THE AETERNAL SWIRLING FIGHT - CRITIQUE OF THE CLEVER PRINCESS

The Spanish English-language blog The Aeternal Swirling Fight just critiqued my favourite character in The Snow Queen (using Naomi Lewis' translation as the basis) and I feel a mix of helium and arsenic in my insides. The bold fonts are Marta Lúthien's in The Aeternal Swirling Fight, the underlinings are mine.

... a lot of women along the way, so that was nice. But many of these women aren't painted in a very good light either. 

-The princess is initially depicted as smart and knowing her own mind, and she has to get married, but is looking for an intelligent man who can be her intellectual equal. Still, she finishes in a pretty minimal role in the story alongside a handsome youth (who Gerda mistakes for Kai) - A creepy implication that either the princess married super young, or, worse still, that she's into minors, (given that Gerda and Kai are very young teenagers at the most ):S

 And finally, the IG storytime with more or less the same text content, but also including direct quotes and a bit more specifics:

Now Alexandre Dumas in his retelling La Reine des Neiges says the princess is 18 (dix-huit ans) and the prince is between 20 and 25.  Standard marriageable age for female and male, respectively, in the eighteenth and early nineteenth century. 

Most illustrators, character designers, and film cast directors choose to portray both of these characters as young adults in their twenties, or at the least in their late teens.

Also, Sansa Stark and Caterina de' Medici and so forth prove that princesses did marry (and princes did too) super young in a certain historical epoch.

That was all in my rebuttal. I still agree with and adore the positive things she says about the depiction of this fascinating female character (smart, knowing her own mind, looking for an intelligent man who can be her intellectual equal and finding him in this handsome youth), however.

A BREAKDOWN OF THE BATTLE HEROINE/MAGICAL GIRL WARRIOR

 

THE Most famous FACE OF THE MAGICAL GIRL: A BREAKDOWN OF the battle heroine (aka magical girl warrior ON TV TROPES) SUBGENRE

If you ask the average nerd what a magical girl is, the default response might be to point to the ‘90s animated adaptation of Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon. Naoko Takeuchi’s series is a global sensation, but it’s just one example of a wide genre with a whole variety of stories and a variety of roles, styles, and inspirations for its heroines.

The Magical Girl umbrella is fascinating once you open it up: exploring the different types that have been popular in different eras makes for an intriguing look into the genre’s history and its impact.

THE BATTLE HEROINE

Most fans of Japanese media are familiar with tokusatsu, but just in case you aren’t, this is a particular style of formulaic live-action film and television made with lots of special effects, primarily in the action genre. Classic tokusatsu includes monster/kaiju films such as Godzilla, superhero titles such as Ultraman or Kamen Rider, and what is often most familiar to Western audiences, Super Sentai, which is repackaged and partially reshot under the name Power Rangers. 

While women sometimes appear on these fully suited teams (most frequently as Pink Rangers), there have also been many iterations of female-led tokusatsu series, especially in the 80s and 90s. Each tends to feature one lone heroine fighting against evil, and are magical girls in their own right. Some examples of popular series are Magical Chinese Girl Pai Pai! (1989) and La Belle Masquée Poitrine (1990). (This is where I must point out that both of these series have superhero titles referencing their chests, and yet are for children.) The popularity of these shows seems to be pretty connected to the battle heroine boom in Japanese animation.

The tokusatsu–inspired heroines who fight evil on a weekly basis are the most recognizable form of the magical girl, and have been for the past 30 years. While Cutie Honey (1973) was similarly inspired by tokusatsu in the 70s, and was the first to have a fully nude transformation sequence, she was a lone heroine among the other majokko or witchlings of her time (and also a gynoid, getting her powers from tech instead of magic!). Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (1992), a name recognized worldwide even by people who might not watch Japanese animation, hit the scene with a full team of magical heroines and set a new precedent for the battle heroine genre, directly influenced by Super Sentai in particular. 

"It is often said that Sailor Moon, a series in which many girls transform into coloured uniforms and use attacks to defeat monsters, is a kind of Super Sentai type story about and for girls. This clip confirms that such series were a partial inspiration for the Sailor Moon manga and ultimately the anime and live action series as well."

"Though not the first to be referred to as a magical girl series, Sailor Moon was instrumental in popularizing the genre, pioneering the concept of a team magical girls. Most magical girl series to follow it derive some inspiration from it."

This is not to say that any further battle heroine series were copying this one series, but the fighting magical girl was simply what the public seemed to clamor for at the time. Another factor is certainly that almost all these magical girl shows are also aimed at tweenage children (middle-grade) and are therefore designed to sell toys. The more characters and weapons you have, the more merchandise you can sell. 

If you watch a battle heroine series, you can usually expect to find a team of girls with distinct themes and personalities who transform into heroes, fight monsters on an episodic basis, and defeat higher and higher levels of general minions before taking down the true source of evil in the season finale. Meanwhile, there are interpersonal conflicts in their daily lives, often somehow coinciding with their fight of the week. When non-magical girl series have spin-offs or parodies of magical girls are made, it is usually within the battle heroine genre specifically, such as Magical Project S (1996) or Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha (2004). Most Western magical girl series, whether in comic form or animated, also fall within this category—you can see this everywhere from webcomics such as Sleepless Domain (2015 – present) to Dreamworks ventures like She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018).

A sub-sub genre within the battle heroine is the magical phantom thief, who uses their magic for good but is perceived by others as being a criminal, causing a special variety of trouble involving police officers or detectives. There are only a few examples of this—Saint Tail (1995), Phantom Thief Jeanne (1999), and the comic Stellar Witch LIP☆S (2019). These magical girl anti-heroes put a mischievous spin on the formula while otherwise keeping it mostly intact.

The tokusatsu series Girls x Heroine (2017 – present) features battle heroines that also crossover into other subgenres, including magical idols, witchlings, and phantom thieves. 

There are so many ways to be a magical girl, whether it’s ... , a teenager fighting the forces of evil, ... Only time will tell the new ways the boundaries of this archetype will be pushed forward.

FLIPPING GENDER WITH SALMACIS

The story [...] is told in book 4 (of the Metamorphoses) by one of the Minyeides (sister princesses) as they while away the time spinning and weaving in defiance of Bacchus/Dionysus. It is followed by [...] Salmacis and Hermaphroditus (271-388), told by Alcithoe: [...]. Their crime has been in part to flee from the manly epic demands of Bacchic poetics (classical tragedy) into the female elegiac world of private emotion, and the stories they tell have connections of many levels with each other and with the surrounding narrative. Most obviously, the story of Salmacis and Hermaphroditus deals with attempts at union by sundered lovers, ending in that total fusion that has always been the goal of lovers and which had been so determinedly attacked in book 4 of Lucretius' De rerum natura. (See especially M. Labate, "Storie di instabilità: l'episodio di Ermafrodito nelle Metamorfosi di Ovidio", 1993).

The characters of the story, but especially the women, aspire to presence: Salmacis, who unlike her fellow nymphs has spent so much time looking at herself in the waters, gazes at Hermaphroditus like the sun reflected in a mirror, but cannot content herself with just looking but must seize the boy and join with him. In the final story union is achieved: what Pyramus, Thisbe, Helios, Leucothoe, and Clytie could not do, Salmacis achieves and finally two become one, neutrumque et utrumque, As many have observed, however, this final union does not have about it any sense of triumphal achievement. Hermaphroditus, when he realizes what has happened, describes it not as a uniting of male and female, but as a softening of his masculinity: he becomes a semivir (half-male), but the other half of the union is scarcely in evidence. The intertextual model is Catullus' Attis after he has castrated himself, and in the moment of realization when Hermaphroditus prays to his parents to make the pool a permanent testimony to his softening, it is as if the personality of Salmacis has completely disappeared: as Georgia Nugent remarks in her brilliant Irigarayan reading of the episode: "in the conclusion of the tale, Hermaphroditus remains, I believe, what he already is ---and that is a male subject, always fully conscious of himself as such." As she admits, however, that is not the whole story, and I shall return to the complexities of gender in this episode. (See Nugent, "This Sex Which Is Not One.")

As critics have found with the Salmacis episode, the engendering of these tales is a complex matter.

The reading I have given suggests [...] that Salmacis should have been satisfied with her contemplation of Hermaphroditus rather than attempting union with him. When she sees him, she brooks no delay: "vixque moram patitur, vix iam sua gaudia differt". Once more, if only she had attempted différence and deferred her pleasure, she would have been able to retain her identity, but instead she loses herself in the attempt to get close to her lover. However, Georgia Nugent has pointed out that there is another way to read Salmacis' desire to touch rather than to see her lover, in terms of the valuation of female touching over male gazing articulated by Irigaray in This Sex Which Is Not One. It is easy to place Salmacis' desire to touch and envelop Hermaphroditus as an inappropriate attempt to get beyond the proper distance that language imposes and which allows the sort of detached, playful contemplation with which she ought to have been satisfied, but Nugent's juxtaposition with modern conceptions of gender might make us hesitate in our evaluation of the episode.

For the deferral in "vix iam sua gaudia differt" cf. Amores 2.5.29, 3.6.87 (to the river which separates Ovid from the love interest), Heroides 19.3 (Hero and Leander), Metamorphoses 6. 514 (Tereus "vix animo suo gaudia differt"); Martial 10.44.5; and in the sermo amatorius Propertius 2.23.17)

The gendering of this story is, however, still more problematic and complex than even this would suggest, Salmacis' intolerance of delay, mora, and refusal to defer pleasure is hardly a female characteristic, but much more a mark of the male: one of the ironies of the Salmacis episode is of course that Hermaphroditus is already more than, or less than, a male, so Salmacis is throughout made parallel to all those male lovers in Ovid's rape scenes whose sight of the beloved is immediately and inappropriately translated into violent action. Her story is closely parallel to that of the Minyeides themselves, in that just as their revolt against the patriarchal order of Bacchus/Dionysus is figured as a virile insistence on continuing with women's needlework, so Salmacis refuses to live up to society's expectations that she go hunting with Artemis' retinue and spends all her time in the "bathroom" (actually, doing her vanity routines by her pond) combing/styling her hair and beautifying herself. But her whole attitude towards Hermaphroditus, and in particular her instantaneous move from spying to attempted possession, is one we can recognize as male.

OSCAR WILDE MEETS ASTROPHYSICS - a microstory

From the palace, one heard the sound of dancing. A beautiful girl came out on the balcony with her lover. 

"How wonderful the stars are," he said to her, "and how wonderful is the power of love!"
"I hope our relationship will be ready in time for the State-ball," she answered; "I have never understood what you find so romantic in those burning oversized orbs of hydrogen and helium; light years away from this palace balcony where the two of us are!"

As soon as she uttered those words, she clicked her heels, pivoted, and re-entered the ballroom on her own.

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Sobre el palacio real, se oyó la música de baile. Una bella muchacha apareció en el balcón con su novio.

-¡Qué hermosas son las estrellas -la dijo- y qué poderosa es la fuerza del amor!

-Querría que nuestra relación estuviese enmendada para el baile oficial -respondió ella-. No sé cómo puedes hallar románticas unas ardientes esferas descomunales de hidrógeno y helio a años luz de este balcón donde nos hallamos.

Y, dichas estas palabras, entrechocó los tacones y volvió a entrar en el salón de baile sola.
(J.L. BORGES, a la tierna edad de nueve años - mi parodia)

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Förbi slottet hördes ljud från dansen. En vacker flicka kom ut på balkongen med sin fästman. »Så underbara stjärnorna är«, sade han till henne, »och underbar är kärlekens makt!«
»Jag hoppas att vårt förhållande blir som förut i tid till galabalen«, svarade hon; »jag har sagt till om att hur du kan finna romantiska dessa glödande jätteklot av väte och helium som befinner sig ljusår från slottsbalkongen där vi två är!«

Knappast hade hon yttrat dessa ord förrän hon vände på klacken och skred ensam ånyo in i balsalen.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE - Ungeduld

  Ungeduld. – Es gibt einen Grad von Ungeduld bei Menschen der Tat und des Gedankens, welcher sie bei einem Mißerfolge, sofort in das entgegengesetzte Reich übertreten, sich dort passionieren und in Unternehmungen einlassen heißt, – bis auch von hier wieder ein Zögern des Erfolges sie vertreibt: so irren sie, abenteuernd und heftig, durch die Praxis vieler Reiche und Naturen und können zuletzt, durch die Allkenntnis von Menschen und Dingen, welche ihre ungeheuere Wanderung und Übung in ihnen zurückläßt, und bei einiger Milderung ihres Triebes – zu mächtigen Praktikern werden. So wird ein Fehler des Charakters zur Schule des Genies.

FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE.

“Hay una jeringuilla en el lavabo” - ANÁLISIS

 Veamos un ejemplo basado en el verso “Hay una jeringuilla en el lavabo”.

Fases del análisis simbólico

Fases de análisis 

Verso “Hay una jeringuilla en el lavabo” 

1.-Objeto en sí mismo:  Jeringuilla / Lavabo 

2.-Objeto con función: Jeringuilla, útil sanitario para inyectar en el cuerpo una sustancia. / Lavabo, parte del cuarto de baño para refrescarse o lavarse.

3.-Desglose de lo físico y lo abstracto: Jeringuilla como realidad tangible referente a la heroína, a la droga como problema social. / Lavabo como sanitario alterado, testigo mudo y recipiente del vehículo de la heroína.

4.-Direcciones simbólicas: Jeringuilla como testigo activo de la presencia de la heroína. Problemas sociales. / Lavabo como testigo mudo y recipiente del vehículo de la heroína. Alteración del orden público.

5.-Conexión sentimental: La droga como problema social está presente.

 

A VORACIOUS READER?

In the Parcast Tales podcast, we get a closer look at secondary characters who had been overlooked in canon fairytales. Like the princesses spurned by the hero of H.C. Andersen's Princess and the Pea. Vanessa Richardson and her team chose to make one of them, called Sophia (maybe related to, or the same as?, the drugger in the Three Little Blue Stones/As Tres Pedrinhas Azuis character in January's installment on both Parcast and this blog) a true blue cobalt bluestocking, dyed in the wool with element 27 of the periodic table. However, there is something crucial missing from her well-stocked royal palace library that makes Prince Erik flinch:

Allons-y to her character introduction, shall we?

Next stop was Vordingborg (look it up on Google Maps, it's a real-life town!), where he'd had heard there was a princess who was a voracious reader. 

Maybe she'd be perfect.

He thought Princess Sophia was even more graceful and well mannered than [a previous candidate, a hoyden].

Erik was confident that she could please his mother [a domineering queen] though.

[...]

"This is more," Erik thought, especially if she enjoyed books as much as him when they were done with dessert.

Erik asked if she would show him to her book collection. Princess Sophia clapped her hands excitedly. 

When Erik stepped inside he gasped. The room was two stories, tall with shelves of leather-bound books that extended to the rafters. There was a large stone fireplace as big as a cave glowing and crackling with fragrant cedar logs. Erik had never seen a better, more inviting library. 

He imagined all of the books were about knights on quests and adventures and love affairs. He was so thrilled. He wanted to propose marriage on the spot. He turned to Sophia:

"Which is your favourite book?"

She gestured to the room around them.

"Take your pick, my prince."

Erik wandered over to a bookshelf and thumbed through a few of the volumes, but they were not what he expected. Instead of romantic stories, they were arcane texts about alchemy and celestial observation.

"What are these?" he asked.

Sophia cocked her head at him and chuckled:

"Books, silly!"

Erik pulled more books off the shelves flipping off the pages, flipping through the pages desperately.

"Where are the novels about dragons... quests... love...?" he asked.

Sophia shrugged.

She didn't have any of those like such contrived tales. She preferred maths, science, and such academic subjects.

Erik's heart sank. He couldn't imagine a library full of books without stories. It made him shudder. 

Maybe Sophia wasn't the perfect wife for him.

He thanked her for dinner and trudged out out of the castle.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------"

Later out, when he meets the heroine Margaret, a kindred spirit of his who carries a fiction novel at hand, he has this dialogue with her:

[...] he told her about [...] Sophia with the library full of books, but no stories [...]

After all, not everyone may know arsenic is number 33 on the periodic table but you should know it can burn away at your insides just like a very persistent and negative intrusive thought, 

The thought whereof

Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards...

Iago dixit.

The same goes for gold, silver, and lead, on Portia's caskets... From Shakespeare to Christie and beyond, literature has needed science for the substances and illnesses and injuries that affect its characters. Lives were saved because the Pale Horse by Christie employed obscure thallium when she had used strychnine and arsenic and every other substance in the book and turned to little-known thallium, then it inspired other real-life psychos in turn...

The keyword is consiliency, the marriage of the arts and sciences!

WE DON'T TALK 'BOUT THE HANGED MAN (NO NO NO)

 So after creating my Romeo & Juliet-inspired setting and cast of fair Veroncia in StarXGlove, the Hanged Man (Friar Lawrence/druggist character and narrator) became such a parallel to Bruno in Encanto as the black sheep and clan outsider that I had to do this little filk:

WE DON'T TALK 'BOUT THE HANGED MAN (NO NO NO)

EMPRESS:

We don't talk 'bout the Hanged Man, no no no

We don't talk 'bout the Hanged Man... But!

It was the day we signed peace...

EMPEROR:

The day we signed peace...

EMPRESS:

We were getting ready

and there wasn't a cloud in the sky...

EMPEROR:

No clouds allowed in the sky...

EMPRESS:

The Hanged Man walks in

with a mischievous grin...

EMPEROR:

Interrupting!

EMPRESS:

You telling the story or am I?

EMPEROR:

Sorry, mi vida, go on...

EMPRESS:

Hanged Man says it looks like war...

EMPEROR:

Why did he say it?

EMPRESS:

The East Bank Clan to fight for sure...

EMPEROR:

There was no way to counterweigh it...

EMPRESS:

He ran off, came back no more...

EMPEROR:

What a joyous day, but anyway,

we don't talk 'bout the Hanged Man, no no no

We don't talk 'bout the Hanged Man...

SUN & MOON:

Grew to live in fear of that man hanging from the ceiling,

we can always picture him swinging and/or reeling,

we link him with a pendulum swishing to and fro;

swish swish swish...

It's a heavy lift with a gift so revealing,

always left the Empress with uncomfortable feeling,

grappling with tragedies and other tales of woe...

Did you get it so? (To Star)

FOOL:

A two-meter frame,

hanging upside-down,

when he calls your name

you can't help but frown;

Yeah, he sees your dreams

and feasts on your screams...

EVERYONE:

We don't talk 'bout the Hanged Man no no no...

HIEROPHANT:

He told me that the war would break out

far more violent than ever before...

He told me that Lord Arsenic's men

would someday come for vengeance for sure...

HIGH PRIESTESS:

Hear up, the Tower's under siege!

FOOL:

He told me that my very best friend

would die in the end, for peace and another...

HIEROPHANT:

Our Star, I want not a sound out of you...

STAR:

No, Hanged Man...

About that Hanged Man...

About that Hanged Man...

Give me the truth and the whole truth, Hanged Man...

FOOL:

Little Star, to the bunker now!!!

EVERYONE:

To the bunker!!!

STARXGLOVE: ROMEO & JULIET GL

 So I have a Romeo & Juliet magical person mafia GL/yuri retelling: #StarXGlove (read Star-Cross-Glove)

Welcome to fair Veroncia; but steer clear of the glass tower on the West riverbank and of the old estate on the East bank...

Even though peace was achieved over a decade and a half ago with a rendezvous on the bridge over the dry riverbed, fair Veroncia is becoming a pow(d)er keg. The eccentric one-eyed aerialist who lives under that same bridge like a homeless swings to and fro from the middle of the structure like a pendulum, often upside down. Who is he, and why is he our narrator?

(if you wonder, he's the Hanged Man from the West Bank Tower, who defected from decadence - The Hanged Man stabbed his left eye out -the "moon" of his microcosm- in exchange for the gift of insight by drinking from the waterfall curtain in the High Priestess's sanctum in her bunker underground beneath the Glass Tower (a reference to Odin and the Spring of Mimir!)

The pendulum swings east towards the old gothic estate with the pointed windows and dark furniture and black and white checkered floor tiles.

This is the home of those who rule the East Bank, half of Veroncia, with a heavy hand; of Lord Arsenic and Lady Strychnine, whose daughter Foxglove turned eighteen half a year ago. Foxy is betrothed to Polonium, an important ally of the clan and their unusually young advisor, but completely uninterested in the engagement.

Other members of note incluye Chlorine the female executioner, Fugu the male ninja, and especially Mercury, the whimsical non-binary messenger and Foxglove's best friend and confidante... (Polonium comes over from an outpost after Mercury is killed in action, partly to meet his fiancée, partly to fill Mercury's vacancy)

They all wear black and white, the males wear suits, the females wear what you expect a dowager to wear, and Fugu wears ninja getup. Those who take codenames from the periodic table wear their atomic numbers on their neckties.

The pendulum swings west towards the modern glass tower with the brightly coloured furniture and matching curtains and oversized plasma screens.

This is the home of those who rule the West Bank, half of Veroncia, with a velvet glove; the Empress and the Emperor and their only daughter the Star, whose eighteenth birthday is forthcoming and about to be celebrated in the Glass Tower with a grand masquerade.

Other members of note include the Hierophant the oldish advisor, the High Priestess the mysterious soothsayer or oracle, the Sun and Moon the Empress's twin maids, the Chariot the hot-blooded male executioner, and especially the Fool, the whimsical female jester and the Star's best friend and confidante.

They all wear bright colours and punk/psychedelic fashions, think the Capitol in THG.

Foxglove's favourite story is actually a subplot within a novella-length fairytale: "Fourth Story: Prince and Princess" within H.C. Andersen's The Snow Queen. She enjoys the idea of intellectual equals and kindred spirits finding one another and dreams of finding THE ONE in her life herself, no matter their gender (Even though she has to read the tale from a bookmarked fairytale compilation in secret, only with Mercury for an audience, since her parents want her to focus only on her training as she is next in line).

Star's favourite story is exactly the same as Foxy's for exactly the same reasons. She is also in love with the idea of intellectual equals and kindred spirits finding one another and dreams of finding THE ONE in her life herself, no matter their gender (her parents, however, are more permissive than Foxy's, but she's read the story more often to Fool than to them!).

(If you wonder, my own favourite fairytale in canon is "Fourth Story: Prince and Princess" within H.C. Andersen's The Snow Queen; because I myself enjoy the idea of intellectual equals and kindred spirits finding one another!)

It all begins when Mercury and Fugu take Foxglove across the bridge on their heist assignment infiltrating Star's birthday party in the Glass Tower. Merc is dressed as the Mad Hatter (but with atomic number on the price tag of the hat), Foxy as a Kitsune (vixen spirit), and Fugu wears his ninja garb; two of them trading their usual dark ensembles for something brighter.

At the party, Foxglove falls for a girl dressed as a nymph, and both drink and dance together... Too bad that in the end the nymph is revealed to be Star, and a pow(d)er keg that had remained inert since their infancy is about to explode due to their young love... But didn't the aerialist of the bridge, who called himself the Hanged Man, say that their love holds the key to peace as well?

And the three Cardinal Virtues?

Of course Justice, Strength, and Temperance existed and had a floor in the Glass Tower all to themselves, mentored by the Hierophant - over a decade and a half ago. Three sterling girls, the eldest in her thirties, the middle one in her twenties, and the youngest but seventeen or eighteen; all three wearing Saint Seiya-esque protective suits with the zodiac sign associated with their card emblazoned upon their chest (it was also their respective Sun sign).

Unfortunately, they were casualties of the last war over a decade and a half ago; in a confrontation for the ages, while defending the Tower and keeping the bridge across to it, when Miss Chlorine killed Justice (34), Miss Strychnine (then single) killed Strength (26), and the leader, Lord Arsenic himself, took the life of innocent young Temperance (18).

Ever since then, the Hierophant has been in mourning and secretly thirsting for revenge and looking for the opportunity to scheme to start another war in retaliation... No matter if the rest of the Glass Tower looks up to the Cardinal Virtues as war sheroes.

The mooks (foot soldiers):

Both sides accept male and female mooks from 17 years upwards.

The mooks at the Nightshade Estate wear all-black uniforms and helmets, and look like chess pawns; the higher-ups call them "Pawns" (aside from the chemical/poison motif, the East Bank Clan also has a chess motif; but only the black pieces). There are eight ranks. Pawn ranks are divided into elite pawns and ranker pawns.

Elite Pawns can be King Pawns, who answer directly to Lord Arsenic, or Queen Pawns, who answer directly to Lady Strychnine. They serve as a sort of pretorian guards.

Rankers are divided into Bishop Pawns, who answer to Mercury (and later to Polonium after Chariot kills Mercury), Knight Pawns, who answer to Fugu (and before that to Fugu's predecessor Thallium, a brisk young lad prodigy killed by the Cardinal Virtues in self-defense, regarded as the war hero of Nightshade Estate - and Polonium's role model), and Rook Pawns, who answer to Chlorine. These Ranker Pawns in turn can be King Rook Pawns or Queen Rook Pawns, and the same for the other officer designations.

The mooks in the Glass Tower are divided into four squads, all with ten ranks and each with a different colour scheme uniform and a card suit symbol:

Swords: spades, shades of blue (recon)

Cups: hearts, reds and pinks

Wands: clubs, shades of green (Tower guards)

Pentacles: diamonds, yellows and orange (elite/pretorian guards)

At the start of the story, Ten of Swords (youngish male) has been taken prisoner by two Pawns and is brought hand-tied to the Nightshade Estate study before Lord Arsenic; who calls for Miss Chlorine (by ringing a bell) and she takes him to her dungeons in the Estate cellar. I have the mental image of the scene; the bright cyan uniform standing out in the dark ominous study, the prisoner with an auburn ponytail wears a 10 and a sky blue spade on his uniform (pretty much like a Power Ranger taken captive by the bad guys), the Wallenstein-looking leader in a suit behind his desk with number 33 on his necktie ringing the bell, and enter a tall strong girl in a black power suit with nearly white hair and green eyes and number 17 on her necktie, and she grabs the prisoner by the hand-ties and ushers him out of the study while saying: "We're gonna have a great spree together..."

Definitely an improvement from the squabbling mook servants in the opening scene of Shakespeare's original, eh?

Spoilers about the end: In the end, not only Star and Foxglove are dead; for the Emperor led the Swords and Pentacles on a charge against the enemy to defend the tower and was gruesomely killed by Lord Arsenic and some of his King Pawns; at which the Empress cried so much that her makeup was running - the Sun remarked that and the Empress replied: "No matter, for the better, it's just become WAR PAINT..." and she led the survivors of the charge and set a trap that offed Lady Strychnine and several Queen Pawns in retaliation - so both leaders did not only lose their child, but also their marital partner, at the end of the day. So we find both Empress and Arsenic on the bridge with tears in their eyes - she says I'm sorry, he says Forgive me... and in the end both of them pull one another into a tight embrace and dry up one another's tears as the Hanged Man surfaces from under the bridge to compliment them - in an epilogue he explains they started a relationship and commuted between the Nightshade Estate and the Glass Tower and merged their respective cohorts as they signed peace, aware of the high price that both had had to pay.