Dionora as Queen--
Dionora is genuinely just kind of a quiet, shyer, person
she’s not there to be the life of the party and rally the court
it makes her kind of mechanical, which doesn’t help her much socially--she’s been trained to say all the right things, she knows the language of the court & how to use it, but she really relies on that mechanical skill set & it shows sometimes--she’s left floundering when people go off-script
tends to be passive; in some sense because her upbringing was very much based around things being decided for her, in some sense because Set really swiped the ground right out from under her and that leaves her reeling when she needed to have been solidifying her position
taking awhile to produce heirs is difficult
lends an insecurity to her role in court, since there’s an undercurrent of suspicion now that she might be replaced
adds further difficulty to her relationship with Alisaunder, which escalates the destabilization of her position
the relative prosperity of the empire adds security to her wider role with the populace, but there are stirrings of what’s wrong with her? and that doesn’t help
Thessaly & Flavia’s birth marks a change for her
she insists on having Olympia with her when she goes into labor, even though it’s a breach of detente, and when a Healer tries to protest, she’s in enough pain and stress to spit at them that she is the Queen-Mother and they’ll do as she wishes
(Note: royal birthing practice is that like all (non-leprosaria, non [dirt-people]) women, queens go to the Healers to receive gynecological care; unlike most they’re confined their for the birth and for three months after, until there’s a reasonable surety that the child won’t die, then they hold a royal procession back to the citadel to enshrine the child in the Royal Sanctum)
her being absent from the court so long means that people start to miss her, since she really is the grounding element there
Dionora grounds the social court; Whitsun grounds the political arena; Set functions as a marginal figure who in some ways centers rumor-mongering in the court--kind of a triangle around Alisaunder from whom all power flows
She makes quieter connections
summoning Set to her quarters was in many ways a gracious gesture--she was working to assert her dominance, but she was also acknowledging him as a person & conferring a certain legitimacy by allowing him to meet her face to face, openly summoning him
if things had been--different, she might have let Set kiss her hand before he left. She does that much later, publicly, and it’s enough of a Gesture that even Alisaunder notices
she reaches out to Laveum (?)
(NEED to understand charity in this world, ffs)
she helps to ensure Olympia’s stable entry into the court
Olympia functions far better than Dionora in some ways, just because she’s naturally gracious, she has Whitsun’s implicit support & Alisaunder’s explicit support, she’s Stunning and that helps, but she’s also landless, exiled, and a potential geopolitical bombshell; standing with Dionora gives her legitimacy
she does clean up after Leonora
(need to think about this more)
maybe not always for Leonora’s sake, but just for the sake of keeping peace in the court; later certainly for Leo’s sake
her kindness to Leo is notable
being with Dionora can be a respite from Leonora
Dionora doesn’t put pressure on him like Leonora and Alisaunder do
Dionora asserts her right to Leo against Leonora
(most of Dionora’s assertiveness tends to be around the children)
being queen-mother does entitle her to Leo, and she sometimes feels that she needs to protect him--she feels that she needs to protect all of the children, but with Leo she can sense he wants her protection, unlike Flavia and Thessaly, and honestly having one child who will let her protect them is really great for her