![]() Poor Scarlet on her own would seem to be no match for the forces of evil arrayed against her. For female characters who have experienced powerlessness, taking control of someone else’s will is not a trivial thing. Winter uses her gift as a last resort in self defense and to save her friends. Cinder asks permission when using her mind control powers, and she only does it so that the bad guys don’t grab her friends’ minds first. Unlike those who use their powers for evil, the characters on the side of good are conflicted about taking free will away from others. Of all the princesses, only Scarlet has no extraordinary mental ability: Cress hacks, Cinder and Winter both have the gift of mind control. However, Meyer uses “brute force” mind control exclusively in The Lunar Chronicles as a way to level the playing field for her female characters in terms of raw power. As Ted McCombs has pointed out, mind control often falls into two types: “the brute force attack” or “the subtler, defter manipulations a person’s longings and fears.” The second type is more useful in revealing character. In The Lunar Chronicles, the supernatural power of mind control is more than just a fun plot device for increasing dramatic tension. (That Thorn is cast in the role of the damsel in distress is a clever twist, and utterly believable.) Here the mind control abilities of the two women make any advantage of physical strength or firepower irrelevant. Levana holds a bound Thorne (the trickster pirate) as hostage. Later, the finale is a confrontation with a more “masculine” tone: Levana and Cinder, alone in the throne room mano a mano. But Cress broadcasts a video revealing Levana’s deformity and the queen flees in humiliation, leaving her mind-controlled subordinates to do the dirty work. ![]() Twice.Ĭinder and Levana initially confront each other at the head of their respective armies, setting up the expectation that the confrontation will be more of a “feminine” moment of community vs. But for each princess the final confrontation with their villain deserves some close consideration.Īnd seriously: more spoilers below! You have been warned. In The Lunar Chronicles, all four princesses pass through classic stages of the hero’s journey, some closer to a typical “hero” moment, some conforming more to the “heroine” version. While I do not believe this to be universally true, that is a topic for another post. Female characters, on the other hand, are expected to build nurturing coalitions of community to face the villain collectively. Conventional wisdom holds that male characters must go it alone to confront the villain mano a mano in the final scene. Much has been written about how the hero's journey of a female character follows a path fundamentally different from the journey undertaken by a male character. She is a brutal, mind-controlling psychopath, who uses her victimhood to justify conquest and torture. As an adult, she hides her scared and broken body behind an illusion of female beauty. Levana: The psychopath Queen Levana was brutalized, tortured and humiliated as a child. She is also immune to Lunar mind control, and so she is able to take out a big chunk of the opposition. She is Cinder’s sidekick, and the most girly-girl and boy-crazy of any of the female characters in her concerted effort to be more like a “real” human girl. Iko: The fangirl Iko is an android in the tradition of Star Trek: The Next Generation’s Data. In the final battle she breaks her own vow never to use mind control in order to save Jacin’s life. Jacin, her prince, does a lot of guarding and rescuing, but ultimately follows her into danger. She is determined to do what is right, even at the risk of her sanity and her life. She is exceptionally beautiful and humble. She is plagued by hallucinations, but sometimes she “puts an antic disposition on” to undermine her step-mother, Levana. Winter (Snow White) is a kind of female Hamlet. These two are head-over-heels in love with each other, but not without their doubts: Cress thinks she’s not pretty enough for him, and Thorn thinks he’s too much of a jerk to be worthy of her. Her prince is Thorn, a ladies' man and second-rate pirate who knows he’s a cad. She is imprisoned in a satellite and made to spy on the Earth for the Queen Levana. Considered less that human by Lunars who collect shells as infants and perform medical experiments on the ones they do not murder. She is a “lunar shell,” unable to use, but also immune to, the Lunar gift of mind control. Cress (Rapunzel) is a hopeless romantic and expert hacker. Cress and Captain Thorn: A couple of tricksters.
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