SUN OF THE MORNING

Thus translates the name of Chamsous-Sabah, an Eastern girl-queen featured in the Michel Ocelot film Azur and Asmar. She has the run of her redoubtable palace, is taught by "the best preceptors in all corners of the world", and, unlike the common people, is not afraid of Frenchman Azur's blue eyes, can speak to him in his mother tongue, and thinks black cats don't bring bad luck.

Able to speak several languages, she constantly thirsts for knowledge, and challenges tradition and prejudice.  She has led a sheltered and solitary life with books and foreign adults for friends: all of her male relatives have either been poisoned by ambitious courtiers or slain on the battlefield. But, in spite of her age and gender, she is certain to outwit those who threaten her life.
Yet being the ruler of a vast empire does not mean she behaves like a little adult: she likes skipping and running as much as any ordinary little girl.
Chamsous-Sabah is courageous and optimistic. In her own words: "All the men in my family have either been poisoned or killed in battle, either against enemies or against each other. It's sad, but existence has got to come to an end. Now it's our turn to live and be useful!"
Based largely upon Queen Christina (transpose her from her medieval Eastern country to seventeenth-century Sweden and bleach her!: both are hyperactive and curious little girl-queens), she reminds me of myself and is thus one of my favourite fictional characters: when I got to know her, the traits that she shares with both Christina and me were revealed to be the same!
(I read some critics' remarks that Chamsous-Sabah, being an extraverted gifted and curious child, represents the future. Another critic, however, treats her as a symbol of "thirst for knowledge and curiosity for the diversity of the world." A third critic sees her as a personification of progress, an idea related to the future).
In spite of being merely a supporting character, she filled my eyes with tears: she reminded me of what I am and of those wonderful words I was once told: "If all people were like you, there would be no more wars!"
A rare combination of youth and erudition, that also echoes Shakespeare's lawyer lass Portia: so young a body, so old a mind, both in the same individual!
Thus, with a character I got to identify with, ends my cycle of posts on prodigies, aspies and ivory tower dwellers through the ages.