Play Choices

Acquired Skills.

(Note: In this section I will be leaving out Hana's more intuitive skills, such as stealth, cunning, deep research and resourcefulness, and focusing more on the ones she had to learn. This is because her intuitive skills fit better in a different essay that I will be working on soon)

There are several things the above screenshots share in common.

One is that they are all things Hana learned as a part of her training to become the perfect debutante, the perfect noblewoman, the perfect courtly wife, the perfect hostess. In the Cordonian Waltz scene in TRR1 Ch 7, Hana speaks of being pushed from an early age to learn all the courtly and social arts. She speaks of being "groomed [every day] to bring fame and fortune to my family", primarily because they were devastated she was not a boy and the only way she could possibly be of use to them was by acquiring these skills. These weren't just hobbies she was encouraged to cultivate - they were things she had to do well, do perfectly, whether she liked doing them or not.

Another - and perhaps easier to miss - similarity between all these pictures is Hana's expression in them. Neutral. Unmoved. Bored. None of these activities actually appeal to her, or are things she is happy doing.

We will find out later on, that that was exactly the point. In her parents' plan for Hana's life and future, Hana's own needs and identity are practically a non-factor.

One of Hana's major epiphanies about her childhood, is the recognition that what she wanted, should have mattered. That her needs deserved to be met just for being her needs, not because it served a purpose for anyone else. On more than one occasion Hana tells us that "enjoying myself never factored into my parents' expectations of me".

How damaging can this obsession with making your daughter the perfect noble wife - to the exclusion of any other possible life - be? Let's find out:

Hana isn't just expected to excel in skills that mean very little to her. She isn't just forced to prioritise - again and again and again - the enjoyment of others over her own. She isn't just made to consider the needs of some nebulous future husband, to the point where she cannot even ask herself what she wants.

Over and above all this, she is never allowed to be her authentic self. She is never even allowed to figure out what that authentic self would be. From an early age she is deprived of toys and pets and real consistent friendships, ensuring a complete isolation, ensuring she doesn't even have the opportunity to safely indulge in pretend play. (That she manages to scrape together whatever she can find to make her "toys" is only a testament to her own tenacity; she should never have been put in such a position in the first place). Her parents robbed her of those early, exploratory years.

She has been told how she must be and what she must do; she never has the freedom to decide whether that is something she is even comfortable being. In the context of this scene Hana may be using this skill to help another woman, but the fact remains that even in expressing her femininity, Hana is constantly expected to perform - as if her authentic self was never good enough.

It is no wonder then that the moment she finds herself no longer answerable to her parents, Hana fears that she will discover she's nothing more than a "collection of skills...with no one underneath". TRR3 shows Hana in a full-blown identity crisis once she is completely outside her parents' influence.

In her post "How Parents Fuel Identity Crises in Their Children" on the Good Therapy Blog, psychotherapist Beverly Amsel talks about the effects controlling parenting can have on a child's sense of self thus; "When a loving parent is so certain that he or she knows what is right for the child and does not consider that the child may have valid, different ideas about what he or she wants, needs, and feels, there is no space and no invitation for the child to develop the ability to express his or her own self with separate ideas, feelings, and needs. Over time, as the child grows to adulthood and is exposed to more ways of thinking about things, there is typically a good deal of confusion about identity, thoughts, and feelings. Unless there is an opportunity to develop a separate sense of self, there will likely be a lot of anxious thinking about what is real but little ability to think for oneself in a self-reflective way."

Fortunately for Hana, her time in Cordonia does seem to present those sort of opportunities. There are story threads in TRR3 that address this identity crisis. But does it culminate into something that benefits her, or only the people around her?

Things She Does For Those She Loves

Before we move into passions, it's important to acknowledge a category that toes the line between acquired skill and interest. These involve activities that she's not entirely passionate about, but still derives some enjoyment from doing.

Her enjoyment of these skills is usually less about the activity itself, and more dependent on her fondness for sharing or socializing through it. Despite her mostly-isolated childhood, Hana is by nature a very social person. She is enthusiastic (though initially a bit wary and fearful of rejection) about making friends, loves sharing her knowledge and skills, and does not hesitate to reach out even to people who don't treat her well and accommodation them into whatever she's doing (eg. every single time she included Olivia in something in TRR2). So it makes sense that there are certain things she enjoys doing because it involves her helping someone, or allows her to spend time with them, or helps her relive precious memories.

On some level, you see this with some of her skill scenes. Often a scene will end with Hana following up a confession about her lack of interest in a particular activity with a line about how sharing that knowledge makes her happy. But you also see this enjoyment in other contexts.

Another context where she truly enjoys doing things, is when they're of a competitive nature. She thrives on the thrill of outwitting opponents and friendly rivalries. A great example of this is the dance-off she does with Maxwell in TRR1 Ch 18, where she enjoys pitting her skills against Maxwell's so much that they both agree they'd be great as a dancing duo. You also see this whenever she's competing in games with her trusted friends. This is perhaps why you see at least a handful of sequences where she expresses an interest in sports.

But perhaps the activities she enjoys the most - that aren't for herself - are ones that have her share space with someone she loves and trusts. Cooking and baking rank high among these skills. Baking began as a domestic skill that would serve her well in a noble household, but she loves sampling batter/dough and practically glows on seeing the other person's enjoyment of her craft. Her creating her own recipe for hot chocolate is especially interesting because it's a skill that she values highly, and that she only shares with people very close to her.

Hana's interest in fashion design also has interesting origins. She is skilled in embroidery and knows fashion trends well, and has learned from her grandmother to make her own clothes. Of particular note is the black-red-gold qipao/cheongsam that was the last dress she ever made with her grandmother. Her attachment to the dress is so strong that she experiences intense distress when Lorelai threatens to take it from her in Valtoria. She also loves designing dresses for loved ones - for the MC herself, we see her conceptualize and design dresses at least twice (a traditional-inspired outfit in Shanghai which is appropriately titled "Hana's Heart", and a blue and white dress for their engagement photoshoot).

Through these examples we can see instances of Hana finding joy in things she didn't have as much interest in, just through the process of sharing that experience with someone else. It's great, on the one hand, because Hana is no longer alone and she gains a renewed perspective on something that came from a very painful part of her life.

On the other hand, "I find this more fun now that I'm doing it with you" comes with its own downsides. If you use it too often, you're in danger of using it as a copout that centers the person she is teaching rather than her own journey.

And if you're a writer that makes efforts for her story with great reluctance...such an explanation will rapidly change into an excuse to be lazy with that journey.

Passions

Among the many, many, many skills Hana was made to learn in the bid to make her the perfect debutante and the perfect noble wife...just a few rank as ones she does wholeheartedly, joyfully, passionately. But they are perhaps the most important.

After all, these are skills that Hana had honed for herself. They're meant for her consumption and her enjoyment, and she often shares them only with people she trusts.

Not only are these things, interests that she enjoys and lovingly cultivates...but she is also fiercely protective of them. She will not allow anyone - not even her parents - to turn something so personal into a public spectacle that she's uncomfortable with. This is most clearly seen when she tells us about rebelling against her parents for piano performances. At a very young age, Hana recognises the value of her music, and she pushes back against any attempts to cheapen it or turn it into some warped form of social currency. She takes ownership of her gift, and from that moment on anything she does with that talent is done on her own terms.

Like music, reading was a skill cultivated to make her an attractive prospect for noble matches - only for Hana to find pleasure in the act of reading herself. Here again, building a passion for reading allows her to rebel in her own unique way. She smuggles in books that she knows her parents will find either too frivolous or too objectionable - often by hiding the books, or modifying the purpose of the book to them so it would sound appropriate.

We must remember - this is a woman who still feels nervous breaking rules even a year after she has left her parents' home. It would take such a woman considerable amounts of imagination and courage, to be able to do what she did in an environment as restrictive as her's. For Hana to be able to do this, she must have really valued the joy that reading books had given her.

Flowers are an extremely important part of Hana's life. Symbolically, they are part of her mother's House Crest, and personally, she is someone who is naturally drawn to flowers. In TRR2 Ch 4, she confesses to devouring the words of The Language of Flowers, and knows the symbolic meaning of each one by heart. She can even make her own bouquets. During the Costume Gala in TRR3, she dresses up in a heavily floral gown as the Goddess of Spring.

One of the most captivating sequences that captures her love for flowers in the TRR2 Conservatory scene, where she takes the MC to see the spectacle of a night-blooming flower unfurling under the light of the moon. It is especially fascinating that her already latent passion for flowers grew further with the help of another passion - reading.

Another thing you will clearly notice about each of these "passions" is that when she speaks about them, she is expressive. Liam confirms this in his Diplomacy scene in TRR3, where he tells the MC that her passion always shows in her eyes.

The proof for what Liam says here is in every one of these scenes. In the scenes compiled under the "Acquired Skills" category, her expression rarely changes and her tone is indifferent. In contrast, we are exposed to a variety of moods when she talks of these things that she's so passionate about.

She seethes with anger at the memory of her parents forcing her to perform the piano to crowds, whispers conspiratorially about forbidden literature, loses herself in the scent of flowers. These are moments where Hana acknowledges her individual pleasures, and expresses pride over the way she guards them from people who will not respect what those things mean to her.

These are things she knows forwards and backwards, but not because she was forced to cultivate and perfect those talents. They're things she knows because when Hana Lee is truly interested in something, she will plunge herself into it, body and soul. These are things that gave her comfort at a time when she had no one, and they form the happiest memories she has had for her childhood so far.

These are passions that are so intricately a part of her that it is impossible for her to give them up. Not for her family, not for her friends, not for her wife - no one.

Conclusion

The base of Hana's story has always been rich with possibilities. There were various ways the writing team could have written it to benefit her story. At the hands of a skilled writer who loved the character for who she was rather than for what the MC could gain from her, the writing of these talents could have been used to further enrich Hana's journey and give her a chance to find herself. Unfortunately, the writing team at the helm of TRR were neither.

Over and over again, the writers used Hana's plethora of talents to make her useful to people, rather than turn the focus of that arc back on her. The MC learns these skills and goes up the ranks, the MC benefits from Hana's offers of help, the MC is the one who becomes a Duchess and Champion of the Realm. Even on a level of resolving her issues with her parents, the writers have her prove that she can still be useful to them without getting married to a man. In the eyes of her writers, her skills are still meant to make her useful to someone - just that the person at the center changes from her parents to the MC.

Because the MC is positioned as someone who "enlightens" Hana to how harmful her situation was, and because the narrative expects Hana to be forever grateful to her - the MC is allowed to use her and take credit for Hana's hard work (eg. The windmill move during the polo game) and get away with it.

When you put all this evidence together, and then go back to the descriptors I put up at the very beginning of this essay, you will see what the team's intention with her, always had been. To create a woman the MC could be attracted to, a woman whose skills the MC could use to advance her own interests...while still being viewed as her hero and saviour. Despite being one of the few people to get the most detailed account of her upbringing and struggles, the MC still chooses to view her in the most simplistic ways, still praises her for her skills and "perfection" rather than support her in any consistent way (more on this in other essays).

The fandom wasn't much better in this respect either. Lots of TRR fans still see no real distinction between the skills Hana had to struggle to learn, and the interests that made her truly happy. The writing team itself contributes to this inaccurate conflating of her interests and skills by having multiple characters label her 'perfect' over and over.

This results in a situation where those hard-earned skills and those moments of joy are conflated together, and spoken of like they are the same thing. But they are not. To speak of the two as if there were no difference, is to ignore completely the difficult, even disturbing, history behind how she acquired them.

The skills the MC grinningly labels her perfect for, are skills that emerged from a very traumatizing environment. Her joys - that many in this fandom so mockingly placed alongside the things she forced herself to do - were perhaps the only opportunities she had to take back her agency and claim something for her own.

Lena is an incredibly self-contained character. Sure, she is both the key to the VI's takeover of Cordonia and the weak link that facilitates their downfall - but there is very little she has to give the story or the other characters, and far more that they are constantly expected to give her. She is first presented to us as more of a loyal soldier to the VI, but mid-story she would have us believe that she'd be a better monarch and had always wanted to be queen. She is part of a cult that claims to be anti-monarchy, yet decides she must be queen and operates under a cult filled with monarchs. And there isn't enough pushback against the notion that a glorified puppet to a murderous cult would make a good monarch, and Lena gets away far too easily with her own crimes at the end (thanks to the brother she had spent the whole book mocking). Most of our time is spent coddling her and pampering her and convincing her that we genuinely like her, and very little on her actually self-evaluating. Like Olivia before her, she's there simply to be cosetted by us (by her brother Liam in particular) before she can afford us even a tenth of the grace she's been given.

And while I'm sure a horde of Lena stans may land on this ask to bleat about her tragic childhood and Sigrid's brainwashing, I'd like them to ask themselves one thing. Even the most conditioned person will find themselves questioning beliefs they grew up with from time to time. (Hana had done that on her own - several times - during the original TRR series, and this same fandom had no problem calling her "weak"). It takes Lena forever to even question Sigrid's weird logic. Yet I'm supposed to believe she'll make a great queen just because she's got military skills? Even though her critical thinking is...barely there? (And believe me, enough people in fandom were celebrating the notion of Lena replacing Liam and what the VI were doing for a portion of the story).

There are possibilities to make such a character compelling - someone who believes they have agency and independence only to realize they are lowly pawns can make for a good inner conflict, and could provide the core group with a good contrast as well - but not with this team, or this fandom. Not with a head writer who will simp for the Val Greaves/Olivia Nevrakis character type against all logic, not with a fandom that is forever desperate to make Liam their personal scapegoat. Not with a team and fandom who are uncomfortable with acknowledging their own favourites' actual flaws. Both of these groups only saw her armor, snark, gun skills and hatred of Liam, and decided she was a great character based solely on that.

Personally and out of the larger context of this story, I don't particularly mind Lena as a character. In a better story that had more balance, I'd probably be more sympathetic. I prefer some of the sweeter and softer female characters, or the characters that represent diplomacy in a series like this. I'm a lot more protective of them nowadays because they tend to be looked down upon most of the time (especially if they are default WOC!). And that happens more often than not with this series!

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On a narrative level...well. Buckle up coz I have a real bone to pick with the writing team and the fandom on this specific issue.

Narratively, Lena is the most obvious sign of the TRR writing team's cravenness and shamelessness, and the biggest sign of their disdain for the character that gave them the whole premise of this series.

Mind you, I cannot blame solely Lena for this. She is just a culmination of what the team was already doing to Liam. Kneecapping Liam was a process that began early and went on for six books, with fandom encouragement. Liam, contrary to the fandom's claims (and the Drake stans - whose favourite was himself eating up other characters' space on the regular - complain about this the loudest), was already being disadvantaged in several ways.

Here are just a few ways that events that happened to Liam (or storylines that should have been his) but were instead centered on other people, including the MC:

1. Traumatic events:

The assassination attempt that left Liam so traumatized that he could barely eat, and made him shut himself off to everyone, was never incorporated for his benefit. He never gets to talk about it, the MC herself never bothers to ask him about it. It only exists so Drake can sound less whiny about staying in a place that he hates.

The assassination attempt that kills Constantine? At a time when Liam had to grapple with questions about his own rule? Guess what Liam gets. A solitary tear at the finale, and a small scene for the Heir about growing apple trees two books later.

We find out in TRH1 that Godfrey was involved in the plot to kill Eleanor, and in TRH3 that Bartie Sr was his partner in the crime. We center the children of the murderers for the rest. Liam gets barely 10 seconds to attempt to banish Godfrey (the book ends on the latter's successful escape, and the MC conveniently goes into labour at that moment), the next two books require us to pamper the everloving shit out of Madeleine, and Maxwell - who, might I remind you, emotionally blackmailed his brother into giving Bartie Sr his title as Duke and made his father's coup possible - spends more than half of TRH3 playing the betrayed victim.

What does Liam get? A few seconds of the MC mouthing platitudes when they find out, and one scene where Liam is allowed to gaze sadly at daisies. Maxwell gets to weep about his traitor father ad nauseum while barely acknowledging the friend who lost his mother thanks to the same man, Madeleine gets to spend most of TRH2 and 3 expecting us to treat her with kid gloves otherwise she will help Bartie Sr kidnap your child. Honestly, Drake Walker got way more time to moan and gripe about his sister living safely in Paris on Beaumont money!

Most times we hear about something tragic that happened to Liam, it serves to benefit other people - notably team favourites like Drake, Olivia, Madeleine or Maxwell. The entire base of TRH is the mystery of Queen Eleanor's murder, yet the person whose feelings matter least in this story is Eleanor's own son.

Most times when something horrible happens to Liam, or when he discovers something disturbing about his past, the MC hardly pays much attention to him, while showering whiter characters with sympathy and diamond scene moments for less horrific revelations. The same MC who can tell Olivia that it's okay to seek support, or comfort Drake with a drinking game, or convince Bertrand to go easy on Maxwell...has barely any time or interest to support Liam, even when she's married to him.

A Drake stan I'd spoken to around the time of TRH3, once claimed that the narrative may have been trying to balance things between "prominent" LIs by "giving Liam the plot elements" and "giving Drake the emotional baggage". This is an argument I have seen often in the fandom - that "the story makes sense only with Liam as your spouse" ergo he has the biggest advantage of all the LIs. This is directly related to Liam's role as king. Let's take a minute to explore how that is dealt with in the story.

2. Power and Monarchy.

Often Liam is considered PB/TRR's "golden boy" because he is the "royal" spoken about in the title and featuring in all the covers. The popular argument is that the story makes sense only if you married Liam and became his Queen.

However, this argument misses (perhaps deliberately) one very important thing. Even this is mostly centered around the power Liam gives the MC. Liam's attention or even power doesn't increase within the narrative by giving the MC power - in fact it is pushed so far back the narrative often seems to forget who he is, and tosses his role to the MC, Queen Consort or not. His being king hardly seems to benefit him narratively - it is only used to benefit the MC.

People forget that even on a level of being Queen Consort, she shouldn't be having the kind of power she's been given in the narrative, or replace the king. Yet that is exactly what the narrative does.

One of the arcs that was promised for Liam was about the kind of king he hopes to be. As a Crown Prince he grapples with this question, and as a King he faces constant doubt and fear over his capability to rule. When he discovers that his father masterminded the plot against the MC, that moment was written as if it could be a turning point in how he views ruling. At the TRR2 finale he vows to never let fear overpower him the way it did Constantine, and before that in NY he tells the MC that she inspired him to take the reins and have more belief in what he wanted to achieve.

In TRR3, the writers barely bothered to address this conflict at all, besides a line (said in passing, only in his playthrough) about his plans for compensating the Applewood farmers until the new crop could harvest, and a couple lessons on diplomacy for the MC's benefit. Even his role as a king was viewed more in terms of how the MC could use his knowledge, not really as an important aspect of his character. The writers spent far more time forcing Liam to look sadly at the MC that wasn't marrying him, just to appease certain nonLiam stans who missed the love triangle. He was essentially given no real plot of his own in TRR3. This definitely didn't track with the promises made for his storyline in the TRR2 finale in any way or form.

TRH is far more brazen in this respect. From the point that the MC becomes Champion of the Realm/prospective Mother of the Heir, the narrative cedes so much power to her...that it almost treats Liam as a noble rather than the literal King of that country! The royals at the first Ball she hosts in Valtoria address her as if she's the only "monarch" that counts. Isabella questions her about Eleanor rather than Eleanor's actual son. Amalas stalks her constantly. Nobles directly address her as if she's the only one ruling (eg: Kiara's comment about "reactive ruling" elicits a response from the MC, rather than from Liam who is actually standing there).

Even if the MC was the consort ruling alongside the rightfully-appointed King, it still didn't make sense for the narrative to replace him with her in discussions that were meant for the actual person in power. In addition, the narrative itself views her - across playthroughs - more as the Duchess of Valtoria than the Queen of Cordonia - we see her duchy more often than we do the Capitol, there is very little reference to what she does as Queen Consort or any duty she may have to perform on that score, and King Liam himself is made to behave more like a Duke (eg. The only time he's allowed to push back independently against Bradshaw and Isabella in TRH2, is a ballroom duel that is proven pointless by the Auvernese drone attack that they framed Monterisso for).

Most of the power to make decisions is taken out of Liam's hands and given to the nobles who run the Royal Council - and once those decisions turn out to be bad ones, the blame is placed solely on his shoulders even though it was made jointly. Half the characters talk over Liam and directly to the MC about "her rule", even though she is a Queen Consort at best and a random new Duchess at worst.

The MC - who is never really shown doing any actual work for the country or thinking about her people. The MC - whose only political act outside of the shenanigans she gets into with her friends, is a line about contributing to charities. This woman has a wholeass library in her duchy and access to endless resources before that...and still needs to be spoonfed information about neighbouring places by the likes of Hana Lee. This woman started out working in a bar close to a rat-infested dumpster yet never shows a lick of concern for the average commoner in her duchy - forget her kingdom if she is the Queen. She is literally given all of Liam's power, while hardly having to do any of Liam's work (and if you're going to pretend he doesn't do any work? I suggest you read this essay to see what you missed!). And all that is fine - but if this fandom is alright dragging Liam for "being a sucky king" and "partying all the time", I'd better see you guys hold everyone else - including your favourite characters who rule over entire provinces, and your darling MCs - to the same parameters.

By the time we get to TRF, this is the amount of power the narrative gives to the MC:

Not only is Liam's role nerfed to that of a Duke, the narrative itself has no qualms saying the quiet part out loud: Liam isn't the one that matters, the MC is. Liam's decisions and opinions mean nothing, the MC's does.

And this isn't something the MC herself is against, canonically. She enjoys having that power. She revels in it. No matter how badly the fandom wants to make a victim out of her and a Rumpelstiltskin out of Laim - this is a role she accepted wholeheartedly and enjoyed, while not having to work much for it. As a reader you may assume that your vision of the MC wouldn't be comfortable with this role, but canon in no way depicts your assumption as true. So it's not even as if - contrary to fandom's claims - these were roles Liam forced on her.

To revert to what I said at the beginning of this section - the plot runs because Liam is the king of the country and was the reason we came to Cordonia. But in a context like this, that is not at all an advantage. The farther into the story you go, the clearer it is that Liam's role benefits the story more than the story will ever benefit him.

3. Family

Another thread that runs through all the LIs' stories is that of their families. Most of the mystery surrounding the past revolves around Liam's, Drake's, Maxwell's, Olivia's (and briefly, Hana's) parents and their histories - but it would be helpful for once to look at how the narrative frames these stories, and how these characters benefit from them. Are the LIs' themes explored adequately through the inclusion of these stories? Does the LI's feelings get validated by the group, or dismissed? Does the narrative try to downplay the pain they may have endured in childhood, depending on which LI/prominent character the writers preferred?

A prime example of how the narrative uses the family background to their character's advantage is the Drake-Savannah story. Savannah is constantly viewed from Drake's lens, even when it is revealed that she's actually living a comfortable life thanks to a pair of nobles. Drake is STILL allowed to use her "experience" as an example of the "bad, no-good, dastardly nobles", is allowed to look down on the one noblewoman who befriended Savannah, and is allowed to punish Bertrand all the way into TRR3 for perceived slights.

While Savannah likes Bertrand enough to want to marry him, it is Drake's judgement of him that is centered - Savannah brings what he said about Bertrand up whenever she wants to badger him into doing her bidding, and Drake himself is allowed to humiliate Bertrand just to give his agreement to their match. Savannah's wedding is literally the wedding Drake described in a TRR3 diamond scene as his dream wedding (Ice Palace, TRR3 Ch 11), even though canon had her aspire more to the noble life than her brother. That wedding lasted half the book, and involved Bertrand being further humiliated by Drake's family. Despite her many flaws, canon chooses to view Savannah as "perfect" primarily because that's how Drake views her...and Drake can never be proven wrong on anything (even if the team has to do a retcon to make it so). This extends to the rest of his family as well. Canon attempted to create Leona out of whole cloth so that Bianca could appear less of an asshole (an attempt that failed), and Jackson is depicted as a close friend who Queen Eleanor trusted with the news of her pregnancy, yet somehow he never did anything nor asked any questions after she was dead and there was a potential child out there. His father is still the innocent among innocents, the best person and friend that ever existed. Drake is centered in most stories surrounding his family, and so is his perspective.

Maxwell gets something similar to this treatment later on in the story, specifically with the way Bartie Sr's coup and Bertrand's perceived betrayal is handled. The coup itself begins with Bertrand handing over his title and responsibilities to his father - a move facilitated directly due to Maxwell's lies and retcons about Bertrand in his book. Maxwell spends more than half the book clinging to some weak hope that the man - who is literally staging a coup of Maxwell's friend's throne, and later kidnaps a child - is a good man. His tirade against Bartie Sr being a bad parent, in Valtoria, hardly acknowledges what Bertrand had to suffer. As mentioned earlier, when Bartie's treason was revealed Maxwell centers that truth around himself even though the son of the woman Bartie killed is right in front of him (there's a vague promise about how he'll do anything to bring his father to justice, but that's about as far as his communication with Liam on this goes). And finally, even after it's been made clear that Bertrand was secretly supporting the core group, Maxwell and the group still behave like he did something wrong and continue to mistrust him, to the point of expecting him to apologise and suspecting him in the next book to be in the VI (though Maxwell does initially stage a weak protest to this). All this, while never having to acknowledge Maxwell's own role in getting Bartie Sr closer to power!

The team pretends to do something similar for Hana, but with egregious retcons. While in TRR her parents' motives are tied to Hana having a beneficial marriage and furthering their fortune - and they come close to disowning her for wanting to follow her own path - in TRH the narrative aggressively retcons their story so that their motives are attributed to affectionate worry and protection, rather than control. While it is great that Hana still isn't required to forgive her mother, the narrative forces her to soften Lorelai's motives in a way that is insulting to her original story. I won't speak more on how Hana's story was handled, as I do so in detail here. Olivia, while not an LI, was given far more grace from the narrative; she was given an entire holiday book to ruminate over what to do with her traitor aunt's necklace. Throughout TRH, she is involved in and heartily lauded for various "spy missions", most of which culminate in nothing because all she does is sit on that information and not tell anyone (with very few exceptions, like the reveal about Bartie's murder of Eleanor). That story is wholly centered around Olivia and her comfort. Ergo, even a side character can get plenty of space for their story if their writers actually give a damn.

Which brings me to Liam.

There were problems already in the way Liam and his family issues were explored, even before Lena came along. Stoicism and the pressure to show a sense of calm at all times was an accepted trait of Liam's, and it was one that his fans had hoped he would emerge out of as the story progressed. Yet the narrative only allowed him to show strong emotions when it was centered around protecting the MC (see: Liam's confrontation of his father in TRR2 Ch12, or fighting Anton in TRR3 Ch 21). The MC was far, far less proactive in this respect, even as she acted as counselor and teacher and guide and angel of mercy to numerous white characters in the same book.

When Liam's father dies right in front of him, the narrative forces Liam to deflect and keep it moving, only allowing him to shed a single tear at the end of the book. TRH finds Liam hit with reveal after painful reveal of the plots behind his mother's death, and he is allowed barely seconds to even show an emotional response to this - much less be comforted. In each case he is meant to move ahead as if this wouldn't affect him, as if the next mystery is more important, as if he didn't deserve support.

A support that the MC doesn't mind lavishing on Drake, Maxwell, Olivia, Madeleine, Penelope, White Noble no. 1, 2, 3, 4...the list is endless.

Into this already-skewed situation, enters his sister Lena, who hates him. She spends half the book verbally shitting on him and the group, calling Liam weak, claiming without any actual experience (besides heading a company) that she could do a better job leading and fending off coups and plots that he and his friends already managed to thwart. The narrative uses Liam's love for family and need to reconnect to this unknown sister to make sure Lena is centered in whatever reveal comes forth about their mother.

This wouldn't even have been as big of an issue if every other instance where Liam bore immense loss wasn't pushed aside as less important. If they didn't restrict the MC's concern to lukewarm platitudes and the occasional causal question. Lena getting this moment all to herself wouldn't have mattered as much if Liam wasn't constantly forced by the narrative to push his hurt, pain or anger aside when he discovered his father's illness...or when his kingdom was under attack...or when his father died...or when he discovered his mother had hidden a pregnancy...or when he discovered his mother's first attacker...or his mother's second attacker...or the King Guard who betrayed his family...or the cult that clearly wanted to kill his mother and keep him away from his sister...you get the picture.

In fact, the lack of care extends to the way the core group deals with the Lena situation as well. When Lena is first revealed to be both The Fist of the VI and Liam's long-lost sister, the core group callously scoffs at Liam's suggestions to communicate with her, rather than trying to comfort him. Even Hana, who has to sympathize and speak positively about the likes of Madeleine and Olivia - women who have harmed her and have regularly undermined her - is made to sound like she has no patience for Liam's obvious internal conflict. If anyone could understand how hard it would be to let go of family whose motives can be harmful for you, it would be Hana. Yet the team has her place timelines on Liam's emotions in a way the group never bothered to do to Maxwell in a somewhat similar situation, in the previous book.

Of course, once the MC decides it would be a good idea to win Lena's trust, the group magically sees this aim as legitimate. For the rest of the book, Lena is pampered, cosetted, coddled, shown around Cordonia and treated with kid gloves, all while trashing on Liam without much significant pushback. The entire story revolves around her journey from a skeptic of the group to realizing they are genuinely good people. All while her brother who gave us this series languishes in the background - his own power snatched from his hands and passed to the MC, his own traumas and tragedies forgotten, his own emotional baggage thrown away so Lena and Drake can take centerstage.

At the end of the book, when the group gets closure from Sigrid over VI and her multiple betrayals, it is Drake who gets the most space to react out of the group alone. The book begins with his discovery of Bastien's involvement in the VI, and allows Drake ample space to grieve and ruminate over it (btw, let's forget entirely that Bastien has been King Guard this entire time, and that meant that for all five years of his rule and for many many years before that, Liam and his family had a walking talking security risk "protecting" them. Coz who cares if the King of Cordonia dies, amirite?) When it is discovered that Jackson died while working undercover to expose the VI, it is Drake who gets the most time among the group to confront Sigrid, and it is Drake who gets to give a lengthy monologue to his dead parent, for which the MC and Liam are required to stand there and comfort him. In contrast, Liam gets just one line in a scene about the person who masterminded his mother's death. It is Lena instead, who gets to react emotionally to that - because the Sigrid story itself was created specifically to pander to this one just-created character.

Lena wasn't created to add to Liam's story like Savannah was. She wasn't meant to share their joint history like Bertrand and Maxwell initially were, or sidelined for the sake of another side character related to another LI like Bertrand was. Lena was created to replace Liam as the center of a tragedy that happened to him, that affected him, that haunted him for years, that had repercussions on his life...that he was never given any real space to emotionally explore.

Drake's story benefitted from Liam's trauma, to the point where only he was allowed to talk about it and where his perspective was the only one given value. The MC's story benefitted from Liam's power, to the point where she damn near replaced him narratively in that role despite never doing the work, while the fandom laid the entire blame on Liam ad nauseum and not her. Over and over, in plots and coups and murders that hurt his family, other people were allowed to talk, allowed to think, allowed to feel...while Liam got maybe one teardrop per parent.

In the same trajectory, one can clearly see why they developed a character like Lena in the first place. The writers spent 6 whole books heartlessly picking at parts of Liam's story and giving those bits away to their actual favourite characters. Bit by bit, from his experiences to his work to his role, they whittled away Liam as a character until he was left with practically nothing. Do you think they would seriously just stop that process with TRH3? I mean, the head writer is someone who likes "mean characters who speak their mind" and her disdain for characters who represent diplomacy and peace isn't even thinly veiled. Of course they'd go further!!

Lena was created with the sole purpose of ensuring Liam never got adequate closure for himself. They simply passed on that luxury to her, and the fandom who hid behind "Liam gets everything!!111" while never speaking up once about the gross favouritism directed towards their own beloved LIs and side characters, cheered the same team on in this.

Prince Liam had made a beeline for a slice of cake that she was sure he was going to keep safe for his brother - ever since that infamous incident where Prince Leo licked a duchess' wedding cake, the two have been sneaking slices for each other for no real reason...just a private joke between them. The little prince had just managed to extract one small, perfect slice of orange-cardamom olive oil cake, and turned when he heard a loud, satisfying crunch that Anais had failed to stifle.

He'd blinked twice, shuffled his feet around in a very obvious reluctance to leave her kitchen, and seemed to angle his ear as if to hear it again. Crunch! she sunk her teeth in a bit slower and a little harder this time, acknowledging the unsaid need of her tiny audience of one. It took a while before the little boy would leave, cake almost forgotten.

But perhaps what set the seal on this obsession was another secret trip of his to the kitchen in the early morning, three weeks later, this time for a sample of his mother's scrumptious and utterly divine-smelling rose petal jam. Once found, he looked around the kitchen, his eyes hopeful.

"Bon dia, Your Highness," she told him quietly, watching as one of her young chefs placed in a dough that had been resting for twelve hours in the oven, "if it does not trouble you to wait an hour, we're getting this bread ready for your breakfast."

It was a thing she wouldn't dare to say to young Leo, heir to the throne, who was a sweet-natured if slightly mischievous boy but had a vile temper when hungry.

His younger brother didn't mask his disappointment, but still waited quietly and patiently for the bread. A rustic preparation - a Greek village bread called horiatiko psomi - but it had been a central part of the royal diet for at least three generations now.

It was only midway through the baking that Anais noticed the sharp intake of breath as he watched the dim outline of the loaves rising from inside the oven, looking much like her youngest at age 2. The Prince is perhaps five years older than that right now.

But it was nothing compared to the sight of the child when the bread came out of the oven. His eyes went round and he took several deep breaths, allowing himself to savour the aroma of freshly-baked bread. Unaware of his own movements, Prince Liam seemed to inch more towards the loaves as if in a trance. Everyone has a memory of their first time registering with this aroma - Anais' was in her mother's kitchen, playing the remaining flour in her mother's kitchen. From the look in his eyes, Prince Liam's was just at that very moment.

It was then - and only then - that it dawned on Anais just how insular palace life could be for the children that grew up there. To have spent half your childhood years never smelling just-baked bread in a kitchen!!

"This bread." The boy said, pointing to a loaf baked a perfect golden-brown, his eyes alight. "I want to make it. May I please?"

His face fell as he registered the Head Chef's hesitance. King Constantine may not be as formidable as his late mother yet (though heaven knows the man does try), but he did manage to decently intimidate most of the staff.

And although these kitchens were her turf, she wasn't entirely sure if granting the little prince's request would mean dunking herself and her entire team into murky waters.

She sighed as the boy left, her insides twisting oddly at the sight of his crestfallen face. Were it up to her she would have absolutely planned something.

Three days later, both his wish and hers seemed to be granted. She was handed a note in the elegant, loopy handwriting of the Queen.

Leave handling the King to me.

She smirked. She knew instantly what the Queen was asking her to do.

--

In the two months that Prince Liam and Head Chef Anais take to teach him breadmaking, she learns two things.

One, that of the two boys - he is the one with the interest to cook. He may not have a lot of his mother's personal flair, but his fascination with the way ingredients transform and blend when introduced to heat is almost scientific. The Crown Prince, on the other hand, simply doesn't have the patience.

Two, when the boy eats, he eats with all his senses. Sight, smell, sound, touch, taste. He loves the process of pounding and kneading the dough, feeling its stretch beneath his fingers, as much as he adores tearing a baked loaf apart or the crackle of its crunch when he sinks his teeth into it.

And the aroma! He still struggles to tell her what he loves about it, but on a particularly good day he tells her it feels like being wrapped in a warm fleece blanket against the freezing winter.

Then he shuffles his feet and looks at her, sheepishly grinning. "Olivia would kill me if she heard me say that," he says, nodding in the direction of the bedchambers presently occupied by the little heir to the Duchy of Lythikos.

Today there is an extra springiness to his step, and the entire kitchen staff seems to know why. She can bet that damn Hitoshi was behind the secret smiles and adoring whispers. He has probably spread the the young Prince's breadmaking obsession and is probably already telling all-and-sundry what he might teach him if the boy asks. He's the pastry chef; she can tell without even talking to him yet, that he's been jumping at the bit to teach the little Prince his favourite sweet bun recipe.

Knowing that Chef Anais hailed from a part of the Foundaries that had ties to Mallorca, Prince Liam made her promise that if he did extremely well in his baking in less than three months, she would show him how to bake a bread that he knew was close to her heart: Llonguet. He'd found out about it from a rare visit one of her children took to her work quarters in the palace.

She can't resist a smile herself. Of course she will grant Prince Liam's wish today. Not just because he is an adorable little charmer of a child with a smile that could melt icicles. But because he has more than earned it. Because she hasn't seen a child as in love with the art of baking as this one, not even among her own children.

Teaching him has been an absolute dream, and thus far it seems - to Anais - like the Queen has kept her word. For there has been no incident that indicated the King catching wind of his second son taking lessons from palace cooks yet (Palace cook! Indeed!, bristles the part of Anais that never forgets that she has led teams at Michelin star restaurants and won an honorary doctorate from Cordonia's best culinary institute for her services to the food industry here).

Just today he was looking up at her and giggling as they stretched the dough then slammed it down on the flour-dusted counter with a thwack!, making similar sounds each time they repeated the action. It is a deceptively simple dough of just five ingredients - flour, salt, water, yeast and the best, grassiest olive oil you could find in Cordonia - but the secret to a truly great one is in the ingredients and the handling. We need it crusty on the outside but soft as pillows inside, she has told him - and that involves precise work and good timing. She has added in some sugar for the yeast to feed on, in the few hours that they've waited for the dough to get ready.

When he returns from his lessons to check on the dough, it's already ready to go into the oven. While they wait for the bread to rise, Anais tells him about the many, many shops that dot the city of Palma - the coast her ancestors came from - and how she wished one day she could go back just to visit every existing bakery that had llonguet on the menu.

(more than a decade later, and three years after the Ruta del Llonguet is finally introduced in her country of origin, King Liam will send his prized head chef to Mallorca to sample the thing she has associated most with home)

"It will come out with a long crack in the middle," Anais tells him, "That's how you know it's a perfect llonguet. You cut it open straight down that crack and make your sandwich."

For Prince Liam they decide to make it with artichoke-olive hummus and chicken, spiced with a bit of paprika and cumin, and for Prince Leo - who loves his seafood - they fill it with sardines and trampó salad.

She smiles as the two boys tuck in to what always felt like a simple recipe that made her feel at home...and what must - for reasons she is grateful she will never fully understand - be luxuries to them.

Liam splits one of the prepared loaves open with his hands, watching in pure satisfaction how the bread tears exactly on the crack Chef Anais had promised would appear, the sound the bread makes as it crackles when opened and the delicate pull of the bread's soft insides.

His brother may bask in the luxury of feasting without needing to make the food he is enjoying, but Liam knows that being there through this entire process - from seemingly-discordant ingredients, to unified dough, to a loaf that barely resembles any of the things used to make it but that meshes them all into this delicious little miracle.

He wipes a bit of hummus off the corner of his mouth, then savours the satisfying crunch of the top half of the bread ringing in his ears as he takes another bite, knowing that the inside of the bread will melt like butter on his tongue.

--

"What! A superhero who is weak? A superhero that lets people take bites off of his face??"

The sound of Chef Hitoshi Luno's laughter is rich, warm and soothing, much like the Ethiopian mocha he favours drinking. "Indeed. That's how the story goes."

"The story of Anpanman," Liam murmurs bemused. Just two hours ago, he'd watched the quiet, shy pastry chef slam the dough of the anpan bun with a force that reminded Liam all too clearly of Chef Anais. Like hers, his skin too was stretched tight in sharp relief against the bones of his knuckles as he pulled at the dough, his lips pursed in concentration.

They're the last two people you would think to find any similarities in, but their joy in this one activity is definitely one of them.

The story of this bread itself, Hitoshi told him two weeks ago, was one of samurais who found themselves without jobs after a major restoration swept the country under Emperor Meiji in Japan. One of them opened a bakery and - because bread was often rejected by ordinary people for being too sour - flavoured breads with sweet red-bean-paste and salted cherry blossoms on top.

(If there is a lesson here that Hitoshi unknowingly imparts, a lesson about how the qualities of a warrior and the qualities of a creative man can co-exist - how one needn't be better than the other - or how, like Anpanman, you didn't need to be raring for physical fights to be heroic, it is a lesson Liam will only remember when he's much, much older)

The dough has doubled in size now. A junior chef informs Chef Hitoshi that his anko is done - the red beans and sugar boiled and thickened to a chunky paste, ready to be used for filling. It's a fetching shade of what Mum would call wine-red.

Together, they press then roll the dough into a large ball, which Chef Hitoshi cuts with a dough shaper into smaller ones. They make smaller spheres out of the anko filling placing it in the middle of flattened dough before pulling all its ends together like a little parcel. Before proofing the dough, Chef Hitoshi did what he called the "windowpane" test - stretching the dough between his thumb and fingers to see how translucent it was. Liam loved how you could almost see his skin through the thin film of the dough. Almost like the fabric of one of Mum's tulle dresses.

When it emerges from the oven, golden-brown and gleaming from the eggwash, a scattering of toasted sesame seeds on top, Liam's mouth waters instantly. And the sweet more than lives up to its promise. The bread is soft and buttery and its delicacy coats his palate, and the filling reminds him of a dessert of sweet potatoes gifted to his mother by the Queen of Monterisso - not too sweet but not savoury either. Carrying a plate back to his mother, they both savour in the sweetness of the beans, the chunky texture of the anko paste providing his tongue new delights with each bite.

In these past three months learning breadmaking from the masters, Liam has learned two things.

One is that he absolutely cannot live without the aroma of freshly-baked bread.

The other...is that everywhere you go, every table you sit at - Cordonian, Japanese, Spanish or French - there is bread to eat. Bread to break. Bread to share with people and make them happy.

--

"What's a thing that can make King Liam cuss like a Greek sailor?" Queen Esther asks her friends in the kitchen one day, fulfilling all her pregnancy cravings for baklava.

Before any of them can open their mouths, Chef Anais answers, smirking. "Show him a badly done baking tutorial." Chef Histoshi looks up from a intricately-latticed berry pie to pipe up: "He'll go nuts."

Hana has just the thing. A baking video for 2-ingredient Greek Yoghurt Bread with only flour and yoghurt, that somehow magically rises into beautiful, golden fullness in the oven.

Not even a second passes before they hear a frustrated yell.

"Where's the fucking yeast!!!"

A barrage of Greek swear words follow, presumably at the sight of yeastless bread rising. Maláka, gamóto and ái sto diáolo among them.

"Oh shit," Drake says as the video is about to end, "He just said áde gamísou. I've never heard him say that."

"I'd...better go check on him," Esther says, not looking sorry at all.

--

Recipes:

Llonguet (there is no actual recipe I found for the bread, but I did find articles that spoke about it)

Anpan/Japanese red bean bun

A/N2: The events of this fic will take place roughly a year before the next chapter of Eleanor's Kitchen.

A/N3: Anais is of Afro-Catalan origin; her ancestors came to the Foundries from Mallorca. Hitoshi is a descendant of Anton Luno and is from the Fire Tribes. He has Japanese and Ethiopian heritage.

Meanings:

pa amb tomàquet - a toasted bread, that is rubbed with garlic while it’s still warm, and then topped with fresh grated tomatoes, and a sprinkle of olive oil and flaky salt. It is a popular Catalan recipe.

Bon dia - Catalan greeting that means "good day"

Horiatiko Psomi - A Greek village-style bread that is hearty and with a crispy crust, perfect for serving with soups, stews, and salads. It gets its gorgeous yellow color from the addition of fine semolina, a flour normally used to make pasta.

Llonguet - Soft and tasty, llonguet is a bread native to Palma de Mallorca, stuffed with savoury flavours like sobrasada (a local red sausage) or Mallorcan cheese. Locals enjoy them for breakfast, lunch or merienda (a light meal).

Ruta del Llonguet - Every Wednesday from September to November, some Palma's best bakeries offer a llonguet sandwich with a drink for only €3. The project aims at promoting the llonguet among locals and visitors, a traditional type of bread that has been losing popularity in the last few years. Almost 40 bakeries and patisseries around the city participate. 

Anpan - Anpan is a soft round Japanese bread that has azuki bean paste filling. Learn more about the origins of anpan here!

Anpanman - A Japanese superhero based on the concept of the bread. Find out more about him here.

Maláka - Jerk/asshole

Gamóto - Oh shit/oh fuck/Dammit!!

Ái sto diáolo - Go to hell

Áde gamísou - Fuck you

I couldn't find the exact video Liam is cussing at on YouTube, so I'll attach the source I got it from: Debunking Fake Cooking Videos 2020 from Ann Reardon's channel How to Cook That. The exact reference can be found around 11.03 minutes into the video.

Breads featured in this fic:

pa amb tomàquet

Horiatiko Psomi

Llonguet