bramblepatch:

Speaking of the “only fuchsia to make it to adulthood” thing, I’m fascinated by the contrast between Trizza as the heiress and Feferi as the heiress?

And also kind of sad.

Because while we haven’t seen much of Trizza herself yet, we have gotten a glimpse of the style of her rule, and well… she’s ruling. Not fairly, not well, arguably not sustainable, but she is openly ruling the planet and she’s making use of what seems to be a lot of official infrastructure, particularly the use of imperial drones and her heavy-handed media presence. And while she’s got some adolescent revolutionaries plotting against her she doesn’t seem to be facing any kind of official censure for her actions.

Feferi, by contrast, is at most a sweep or two younger when she enters Sgrub, and she’s… not ruling the planet. She’s barely keeping Gl'bgolyb fed, and she doesn’t seem to be using any of the resources Trizza does, but we’re told that she’s already actively fending off assassination attempts which she has reason to believe are imperially sanctioned.

I don’t think Trizza actually expects to ever rule anything except Alternia. She hasn’t bothered to court anything resembling positive public opinion among her peers, she depends heavily on a (probably automated? It’s hard to say exactly what the drones are) private army which is, essentially, borrowed from an empress who will one day want to eliminate her, and her long-term goals are so opaque that I suspect they don’t actually exist. Feferi fully intends to make a bid for the throne, and as such appears to have led a positively spartan childhood that leaves significantly fewer vulnerabilities for the Condesce to exploit, and this is freaking the Condesce the hell out.