My Favorite Characters, Anzu and Drusilla, Part 2 of 2

I'll pick up today where I left off yesterday. I've explained a little about where Anzu's development came from, and that plays into who Drusilla is as well.

It is exploring all of that which makes Anzu a beautiful character to work with. As the first heroine of the Book of the Shadows series, she simply has an advantage over the rest of the Two-Six. Even if not that exact story, similar stories would have developed with another character were they afforded as much development time. As can be seen with Drusilla, my second favorite to write about, if there is time, a character can develop a lot and can be taken to all sorts of places.

The Cromwell Universe Drusilla is a refined woman with a very sharp wit, is very bold, and has incredible power. She is able to display real emotion at the right time, showing empathy towards others. This Drusilla can appear ice cold, willing to kill anyone who annoys her, let alone gets in her way. Yet she also shows herself to be extremely patient, willing to negotiate and give plentiful chances for her opponent to submit without a fight. This Drusilla finds her love interest in Yugi, whose grandmother has been incessantly speaking of him before their meeting. The Cromwell Drusilla is also very passionate, often speaking to Yugi in sensual and seductive terms when they are alone.

She rarely takes the most direct route, and instead takes her own preferred path, even if it may be slower or more complicated. But she isn’t wed to this ideal either, willing to determine upfront which tactics are a lost cause and which aren’t even if that leaves her to her least preferable route. However, this Drusilla is ruled more by logic in others than the others. In a slightly strange dichotomy, Drusilla herself is very flexible in her thinking and actions, but is put off by the same in others. She expects others to follow certain paths and logic sets, and can be frustrated by those who deviate – though again not apt to show that frustration outwardly. The Cromwell Drusilla is also the least inhibited and most ambitious. Kali (Drusilla of the Two-Six) and C’s Drusilla (First Star Saga) are both preoccupied with their exercises in science, while Anzushiro Drusilla (First Moon Saga) was thrown off by the presence of Anzushiro herself, and a lack of a real drive for much more than what she had. Drusilla of Cromwell on the other hand is grandiosely ambitious, seeking to endlessly expand her empire, and actively pursues this in putting herself right into the action.

In many ways the Cromwell chapter Four Nations is an important one for understanding Cromwell Drusilla and how I wanted to forge her personality. In the chapter she meets Avatar Azula (the Avatar descended from Azula’s family who becomes the first Fire Nation Avatar since Roku). Azula herself is similar to her namesake, minus the mental issues. This is important because understanding Azula in the Avatar series is one of the show’s greatest treats. You realize by the end of the series that Azula is not as much evil as she is a reflection of her environment. She was, in some ways, as fragile as Zuko. But because Zuko did not internalize his family’s legacy to the extent Azula did, the burden of that crushed her. I like to think of it this way; what did Azula actually do wrong? If you take away the delineation of good and evil for a moment, what did Azula do wrong? Simply put, she did exactly as her father wanted. She tried her best to be “Daddy’s little girl”. Normally this would be seen as innocent and admirable. Except her father was a power-hungry megalomaniac, who prided on pushing his kids to their limits. Add to this the real underlying trait of her personality, a dedication to perfection, and you get the bat-crap crazy lady of the Avatar series.

Now, take her out of her family and put her in a loving family that cares for her and teaches her to do good. You would likely get someone not totally unlike Avatar’s Azula, but she would at least be better able to socialize, and would recognize that there are things more important than power and utterly crushing anyone who so much as thinks about doing something you don’t like. Four Nations is a chapter that presents an Azula who is like that, who in being highlighted as having the burden of being the Avatar shows what an Azula with some scruples and a dedication beyond self-interest and simply having power, would look like. Reflecting her with Drusilla in that chapter helps to define Drusilla, placing her alongside a visible measuring stick. When Drusilla and Azula meet, they are supposed to mirror each other, demonstrated by their ability to talk so freely and so easily state what the other is thinking. That is the kind of Azula I envision Avatar’s Azula would be as a hero, and Drusilla is that Azula freed of any burden but that which she freely assumes herself.