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opinions on lena rys? (sorry if this has already been asked LOL! I'm just interested to see your take)

Thank you for that question @elusetta! It's a pleasant and lovely surprise to get a question like this one... though idk if you'll actually like what I have to say here.

(Also lmao half the fandom will probably hate me for this essay, but everything I've written here is the truth. If y'all want to cling to your biases instead, fandom, be my guest and skip this essay)

I have two kinds of opinions regarding Lena - Lena as an individual character, and Lena in terms of what the writers wanted narratively.

As an individual character...eh. She's okay. On paper she could be promising, but on the whole she starts from one tangent and lands somewhere else altogether midway (and while one can say this of any character in the series, the fact is that, in her case, those inconsistencies all co-exist in the same book!).

Lena is an incredibly self-contained character. Sure, she is both the key to the VI's takeover of Cordonia and the weak link that facilitates their downfall - but there is very little she has to give the story or the other characters, and far more that they are constantly expected to give her. She is first presented to us as more of a loyal soldier to the VI, but mid-story she would have us believe that she'd be a better monarch and had always wanted to be queen. She is part of a cult that claims to be anti-monarchy, yet decides she must be queen and operates under a cult filled with monarchs. And there isn't enough pushback against the notion that a glorified puppet to a murderous cult would make a good monarch, and Lena gets away far too easily with her own crimes at the end (thanks to the brother she had spent the whole book mocking). Most of our time is spent coddling her and pampering her and convincing her that we genuinely like her, and very little on her actually self-evaluating. Like Olivia before her, she's there simply to be cosetted by us (by her brother Liam in particular) before she can afford us even a tenth of the grace she's been given.

And while I'm sure a horde of Lena stans may land on this ask to bleat about her tragic childhood and Sigrid's brainwashing, I'd like them to ask themselves one thing. Even the most conditioned person will find themselves questioning beliefs they grew up with from time to time. (Hana had done that on her own - several times - during the original TRR series, and this same fandom had no problem calling her "weak"). It takes Lena forever to even question Sigrid's weird logic. Yet I'm supposed to believe she'll make a great queen just because she's got military skills? Even though her critical thinking is...barely there? (And believe me, enough people in fandom were celebrating the notion of Lena replacing Liam and what the VI were doing for a portion of the story).

There are possibilities to make such a character compelling - someone who believes they have agency and independence only to realize they are lowly pawns can make for a good inner conflict, and could provide the core group with a good contrast as well - but not with this team, or this fandom. Not with a head writer who will simp for the Val Greaves/Olivia Nevrakis character type against all logic, not with a fandom that is forever desperate to make Liam their personal scapegoat. Not with a team and fandom who are uncomfortable with acknowledging their own favourites' actual flaws. Both of these groups only saw her armor, snark, gun skills and hatred of Liam, and decided she was a great character based solely on that.

Personally and out of the larger context of this story, I don't particularly mind Lena as a character. In a better story that had more balance, I'd probably be more sympathetic. I prefer some of the sweeter and softer female characters, or the characters that represent diplomacy in a series like this. I'm a lot more protective of them nowadays because they tend to be looked down upon most of the time (especially if they are default WOC!). And that happens more often than not with this series!

--

On a narrative level...well. Buckle up coz I have a real bone to pick with the writing team and the fandom on this specific issue.

Narratively, Lena is the most obvious sign of the TRR writing team's cravenness and shamelessness, and the biggest sign of their disdain for the character that gave them the whole premise of this series.

Mind you, I cannot blame solely Lena for this. She is just a culmination of what the team was already doing to Liam. Kneecapping Liam was a process that began early and went on for six books, with fandom encouragement. Liam, contrary to the fandom's claims (and the Drake stans - whose favourite was himself eating up other characters' space on the regular - complain about this the loudest), was already being disadvantaged in several ways.

Here are just a few ways that events that happened to Liam (or storylines that should have been his) but were instead centered on other people, including the MC:

1. Traumatic events:

The assassination attempt that left Liam so traumatized that he could barely eat, and made him shut himself off to everyone, was never incorporated for his benefit. He never gets to talk about it, the MC herself never bothers to ask him about it. It only exists so Drake can sound less whiny about staying in a place that he hates.

The assassination attempt that kills Constantine? At a time when Liam had to grapple with questions about his own rule? Guess what Liam gets. A solitary tear at the finale, and a small scene for the Heir about growing apple trees two books later.

We find out in TRH1 that Godfrey was involved in the plot to kill Eleanor, and in TRH3 that Bartie Sr was his partner in the crime. We center the children of the murderers for the rest. Liam gets barely 10 seconds to attempt to banish Godfrey (the book ends on the latter's successful escape, and the MC conveniently goes into labour at that moment), the next two books require us to pamper the everloving shit out of Madeleine, and Maxwell - who, might I remind you, emotionally blackmailed his brother into giving Bartie Sr his title as Duke and made his father's coup possible - spends more than half of TRH3 playing the betrayed victim.

What does Liam get? A few seconds of the MC mouthing platitudes when they find out, and one scene where Liam is allowed to gaze sadly at daisies. Maxwell gets to weep about his traitor father ad nauseum while barely acknowledging the friend who lost his mother thanks to the same man, Madeleine gets to spend most of TRH2 and 3 expecting us to treat her with kid gloves otherwise she will help Bartie Sr kidnap your child. Honestly, Drake Walker got way more time to moan and gripe about his sister living safely in Paris on Beaumont money!

Most times we hear about something tragic that happened to Liam, it serves to benefit other people - notably team favourites like Drake, Olivia, Madeleine or Maxwell. The entire base of TRH is the mystery of Queen Eleanor's murder, yet the person whose feelings matter least in this story is Eleanor's own son.

Most times when something horrible happens to Liam, or when he discovers something disturbing about his past, the MC hardly pays much attention to him, while showering whiter characters with sympathy and diamond scene moments for less horrific revelations. The same MC who can tell Olivia that it's okay to seek support, or comfort Drake with a drinking game, or convince Bertrand to go easy on Maxwell...has barely any time or interest to support Liam, even when she's married to him.

A Drake stan I'd spoken to around the time of TRH3, once claimed that the narrative may have been trying to balance things between "prominent" LIs by "giving Liam the plot elements" and "giving Drake the emotional baggage". This is an argument I have seen often in the fandom - that "the story makes sense only with Liam as your spouse" ergo he has the biggest advantage of all the LIs. This is directly related to Liam's role as king. Let's take a minute to explore how that is dealt with in the story.

2. Power and Monarchy.

Often Liam is considered PB/TRR's "golden boy" because he is the "royal" spoken about in the title and featuring in all the covers. The popular argument is that the story makes sense only if you married Liam and became his Queen.

However, this argument misses (perhaps deliberately) one very important thing. Even this is mostly centered around the power Liam gives the MC. Liam's attention or even power doesn't increase within the narrative by giving the MC power - in fact it is pushed so far back the narrative often seems to forget who he is, and tosses his role to the MC, Queen Consort or not. His being king hardly seems to benefit him narratively - it is only used to benefit the MC.

People forget that even on a level of being Queen Consort, she shouldn't be having the kind of power she's been given in the narrative, or replace the king. Yet that is exactly what the narrative does.

One of the arcs that was promised for Liam was about the kind of king he hopes to be. As a Crown Prince he grapples with this question, and as a King he faces constant doubt and fear over his capability to rule. When he discovers that his father masterminded the plot against the MC, that moment was written as if it could be a turning point in how he views ruling. At the TRR2 finale he vows to never let fear overpower him the way it did Constantine, and before that in NY he tells the MC that she inspired him to take the reins and have more belief in what he wanted to achieve.

In TRR3, the writers barely bothered to address this conflict at all, besides a line (said in passing, only in his playthrough) about his plans for compensating the Applewood farmers until the new crop could harvest, and a couple lessons on diplomacy for the MC's benefit. Even his role as a king was viewed more in terms of how the MC could use his knowledge, not really as an important aspect of his character. The writers spent far more time forcing Liam to look sadly at the MC that wasn't marrying him, just to appease certain nonLiam stans who missed the love triangle. He was essentially given no real plot of his own in TRR3. This definitely didn't track with the promises made for his storyline in the TRR2 finale in any way or form.

TRH is far more brazen in this respect. From the point that the MC becomes Champion of the Realm/prospective Mother of the Heir, the narrative cedes so much power to her...that it almost treats Liam as a noble rather than the literal King of that country! The royals at the first Ball she hosts in Valtoria address her as if she's the only "monarch" that counts. Isabella questions her about Eleanor rather than Eleanor's actual son. Amalas stalks her constantly. Nobles directly address her as if she's the only one ruling (eg: Kiara's comment about "reactive ruling" elicits a response from the MC, rather than from Liam who is actually standing there).

Even if the MC was the consort ruling alongside the rightfully-appointed King, it still didn't make sense for the narrative to replace him with her in discussions that were meant for the actual person in power. In addition, the narrative itself views her - across playthroughs - more as the Duchess of Valtoria than the Queen of Cordonia - we see her duchy more often than we do the Capitol, there is very little reference to what she does as Queen Consort or any duty she may have to perform on that score, and King Liam himself is made to behave more like a Duke (eg. The only time he's allowed to push back independently against Bradshaw and Isabella in TRH2, is a ballroom duel that is proven pointless by the Auvernese drone attack that they framed Monterisso for).

Most of the power to make decisions is taken out of Liam's hands and given to the nobles who run the Royal Council - and once those decisions turn out to be bad ones, the blame is placed solely on his shoulders even though it was made jointly. Half the characters talk over Liam and directly to the MC about "her rule", even though she is a Queen Consort at best and a random new Duchess at worst.

The MC - who is never really shown doing any actual work for the country or thinking about her people. The MC - whose only political act outside of the shenanigans she gets into with her friends, is a line about contributing to charities. This woman has a wholeass library in her duchy and access to endless resources before that...and still needs to be spoonfed information about neighbouring places by the likes of Hana Lee. This woman started out working in a bar close to a rat-infested dumpster yet never shows a lick of concern for the average commoner in her duchy - forget her kingdom if she is the Queen. She is literally given all of Liam's power, while hardly having to do any of Liam's work (and if you're going to pretend he doesn't do any work? I suggest you read this essay to see what you missed!). And all that is fine - but if this fandom is alright dragging Liam for "being a sucky king" and "partying all the time", I'd better see you guys hold everyone else - including your favourite characters who rule over entire provinces, and your darling MCs - to the same parameters.

By the time we get to TRF, this is the amount of power the narrative gives to the MC:

Not only is Liam's role nerfed to that of a Duke, the narrative itself has no qualms saying the quiet part out loud: Liam isn't the one that matters, the MC is. Liam's decisions and opinions mean nothing, the MC's does.

And this isn't something the MC herself is against, canonically. She enjoys having that power. She revels in it. No matter how badly the fandom wants to make a victim out of her and a Rumpelstiltskin out of Laim - this is a role she accepted wholeheartedly and enjoyed, while not having to work much for it. As a reader you may assume that your vision of the MC wouldn't be comfortable with this role, but canon in no way depicts your assumption as true. So it's not even as if - contrary to fandom's claims - these were roles Liam forced on her.

To revert to what I said at the beginning of this section - the plot runs because Liam is the king of the country and was the reason we came to Cordonia. But in a context like this, that is not at all an advantage. The farther into the story you go, the clearer it is that Liam's role benefits the story more than the story will ever benefit him.

3. Family

Another thread that runs through all the LIs' stories is that of their families. Most of the mystery surrounding the past revolves around Liam's, Drake's, Maxwell's, Olivia's (and briefly, Hana's) parents and their histories - but it would be helpful for once to look at how the narrative frames these stories, and how these characters benefit from them. Are the LIs' themes explored adequately through the inclusion of these stories? Does the LI's feelings get validated by the group, or dismissed? Does the narrative try to downplay the pain they may have endured in childhood, depending on which LI/prominent character the writers preferred?

A prime example of how the narrative uses the family background to their character's advantage is the Drake-Savannah story. Savannah is constantly viewed from Drake's lens, even when it is revealed that she's actually living a comfortable life thanks to a pair of nobles. Drake is STILL allowed to use her "experience" as an example of the "bad, no-good, dastardly nobles", is allowed to look down on the one noblewoman who befriended Savannah, and is allowed to punish Bertrand all the way into TRR3 for perceived slights.

While Savannah likes Bertrand enough to want to marry him, it is Drake's judgement of him that is centered - Savannah brings what he said about Bertrand up whenever she wants to badger him into doing her bidding, and Drake himself is allowed to humiliate Bertrand just to give his agreement to their match. Savannah's wedding is literally the wedding Drake described in a TRR3 diamond scene as his dream wedding (Ice Palace, TRR3 Ch 11), even though canon had her aspire more to the noble life than her brother. That wedding lasted half the book, and involved Bertrand being further humiliated by Drake's family. Despite her many flaws, canon chooses to view Savannah as "perfect" primarily because that's how Drake views her...and Drake can never be proven wrong on anything (even if the team has to do a retcon to make it so). This extends to the rest of his family as well. Canon attempted to create Leona out of whole cloth so that Bianca could appear less of an asshole (an attempt that failed), and Jackson is depicted as a close friend who Queen Eleanor trusted with the news of her pregnancy, yet somehow he never did anything nor asked any questions after she was dead and there was a potential child out there. His father is still the innocent among innocents, the best person and friend that ever existed. Drake is centered in most stories surrounding his family, and so is his perspective.

Maxwell gets something similar to this treatment later on in the story, specifically with the way Bartie Sr's coup and Bertrand's perceived betrayal is handled. The coup itself begins with Bertrand handing over his title and responsibilities to his father - a move facilitated directly due to Maxwell's lies and retcons about Bertrand in his book. Maxwell spends more than half the book clinging to some weak hope that the man - who is literally staging a coup of Maxwell's friend's throne, and later kidnaps a child - is a good man. His tirade against Bartie Sr being a bad parent, in Valtoria, hardly acknowledges what Bertrand had to suffer. As mentioned earlier, when Bartie's treason was revealed Maxwell centers that truth around himself even though the son of the woman Bartie killed is right in front of him (there's a vague promise about how he'll do anything to bring his father to justice, but that's about as far as his communication with Liam on this goes). And finally, even after it's been made clear that Bertrand was secretly supporting the core group, Maxwell and the group still behave like he did something wrong and continue to mistrust him, to the point of expecting him to apologise and suspecting him in the next book to be in the VI (though Maxwell does initially stage a weak protest to this). All this, while never having to acknowledge Maxwell's own role in getting Bartie Sr closer to power!

The team pretends to do something similar for Hana, but with egregious retcons. While in TRR her parents' motives are tied to Hana having a beneficial marriage and furthering their fortune - and they come close to disowning her for wanting to follow her own path - in TRH the narrative aggressively retcons their story so that their motives are attributed to affectionate worry and protection, rather than control. While it is great that Hana still isn't required to forgive her mother, the narrative forces her to soften Lorelai's motives in a way that is insulting to her original story. I won't speak more on how Hana's story was handled, as I do so in detail here. Olivia, while not an LI, was given far more grace from the narrative; she was given an entire holiday book to ruminate over what to do with her traitor aunt's necklace. Throughout TRH, she is involved in and heartily lauded for various "spy missions", most of which culminate in nothing because all she does is sit on that information and not tell anyone (with very few exceptions, like the reveal about Bartie's murder of Eleanor). That story is wholly centered around Olivia and her comfort. Ergo, even a side character can get plenty of space for their story if their writers actually give a damn.

Which brings me to Liam.

There were problems already in the way Liam and his family issues were explored, even before Lena came along. Stoicism and the pressure to show a sense of calm at all times was an accepted trait of Liam's, and it was one that his fans had hoped he would emerge out of as the story progressed. Yet the narrative only allowed him to show strong emotions when it was centered around protecting the MC (see: Liam's confrontation of his father in TRR2 Ch12, or fighting Anton in TRR3 Ch 21). The MC was far, far less proactive in this respect, even as she acted as counselor and teacher and guide and angel of mercy to numerous white characters in the same book.

When Liam's father dies right in front of him, the narrative forces Liam to deflect and keep it moving, only allowing him to shed a single tear at the end of the book. TRH finds Liam hit with reveal after painful reveal of the plots behind his mother's death, and he is allowed barely seconds to even show an emotional response to this - much less be comforted. In each case he is meant to move ahead as if this wouldn't affect him, as if the next mystery is more important, as if he didn't deserve support.

A support that the MC doesn't mind lavishing on Drake, Maxwell, Olivia, Madeleine, Penelope, White Noble no. 1, 2, 3, 4...the list is endless.

Into this already-skewed situation, enters his sister Lena, who hates him. She spends half the book verbally shitting on him and the group, calling Liam weak, claiming without any actual experience (besides heading a company) that she could do a better job leading and fending off coups and plots that he and his friends already managed to thwart. The narrative uses Liam's love for family and need to reconnect to this unknown sister to make sure Lena is centered in whatever reveal comes forth about their mother.

This wouldn't even have been as big of an issue if every other instance where Liam bore immense loss wasn't pushed aside as less important. If they didn't restrict the MC's concern to lukewarm platitudes and the occasional causal question. Lena getting this moment all to herself wouldn't have mattered as much if Liam wasn't constantly forced by the narrative to push his hurt, pain or anger aside when he discovered his father's illness...or when his kingdom was under attack...or when his father died...or when he discovered his mother had hidden a pregnancy...or when he discovered his mother's first attacker...or his mother's second attacker...or the King Guard who betrayed his family...or the cult that clearly wanted to kill his mother and keep him away from his sister...you get the picture.

In fact, the lack of care extends to the way the core group deals with the Lena situation as well. When Lena is first revealed to be both The Fist of the VI and Liam's long-lost sister, the core group callously scoffs at Liam's suggestions to communicate with her, rather than trying to comfort him. Even Hana, who has to sympathize and speak positively about the likes of Madeleine and Olivia - women who have harmed her and have regularly undermined her - is made to sound like she has no patience for Liam's obvious internal conflict. If anyone could understand how hard it would be to let go of family whose motives can be harmful for you, it would be Hana. Yet the team has her place timelines on Liam's emotions in a way the group never bothered to do to Maxwell in a somewhat similar situation, in the previous book.

Of course, once the MC decides it would be a good idea to win Lena's trust, the group magically sees this aim as legitimate. For the rest of the book, Lena is pampered, cosetted, coddled, shown around Cordonia and treated with kid gloves, all while trashing on Liam without much significant pushback. The entire story revolves around her journey from a skeptic of the group to realizing they are genuinely good people. All while her brother who gave us this series languishes in the background - his own power snatched from his hands and passed to the MC, his own traumas and tragedies forgotten, his own emotional baggage thrown away so Lena and Drake can take centerstage.

At the end of the book, when the group gets closure from Sigrid over VI and her multiple betrayals, it is Drake who gets the most space to react out of the group alone. The book begins with his discovery of Bastien's involvement in the VI, and allows Drake ample space to grieve and ruminate over it (btw, let's forget entirely that Bastien has been King Guard this entire time, and that meant that for all five years of his rule and for many many years before that, Liam and his family had a walking talking security risk "protecting" them. Coz who cares if the King of Cordonia dies, amirite?) When it is discovered that Jackson died while working undercover to expose the VI, it is Drake who gets the most time among the group to confront Sigrid, and it is Drake who gets to give a lengthy monologue to his dead parent, for which the MC and Liam are required to stand there and comfort him. In contrast, Liam gets just one line in a scene about the person who masterminded his mother's death. It is Lena instead, who gets to react emotionally to that - because the Sigrid story itself was created specifically to pander to this one just-created character.

Lena wasn't created to add to Liam's story like Savannah was. She wasn't meant to share their joint history like Bertrand and Maxwell initially were, or sidelined for the sake of another side character related to another LI like Bertrand was. Lena was created to replace Liam as the center of a tragedy that happened to him, that affected him, that haunted him for years, that had repercussions on his life...that he was never given any real space to emotionally explore.

Drake's story benefitted from Liam's trauma, to the point where only he was allowed to talk about it and where his perspective was the only one given value. The MC's story benefitted from Liam's power, to the point where she damn near replaced him narratively in that role despite never doing the work, while the fandom laid the entire blame on Liam ad nauseum and not her. Over and over, in plots and coups and murders that hurt his family, other people were allowed to talk, allowed to think, allowed to feel...while Liam got maybe one teardrop per parent.

In the same trajectory, one can clearly see why they developed a character like Lena in the first place. The writers spent 6 whole books heartlessly picking at parts of Liam's story and giving those bits away to their actual favourite characters. Bit by bit, from his experiences to his work to his role, they whittled away Liam as a character until he was left with practically nothing. Do you think they would seriously just stop that process with TRH3? I mean, the head writer is someone who likes "mean characters who speak their mind" and her disdain for characters who represent diplomacy and peace isn't even thinly veiled. Of course they'd go further!!

Lena was created with the sole purpose of ensuring Liam never got adequate closure for himself. They simply passed on that luxury to her, and the fandom who hid behind "Liam gets everything!!111" while never speaking up once about the gross favouritism directed towards their own beloved LIs and side characters, cheered the same team on in this.

I can say this with complete confidence: had Liam been a default white man, like Drake and Maxwell were (or like Ethan Ramsey in OH or Ernest Sinclaire in D&D were), Lena's story would have looked very, very different. In fact, I highly doubt she would even exist.

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