Some of my Heroines… and a Little Hero

–This is a very fragmentary draft left by Ariel, and I do not feel capable to complete it beyond the few notes I have added to this moment –mostly to make it understandable and more or less presentable–. The subject and the fictional characters Ariel chose are so deeply hers that any tentative I could do to fill the gaps would be doomed to failure, or at least unfaithfulness. The captions and the scarce notes written by Ari are in colour; the grey or blue-grey standard text is mine.

Li Fontrodona.–

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Lyra Belacqua – [from His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman]

[No comments written by Ari. But I will say that she had the novel by Pullman on her sleeping-room –all her successive sleeping-rooms–, and she had it plenty of bookmarks and notes written in pencil on the margins.

Of course, she identified with Lyra like many other girls and grown women in this world, but an opinion she had about her seems to me quite peculiar, and worthy to tell here: “The best of Lyra are her formidable friends: Will, Lee Scoresby, the “Gyptians”… and, greatest of them all, that bear: Iorek Byrnison. I envy her for them”. Ari also said to me that her “dæmon” would have been, most naturally, an unicorn (no less!) …

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Lyra Belacqua and Iorek Byrnison in Svalbard

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Chihiro – [from Spirited Away, by Hayao Miyazaki]

Chihiro Ogino (荻野 千尋, Ogino Chihiro, referred throughout most of the film by her nickname Sen (千) ) is a sullen ten-year-old girl who, while moving to a new neighbourhood, enters the spirit world, lives awesome adventures and fulfills an inner quest too. Nonetehless, she finds a handsome and powerful friend –and maybe her first love: a dragon!

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Sophie – [from Howl’s Moving Castle, by Hayao Miyazaki]

[No comment made by Ari about one of Miyazaki’s lovely girls she liked most. Anyway I am quite sure she would have said that Sophie was a “heart-eater” and a “fire-kisser”; and the better hugger in all the Anime world :)]

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Sophie kissing Calcifer, the flame of life

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Éowyn – [from The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien]

[No illustration selected by Ari for Éowyn]

“I will be a healer, and love all things that grow and are not barren”

Éowyn is described to be very beautiful; she was tall, slim, pale, and graceful, with long golden hair and grey eyes. In temperament she was idealistic, spirited, brave and high-minded, but very lonely, having sacrificed her own happiness for years to care for her sick uncle and meet the responsibilities of a shield-maiden. She fells deeply in love with Aragorn, but this is a love doomed to not be ever corresponded –a true pity for her and for the future King of the Númenóreans, since, in my opinion, she is the loveliest and toughest woman on Middle Earth; more than Arwen!, more than any other high lady among the Elves –and, by the way, they are all very stiff and quite conceited … and cold!

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Pippi Långstrumpf – [from several books by Astrid Lindgren]

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Natalya “Natasha” Ilyinichna Rostova – [from War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy]

[No illustration selected by Ari for Natasha Rostova. No words written, either.]

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To end this post, Ari’s “Little hero” was and is also mine, but I won’t write anything about him, either (I could fill many lines, perhaps pages, about Mowgli and the several stories from The Jungle Book where he appears, but I just long for a single sentence by Ari’s hand or, at least, some illustration chosen by her …; since I have not found any, I leave this section empty beyond the mention itself:

Mowgli – [from The Jungle Book, by Rudyard Kipling]

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P.S.: Were I to make a post about my heroines and heroes, I would choose quite a few, but on top of them all, first among them, best of any other, I would put Ariel herself. She was a treasure; one of a kind, even among heroines (real or fictional; dead or alive). All my Love to her —  💙💚💟💛💜

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