualifications, she has no lands of her own, no real home in Cordonia, and no title of her own either. And in a lot of ways I think it was written that way on purpose.

In Hana, the writers had managed to create a woman who would be smart enough and versatile enough to be of use to the MC...but always kept at a position of lesser power, always in a position of doing things for other people who were not as qualified as her. To achieve this, they ensured that she started out having no friends, with no clear rubric for what a normal friendship would look like. This resulted in her showing gratitude for the smallest kindnesses we tossed her way, while never acknowledging the times we failed to support her, while never having the opportunities to push back against more powerful women like others did. As much as the narrative would like us to pretend that the MC doesn't change from the "normal", sassy commoner of TRR1, the fact remains that with her aquisition of power her relationships and her priorities do change, and Hana is often at the bottom of her list. What this results in is a scenario where a Lady Hana cannot push back against a Countess or a Duchess, and her Duchess friend/wife likes said Countess or Duchess (or doesn't care) too much to actually call them out on their bullshit.

Conclusion

If I were to put this entire essay in brief, it would be to say this - whether you're a main character or a side, one thing is for certain. The more the MC likes you, the less she cares about how you treat her friend and staunchest ally. The MC's view of their treatment of Hana is dependent upon her relationship with them - if the narrative wants her to pander to them, it will downplay, retcon or erase how they treated Hana. And this wouldn't be as big of a problem if Hana herself was given the space to push back, but often she is forced to place the MC/group's comfort first. It is a never ending, vicious cycle that affects Hana's story and her characterization, while lifting up other characters.

You will notice I left out one courtier - Kiara. And that is because she is the exception to all these narrative rules, in every possible way. She is from a noble family, she "doesn't immediately agree with everything the MC says" (a claim that many Madeleine stans repeatedly use to explain away the general dislike for this character, as well as their love for her), she is experienced, she is talented. By all rights we should be seeing similar patterns in her story, but we don't. Like Penelope she comes from a Great House, yet her trauma and her struggles are ignored and minimized. Like Olivia she has her own perception of strength, yet the narrative prefers to oversimplify by framing it as "mean". And a lot of the compliments paid to Madeleine about "playing smart" and "being efficient" would be more appropriate when describing Kiara, yet she only gets these compliments when the MC and group need to use her. All three of these white women exhibit classism in some way or form, but it is Kiara (Drake-loving, Savannah-tutoring Kiara) who is labelled a snob. Despite their own cruelties towards us, the narrative expects us to coddle, pamper and praise them. But when Kiara doubts us even a little, on the (flawed) evidence she has, we have the chance to suspect her of evil and then never forgive her. Drake Walker gets to voice suspicions of her, again and again and again, book after book, while rising valiantly in Penelope's defence. The patterns are overwhelming, and the end result is always rather bleak.

Characters like Olivia and Madeleine (especially) tend to be popular among many wlw, and straight white women - and the TRR team writes them with characteristics and tropes often found attractive in white female characters (the Alpha Bitch, the Girlboss, the Strong Female Character). The WOC in the same book are treated with far less care in the books, and are set up to far higher standards in the fandom.

So it shouldn't surprise us that when the noblewoman is black, we're allowed to treat her with disrespect. And when the white noblewomen insult, abuse, scorn the lone brown woman, it is the duty of the brown woman to put the MC's needs before her own. To grin, bear it, and move on. And then act like it never happened.

(To see more of my thoughts on Kiara's treatment in TRR/H, read these:

To Be Not Heard: Kiara, Penelope and the Question of Validation

Though on Kiara in TRH2's Finale Scene)

Next: Power Dynamics, Part 3 - Lorelai and Xinghai

#long post #hana lee #hana lee: a study in erasure #the royal romance #the royal heir #the royal finale #anti penelope ebrim #anti madeleine amaranth #anti olivia nevrakis

[lizzybeth1986]

Liam and Kiara?

B

I mean, there are grounds for it to work. They're both cerebral, both have mothers who were/are invested in the arts and creative mediums, they'd have plenty to say on the basis of conversation alone. Kiara as Queen would be someone who would be a treasure trove when it came to knowledge on culture and diplomacy, and Liam would possibly match her in terms of interest and knowledge. I can see them as complementing each other.

As with Hana, Liam tends to also be on the more emotional side, and Kiara's practicality and no nonsense approach would balance that out. I can see both this couple and Hana x Kiara as the kind of couples that could talk for hours but never get bored.

Unfortunately, canon seems to have a bit of an obsession with not allowing Liam to even interact with Kiara on his own. Not once in the original series do we see them talking, even when they occupy the same space. Even Madeleine and Penelope are allowed a chat or two with Liam (there are at least 3 times Penelope is seen talking to him in Book 1 - though the edit team did take out one scene of hers with him in Ch 4, and Madeleine is given many interactions with him during their short-lived engagement), but multiple scenes go by without any exchange between Kiara and Liam.

1. Penelope interacts with him at the Masquerade (in a scene now edited out of current versions), at Lythikos and during the gift ceremony. Olivia is even allowed to force a kiss on the man! Madeleine chooses to ignore him until it threatens her position as frontrunner, then tries the most to grab his attention at his Coronation Ball. Kiara has zero interactions in Book 1 with him.

2. During the gift-giving ceremony, we see every suitors' gift except two - Hana's and Kiara's. Even Penelope's golden poodles is showcased as a comic moment.

3. The closest Liam and Kiara come to any "conversation" in TRR2 is in Ch 4 when Liam introduces the ladies of the court to Rashad and Neville. Even then, it is interesting that this is no two way conversation, and Liam introduces Penelope and Kiara together.

4. In TRR3, the writing team goes to the extent of writing Kiara out of a scene that she should be having with Liam in his playthrough, by replacing her with her father Hakim. The armoury scene at Lythikos allows for Kiara to chat with all the LIs in their respective playthroughs, except for two. Maxwell, who is hiding in the armoury with the MC...and Liam. In Liam's playthrough it is Hakim who talks to him.

5. Only the MC (and briefly, Penelope) speaks to Kiara about her father's refusal to come to the wedding, in Castelserraillan. Liam is not part of this conversation even though Kiara's injury - at his ball! - is a major reason Hakim scheduled their trip to Switzerland at the same time. Liam - bizzarely enough - is shown talking to Zeke and showing interest in learning more about him.

6. Now this is one of the rare times I am grateful Liam is written out of interactions with the ladies of the court. In Lythikos, Kiara is actively suspected by the group. Liam is not part of these conversations. He is conveniently dancing with Olivia when Kiara tells the group she is leaving, and both Liam and Hana are mysteriously absent - thank God - when the MC and Drake interrogate her at the Winter Festival).

7. Post TRR2, it could be understandable why Liam isn't given any scenes with Kiara. He is written out of most scenes that involve ladies of the court, except for Olivia (in certain playthroughs, the narrative notes an interest in her from his end). He is not involved in the attempts to convince Madeleine and Penelope in TRR3. But with Kiara the case is vastly different because she was never allowed scenes with interactions even when she was eligible to court him!

Kiara is basically never given the opportunity to talk to the man she is in the running to marry...even though white women in her position can. What could it all mean? Hmm. Hmm. 🤔

Even in TRH, any conversation between Kiara and Liam winds up happening just in his playthrough - in the scenes where she is speaking to the MC and her LI...which means that she is likely speaking more to the MC than Liam. Those scenes are coded such that he gives a response as "the spouse", not as an individual character.

Very unfortunately, this practice of keeping Kiara - and Kiara only - at an arm's length extends to the exchanges she is allowed with the heir as well. She is the only courtly lady who is purposefully written as not having any physical contact of any sort with the child. Meanwhile "Auntie Pen" can almost drop a sword on said child during her christening and give her bonbons at an age when she can't even have solid foods. The only time Kiara is allowed any contact of any sort is by option, if the heir chooses her in TRH3 to read Fat, fat Kitty to her. Even Madeleine is allowed an entire scene to babysit the child to win her favour but somehow we treat Kiara as if she isn't worthy of holding our child.

I know in the original series people may have assumed there was no ill-intent behind Kiara's lack of actual scenes with the man she was supposed to be courting, but by now there is no doubt in my mind that this was done by design. From the team's writers. And actively encouraged by a largely-racist fandom.

So...it's a pair that would have promise in fanfic (and I recall reading a pretty good one by @dcbbw recently! Warning: it's NSFW) and there's plenty you can explore there. Personally I find it not as A+ as Hana x Kiara (teehee. teehee) ...but it's a good pair that could really work if one was so inclined to write it.

#ask me #ask lizzy #ship ask #king liam #lady kiara #the royal romance #anonymous #this anon sent a previous ask that featured kiara too 😂 #long post