Ramandu's daughter
Sorry, I refuse to call her 'Liliandil.' She's never really needed a name, in my head. Which is probably bad on one level - it shouldn't be okay for yet another Narnian queen (I'm thinking of Lune's wife, here) to be nameless, pop out a kid, and then die. But...it never really mattered, to me. I've fluctuated over the years between just accepting her mindlessly as I did everything in the Narnia books when I first read them, then kind of hating her because she edged out Lucy, then really coming to like her and the possibilities for character building she represents. And through it all, she's never needed a name. And I think that's mostly because it's how she was written originally - she has always, always been defined by her connection to the various male characters of her father, her husband, and her son. Also, it was always so romantic that it was never bothersome for her to be unnamed - she's a star's daughter, and therefore has an air of mystery to her, and so it's always been fine to me that she not have a name. So despite my growing annoyance that she's so sidelined, I don't like the name Liliandil for her - it's pretty, certainly, and I've come to wonder if maybe it's not linked to the sea of lilies or something, and Douglas Gresham picked it so I have to respect that to a certain extent, him being the one who would be most likely to know something extra about Narnian nomenclature etc. But, the thing is - that name maybe fits the glowy ghost-thing that we saw in the trailer, but it doesn't at all fit my vision of Ramandu's daughter.
And I think this is maybe why the whole defined-by-the-men-around-her thing has never bothered me - because in my head, she is the most beautiful, gracious, wonderful queen, and so while I do wish she could have a name and could do a bit more than be palfrey-lady and wife and mother, she IS just a filler. She doesn't really have a personality; she's your typical Romance trope - otherworldly, beautiful, kind, helps our hero on his quest, and his ultimate marriage to her completes the story, signals the success of his adventure. She's the girl on the palfrey, riding out to give the knight advice, to help him gain entrance to the otherworld, to bless him on his journey. If he can live up to his chivalric ideals of honor (which Caspian ultimately does when he successfully reaches the end of the world, having found all the lords and completed his quest, and then also listens to his lord - Aslan - and returns to his duty as king), then he gets the girl.
So, while in fic I would LOVE to see her developed more, given a name, given an actual personality, a backstory (good lord, the poor girl, growing up on that island with just her dad!), etc...I prefer filler-queen Ramandu's daughter of the book to this glowworm Liliandil.
I'm talking myself out of hating her. I'm really worried that this movie is going to re-spark fandom hatred of her, because that's just not cool. I'm very much expecting though that this will be one part of the movie that I'll need to just block out and fill in with book-canon.
And I think this is maybe why the whole defined-by-the-men-around-her thing has never bothered me - because in my head, she is the most beautiful, gracious, wonderful queen, and so while I do wish she could have a name and could do a bit more than be palfrey-lady and wife and mother, she IS just a filler. She doesn't really have a personality; she's your typical Romance trope - otherworldly, beautiful, kind, helps our hero on his quest, and his ultimate marriage to her completes the story, signals the success of his adventure. She's the girl on the palfrey, riding out to give the knight advice, to help him gain entrance to the otherworld, to bless him on his journey. If he can live up to his chivalric ideals of honor (which Caspian ultimately does when he successfully reaches the end of the world, having found all the lords and completed his quest, and then also listens to his lord - Aslan - and returns to his duty as king), then he gets the girl.
So, while in fic I would LOVE to see her developed more, given a name, given an actual personality, a backstory (good lord, the poor girl, growing up on that island with just her dad!), etc...I prefer filler-queen Ramandu's daughter of the book to this glowworm Liliandil.
I'm talking myself out of hating her. I'm really worried that this movie is going to re-spark fandom hatred of her, because that's just not cool. I'm very much expecting though that this will be one part of the movie that I'll need to just block out and fill in with book-canon.