Q&A 18

[truepenny]

One more Q: On page 18 of "The Mirador," Mildmay casually refers to someone as a eunuch. Is this slang for something or are there really eunuchs in Melusine? How do they fit into society?

And an A: No, it isn't slang. In Ervenzia, castrati are opera singers (p. 206). In Mélusine, it's clear that eunuchs work in brothels. There's the gofer you cite, and on p. 48 of Mélusine, Mildmay mentions Philippe le Coupé (Philippe the Cut), the eunuch who tends bar, also at the Goosegirl's Palace.

(All page numbers refer to the hardbacks.)

You don't find many eunuchs in Mélusine outside of Pharaohlight and the Arcane. Except in the households of blood-wizards. There's a brothel in Pharaohlight called the Seven Sisters that specializes in eunuchs, and another in the Arcane, the Lamp of Sycorax. (And if you know the right person to ask at the Lamp of Sycorax, and what to say to him, you can watch a castration. But you'd better be prepared to pay through the nose.) The Brothers of St. Origo practice ritual castration (three guesses, as Mildmay says, how he died).

The preceding paragraph is all stuff I just made up. But it's canonical now.

Comments

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Kewl.

What about the hot eunuch-on-eunuch action?

[liminalia.livejournal.com]

I love that you just made up canonical details to answer a question.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Mélusine has Shakespeare? Or is it another witch of the same name?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Shakespeare's all through the world-building and has been from the beginning. Cardenio Richey's first name comes from a lost play of Shakespeare. The last dynasty of Marathine kings are the Cordelii, from Cordelia in Lear. St. Holofernes gets his name from Holofernes in Love's Labour's Lost. This is just one more example.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'm sure the Lamp of Sycorax will provide. For the right price.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Oh lovely! I thought they came from Shakespeare's sources. Now I want to re-reread...I wonder which box they're in....

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

She's not Cordelia in the source material; she's Cordeilla.

And, no, anything that looks like I stole it from Shakespeare . . . I stole it from Shakespeare.

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

Borrowed, dear, borrowed from Shakespeare as his writings are way past any copy-write infringement. ;)

[oracne.livejournal.com]

Love that icon....

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Mature artists steal. (http://www.bartleby.com/63/75/7075.html)

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

It's a quote from an early and highly negative review of Mélusine. Some days, it just feels appropriate.

[almightychrissy.livejournal.com]

You'll have to pardon me for a moment while I gaze adoringly at your icon. I think I watched that scene in the episode far too many times.

[shoshanaruth.livejournal.com]

<3! Thank you!

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

How do they operate in the households of blood-wizards? Are we talking valets guaranteed not to sleep with your wife (and muddy the blood-wizard-lines) or, well, sex-bots for said blood-wizard? Or sex-bot that also valets? .... Or valet that also sex-bots? ::curious::

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Um. You may have slightly the wrong understanding of "blood-wizard."

[prettymuchpeggy.livejournal.com]

*grin*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely sure, actually. I just know it's true. I suspect that it's useful for blood-wizards to have sexually null servants, but it may also be, since blood-wizardry works by taking blood from other people--and, of course, symbolically, the most important level of magic, a whole host of other things--that castrated men are simply thaumaturgically harmonious.

Blood-wizards, in general, don't marry. Not their scene.

[xamaque.livejournal.com]

When you read the question, did one of your characters speak up in your head to tell you this? If so, who?

[gwendolynflight.livejournal.com]

... or I could reread the books before asking questions. Sorry, I've been reading Spenser. <--- blanket excuse for semester. ._.

Though, you know, even castrated men can still have sex. And orgasms. Well, some of them. Kind of.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

It's the symbolism that matters in the magic-systems in these books.

And Spenser's a pretty good excuse. *g*

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Nope. Just me.

[romp.livejournal.com]

The preceding paragraph is all stuff I just made up. But it's canonical now.

The power! What fun. I can see you chose the correct profession.