Yuletide meta
Jan. 2nd, 2021 06:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meteordustNotes on An Evening With Music and Peril (Chronicles of Amber)
Amber is one of the fandoms of my heart, that I love returning to again and again. But one character whose point of view I'd never written before was Flora. I've become more intrigued by her over the years. As my recipient said, Flora is "fun and fascinating and so very sadly underestimated by most of her siblings", and it would be interesting to explore her hidden depths.
My original idea was for Flora to be focused on some personal goal of her own - eg planning a dinner party or preparing for a date - and in the background everyone else is running around dealing with some major crisis. I wanted us to just see hints of it as the other characters pop in and out of her story, and then for it all to tie together in the end, with Flora getting to save the day in her inimitable style.
This was maybe kind of ambitious, so it ended up being streamlined. So we didn't get to see Random and Benedict and Fiona and other senior Amberites doing their thing, just Merlin as their proxy dealing with the mirror beasts, and Vialle and Martin as noncombatants who had to be protected.
One thing I wanted to explore was what strengths Flora draws on. Everyone remembers the hand grenade scene, when Flora casually offers one from her purse to Merlin for protection, saying she always keeps them handy in this Shadow. It's unexpected and resourceful. But even in the very first book, her house is well guarded by trained wolfhounds. She warns Corwin they are strong enough to take even him down. "Their kind is the reason there are no wolves left in Ireland, you know."
She seems to have good plans for how to protect herself, leveraging tools and resources, rather than relying on her own skill at combat or magic. I thought this was an interesting strategy, showing judgment and foresight.
Amber is one of the fandoms of my heart, that I love returning to again and again. But one character whose point of view I'd never written before was Flora. I've become more intrigued by her over the years. As my recipient said, Flora is "fun and fascinating and so very sadly underestimated by most of her siblings", and it would be interesting to explore her hidden depths.
My original idea was for Flora to be focused on some personal goal of her own - eg planning a dinner party or preparing for a date - and in the background everyone else is running around dealing with some major crisis. I wanted us to just see hints of it as the other characters pop in and out of her story, and then for it all to tie together in the end, with Flora getting to save the day in her inimitable style.
This was maybe kind of ambitious, so it ended up being streamlined. So we didn't get to see Random and Benedict and Fiona and other senior Amberites doing their thing, just Merlin as their proxy dealing with the mirror beasts, and Vialle and Martin as noncombatants who had to be protected.
One thing I wanted to explore was what strengths Flora draws on. Everyone remembers the hand grenade scene, when Flora casually offers one from her purse to Merlin for protection, saying she always keeps them handy in this Shadow. It's unexpected and resourceful. But even in the very first book, her house is well guarded by trained wolfhounds. She warns Corwin they are strong enough to take even him down. "Their kind is the reason there are no wolves left in Ireland, you know."
She seems to have good plans for how to protect herself, leveraging tools and resources, rather than relying on her own skill at combat or magic. I thought this was an interesting strategy, showing judgment and foresight.
