Fandom Trash

Valeria ends up being so unlikeable and used solely for another pointless concubine arc that it falls flat.

better idea, Nurbanu is the servant and Valeria is the mistress. Valeria is still ordering her around and being bitchy and Canfeda still reminds them they're equal now. because of this, Nurbanu adapts quicker to the system (she already did, but this time it makes more sense).

they both get inspired by Hurrem, but maybe Valeria wants to and ends up being a high-ranking servant of Hurrem instead? you can still have her being bitchy and delusional towards Nurbanu, cause at that point no one expected Selim to become Sultan, and a high-ranking servant of the haseki would technically have a better standing than a prince's concubine. this also removes the pointless Raziye arc.

JUST THINK ABOUT IT!! think about how Hurrem sees herself in a young Nurbanu. how she comes to fiercely protect her, let her get away with some stuff, all because she didn't have anyone to do that for her when she was younger.

think about how they get close, how Nurbanu, as a venetian bastard, comes to idolize Hurrem because she finally sees the living proof that the circumstances of your birth don't matter. think about the mother-daughter relationship they would have!!

think about how crazy jealous Mihrimah would become seeing her mother relate so much to a mere "slave" and treat her as her own. like this would develop the later Mihrimah-Nurbanu rivarly so much!!!

i think she does display internalized misogyny because of her environment, but to call her a woman-hater is a stretch. almost all of her significant relationships are with other women. she seeks out the approval of other women such as Ayse Hafsa. the child she trusts the most is Mihrimah. the most telling, however, is sending Nurbanu to Selim specifically because she believes a strong woman will make him stronger.

what do you think?

Agreed. Hürrem will step over other women and she is prone to jealousy. But she doesn't just hate other women. The example that I tend to use to demonstrate the difference between Hürrem and Cersei is that Hürrem would have ordered that the wedding leftovers be given to the people. And yes, she does try to seek out support from other women as well as being someone who doss show care and empathy for them. After all she is very capable of seeing her own past self in other women. Which was one of the reasons why she approved of Nurbanu/Selim in the first place. And she tells Nurbanu as much. Cersei on the other hand isolates herself due to her paranoia. Hürrem is paranoid and mistrustful, but she still seeks out female friendships.

There are similarities—love to near obsession, devotion to their children, all while being perfectly capable of resorting to acts of cunning to survive. The spot where things start to diverge for me, however, is how Hürrem learns, overtime, to actually reflect the political acumen that Cersei only thinks she has.

In regards to internalized misogyny, it actually makes sense that Hürrem never fully adopts that either? For Cersei, the narrative that surrounds her life has shaped a belief that masculinity means power and that, by comparison, the more feminine role she occupies is a horrid weakness.

“When we were young, Jaime and l, we looked so much alike even our father couldn’t tell us apart. I could never understand why they treated us differently. Jaime was taught to fight with sword and lance and mace, and l was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, and l was sold to some stranger like a horse to be ridden whenever he desired.”

“She had played the dutiful daughter, the blushing bride, the pliant wife. She had suffered Robert’s drunken groping, Jaime’s jealousy, Renly’s mockery, Varys with his titters, Stannis endlessly grinding his teeth. She had contended with Jon Arryn, Ned Stark, and her vile, treacherous, murderous dwarf brother, all the while promising herself that one day it would be her turn.”

By comparison, it’s made clear to Hürrem, right from the start, that there is just as much power to be held in a feminine role. A concept only reinforced by the very nature of the harem where high-ranking woman occupy politically powerful roles far more than anywhere else.

Your First Draft The “Word Puke” Stage

Don’t write anything more than plot. If you have an idea of a character, the most important thing is to just get it down. Don’t worry about errors. Don’t worry if it doesn’t make sense. The worse your first draft is, the better. A lot of people think that good writing comes from a good first draft that just gets improved. No. Good writing comes from a good idea that is written badly, and then fixed. The more lowly you think of your first draft, the more likely you’ll want to improve it.

I wouldn’t even call this a draft. I’d call it a word puke stage. Just get your thoughts on paper. Once they’re concrete, you can work with it.

Your Second Draft

Don’t worry about writing philosophical undertones to your plot. That comes next. For now, just make sure your story is coherent and has all the basic elements a story has (like fully developed characters, a beginning, middle and end) and all that that you didn’t do in your “work puke” stage. In this stage of your writing, just make sure there aren’t any errors or holes in your plot and don’t forget about adding in other elements that develop the character’s personality, actions and feelings as well as the plot!

Your Third Draft

Now you can write in deeper meanings and other philosophical undertones to your story. Fix up all the mistakes in your second draft, chop out plot holes, revise, and redo and your original idea! You should have a complete and clear plot. Your character at this point should be an “iceberg” character, meaning what’s shown in the story is only about 10-20% of what you actually know about them! The deeper you know your character, the more fun it is to write about them. And remember, the story is told through the character’s eyes, so make sure you really know them.

Your Final Draft(s)

Like, you suddenly notice a string instrument in the background music and you haven’t seen a few of them in a while. And the more musically versed you are, the more you figure it out (like in a mystery novel if you happen to have in-depth knowledge about the current riddle) while the “normal” people can get fooled into twists.

The non-musically versed audience hears a new brass instrument and is like “Oh shit, the dude with the tenor horn is probably dead!”, but then he suddenly appears perfectly fine and one minute later they find the body of the Euphonium player.