I've always had a tendency to see the positives in literary characters and give them the benefit of a doubt as a reader and a creative writer.
One of my favorite types of characters to try to cast in a positive light would be the Alpha Bitch. More often than not, these characters tend to be unrealistically bitchy, and writers tend to not even bother stating why that character is so mean.
I think you know where I'm going with this. This website seems to have declared Lavinia to be the queen of all Alpha Bitches, so I pondered how she could be portrayed as a more realistic character. And then it hit me.
Considering that the original Little Princess book was written in 1905, I wondered if Lavinia's character would be more realistic if she were... into girls.
Hear me out, please. I can actually explain a lot with this very concept, and none of them involve cheap titillation. This backstory is still technically in its alpha stage, but I do believe I can present my points accurately and leave it up for discussion. I also want to sincerely apologize if any aspect of this is unrealistic regarding homosexuals. I am not gay myself, so the last thing I want to do is misrepresent any aspect of a homosexual relationship.
Let's say when Lavinia is about six or seven, she starts hanging out with a girl, Gertrude, for the sake of this backstory, and one of the teachers at her school sees the two kiss each other. On the lips. And she could see that Lavinia was the one who initiated the kiss. As a result, the teacher calls Lavinia's mother, who proceeds to send Lavinia to Miss Minchin's school to "make her normal" again. (Yes, I do believe this is possible. Remember, this takes place in 1905.)
However, through poor communication, Miss Minchin has no idea that Lavinia is gay. However, Gertrude does, and she proceeds to tell Jessie. The two then blackmail Lavinia, since the two are not gay themselves, and the three of them become 'friends.' With this, Lavinia feels the need to fight for her life, and thanks to harsh words from Gertrude and Jessie, she slowly starts to become vindictive, and asserts her dominance in the school so that no one will question her about her secret.
That is, until Sara comes in. When Sara slowly rises to the top of the food chain, Lavinia starts to get worse out of fear that her classmates will start asking her questions and perhaps exposing her secret. And, even more unfortunately, Lavinia starts to fall in love with Sara. When Lavinia realizes this, she does her best to bully Sara in an attempt to get her to leave. During all of this, she does everything she can to try to get the gay out of her, including praying and talking to herself, but there are a few moments where she shows her Girl Posse that she's developing feelings for Sara. That explains why the two have attempted to backstab her before Sara goes broke. Unfortunately for Lavinia, no matter how hard she tries to get rid of her homosexuality, she continues to have feelings for Sara, which drives her absolutely nuts inside.
When Sara loses her money, Lavinia sees it as the break she needs to get Sara out of the school, and her bullying intensifies to almost inhumane levels. She is at the point where her conflicting feelings, the words from her 'friends', and the threat of the headmaster finding out about her secret are slowly beginning to break her down. She is paranoid, has no idea how to get out of this predicament, and releases all of those emotions on poor Sara. Because of this, Lavinia does not help Sara when she is ill. Not only would this not allow Lavinia to be rid of those emotions, but it would also expose her as caring and allow the classmates to suspect that Lavinia is hiding something.
However, around Episode 18, Sara starts to notice her odd behavior, such as blushing a few times when bullying Sara, and at one point, when the two are alone, Sara innocently pecks Lavinia on the forehead. This makes Lavinia even angrier, more ruthless, and less thoughtful, explaining why Sara starts to get the upper hand by Episode 20 and 21.
By Episode 24, Lavinia has had enough, and holds her birthday party in an attempt to get Sara's doll. In Lavinia's mind, this will finally convince Sara to leave so that her feelings will no longer tear her apart. Unforunately, her actions had the exact opposite effect, and when the kids stand up for Sara, Lavinia storms off to her room with tears in her eyes. Sara's tender heart shows up, and she decides to follow Lavinia to her room in an attempt to console her. Lavinia, obviously, wants nothing to do with Sara at this point, and yells at her harder than ever before. However, after a little while, Lavinia gives up and lets Sara into her room.
It's at this point where Lavinia finally gives in and confesses her secret to Sara and Sara alone. Sara, being the sweet, naive girl that she is, doesn't realize why her preferences are such a problem. This causes Lavinia to continue to yell at her, claiming that if her secret gets out, she'll be thrown on the streets and no one will help her. She's still incredibly angry at Sara for inspiring these emotions, but Sara takes the abuse, and continues to act adorable.
Sadly, when Lavinia is finally starting to let her guard down, she hears Miss Minchin and hides under her bed in absolute hysterics, fearing that what she described to Sara will actually happen. Yet, when Miss Minchin does open the door, she sees that 'Lavinia' (actually two pillows that Sara put beneath the sheets) is sleeping, and Sara had been reading her a bedtime story. Thanks to Sara's cleaver thinking, relaxed responses, and kindness, Minchin buys her story and shuts the door behind her, punishing neither of them.
This finally convinces Lavinia to let all of her emotions out, confess that she truly loves Sara, and give her a kiss on the lips. After all, Sara had helped her in the past, but not with something that had the potential to completely ruin her life. If Sara wanted to, she could have let Lavinia get caught, and she would only have to deal with one major tormentor instead of two.
However, Lavinia knows that she isn't out of the fryer yet, and tells Sara that her bullying is a way of releasing emotions and inspired by Gertrude and Jessie's blackmail, and doesn't know of any other way she can keep up the illusion she created. Lavinia also suggests weekly secret meetings so that the two will not be completely broken from then on. Sara, while unhappy, agrees to her proposition, because she saw how much her actions meant to Lavinia that day.
After more secret meetings between the two to keep each other sane, as well as Lavinia secretly helping Sara when she is locked in the stable, Lavinia's father finally hears about her bullying, causing him to slap and degrade her. However, instead of crying and becoming completely broken, the secret meetings give Lavinia enough courage to tell her father about her secret. Her father reacts about as well as you'd expect. He disowns Lavinia, tells the headmaster about it, and thanks to the stable burning and Lavinia's secret exposed, Minchin kicks both Sara and Lavinia out of the school for good.
With that, the two are on their own, but they are finally free to support each other, and manage to do so. During this time, Sara realizes that she is starting to reciprocate the feelings Lavinia had for her, although definitely not to the same extent, and is no longer afraid to stay in a relationship with her. Because of that, when Sara gets her fortune back, she, as well as Lavinia, are much happier than they ever were before they entered the school, and Sara forgives everyone for all of the struggles she had been put through.
Well, there you go. Do you think I left any concepts out? Feel like this is too much of a happy ending? Have I stayed true to the story of the anime and book? Do you feel like everyone would forgive Sara and Lavinia for their sexual deviation even if they are willing to forgive the others? Please discuss. Hopefully, that little concept helped readers and writers around that any character can be redeemed and/or made more realistic with just a few touches to the original work. Thank you for listening.
Hello, Dark Shock Bro here.
I've always had a tendency to see the positives in literary characters and give them the benefit of a doubt as a reader and a creative writer.
One of my favorite types of characters to try to cast in a positive light would be the Alpha Bitch. More often than not, these characters tend to be unrealistically bitchy, and writers tend to not even bother stating why that character is so mean.
I think you know where I'm going with this. This website seems to have declared Lavinia to be the queen of all Alpha Bitches, so I pondered how she could be portrayed as a more realistic character. And then it hit me.
Considering that the original Little Princess book was written in 1905, I wondered if Lavinia's character would be more realistic if she were... into girls.
Hear me out, please. I can actually explain a lot with this very concept, and none of them involve cheap titillation. This backstory is still technically in its alpha stage, but I do believe I can present my points accurately and leave it up for discussion. I also want to sincerely apologize if any aspect of this is unrealistic regarding homosexuals. I am not gay myself, so the last thing I want to do is misrepresent any aspect of a homosexual relationship.
Let's say when Lavinia is about six or seven, she starts hanging out with a girl, Gertrude, for the sake of this backstory, and one of the teachers at her school sees the two kiss each other. On the lips. And she could see that Lavinia was the one who initiated the kiss. As a result, the teacher calls Lavinia's mother, who proceeds to send Lavinia to Miss Minchin's school to "make her normal" again. (Yes, I do believe this is possible. Remember, this takes place in 1905.)
However, through poor communication, Miss Minchin has no idea that Lavinia is gay. However, Gertrude does, and she proceeds to tell Jessie. The two then blackmail Lavinia, since the two are not gay themselves, and the three of them become 'friends.' With this, Lavinia feels the need to fight for her life, and thanks to harsh words from Gertrude and Jessie, she slowly starts to become vindictive, and asserts her dominance in the school so that no one will question her about her secret.
That is, until Sara comes in. When Sara slowly rises to the top of the food chain, Lavinia starts to get worse out of fear that her classmates will start asking her questions and perhaps exposing her secret. And, even more unfortunately, Lavinia starts to fall in love with Sara. When Lavinia realizes this, she does her best to bully Sara in an attempt to get her to leave. During all of this, she does everything she can to try to get the gay out of her, including praying and talking to herself, but there are a few moments where she shows her Girl Posse that she's developing feelings for Sara. That explains why the two have attempted to backstab her before Sara goes broke. Unfortunately for Lavinia, no matter how hard she tries to get rid of her homosexuality, she continues to have feelings for Sara, which drives her absolutely nuts inside.
When Sara loses her money, Lavinia sees it as the break she needs to get Sara out of the school, and her bullying intensifies to almost inhumane levels. She is at the point where her conflicting feelings, the words from her 'friends', and the threat of the headmaster finding out about her secret are slowly beginning to break her down. She is paranoid, has no idea how to get out of this predicament, and releases all of those emotions on poor Sara. Because of this, Lavinia does not help Sara when she is ill. Not only would this not allow Lavinia to be rid of those emotions, but it would also expose her as caring and allow the classmates to suspect that Lavinia is hiding something.
However, around Episode 18, Sara starts to notice her odd behavior, such as blushing a few times when bullying Sara, and at one point, when the two are alone, Sara innocently pecks Lavinia on the forehead. This makes Lavinia even angrier, more ruthless, and less thoughtful, explaining why Sara starts to get the upper hand by Episode 20 and 21.
By Episode 24, Lavinia has had enough, and holds her birthday party in an attempt to get Sara's doll. In Lavinia's mind, this will finally convince Sara to leave so that her feelings will no longer tear her apart. Unforunately, her actions had the exact opposite effect, and when the kids stand up for Sara, Lavinia storms off to her room with tears in her eyes. Sara's tender heart shows up, and she decides to follow Lavinia to her room in an attempt to console her. Lavinia, obviously, wants nothing to do with Sara at this point, and yells at her harder than ever before. However, after a little while, Lavinia gives up and lets Sara into her room.
It's at this point where Lavinia finally gives in and confesses her secret to Sara and Sara alone. Sara, being the sweet, naive girl that she is, doesn't realize why her preferences are such a problem. This causes Lavinia to continue to yell at her, claiming that if her secret gets out, she'll be thrown on the streets and no one will help her. She's still incredibly angry at Sara for inspiring these emotions, but Sara takes the abuse, and continues to act adorable.
Sadly, when Lavinia is finally starting to let her guard down, she hears Miss Minchin and hides under her bed in absolute hysterics, fearing that what she described to Sara will actually happen. Yet, when Miss Minchin does open the door, she sees that 'Lavinia' (actually two pillows that Sara put beneath the sheets) is sleeping, and Sara had been reading her a bedtime story. Thanks to Sara's cleaver thinking, relaxed responses, and kindness, Minchin buys her story and shuts the door behind her, punishing neither of them.
This finally convinces Lavinia to let all of her emotions out, confess that she truly loves Sara, and give her a kiss on the lips. After all, Sara had helped her in the past, but not with something that had the potential to completely ruin her life. If Sara wanted to, she could have let Lavinia get caught, and she would only have to deal with one major tormentor instead of two.
However, Lavinia knows that she isn't out of the fryer yet, and tells Sara that her bullying is a way of releasing emotions and inspired by Gertrude and Jessie's blackmail, and doesn't know of any other way she can keep up the illusion she created. Lavinia also suggests weekly secret meetings so that the two will not be completely broken from then on. Sara, while unhappy, agrees to her proposition, because she saw how much her actions meant to Lavinia that day.
After more secret meetings between the two to keep each other sane, as well as Lavinia secretly helping Sara when she is locked in the stable, Lavinia's father finally hears about her bullying, causing him to slap and degrade her. However, instead of crying and becoming completely broken, the secret meetings give Lavinia enough courage to tell her father about her secret. Her father reacts about as well as you'd expect. He disowns Lavinia, tells the headmaster about it, and thanks to the stable burning and Lavinia's secret exposed, Minchin kicks both Sara and Lavinia out of the school for good.
With that, the two are on their own, but they are finally free to support each other, and manage to do so. During this time, Sara realizes that she is starting to reciprocate the feelings Lavinia had for her, although definitely not to the same extent, and is no longer afraid to stay in a relationship with her. Because of that, when Sara gets her fortune back, she, as well as Lavinia, are much happier than they ever were before they entered the school, and Sara forgives everyone for all of the struggles she had been put through.
Well, there you go. Do you think I left any concepts out? Feel like this is too much of a happy ending? Have I stayed true to the story of the anime and book? Do you feel like everyone would forgive Sara and Lavinia for their sexual deviation even if they are willing to forgive the others? Please discuss. Hopefully, that little concept helped readers and writers around that any character can be redeemed and/or made more realistic with just a few touches to the original work. Thank you for listening.
Edited by 69.143.172.38