Character: Princess Fianna
Text: The Dragon Throne & The Unicorn Throne (Four Kingdoms Trilogy)
"A ruler is no better or worse than those he rules."
Fianna is going to be queen, keeper of the Dragon Throne. That’s what she’s been brought up to expect for her entire eleven years, and only through sheer luck was there no son born to her parents to supersede that right. But as a royal princess, confident of herself and somewhat insular in her opinions, Fianna must also learn humility and the bond of knightly code, to understand the people she will rule over and who will offer her protection. But tragedy strikes in the form of Lady Marissa, whose relationship with her father blooms behind Fianna’s back and incites the girl to stand up to him. This marriage is a threat to her right to rule if it bears a son, and also a dishonour to her mother who died but a year before. Fianna will not stand by and see that woman in her mother’s place and a baby boy in her own, so she abandons the kingdom.
The marriage is the catalyst of Fianna’s suppressed anger and frustration throughout her story. She believes herself to be cruelly and callously ejected from her birthright and is haunted by this throughout most of the series. Her own aunt, bitter and deceitful, tries to manipulate her. The young pig farmer Fianna meets offers her a pure and simple friendship, then love. The royal colonel, Pealla, gives support as a kind of surrogate mother for Fianna’s necessary growth into womanhood and knighthood, taking her on as squire. Fianna is moulded by not only her own beliefs and strengths, but by the others around her, be they good or bad voices, and she is on a rollercoaster of imbalance, relying on the strength of her already courageous stomach to guide her way.
“The Prancer stepped back and studied her for a moment. Then, with a gleam in his eye, he said, ‘All unicorns know the Land. Few humans do. But no unicorn knows how to brew ale.’
‘I’m glad humans have some use.’
‘Only those who can brew ale.”
When she meets the Prancer – a unicorn whose own mother died and whose father is the leader of their herd – is when her life is turned upside down, and her natural loyalties (dragons, not unicorns) are shredded and challenged in equal measure. Some of the sweetest and most endearing moments – not to mention some of the funniest – of Fianna’s journey are the ones with the Prancer, and they’re the ones that convince the reader she is the right one for the job, it’s only herself holding her back.
Fianna is a brilliant onion of a character. You could easily despise her entitlement, extreme stubbornness and refusal to see reason, but absolutely understand how these things have come to be in her life, how much of a diamond in the rough she is and why she makes the choices she does. She acts from the good of her heart, and though her flaws sometimes override the good she accomplishes, you know she has that spark in her, you know she understands morality, and all she needs is that push to find the true greatness her potential hints at. You see her lose her way time and time again, but it makes her recovery all the more poignant.
"I learned tonight that there are many things more important than pride. I’ve also learned that we can never assume that there will be time, enough time. That which must be said, that which must be done, cannot be allowed to wait for a right moment. That moment might never come."
Comments