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gaslightgatekeepgirlbosscombat · 7 months

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Group C, Round 1, Poll 1:

Propaganda under the cut

Silvia Bellini

Listen. She starts the book by sitting in her back room while a double preforms her sacred duty. This is her INTRODUCTION. She had a child when she was young but didn't want the child to be a target for assasination so she devised a plan to hide her existance from everyone, including the child's father, who she's STILL IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH 16 YEARS LATER. She was a MILF for me before I knew what a MILF was. She survived an assasination attempt and immediatly hired the assasin as her bodyguard. She got tired of ruling and pretended that a different assasination attempt succeded, after using a double that died in this attack, who she made sure was the new assasin's WIFE. Her daughter was put on trial for sacrilage and she STILL didn't reveil that she's the mother, OR that who the fire is. She's still practically ruling from the shadows 5 books later. Everyone's afraid of her.

Chelle

she has an information network of spies called "kittens" so she is always informed on all matters. since the dragon she's partnered with is a giant fluffy cat, it's entirely ambiguous whether or not they are literal cats or not. she's no stranger to manipulating both strangers and family alike to make a situation more favorable for her and to keep herself out of debt to others. also she runs a near exclusive weapon trade on guns. like she is one of the only people in the world who is able to make guns. also she does the OOOOOHOHOHOHO laugh when she starts firing her minigun

"- princess and 3rd eldest scion (out of 8 children) of her kingdom, she also oversees her own realm called chanzelia that was a bum fuck backwater but she singlehandedly turned it into one of the most prosperous and technologically advanced cities in the kingdom - has a bunch of ""kittens"" (spies) that serve as her network to know any and all information. her kittens never get caught - her personality -- she's very cunning and charismatic and secretly manipulates people/situations to her own advantage -- but never out of malice really. she cares about the others around her genuinely but does so in a very roundabout and clever way. - she's a lead innovator in reviving ancient technology (which was more technologically advanced than the present) like guns. she has her own gatling gun that is pink and awesome and she used it to bail the party out of jail and it was epic she was shooting pink lasers all over the place - owns and created a giant landship called the ""gran fiore"" that can also serve as a submarine and can survive magic conditions like Divine Dark Fog That No Mortal Should Be Able To Enter"

What COULDN'T I say about Chelle? She is a princess that rules country thats situated on top of a moving landship, which is entirely because she specializes in blackmailing others to get what she wants. She has a network of spies she calls her "kittens" - because her partner, Cait Sith, is a cat-dragon - that have dug up so much information on people that she uses against them that they're known world wide. Her introduction to the story consisted of her saying she would help her brother, the protagonist, in fighting a war, and then she turned around and claimed that it was all a lie, leading them deep onto old ruins to kill them with magical robots. THEN when he WON, she turned around AGAIN and said it was all a very elaborate ruse. She does this like two entirely separate times. She is the sole dealer of Fantasy Magic Guns on the entire continent. Her main weapon is a machine gun with neon pink bullets. She's even bisexual.

She’s literally the princess of a small kingdom where she has “kittens” aka servants spread all over to gather information like a girlboss like who needs privacy

#round 1 #group c #Silvia Bellini #Stravaganza #chelle #chelle dragalia #princess chelle #chelle dragalia lost #dragalia #dragalia lost

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stravagatefaster · 3 months

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City of Masks - Readalong thoughts

Here's everything I wrote for the City of Masks readalong. I'm putting this under the cut because it got quite long

Part 1: Prologue to the end of Chapter 4 - The Stravaganti

Here are my thoughts on Part 1. Because I have read this book so many times, I tend to not pay too much attention to the beginning since so much of it is mainly just setup for what's to come. This time I tried my best to really pay attention to how the book pulls the reader into its world and what information is given in this beginning section.

The first thing I noticed was that even though Lucien is the protagonist of the book, he is barely in Chapter 1. He is briefly introduced, but we don't really get to know him yet. Instead, the Duchessa is at the center of the prologue and the first chapter. The plot seems to revolve around her, and that's the case for the rest of the book as well. Lucien may be the protagonist, but it could be argued that the Duchessa is the main character; She is the Sun and every other character is a planet revolving around her in this story. I'll have to pay attention to this aspect as I read onwards, since it is an angle I haven't really looked at before.

Another thing the first chapter highlights are the similarities between Arianna and the Duchessa and how both of them have a slightly rebellious nature. Arianna's rebellion is more obvious, but the Duchessa rebels against the Bellezzan's customs by using a double, even though her presence is the whole point of the Marriage with the Sea. This rebellion also comes from a self-serving place for the both of them: Arianna's main concern is herself, and Silvia does things because they are convenient to her (for example, using a body double because it spares her from going in the cold water and keeps people thinking she still looks young). Silvia even looks down on her subjects and especially their superstition, and a part of this is represented by how she blocks her ears with wax to block the sound of the cheering masses. The Duchessa is not presented as a loving and perfect ruler or a cold and heartless villain, but as a very realistic image of a woman who has ruled a city for over 20 years and is kind of over all the grandiose her life entails. This is, in my opinion, a more nuanced portrayal of a ruler than in most YA books, and it speaks to Hoffman's writing ability that she is able to bring this out within just the first chapter.

In the first chapter there are interesting little breadcrumbs that point to Silvia and Rodolfo's marriage. For example, the line "After all these years, his bony hawklike face still pleased her. And this year she had a particular reason to be glad of that" might seem like a slightly strange detail for a first-time reader, but in hindsight it's very obvious what that line refers to.

I don't have as many notes on chapters 2-4. One thing I noticed was that Rodolfo almost immediately offers Lucien prosecco. This was funny to me because a friend of mine recently read this book and pointed out how much alcohol gets consumed in this book. This is something I'll keep an eye on.

One thing I found interesting in this section was what happens to the di Chimici spy (Enrico, though he is not yet named in this section) in chapter 4. Of course, without this readalong most people could just keep going on, but I couldn't help but notice that we don't yet get an explanation of what happens to him. It is implied that something magical goes on, since he seems to feel Rodolfo's presence even when he is not physically there. But we don't find out what actually happens to him, only that he just dissappears. There was really no point to this observation, especially since I know what happened, but if I were reading this for the first time, this would be one of the little details in this book that make it a fantasy story. In general, I think it's interesting how unlike in other fantasy stories, where the magical aspects tend to be very explicit and front-and-center, in this most of the fantasy elements are hidden in small blink-and-you'll-miss-it details or moved to the background, apart from stravagating itself, of course.

My final notes are on Rodolfo's description of the di Chimici family in chapter 4. By this point in the book, Rinaldo di Chimici has only been mentioned very briefly, so the reader doesn't have much context on what Rodolfo is describing. This description is clearly meant to paint the di Chimici (sidenote: I find it interesting that in this book its "the Chimici", when it's "the di Chimici" in later books.) as the "big bad" of the series, but I don't think this image is as menacing as it could be. We don't really get an explanation on why the di Chimici are so bad, just that if they were to acquire knowledge throughs stravagating, they would keep it all to themselves. Rodolfo's description almost makes it seem like the di Chimici are already planning on world domination or something, and getting magic/science on their side would give them the tools for that, but honestly, from this description they also just seem like every other powerful family in European history: Conquering new territories and using marriage as a tool to make allies. This doesn't exactly tell me why the di Chimici are supposedly so bad, since it's not like this book has some strong anti-nobility stance in general.

It's also clear that Hoffman had not yet fully fleshed out the rest of the series at this point. "Every city but one in Northern Talia is ruled by one of [the di Chimici]" is not exactly true, as we find out later on in the series.

Part 2: Chapter 5 - Lagoon City to the end of Chapter 8 - A Jar of Rainbows

Lucien's story in this section is mostly about him learning about Bellezza and Talia. We straight up skip a few weeks (page 85), and we get a tour of the islands. On the English side, Lucien gets a visit from his friend Tom. This scene really highlights the difference in Lucien's two lives. We get a glimpse of what his life was like before the cancer and what it could be like if he was healthy. In this section we also get a taste of what could happen if he stays in Talia for too long. And yet he still ends this section by deciding to attend the celebrations. It's clear he's already prioritizing his life in Talia, which is not surprising, considering how little he has to do at the moment in his real life.

Before I move on to my notes about the worldbuilding, I want to point out the part where Lucien does his little internet searches. I think this is one of the parts that heavily date the series as taking place in and being written in the early 2000s. The way Hoffman describes using the internet is almost hilarious now, 20 years later. I've done a lot of research on the history of the internet, and I find this book to be an interesting time-capsule of what our relationship to the "web" was back in the day. Hoffman is really good at describing settings in a way that makes you feel like you're there, with just enough information without it being overwhelming; Any time I see Venice in another piece of media I feel like I know all the places already all thanks to how familiar I'm with Bellezza. This extends to how she describes the early 2000s online spaces. I can practically see the simplistic HTML sites when I read the passages about Lucien looking up information on William Dethridge.

In this section,we find out several things about the alternate universe Talia is in. One of these is that silver and gold have sort of switched places in that universe so that silver is valued more. (not really a spoiler but an extremely general thought about the series overall:) I find it interesting that although this detail never really plays a major part in the overall plot of the books, it is one of the defining differences between the world of Talia and our world.

We also get the origin story of the masks mentioned in the title of the book. It was left vague when exactly the earlier Duchessa's accident happened beyond that it was about 100 years ago, but if it really was exactly 100 years ago, then I really do believe she was the one to kill the di Chimici prince. According to the di Chimici family tree, he died exactly 100 years before City of Masks takes place, which would be a very convenient coincidence.

Enrico gets introduced better in this section after Rodolfo briefly expels him to Padavia. Right away we learn to recognize him as the man with the blue cloak. We also get a little bit of his relationship with Giuliana, the girl who acted as the Duchessa's body double. I find it kind of funny that Giuliana is the only one in the whole series to describe him as "handsome". Love really blinds people I guess. I'd like to know more of Enrico's backstory, especially since it's revealed that he's not from Bellezza. Where does he come from? How did he end up in Bellezza and working for Rinaldo di Chimici?

Through Enrico and Giuliana, in this section Rinaldo finds out about the Duchessa using a double for important occasions, and we start to see the plot of the rest of the book taking place. A piece in this is Guido Parola, who gets a couple of scenes in this section, one of which focuses on his backstory (sick father and a brother who gambled away their money) and the other which has Rinaldo giving him instructions to kill the Duchessa.

My final note is that so far most of this scheming and spying has been done by the di Chimici side, but in this section Silvia also sends her own spy after Arianna. This is just one of the little details that places her in a sort of gray area, closer to her enemies. And she's not the first Duchessa to be framed this way either; The story of the glass mask portrays the old Duchessa as a vain and ruthless person, and I can't help but think if this ability to exist in a gray-ish area morally is what is required of someone to be in this position, or if it is something you become due to being the Duchessa.

Part 3: Chapter 9 - Twelve Towers to the end of Chapter 13 - A Death Sentence

First of all, Dethridge. We get a short visit to Montemurato and find out more about Dethridge's past. The reason I wanted to talk about him was his way of speaking. Since he is from Lucien's world but hundreds of years in the past, he speaks in a pseudo-elizabethan way (I'm not an expert of the English language but I'm pretty sure that it's not entirely accurate). At times his speech is difficult to understand unless I sound out the words in my head. In the Finnish translation, he speaks in a fake old-timey way that is not old-fashioned enough to be historically accurate (that might be too difficult to read for younger readers). My Swedish is not quite good enough to properly analyze the translation in the Swedish version, but it seems that the words themselves are pretty "normal". I think one of my friends once said that the old-timey feeling comes from the word order there, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

In this section Rinaldo and Enrico turn their interest towards Lucien, and by extension, Arianna. It's a bit of a stretch to go through "to get the Duchessa we need to get Rodolfo, to get him we have to get Luciano, to get to him we have to get Arianna", but I suppose it kind of has to happen for the plot. My opinion is that the scene in the mandola is perhaps one of the most important scenes in the entire series since it is relevant even in the last book at the trial in Fortezza. The aftermath is one of my favorite parts of this book; It's so funny seeing Rinaldo be tormented by not knowing what happened. He just thinks Guido took the money and didn't even try the assassination, and in reality Guido is now working for Silvia.

The most interesting thing about the scene to me is this line: "A thousand regrets flooded her mind but not for her personal safety; they were all to do with the city, Rodolfo and the brown-haired girl." (Chapter 10) That's pretty obvious foreshadowing of both how important Rodolfo is to her (which has been sort of in question for most of the book, with the highlighting of how he is not the only lover she's had) and that Arianna is her daughter.

The funniest thing in this section was where we find out that Enrico has fallen into the canal while drunk.

Part 4: Chapter 14 - The Bridge of Sighs to the end of Chapter 18 - Viva Bellezza!

In this section we finally find out that Arianna is Silvia's daughter. There are quite a lot of clues hidden in the book, and re-reading it makes them very easy to spot, but if I remember correctly, when I first read it, this kind of came as a surprise to me (granted, I was a literal child back then). I find it interesting that Arianna's first positive reaction (after going through the initial shock and negative emotions) is to the fact that this means she won't have to marry someone "boring". This is a fear that has surfaced a couple times before in the book, but I feel like it could have been highlighted a bit more, especially in connection as to why Arianna wanted to be a mandolier in the first place. It's obvious that what she desires is freedom and some purpose beyond being a wife, and becoming a mandolier was just a tool for that. Her desire to be a mandolier fades into the background pretty quickly, so it doesn't seem like that specifically was what motivated her.

There is one plot hole in regards to the reveal of Arianna's birth. Silvia says she gave birth to Arianna during the Epiphany banquet, but in book 4 we find out her birthday is in October. Since Epiphany is celebrated in January, and we don't really have a reason to believe any of the holy days in Talia occur in different times to our own world (for example: Easter in book 3), this is just a plot hole.

I have to mention that Rodolfo's clowning in regards to Arianna's father is always funny to me. It doesn't even occur to him that it could be him and that Silvia could have kept that information from him just because she's a #gaslight #gatekeep #girlboss.

The "death" of the Duchessa also happens in this section. I find it interesting that it is the Duchessa's own spy who helps Enrico get the plans for the glass room. Silvia uses Giuliana specifically as a decoy, and by doing so she ensures that she gets rid of the double with the loose lips, and thus keeps it a secret (even in "death") that she used a double. It makes me wonder if she's ever previously gotten rid of a double who talked a little too much.

The final thing I have to say is about stravagating itself and its connection to physical places. When Lucien is in Venice, his connection to Bellezza seems to be stronger even when he is not actively stravagating. I also find it interesting that Dethridge and Rodolfo get the mirror to Lucien's room working only after he hangs up the mask he brought from Venice. Perhaps this object that originates from Bellezza's counterpart allowed for the barrier between the worlds to be thin enough for it to happen.

Part 5: Chapter 19 - Between Worlds to the end of the Epilogue

One big thing I want to mention in my final thoughts is the magiv system/stravagating itself. I've already commented on this topic in my other messages, but as a whole, this re-read has really highlighted some very interesting things to me. The most important one is stravagating and its connection to physical space (see my comment on the previous section). Most of the other moments of "magic" (though Rodolfo would deny them being magic) in this book, at least the ones that come to my mind, also have something to do with space; Rodolfo sending Enrico to Padavia and Rodoldo's impossible rooftop garden. I'll have to pay attention to if this pattern continues in the other books.

Speaking of Rodolfo, I have to mention a couple of things about him as well. His reaction to Silvia's "deception" is interesting to me. He is extremely loyal to her, but when speaking to Arianna about how he would rather have taken her away from everything than gone along with this lying, he shows a rare moment of not putting Silvia at the top of his list of priorities.

I've already touched upon how funny it is that Rodolfo just doesn't get that Arianna is his child, but there's another one of Rodolfo's clown moments in this book that gets me every time. This one is at the trial, right when poor Lucien dies in his old body. I have cried at Lucien's death many times when reading this book, but this time all I could do was focus on what Rodolfo does, because ever since my friend pointed it out, I haven't stopped thinking about it: What was Rodolfo thinking when he threw the book at Luciano? Was he planning on bonking him so hard on the head that he would stravagate immediately? How was Lucien tied up, and how was he supposed to catch the book if his hands were tied? My friends and I have tried physical demonstrations of this scene but we just can't figure out what Rodolfo was thinking.

My final notes are on Rinaldo. This re-read made me really notice how he and Enrico really are like two sides of the same coin. This is even highlighted by Lucien nicknaming them Smelly and Stinky; Enrico smells bad because of his disregard of personal hygiene, and Rinaldo practically bathes in his perfumes, but the end result is that neither of them smell pleasant. I think this really encapsulates both characters into one allegory.

Rinaldo is canonically in his mid-20s in this book (source: di Chimici family tree in the later books), but with the way he is written, it feels like maybe Hoffman originally intended for him to be older. Without going into too much detail on the later books, in this one Rinaldo feels like he's supposed to be what other characters are later on. I would love to know how much of the overall story Hoffman had planned when writing this first book.

The detail of Rinaldo being a citizen of Remora is interesting to me. In this book, we get to know how Bellezzan citizenship works (you either have to be born in Bellezza or marry a Bellezzan), but we don't know how it works in Remora. If it's the same as in Bellezza, Rinaldo being a citizen of Remora doesn't make sense, since he is supposed to be from Volana. Was he made into a citizen so he could be an ambassador? I'm probably reading too much into this, but it's just something that caught my eye.

#stravaganza #city of masks

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