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strangetownpenguin · 1 year

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On the inheritance rules (and other dynamics) of Veronaville

After watching some of the videos of @letomills regarding the Shakesperean themes of the Veronaville sims, I got inspired and decided to write a wall of text.

Disclaimer. I haven’t read this through properly.

There are three families in Veronaville. Two of them, the Capps and the Summerdreams, appears to be matrilineal, that is, the family name is passed through the females, as opposed to most other families in the game, which are patrilineal, including the third family in Veronaville, the Montys, where the family name is passed through the males.

There’s nothing that suggests that the families follow primogeniture, that is, the oldest child becomes the heir or heiress, but rather the opposite. On The Sims Wiki, they suggest what the heir order of the Capp family would look like if they followed real-life primogeniture through the female line, which I find strange, since that is obviously not how the heirs are chosen in that family.

Even though Goneril, Regan and Cordelia all carry the Capp name and passed it on to their spouses (and children), it is clear to me that Cordelia was the parents’ favourite and crowned the heiress, and that it is her daughters who are supposed to carry the Capp name and bloodline forward. To be clear, I believe the heir rules are as follows: The Capp family heir must be a female, and the Monty heir must be male. The former heir picks the most suitable heir among the available ones. Contessa chose Cordelia. Cordelia never had a chance to choose between Juliette and Hermia, since she died when her children were still very young. Upon Cordelia’s premature death, it was up to Contessa to pick between Juliette and Hermia, and Juliette is said to be the Capp heiress (“Romeo has fallen for the Capp heiress”). This implies that Juliette is the heiress, meaning that Hermia isn’t one. Perhaps this doesn’t exclude Hermia from being an heiress, but I interpretate it as not being the first in line. Exactly why Juliette is the heiress and not Hermia, I’m not sure.

As for the Montys, it was either Antonio or Claudio that was set to become the heir. Based on their personalities, Claudio is the more outgoing of the two, perhaps the more charismatic one, while Antonio strikes me as rather introverted and less outspoken. I will go into more detail regarding Antonio later on. Among the sons of Claudio, that is, Mercutio and Romeo, Romeo strikes me to have been the favourite kid. He is said to be the golden child of the Monty clan and it is safe to say that he has a higher status than Mercutio in the family and is supposed to carry the Monty name forward. I will go into more detail regarding Mercutio later on.

As a disclaimer, I would like to point out that the memories in Veronaville are an utter mess, and that a lot of things are left unclear. The birth order of the children of Contessa and Consort, as well as the birth order of the children of Patrizio and Isabella, are examples of this. My interpretation is as follows: Goneril is the eldest child of Contessa and Consort, Regan is the second, Cordelia the third and Kent is the youngest (or Kent is the third and Cordelia the youngest, I'm not sure), and the age differences between them aren’t that large. With Bianca, Antonio and Claudio, I’m not so sure about the birth order, but I’m leaning towards Bianca being the eldest, based on Patrizio’s memories (Isabella doesn’t have any memories of giving birth to her children). Antonio and Claudio are twins, with Antonio being born first. Again, no large age difference between Bianca and her younger brothers. I know that when Veronaville is first loaded, Antonio is 18 days from becoming an elder and Bianca is 23 days away. Those age inconsistencies don’t really bother me. This game is loaded with them.

The Capps

In King Lear, there are the three sisters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, daughters of King Lear. Goneril is the eldest, Regan the second born and Cordelia the youngest. Here, Cordelia is Lear’s favourite daughter. I think that this fits nicely with The Sims 2 Veronaville characters. Kent is also a character in King Lear. He is Cordelia’s best friend, possibly even more than that. Also, just like in the play, Cornwall and Albany are the respective husbands of Regan and Goneril. In this narrative, I think it is plausible to interpret Contessa as King Lear. In the play, Lear dies (of grief? I don't remember) shortly after Cordelia is executed. Similarly, Contessa died not long after Cordelia.

I admit it’s been a while since I read King Lear, so 1) I might be a bit off the script of the actual play, and 2) I’m not sure from where I’ve got all ideas for Veronaville headcanons, but anyway, here it is – my interpretation of the siblings Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and Kent in relation to each other and to their parents.

Goneril and Regan always envied their sister Cordelia because she was favoured by their parents. Goneril and Regan attempted to make their parents like them like they liked Cordelia, but they just couldn’t succeed. Cordelia was the little princess, her parents’ precious gemstone, and nothing Goneril and Regan said or did could change that fact. Interestingly, both Goneril and Regan are fortune sims, just like their parents, while Cordelia is a family sim. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Cordelia is portrayed as very kind-hearted, which is what Lear greatly admires about her. So, to me Goneril and Regan became fortune sims, thinking this would make their parents like them more, but somehow, it was still Cordelia, who chose family over fortune, who ended up passing the test – she taught her parents that family and love are more important than fortune and money. The reason Contessa and Consort approved of this could be because they actually thought that she was right in her reasoning, and compassionate for valuing family so much. But it’s also possible that they would have approved of any aspiration, since I imagine that she was already the golden child and presumptive heiress.

Goneril seems to me to be somewhat conflicted. I’m not sure if I believe her marriage to Albany to be an arranged one. Since they both have the memory of falling in love with each other, it seems like they married for some kind of love, which of course isn’t incompatible with their marriage being arranged. However, I think that the marriage to Albany was one of the last straws that made Contessa and Consort disown Goneril. There isn’t really any evidence to this, but I think that Goneril’s parents parents didn’t approve of her love for Albany, which only made her more eager to marry him since she wanted to rebel against her parents. To me, Albany seems to be a sort of scheming kind of family sim, who managed to get Goneril to agree to have four kids. Goneril’s bio reads: “While Goneril wanted children, it certainly wasn't her idea to have this many kids. And why does she feel like Albany perhaps married her more for her money than for her love?” The childbearing has made it hard for Goneril to advance in a career and make money.

(I love the two first sentences of Albany’s bio: “Albany loves his children. Too bad they don't love each other. Can Albany convince them that family is important? And can he convince Goneril as well?” The last question could imply that Albany wants even more kids.)

Regan has clearly given up on trying to make her parents favour her: “Regan's determined to make it in business—and on her own steam instead of just her parents' money. Can she succeed without alienating her family?” Her marriage to Cornwall seems to be based more on convenience than on love, since they have never been in love with each other. They both seem to be career oriented, typical ambitious fortune sims.

Then there’s Kent, who’s just… Kent. “Kent is the black sheep of the Capp family—far more enamoured of learning than of accumulating wealth or fighting with the Montys. Will he pursue his friendship with Bianca Monty despite his family's misgivings about it?” I love Kent. (I think he could totally have an affair with Cornwall.)

Also, Miranda is the eldest grandchild of Consort and Contessa, both according to me and to Consort. (And after all, last time I took that "which sims 2 premade do you belong with?" quiz, I got Consort Capp... as opposed to 1,5 years earlier, when I got Lazlo Curious.) Shortly after Miranda, Tybalt, Juliette and Hermia were all born in a short time span, and not too long after that, Hal and Desdemona and then Ariel. The age gap between Miranda and Hal is seemingly too large if you interpret it this way, since there's only a 6 day age gap between them, but I think that if Cordelia's kids were born really close in time to one another, the age gap between Miranda and Hal shouldn't be as large. Say that Tybalt and Miranda are almost the same age, and Hermia is just slightly older than Hal. Anyway, what would the game be like without age inconsistencies? A game making sense? Hah! I'm having none of that.

The Montys

Looking at Antonio’s memories, we see that he was never in love with Hero. Whether this is an oversight by the developers, it’s impossible to say, but I personally like the theory that he is more attracted to men, something which Patrizio and Isabella might have known. I just imagine that non-heterosexual sims don’t have the easiest time in Veronaville, and that it was impossible for Antonio to openly love a man. To stop the rumours about Antonio being attracted to men, Patrizio and Isabella pressured him into marrying his good friend Hero, who could have been a former (or even current) lover of Claudio. (Thanks to @letomills for this idea, I really like it!)

Mercutio starts the game off with one single positive memory, and that is that of being potty trained by his mother. The rest are two grew up badly memories and three deaths. Romeo, on the other hand, while don’t remembering learning any toddler skills, has seven positive memories, including two grew up well and four concerning Juliette, and three negative memories which are all deaths. Additionally, Mercutio starts off the game with a red aspiration meter, with one of his fears being losing a fight to Tybalt, something that is likely to happen due to the scripted events and Tybalt’s ten points in body compared to Mercutio’s zero. Romeo, I believe, starts off the game with at least a green aspiration meter. This points to Romeo being in a quite good place mentally, unlike the Romeo upon the start of Shakespeare’s play. Another thing about Mercutio not being the heir is that in Shakespeare’s play, he is not even a Montague, although friends with Romeo. Perhaps Claudio didn’t really acknowledge Mercutio as his son, who knows.

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