Examining the town drunk

[Aes]

@dustinzgirl:
You know, this question puzzled me, and made me realize there's a lot of things still undefined. I had to think on things for a few days.

Anyway, in this society, men and women are pretty much the same and share the same rights as one another. There's a healthy mix of men and women in every profession from tailoring to blacksmithing, in the military, etc, so her being unmarried wouldn't make her stand out. Instead, it'd be the fact that a worthless drunk with no apparent friends or family had, somewhere along the way, received enough education to be able to read and write.

@The Judge:
I'd like to have her able to at least understand and speak every language (by magical means) as another ability granted to members of the royal family. This wouldn't be too relevant to the current story though, as everything is going to take place in just her kingdom. Dealings with foreign countries and any overseas possessions would have to be reserved for a sequel or something.

@Boneman:
Any fame she'd have up until now is lost due to the fact that nobody knows she really is the one who should be ruling. Prior to now, she's spent the last 6 or so years of her life as an ill-treated servant, so traits like soft hands from never having known a days work, that elitist way a noble presents him/herself, etc have long since left her.

@Peter:
I thought about giving her musical aptitude, and still might, but it's not too cliche, is it? If not, I'd sure be a nice thing to throw in for fun, if nothing else.

 

[dustinzgirl]

@dustinzgirl:
You know, this question puzzled me, and made me realize there's a lot of things still undefined. I had to think on things for a few days.

Anyway, in this society, men and women are pretty much the same and share the same rights as one another. There's a healthy mix of men and women in every profession from tailoring to blacksmithing, in the military, etc, so her being unmarried wouldn't make her stand out. Instead, it'd be the fact that a worthless drunk with no apparent friends or family had, somewhere along the way, received enough education to be able to read and write.

Then for me, you are going to have to justify why she is a drunk. I mean, if she is smart enough to read and write in a time when reading and writing is hard to come by, what makes her turn into a drunk? Why isn't she standing up and fighting for her rightful place? She just gives up and drowns herself in alcohol?

So you need a bit of backstory. Traumatic, horrible, sad, backstory.

 

[Aes]

Then for me, you are going to have to justify why she is a drunk. I mean, if she is smart enough to read and write in a time when reading and writing is hard to come by, what makes her turn into a drunk? Why isn't she standing up and fighting for her rightful place? She just gives up and drowns herself in alcohol?

So you need a bit of backstory. Traumatic, horrible, sad, backstory.

Oh, I have plenty of that, don't worry. She was to become the next ruler, but the royal advisors pretty much wanted the kingdom for themselves so they put one of their own on the throne as a substitute. They paid someone to take the real princess out of the castle secretly and get rid of her, but instead she ends up being sold into slavery. For about 6-8 years, she treated poorly by various owners which gradually breaks down her feelings of self worth until she starts to wonder if the whole thing about being royalty was just some childhood fantasy. She starts to give up and not care about anything, which affects her ability to work, and since a slave that isn't productive is no good, her current owner (a particularly cruel and petty noble governing one of the kingdom's smaller outlying towns) disciplines her rather heavily, then leaves her in the streets to die, but she manages to survive. So at this point, her will is broken and she soon finds that alcohol numbs the pain of it all. Thus remains her fate until the other characters encounter her.

So as you can see, justifying it is the easy part; supporting the habit isn't.

 

[dustinzgirl]

One simple truth about real, hardcore alcoholics:

They will always find a way to support their habit.

 

[Reyben]

Alcoholics can make surprisingly competent thieves. Amazing what single-minded determination can do for someone. So there's always that.

Also, there's plain charm. Assuming she is, as mentioned earlier, moderately pretty [or at least not repulsive] it shouldn't be difficult for a smart young lady to charm herself drunk every night with traders, transients and local colour. Of course, this could land her in trouble from time to time. It would probably end up amounting to light prostitution, as mentioned earlier.

 

[dustinzgirl]

I think that if you turn a noble woman into a prostitute and she wasn't forced into it, you are going to make her very...unsympathetic...to your female readers. I'd rather see her be more..like..Kitiara from the old Dragonlance novels, bad arsed take no crap kind of heroines are more favorable than simpering nobles who turn to prostitution to support a drinking habit.

So mabye she's just pretending to be a drunk loser until she gets enough info to kick the crap out of the bad guys? You know, like a mystery type of story? Mayhaps she has to find out the who, what, why, and how, OR---mabye she has amnesia (magical, potion, poison?) and she knows she knows lots of scholarly things, but she doesn't know anything about herself...until one day, a handsome but roguish man shows up and is all "Hey, I know you--" and then dun dun dun....

Anyways, sorry I'm not trying to write your story for you, just some ideas.

 

[Aes]

Oh don't worry, I've already decided that prostitution is out of the question because, at this point, she will have gone through enough. Besides, I want to keep this story from devolving into the kind of smutfest which, in the off chance it were to be published, would find itself sitting on a bargain shelf in the local supermarket reserved for "porn novels" and other such publications.

The main character in this story actually goes through a lot of different personality changes due to various circumstances; it's supposed to span about 8 years: (age 10) spoiled, bratty, arrogant -> (age 14) bitter, resentful, spiteful -> (age 16--this is our drunk phase) unhappy, given up, untrusting -> (age 18) badass, determined, with generally the kind of traits that would make up a good protagonist and ideal leader.

While I'm against typical amnesia, (between ages 10 and 16, she'll sold and traded off as a slave a few times) her rough life experiences will cause her to wonder if being nobility was "just a dream" or a "childhood fantasy."

Anyways, sorry I'm not trying to write your story for you, just some ideas.

Oh no need to say sorry at all. This kind of feedback is why I made this post.

 

[Esioul]

Supermarkets and shops often throw stuff that has just- or is just about to- go off in their bins out the back. I used to know some students who ate the food and stuff from those bins. It wasn't TECHNICALLY off. I don't know if there was alcohol or not, but it certainly saved them a lot of money for alcohol and other things they probably shouldn't have been purchasing.

 

[Team 2012]

Collecting discarded bottles and cans and taking them back for deposits or to aluminum purchasers.
This can branch out. Some places are having street people steal the copper wire out of traffic signals and such.

Steal mail and look for money or credit cards or ID information to sell to people who do ID thefts, bank defrauds.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

Considering that the story Aes has described is about a princess sold into slavery and later forced to live among common people who can neither read nor write ... I think this isn't the kind of setting with supermarkets, aluminum cans, or credit cards.

On the other hand, identity theft in the old-fashioned sense of simply pretending to be somebody else, would be quite possible. When no one has ID and there is poor communication from place to place, it's easy enough to pull off an imposture as long you never run into anyone who knows the person you are pretending to be. And anyone with a title (real or not) could live off credit for a long time.

But I gather, Aes, that you mean to keep her pretty much in the gutter after she escapes from slavery?

 

[Aes]

But I gather, Aes, that you mean to keep her pretty much in the gutter after she escapes from slavery?

Yeah, until she meets other characters, I want to paint an image of her being as close to "given up and failed" as possible.