Just reread queen song and now I’m depressed 🤪✌️ I’d love to hear your thoughts on Coriane. You always have such in depth thoughts about everything and you are the RQ fandom Oracle/ source of head cannons and I love everything you do. So like yeah what do you think about her and her entire story basically. Kisses
I apologize, but this answer is about to be like this:
Coriane is my baby. I regret that I have treated her so poorly by not working on Song to the Phoenix like I should be. She deserves so much, and deserves to have her story told. I love that we got a novella about her, because what people may or may not know from my past posts about her: I think she is one of the 4 most important women in the series and she's dead before it even begins. Everything Cal does in War Storm (and even in the rest of the books) is shaped by her. Mare actually says at one point in Red Queen that both her and Julian are holding onto her like she is some ghost of Coriane, and that is so fucking telling throughout the first book. Also Her portrait being in the outer room of Cal's chambers in WS, Julian's reaction to it, CAL'S reaction by putting it in that room and not with him. Her Diary coming back (while being the biggest fucking plot hole I've seen since whatever the heck SJM was doing in all her books) is so freaking important. The fact that at the end of the day, it is her words that push Cal to make the decision he has been desperately seeking validation for, is without a doubt the most profound shit ever.
I also thinks she's a wonderful foil for Elara? Because both she and Elara in War Storm get to speak to their respective son's from beyond the grave (whether VA meant for us to notice this is beyond me, whatever, I did.), but we can see how there are two very different tones being used:
Elara's=manipulation, power, violence which ultimately leads to Maven's downfall.
Coriane's=peace, compassion, love which ultimately leads to Cal's survival and the survival of Norta/The States.
She IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT CHARACTER (besides Mare, whose story RQ belongs to) because HER Story is what initiates everything. Her marriage to Tibe is what drives Elara to unfathomable, horrible violence (by driving Coriane to suicide) and then taking the throne. The birth of HER son is what drives Elara to have Maven and push him to be everything Cal is while physically pulling him apart and destroying him thereby creating the villain of the series. She is the perfect foil to Elara. And IT GIVES ME NEVER ENDING PLEASURE TO KNOW THAT.
I will DIE on the hill that if she had lived, there never would never have been a war with the Guard. She would have pushed for them to be noticed and heard. She would have been put out by Mare at first, but in time would have learned to respect this young woman with a backbone of steel and an eye for trouble. She would have stood by Cal and any decision he made to abdicate.
She was never allowed the chance to be strong, and in the moments she tried in Queen's Song she wobbles. She has 0 self-assurance because no one bothered to give the poor girl any. Like holy shit, dont even get my started on my thoughts that Tibe practically uses her like an ornament. If he actually loved her, he would not have married her knowing what she went through, knowing she wasn't the happiest person. Like holy shit. He put a massive bright red target on her back that said; Hey, please chew me up and spit me out. And didn't do anything to help her handle that. Jesus I hate him for that. Julian is terrible too! He just said: welp, sorry. AND KEPT HER ASS IN THE DARK ABOUT THINGS SHE DESERVED TO KNOW ABOUT??!! UGH.
Since it's taking me forever to get ANYTHING done for Song of the Phoenix I will tell you that there is a part, where Coriane actually tells someone (not be named because well... eh fuvk it... it's Tibe) to shut up and listen to her for just once, and the whole room goes silent and she just squares her shoulders (even though it terrifies her to be standing up to him) and pretty much tells him that she knows more and that if he knew anything, he would know to shut up and listen to her unlike how he acted when they were married. And Mare is over in the corner pretty much standing up on her chair waving glowsticks, shooting a confetti cannon, and holding up her drink like YOU GO BITCH.
Coriane's main goal in SotP for me is not only self-actualization but also self-assurance. Now, this by no means cancels out her depression, or the hole she was in, but it can help her deal with it. She deserves to feel and be strong, unlike all the characters in Queen's Song (INCLUDING TIBE) who made her feel lesser or smaller. I think if she were allowed the space to, she would have become a great Queen, a compassionate, powerful Queen who would have raised a son that she would have been incredibly proud of. But alas, tis not what her story was and that is what makes it all the more tragic. Her depression is strong, and she was never giving the chance or the people around her to make her stronger than it.
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