Girl Genius

Heck, I know a family where the uncle is younger than one of his nieces! It happens. <shrugs>

Yeah, my father was a late arrival, and has a niece the same age as him.

Considering the sheer number of apparently fairly close contenders for the throne, I think we can assume there were a lot of Valois sisters, Tarvek's mother presumably being the oldest and Lady Selnikov quite possibly the youngest. On the other hand this would seem to tie Vi as closely to the succession as Anevka and Seffie when she definitely doesn't have their status, so maybe it's more complicated than that.

edited 20th Oct '14 1:42:16 AM by khil

Maybe Vi's mother married someone inappropriate (unrelated? :P). Or didn't marry him.

If you plan on experimenting on your prospective heirs, it helps to have a lot of them. Spares, you know.

Heck, my brother-in-law is older than my mother and my cousin is legally my aunt. Family gets complicated.

I do have a hunch that we're looking at four (or more) Valois sisters. We know?/suspect? Andronicus left no legitimate children, so it's possible the bloodline hasn't always been glorified with a title. So I'd guess that Tarvek's mother, Martellus' mother, and Lady Selnikov married into their current ranks, and Violetta's mother simply did not.

It's also possible that the Valois sisters' family have served the Sturmvoraus for some time — presumably the paternal side, because if the father had been a Valois descendant, we'd have a Storm King candidate on the Grandmother tier. Though I suppose he could have been a werewolf.

eta: I remembered the third thing I was gonna say. The von Blitzengaard's are confusing, because we have Princess Xerxsephina (so presumably Prince Martellus, no?) but the messenger sent from Sturmhalten to Castle Wulfenbach was identified as a Count Hengst von Blitzengaard.

So... wha?

edited 20th Oct '14 3:11:41 AM by mona.soyun

Maybe Vi's mother married a man from the serving family and because of this she was exsluded from the line of succession.

...Her mother and maternal aunt(s?) were of a decent Storm-Lord/Order bloodline that was nonetheless fairly low in the Official order of succession. While Margolotta married a man of equal or greater rank, Violetta's mother either married down or was involved in some scandal that lowered the rank, or else Vi's father was. Perhaps it was her father's side of the family that had 'served Tarvek's branch of the family for generations'.

If you plan to have that many spares we might have a ton of tube babies from that family as well...

About the Princess/ Countess thing: a princess marrying a count doesn't negate her princess title... It just means that, although technically a countess, the "princess" trumps it and she still gets to keep it. It'd depend on who Daddy was. <shrugs>

edited 20th Oct '14 10:14:49 AM by Euodiachloris

But then Martellus' mother would have to be a princess (of something Xerxsephnia could lay claim to), which doesn't clear anything up.

I'm confused how there can be both a countship and a principality of von Blitzengaard, but maybe I'm making the wrong assumptions. Maybe Martellus was never in line to be Prince of anything, or at least not Prince von Blitzengaard — it could just be their name, and not the title. Or maybe things shifted around in the time skip and von Blitzengaard levelled up. Or maybe Xerxsephnia became a princess when Martellus wws made king.

Not necessarily: a princess doesn't always pass her own birth title down, you see. Only if the male line of where she got it goes kaput does that open up for her children.

In short, a princess keeps "Princess" for life. But, her children get their father's rank, if he has any. About the only time a princess can pass "Prince" or "Princess" along is if the family laws allow it (and, by that I mean, the ones the House she comes from use).

edited 20th Oct '14 3:30:05 PM by Euodiachloris

Right. Which is why Princess Xerxsephnia is so confusing. We were told von Blitzengaard was a countship, so presumably it didn't come from her father. If her mother was a princess who married a count, she'd still be called princess, but it wouldn't pass on to Xerxsephnia. Hence... wha huh?

You might have guessed right with the possibility of her being styled a princess when Martellus was declared Storm King... although... he hasn't been back long, and it seems to me she's been dealing with Gil for some time.

Hm. Actually, considering the rather abrupt demolition of the Sturmvorauses and the possible entanglement on multiple sides of the family, I wonder if she and Tweedle could actually have been in line for Sturmhalten?

For all we know she's a half-sister. Or, she married a Prince... Who is now late-and-much-lamented-I'm-sure. Or something.

With Tarvek and Anvenka out of the picture, Seffie might be considered the legal ruler of Sturmhalten at the moment, giving her the title of Princess.

I've read about a few things like that. A branch dies off without a (legal) heir, the next closest blood relative has his own land and responsibilities to deal with, so it devolves onto one of their younger siblings. It particularly makes sense if the society is one where eldest/eldest son inherits everything, so the "spares" don't have anything to do unless they can marry, earn acclaim, or go into the church. (Which lasts sounds sorta risky in GG world...)

I had a thought. Maybe Vi's parents were in a left-handed marriage? That would mean she couldn't inherit squat.

Also, for two and a half years Martellus was as much out of the picture as Tarvek, so he couldn't really do anything regardless.

—Well, actually if he moved ahead of her as heir to Sturmhalten I guess she'd still be Princess Xerxsephnia, Anevka was....

edited 20th Oct '14 6:15:40 PM by Schefflera

I had wondered about half-siblings (with dread — it's feeling complicated enough with single marriages).

Princess of Sturmhalten would make sense, given all the people who had gone missing. I wonder whatever happened to Hengst... Is he bunking with Selnikov's head now or what?

That is an interesting question. Klaus had him taken away and quarantined... and then all sorts of complications happened... and then Dimo mentioned to Agatha that Lucrezia was so mad when Gil made all the revenants on Castle Wulfenbach stop obeying her. (And I would really, really, really like to know more about that!) And that's basically all we know about what happened to any of them.

edited 20th Oct '14 7:52:38 PM by Schefflera

I wanna know what happened to Selnikov, period. Did Boris take custody of him? Does Gil know where he is? Who was that nephew he seemed so resentful of? Martellus or someone else? Does his (ex)wife know what's up by now?

GG-verse certainly brings a new meaning to "till death do you part".

...I think Tarvek might be Count Selnikov's nephew. And (probably) as far as he knows, Tarvek is an idiotic dandy.

I think Lord Selnikov knew better. He knew quite well that Tarvek and Anevka were conspiring and that Tarvek was playing his own part inside the Palace, for instance. And he considers Tarvek less trustworthy than Anevka (iirc, Anevka asks if Tarvek knows about the Spark wasp and it's clear no one thought it a good idea to tell him).

...on the other hand, Tarvek is his nephew, and he might well be less than impressed with him by that point given how Sturmhalten turned out.

Page!

I get the feeling that what she's looking for and what the monk knows they're headed for are two very different things.

Also, Evil isn't beautiful. Don't let anyone tell you differently- just look at her face in the seventh panel.

You think Lady Selnikov has counted on Agatha being here to deal with the Heterodyne creation?

edited 22nd Oct '14 1:03:27 PM by bunnyjadwiga