#sevenkings

[celeseah]

It was a Day of #Sovereignty and #Regal Energy, on my trip to collect my new car 🚘 yesterday, travelling on the #london #elizabethline I passed a place called #sevenkings who would have known. #exploring #freespirit #magicalmundane #adventuretime https://www.instagram.com/p/CejC5zpqpqm/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[sciencefictionthoughts]

The Dark Brotherhood

The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings almost reminds me of the Dark Brotherhood, an assassins guild, from Skyrim. They’re both female lead organizations that face death by fire. There is just something about how female leaders playing with followers like puppets that makes me relate the two. While the leaders are nothing alike, the similarities in criminality and ending made me feel like there is some similarity here between the two. Maybe it’s just that they share the name Brotherhood? Or maybe its because its two organizations led by women who face death by fire? I just know there’s something that made me feel like they were related. 

[sciencefictionthoughts]

Firestarter

One of the songs that recently came up in my recommended was a song called Firestarter by Victoria Carbol and when I got to certain lines all I could think about was Madame Koluchy’s death scene. This is technically a song for the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas, but these lyrics work for Koluchy as well. 

“Baby, I'm a firestarter / Push me, I'll push back harder / Never was afraid of getting burned / Heir of Ash, the Queen of Flames”

These lyrics to me just brought the image of Koluchy to my mind with the way she acts. How when Norma Head gets close she pushes back and tries to kill anyone stopping her. How she decides to destroy herself almost literally making her an heir of ash, or rather what was left of her. These lines just brought that scene to the front of my mind with how proud Koluchy stood there knowing she was going to die, like a queen facing down death and daring it on. I just loved the image of “ Heir of Ash, the Queen of Flames “ relating to her death scene like she is owning what she decided to do and proud of it. 

[sciencefictionthoughts]

Madame Koluchy

As much as I enjoyed The Brotherhood of the Seven Kings, I think I would prefer it from Koluchy’s perspective. I’m a sucker for reading from a villain's perspective and I think it would be so interesting to see how she played people and planned around the heroes. I just love the idea of a female villain as a lead and with the way she crafts her crimes, it sounds so interesting to read about. I just think that while reading as a detective is fun, reading as the person outsmarting the detective is more fun. I also just think that Madame Koluchy is an amazing character and want to see what goes on inside her head.

[sciencefictionthoughts]

Ruin

There a song I’ve been listening to lately called Ruin by Victoria Carbol and I think that it really fits Dr. Chance from The Blue Laboratory. In general, the message of the song and the story I think fit with Dr. Chance at least partially, but there are a couple of lines I think really fit Dr. Chane:

“I’m a monster clothed in skin / I’ve traded kindness for control”

I think these lines really fit Dr. Chance as those are the actions he took and he is even described as a monster in the story. Dr. Chance traded kindness to his assistant and Madeline for control over them to force them to participate in his experiment. He gave up his kindness because force got him better results. And I think this song fits him in general; someone who was tempted and fell for it and in doing so sold their soul for their dream whether it was fame or simply his science.

[sciencefictionthoughts]

Female ‘Mad’ Scientists

While there were female scientists before the 20th century, I imagine the 20th century saw an increase in at least acknowledgement for these women. For example, Dr. Louise G. Rabinovitch became known for her experiments and was acknowledged for her work. This increase in female scientists, at least those who got attention, seemed to have sparked the ‘female mad scientist’ trope into existence. Originally, it seems as though these female mad scientists were originally just continuing the work of say a husband like Malita from Devil Doll but they also began to have their own goals and own experiments. Female mad scientists seem to be when women became able to lead and run extreme science in literature, at least as far as I’ve seen. I really enjoyed seeing this change in how women are represented in literature, especially science fiction. 

[sciencefictionthoughts]

New Woman

The idea of the New Woman was, at the time, controversial. It seems weird looking back at it now for independent women to be controversial or for women in colleges to be controversial. I do enjoy though how Meade uses the idea though. She uses it for heroes and villains and in that way makes the idea not the problem. Its the people who go too far, those who claim it for nefarious purposes, who are at fault for female villains or being ‘bad new women’. Meade removes the idea from the balance of good and bad and puts in its place the individual which makes the idea more perhaps not palatable but understandable for the time. 

[sciencefictionthoughts]

L.T. Meade

L.T. Meade was an insane author in the amount she wrote and the genres in which she wrote. She wrote over 300 books and in multiple genres, even inventing medical mysteries. I don’t even know any modern authors that could come close to the amount that Meade wrote. I will definitely be checking out some of her other books. I truly don’t know how she wrote so much and she picked her collaborators well as the science in her novels reads amazingly form what I’ve read. From modern inspirations to her imagination, L.T. Meade wrote some amazing stories and somehow makes them seem grounded no matter what is happening.