THE MIDNIGHT ARCHIVES: SPANISH WOMAN (IN "La Llorona")

Draco in Leather Pants is a trope that is all the rage today with the genesis of Draconia Malfoid - the genderflipped Draco everyone is shipping with Harry - but I have found a Privileged Rival character that deserves the same treatment just by virtue of being foreign, wealthy, and cultured - and uncannily attractive (MOVE OVER, DRACONIA MALFOID).

A noblewoman from across the ocean, skin white as paper, a white feather in her hat, dressed in silk the colour of cream...

The Spanish fiancée of the Hidalgo in the legend of La Llorona, as seen in The Midnight Archives:

This is the story as it is told. It has no date and no town because every town that tells it gives it its own river. It goes like this. 

In the years after the conquest, in a village in New Spain, ... a man rode into the village on a black horse. He was a Spaniard, not a soldier, the son of a family that had land, a great deal of land, somewhere to the south. and the horse alone was worth more than every house in the village together. He wore black with silver at the collar and the cuffs and a sword he did not look as though he had ever drawn. He was handsome. He was young. He had the easy unbothered face of a man who has never once in his life been told no. And he rode through the square at a walk looking at everything as if he were deciding whether to buy it. 

 He had been seen at a ball given by the viceroy's people in black and silver with a woman on his arm, a Spanish woman, the daughter of a family as old as his own, pale as paper, who had come across the sea that year, and would not have known one end of a water jar from the other. He had been seen walking with her in a courtyard with a fountain. He had been seen laughing. 

It was a fine carriage, black, with a crest on the door. Two gray horses, and as it came level with the place ... He was sitting with his back to the horses. Across from him, in silk the colour of cream, with her hands folded in her lap and a hat with a feather in it, at the Spanish woman. The carriage did not stop. He turned his head as it passed. 

That evening he told her in the house with the tiled floor that he was going to be married, at the cathedral, in the spring, to a woman of his own class, as his family required. 

And, the icing on the cake: she gets the guy, as the "other woman" so frequently does in this kind of murder ballad stories. If this legend were a modern-day rom-com, she would not be so lucky... And there's more icing on that cake: we got AI-generated images of the Spanish woman in seventeenth-century clothes: the aristocractic bearing, the white feather in her hat, the silk the colour of cream, the skin white as paper... AI-generated but irradiating privilege and otherworldliness indeed! So I illustrated my excerpts with these Midnight Archives illustrations!

So I wound up in a chat with the podcaster about why he made her foreign - turns out that in colonial New Spain, being from Old Spain was an upper-class marker... I wound up recommending a whole slew of tropes to him in the "Draco in Leather Pants" constellation:

SANDRA DERMARK: I have a question, why is the Spaniard's wife chosen by their parents an upper-class woman like him ("skin like paper", "feather in her hat") and most importantly FOREIGN ("from across the ocean") while it is left ambiguous whether the Spaniard himself was born in Old Spain like her or in the colonies? I would like so much to know your interpretation of this character and of the "other man/woman" the love interest is engaged to (marries them in tragic/old-world stories like this, ALMOST marries them in stories with happy endings). I have always been fascinated by this character archetype, especially if they're upper-class and foreign, but why do you make the "other woman" here foreign?

PODCASTER: Great question, and you’ve spotted something real. In the versions I was working from she’s from Spain on purpose: in New Spain being born in Spain outranked being born in the colonies, so a bride “from across the sea” was the ultimate status match, the one his family would push for. The story leaves his own birthplace vague because it doesn’t matter to the tale, what matters is that he has a world he can go back to and María (La Llorona) doesn’t. The other woman is always the door closing. I kept it that way because that’s the whole engine of the legend...

SANDRA: so she's from Old Spain because it's a status symbol? Just like the feather in her hat and her skin white as paper? And her cream-coloured silks? I find her far more interesting than María (for me it's always the other man, or other woman, whom the love interest marries/is betrothed to who is more interesting - for being foreign / wealthy / cultured / classy, as an escapist character. You should read the TV Tropes pages "Draco in Leather Pants" and "Rooting for the Empire" and "Privileged Rival" and "Wicked Cultured" to see why I like these characters)

PODCASTER: Pretty much, yes. The paper-white skin and the feather and the cream-coloured silks are doing the same job as “from across the sea”: she’s everything María can’t be, and the story needs you to feel the gap in one look. I get why you’d find her the more interesting one, she’s the character with a whole world behind her that we never get to see. Will have a read of those pages, I’ve fallen down TV Tropes holes before

Draco in Leather Pants: Common reasons for this include the character being wicked in a classy or cool way. A physically attractive villain is much more likely to be subject to this trope than a physically ugly one. Beauty Equals Goodness often subconsciously applies even when the character's beauty only extends to their physical appearance. 

Rooting for the Empire: 

• The villains just happen to be cooler, sexier, or better funded/paid than the heroes.
• The evil organization doesn't discriminate based on race, gender, or creed, whereas the heroic organization consists of Noble Bigots and/or Politically Incorrect Heroes at best, or open racists at worst. (THIS HAPPENS IN 300)
• The Caper. Like the Feng Shui quote on the quotes page said, who roots for the cops? The writers often try to avoid this through a Caper Rationalization.
• Some sociologists have pointed out that, as irrational as it sounds, many people, both when it comes to fiction and real life, will root for whichever side reminds them the most of themselves, even when that side is thoroughly immoral, totally unlikable or both. As simple as it is to always want to see people of your own ethnic group, religion, or social or political class — or who simply have the same goals or aspirations as yourself — triumph, it is understandable, because it's easy to convince yourself that if they lose, you will lose too.

Wicked Cultured:  those who like "high" culture are a bit weird, "other", and more likely to be antagonists; it's not that Evil Is Cool. Rather, it's more like "Evil Is Intellectual". Evil is smart, wicked, sarcastic with a biting sense of humor. Evil is smooth and eloquent, if not outright suave. Evil dresses well, has a polysyllabic lexicon, quotes William Shakespeare, sips fine wine, listens to their favourite opera on their downtime (almost always Don Giovanni), and in general is shown to be cultured if not necessarily civilized. This can apply to any villain, Anti-Villain, or associated character types.

Privileged Rival: Depending on genre, they can be anywhere from royalty, to having a famous family member, or just plain being loaded—with all the advantages that implies. Of course, this also makes said rival more of a challenge for the hero/ine, which in turn makes the victory that much sweeter, and the defeat that more painful (UNLESS YOU'RE ROOTING FOR THE PRIVILEGED RIVAL ALL ALONG)

Reminds me of this Jaguar ad with Tom Bloody Hiddleston (our dear Loki, and Cassio opposite Ewan McGregor's Iago) and Ben Bloody Kingsley (the voice of Bagheera) in it: Could as well be the prologue to a series about British supervillains in their Jaguars with their RP accents!