...Or is she?

Yes, I've just made a Harlequin novel reference. *hides from the preemptive cheespuff strike*

But really... Who is the Mysterious Miss Farrar, behind all that social battle armor? If Nat's anything to go by... Most of the magicians started as (and probably still have ((somewhere deep in their hearts)) remnants of) very different people from the ones they seem to be.

Who is/was the authentic Jane? What do you think her birth name is?

I don't really think there's much behind Ms. Farrer, although Nat might have brought it out

But if you live behind a mask for so long, eventually it becomes part of you. And anyway, unlike Nat, Jane never saw the commoner/spirit side of life.

She probably believes she is better than them, she doesn't see them as people.

Mmmm, about her attitude towards the commoners I must totally agree. Probably a great deal of the antipathy the magicians have for the commoners is born of the fact that their parents were commoners- but also people who essentially sold them into bondage. I don't think that's easily forgotten, and how each character deals with that, remembers it, is something I wonder about.

The mask thing- oh, totally, but it takes decades for a false personality to totally take over, and even older patients than Miss Farrar have been known to have recoverable authentic personality traits under regressive therapies. Now, I don't have my PDR, DSM or any textbooks with me, so I'm working rather tentatively form memory- please bear with me on that count.

Jane isn't very old- she's young enogh, I think, to still have battling personalities... Just one of them isn't putting up much of a fight. A more apt metaphor might be... She's young enough to still have the false personality pummeling the rather mostly dead real one. Changing one's identiy at a young age exerts some pretty specific pressures. So does sexual abuse- I wonder if she was subject to any such unprincipled treatment. After, in GE she seems quite at ease with the idea of using her sexuality in a belligerent and manipulitve way. That sort of apathetic sexual confidence tends to result only and rather specifically from carnal abuses. (I finally found a good synonym!)

I'm rather running out of steam here (it is a bit early for me and I'm in a rush) but... Character deconstruction's no fun if you have to do it all on your own. *pout*

Hmmm.... Let me come at this from a different angle; (A) without having been sold off by her guardians, who would she have grown up to be? (B) what was her early apprenticeship like? and © if trauma were to force the collapse of her constructed persona- who or what would be left?

Oh- does anyone have any good psych reference materials to hand? Like I said, mine are absent, I won't be able to get at them for a couple days- could someone drop a line about some of the possible personality disorders resulting from the sort of treatment a young magician might endure?

And I still wonder what her birth name is. :P Anne? Susan? Elizabeth? Francine? Theodora? Marian? (Robin Hood reference! My mental image of Maid Marian always had black hair and green eyes. :) )

pensive-is-not-a-noun wrote: Changing one's identiy at a young age exerts some pretty specific pressures. So does sexual abuse- I wonder if she was subject to any such unprincipled treatment. After, in GE she seems quite at ease with the idea of using her sexuality in a belligerent and manipulitve way. That sort of apathetic sexual confidence tends to result only and rather specifically from carnal abuses. (I finally found a good synonym!)

I bet her real name is like Delilah or something :P

Yea, someone here used to ship Jane/Makepeace. Which is sometimes actually plausible. He seems sinister enough to try it.

But as a magician, I'm sure ambition was encouraged in her from a very young age, especially since she seems to have formidable talent. Therefore, she would have been exposed to many other magicians, and would have learned how to manipulate people.

I don't know if seducing Nat counts for having "apathetic sexual confidence", since he was obviously a little smitten, to put it mildly. Any other magician would have done the same.

oh I never took Psch, so I'm totally useless here.

Luciene wrote: I don't know if seducing Nat counts for having "apathetic sexual confidence", since he was obviously a little smitten, to put it mildly. Any other magician would have done the same.

Yes, but she was also still pubescent- there are alot of girls that age who think they can pull off the sultry temptress act (most of them seem to be in my family- why god, why?), but those who can are few and far between. They tend to be the scary case studies. I mean, she failed, yes, but only because Nathaniel realized she was using a glamor- it was his attempt to break away from recognized artificiality that saved him. If he hadn't noticed the glamor, he would have been lost. Not many girls her age would have been able to "work it" as the saying goes- most of the normally developing crowd would look like your grandad in a feathered micromini and heels. :P

But seriously- if she'd tried the same thing in PG I wouldn't have blinked. Seventeen, pretty much fully deveoped, actually at the start of her sexual prime- that kind of behaviour, and the ability to pull it off- would be kind of expected. Actually- let me make an adendum to that; even girls who are in their twenties fall flat on their faces (metaphorically speaking) trying to play the sone-cold fox. It's only the ones with real expertise who seem to manage the act. So, thirteen/fourteen years of age, about? Where did she learn to use a spell like that- and how did she get so comfortable with it? The only answers I can think of are.... Just plain icky. And somewhat tragic.

Methinks Jane needs a hug- and some serious couch time with a good analyst.

I will return with proper references later! Bwahahahaha! (How d'ya like my mad doctor laugh?)

Delilah- I like that. What about Ophelia? Emelia? Mmmm... Cornelia? Something that sounds like an old cat lady in a house with flowery wallpaper and way too much rosewater perfume.

Awww- you should totaly take at least one psych class. It's the most awesome subject ever! ...EVER!

No actually, I think in the book she's a few years older than Nat. She could have been 17. And if she's a brilliant magician/politician, there's a high chance she might also be a fairly good actor.

But yea...she does need a hug.

Delilah is too much like her current personality, and I have a feeling you secretly want her to be good.

Ophelia died of unrequited love, so it doesn't really fit. And Cordelia..she's way too moral and such a decent person.

My understanding of Emelia's a little vague, but I think she slept around a little...I gotta wiki that...

lol...way too much Shakespeare...why don't you do Katrina from Taming of the Shrew?

Luciene wrote: No actually, I think in the book she's a few years older than Nat. She could have been 17. And if she's a brilliant magician/politician, there's a high chance she might also be a fairly good actor.

But yea...she does need a hug.

Delilah is too much like her current personality, and I have a feeling you secretly want her to be good.

Ophelia died of unrequited love, so it doesn't really fit. And Cordelia..she's way too moral and such a decent person.

My understanding of Emelia's a little vague, but I think she slept around a little...I gotta wiki that...

lol...way too much Shakespeare...why don't you do Katrina from Taming of the Shrew?

Hrm- I got the impression that they were chronologically of nearly the same age- she just made him feel like he was the younger one. Pubescent boys seems to get that way around pubescent girls.

You took the names to a whole new level- I was working phonetically, starting with "Ophelia" which was just for the drama, and then sticking with that "elia" sound.... And looking for names that made me think of an aged catlady in a chatchka-filled house reeking of rosewater. That image just seems so far away from who she is now, it was too amusing to ignore.

Katrina is too awesome. :D

Mmm- there's no secret, I really do want her to be good. I think at the start of PG she was just at that place where she still has, but is about to lose, the potential to be so. I beleive her sociopathic behaviour to be the product of circumstance, like Nat's- but she's a bit worse. But, being a product of environmental factors rather than intrinsic ones, and being young, she was still what you might refer to as a "recoverable" personality. (I'm borrowing that term from literary criticism, not psych dogma, btw.) In that sense, for me she was the great tradgedy of the books. She's the one you see totally lose herself, any hope of herself, to the machine of which she is a part.

If Jane's real name is Katrina, and we use the nickname "Kat" to refer to her, we could use her and Kitty as character foils, since they are basically the opposite of each other. (Kitty seems more heroic when compared to Jane..etc)

Yea, but I suppose, under different circumstances everything would be different. Personally, I don't believe people are born good or bad. Nat was just lucky to encounter decent people in his life.

Why do you believe Nat and Jane have more chemistry than Nat and Kitty?

Luciene wrote: ... we could use her and Kitty as character foils, since they are basically the opposite of each other. (Kitty seems more heroic when compared to Jane..etc) ... Nat was just lucky to encounter decent people in his life. ... Why do you believe Nat and Jane have more chemistry than Nat and Kitty?

First, that would be hysterical. They'd probably have the most derranged character interaction ever, if they had enough time together.

Second, that's so totally the point! If Nat hadn't had any of those good people in his life, he'd have been a right nightmare. He managed to be pretty horrible even with them. It takes a lot of combined effort on the parts of a great deal of people to turn the average person into a real monster, but not much effort on the part of only one or two people to make enough of a lasting impression on a young person to give them an ever-lasting core of decency- of hope. It can be warped or damaged or deeply hidden, but it's still there- it can often be reached and nurtured even after years of psychic dirt gets piled ontop of it. I just feel bad for Jane- she must have had not one single person treat her kindly, ever. How horrible!

Last, I'm not sure they do have more chemistry, but in order for them to develop any... the things that would have to change... that's interesting to me. I've always liked stories where one character is basically decent and one is basically a totally mess and the former sort of brings the latter to a better place. Nat would have to do a lot of growing up in order to be able to pull whatever good there is in Jane kicking and screaming from the dark scary part of her soul where she's probably hidden it (and been torturing it, too). It would just be such a long and difficult emotional road for both of them, I think it would be really interesting.

I mean, Nat would have to totally fix what's already wrong with him, before he could understand and try to repair what's wrong with her. Not to mention the trust issues. Stories where the sexy female romantic lead has trust issues are always fun. It creates so much delectable drama! :P

Sorry, about that short hiatus.

I guess it's also 'cos it's easier to be horrible than it is to take the "straight and narrow". And John's young and not very confident, I think, although he tries to show it. He easily succumbs to peer pressure, right?

Anyway, If both of them managed to survive, because doesn't really say it outright, and they met up (preferably in a candle-lit cafe) it might be too hard for him to convert her... *throws plot-bunny*

Not peer pressure I think, feminine pressure maybe.

Dansariki wrote: Not peer pressure I think, feminine pressure maybe.

Feminine pressure. Mmmm. I like that prhasing. I'm going to steal it.

Lu, that's what I'm calling you now, Luciene, the candle-lit cafe plotbunny keeps trying to eat my brain. Please, please put it back in it's cage.

....please.

Lu's aight by me.

How about Opal for Farrars name?
Anyone? Anyone?

Dansariki wrote: Lu's aight by me.

How about Opal for Farrars name?
Anyone? Anyone?

It's okay with me.

Seconded.

Cheesepuff strike?

What!?

CHEESE!

I hate cheese... <_< (well, except for cheesecake and cheese popcorn)

I love cheese, but I have a cousin who only likes eating the pizza base & not the topings (primarily due to his dislike for cheese).
Talk about going off-topic...