Differences between Sabé Dahn and Dormé Tammesin and Dormé Jaffa and Sabé Nabish of cariel's AUs, 2
CONTINUED FROM FIRST HALF HERE: https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/97633.html
(Note: Padmé’s paternal grandmother, Winama [Shelané being her childhood/shadow name. It’s a custom of Naboo explained in the TtRotS trio - newborns are given names other than their legal first names to be used by family and friends while those children are young, to confuse any evil spirits that might wish to try to possess them and so keep them from being able to successfully possess them. It’s half superstition and half something inspired by an only dimly remembered method for driving out the mind/soul of a Sith or Dark Jedi wishing to possess another’s body. Padmé’s childhood/shadow name is actually Sabia. I haven’t come up with Sabé’s other name yet - Dormé’s childhood/shadow name actually is her name in the canon/EU. Her given, legal name I decided to make be Ryseidas, which breaks with Nabooian tradition for names {and is a reflection of the fact that she might be the issue of rape and attempted murder} - but if you have suggestions, I’m willing to listen! I’m horrible at coming up with names!] Naberrie, was the Queen’s First for the last of the rare monarchs who married in office. Lataré Madeva Nabishu Najaffa reigned roughly sixty years prior to Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker, married Aldron Najaffa - who went on to become King immediately after her elected reign as Queen ended - in her eighth year to close a rift that was threatening a political uprising, and bore three children to him during his eight-year reign as King. When Lataré’s youngest turned fifteen, her First, her beloved Shelané [Winama Tannis], finally felt free to marry her long-time suitor and former chosen companion of Aldron Najaffa, Keibhan Naberrie. They had three children, only one of whom lived long enough to marry, and it was he who became Padmé’s father, Ruwee. As she married so late in life Winama, like Lataré and her husband [who were essentially of an age with Winama], should be considered as belonging to the generation prior to the generation that birthed Dormé’s mother, Illyn. And yes, similarities in certain last names to other known family names on Naboo are deliberate on my part and meant to reflect bloodlines that converge at some point in the past. The Najaffas are distantly related to the Jaffas, just as the Nabishu and the Nabish [and likely any other family with a name similar to Bishu or Bish] are. I’ve cast a brightly blue-eyed, curly haired brunette Greta Garbo as Winama - though she often kept her hair smoothed straight or into very large, loose curls, to more closely match the appearance of her lady - and Vivien Leigh as Lataré Madeva Nabishu Najaffa. Keibhan Naberrie I’ve cast as Sir Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, and Aldron Najaffa as Errol Flynn.)
Specific Differences:
#1.) Dormé and Sabé are alternate versions of the Dormé and Sabé of the canon and EU, just as they are alternate versions of the Dormé and Sabé of the various AU versions of canon/EU that I consider to be an established part of fanon (specifically as with the Dormé and Sabé of cariel's various AU Sobiwan and Dormékin series). They are alternate not just in that they live in a version of the GFFA where events went in a different direction than in the canon/EU (and from the way they did in cariel's and cariel and bloodraven77's AUs based on the varying outcomes of certain possible points of divergence from the canon/EU), but because they inhabit parallel universes that I believe exist in according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics/quantum indeterminacy. (This would be the theory of multiple universes existing in parallel dimensions, birthed by the varying outcomes of events in which it was possible for many different outcomes to result. Did y’all ever see the tv show Sliders? It was technically based on this physics theory.) The concept is basically the same as that of the multiverse, as explored in some kinds of comics. What you get is essentially the same basic soul/spirit of a person, only shaped/influenced by an environment and by circumstances that differ in some respects from those that shaped/influenced the same character in canon/EU or in a different AU.
Thus, Dormé is Dormé Tammesin rather than Dormé Jaffa. This is so because another of the deadly hive viruses (which were only just beginning to be something that science/medicine could control/combat in the prequel-era) brought to Theed by an infected spacer swept across Naboo roughly forty-five years prior to the outbreak of the Clone Wars (which in my AU occurs on Productivity Day 1,000 ARR [After Ruusan Reformations] or 25,001 ARF [After Republic’s Founding], since you can’t very well use the EU BBY/ABY dating system used in the post-OT era in an AU where the Empire doesn’t ever really exist), and it essentially wiped out almost the entire extended family of Dormé’s mother - said family being an extremely wealthy and traditionally politically active or influential member of the unofficial aristocracy of Naboo. The only survivors were Dormé’s young mother (who was around two at the time the plague struck) and two slightly older male cousins - dependents of the family, who’d been taken in and adopted to keep them from being raised by other family members (i.e., their fathers, after the deaths of their mothers) considered to be unsuitable by Dormé’s mother’s family.
To make a long story short, another family - middle-class and ambitious enough to crave connections to the unofficial nobility - took in Dormé’s mother, Illyn, and her two cousins (currently tentatively named Katerol and Druthma) in order to marry the two male cousins to their two daughters and so be able to claim both the name of Illyn’s family as theirs and the vast majority of the wealth and property left behind by the family’s untimely demise. Illyn was essentially cheated out of her inheritance and treated like both an unwanted burden and drain on their resources (as this foster family had only two children by blood, both daughters) and a charity case dependent entirely on their largesse and whims. Illyn, being a strong-willed woman and self-educated enough to know what she was being robbed of, did not take this kind of treatment very well, and fled from this family as soon as she was able to, at the tender age of twelve, by secretly securing a scholarship in the city of Theed and then stowing away on a convoy bearing grain bound for Theed. Once in the city, she presented herself at the Palace on a day when the monarch and ruling court were traditionally opened to the people for petitions and complaints, and testified against the foster family that had unlawfully appropriated her inheritance and treated her badly (neglecting and even abusing) her entire time with them, demanding that she be repaid both what she’d been legally due as well as damages for what she’d suffered with them most of the past decade, so that she’d be able to set herself up independently in Theed and support herself as she pursued a higher education.
Unfortunately for Illyn, her foster family, coffers swollen with misgotten gains, had allied itself with the currently reigning King (a King who ruled not quite twenty years prior to the reign of Padmé Amidala and for only one four-year term, due to many failures of justice during his time in office, who I’ve cast as Spencer Tracy and named Muruka [and by the way, I’ve cast Marlon Brando as King Veruna, the monarch prior to Padmé Amidala]), who would not be voted out of office for another three years. However, luckily for her, she caught the eye and heart of another petitioner - a member of the growing staff/guard of the young Princess of Theed (who would be Naboo’s next monarch) - and, after essentially being taken in by Adeé Russe, the Princess of Theed (cast as Katherine Hepburn), as an orphan/ward of the city (in direct defiance of the King’s ruling) and a somewhat tumultuous romance and courtship, legally wed this member of the Princess’ staff/guard at the tender age of about fifteen. Not long after her marriage to Cianus Tammesin (tentatively cast as William Hurt), the King of Naboo was soundly beaten by the Princess of Theed (who therefore became Adeé Ashtara Russe) in the election, and Illyn was finally able to file a legal claim and complaint against the foster family who had mistreated her so badly. Things went well for her, but unfortunately the family’s fortunes had suffered since the King’s defeat as well as on account of the profligate spending of its new heads (following the mysterious deaths of the former heads of the household in a boating accident during a summer squall) during most of the previous three years. It essentially would bankrupt the family to pay the damages that the courts awarded Illyn, and so, in a desperate attempt to avoid having to pay, the cousins and their wives decided to hire a locally known thief, kidnapper, extortionist, and rumored murderer-for-hire to get rid of the problem for them.
Illyn ended up being raped and beaten/tortured half to death before the early arrival home of her husband could put a stop to events. The hirling, caught and mortally wounded (from a combination of a dagger to the back from Illyn and a blow to the head by her husband that cracked the man’s skull and made it impossible to move him), confessed to everything, and the family was not only ruined but banished from Naboo, their names and rights to the planet legally stripped from them (which is why I refer to them only as “the family” or foster family. Their name - and so also the name of Illyn’s blood family - was ritually blacked out of the records of Naboo, recorded only in the infamous book of traitors and exiles. To distance herself from all that had happened to her, she gave up right to the name and demanded that it never be spoken where she could hear it). To compound the tragedy, it was discovered that Illyn was pregnant roughly a month after the attack, and it would not be possible to tell, without definitive blood and DNA testing, whether the child was the product of her loving marriage or of the brutal rape. Illyn resolved to keep the child and to suffer no such tests (as she could not trust herself to be able to bear the knowledge and raise the child as her own, if the child was indeed a result of the attack), after her husband declared that the child was his and, if she proved able to carry the babe to full turn, would be legally acknowledged as his heir, no matter how it might have come to be.
A full term of pregnancy (given the ten months of the galactic standard calendar) is not quite eight months, for most humans and near-humans. Dormé was born not quite six and a half months after Illyn discovered her pregnancy - a little early to be the product of the attack, but small and slightly sickly, as though perhaps born slightly before full term. So absolutely did she resemble her mother and her mother’s family - brunette, dark eyed, fair skinned, and slender of build - that it could not be accurately guessed, thus, who her father had been. She lacked both the coarse curly hair of her mother’s rapist and the surprisingly fair hair of her legal father. But at least two of her later siblings did not let this uncertainty stop them from using the knowledge of what she might have been (the child of a rapist and a killer-for-hire) to torment her, and her mother and legal father, for all their fine words and good intentions, never could treat Dormé quite as well as they did their two younger boys and precious youngest child and daughter, even though Dormé was an extremely bright and beautiful precocious little girl. She pushed herself both to succeed and to exceed all expectations of her abilities, to be the best at everything she did, in an attempt to earn the love and respect of her distant father and chilly mother, but it did not good, until finally an even more bright and beautiful young teenager named Padmé Naberrie ran for and became elected Queen of Naboo, and word went out across Naboo that the traditional program of handmaidens/chosen companions and guardians of the monarch would be reinstated, and volunteers were wanted . . .
As for Sabé, well, her mother (Elynna Dahn Nabish, who can be pictured as Romy Schneider) suffered a miscarriage not quite two years before Sabé was born (the girl would’ve been named Ivetta Dahn and would’ve grown up to look like Yvonne Catterfeld if she’d survived), and, following the death of her mother in a freak accident when she was about ten months of age, her father (Callume Nabish, who can be pictured as Callum blue), who had only been in a three-year trial handfasting to her mother, was so devastated and felt so ill-equipped to deal with raising a baby on his own that he arranged for another to become her legal guardian. Sabé therefore moved in with her maternal grandmother and her husband (Siraphé Dougraessa Dahn, who can be pictured as Magda Schneider, and Alenn Dahn, who can be pictured as Sam Neill), in Theed (in a house just up the street from a certain lovely yellow-colored stone home), and her grandmother, Siraphé, adopted her formally and legally changed her last name to Dahn. Sabé was a lovely little precocious four-and-a-half-year-old (who most often went about with bare feet, when she could get away with it) when the Naberries moved in down the street with an equally precocious child nearing her fourth year of age who looked so much like her that strangers would often mistake them for sisters and even twins, and the two girls quickly became inseparable. It was widely believed that the two would be legally handfasted by the time they both reached the age of consent/majority, at least until it became obvious that Padmé’s heart was so set on the realm of politics that any such legally binding action would have to wait. It was nevertheless believed by their families that the two would be life-partners and perhaps find a third willing to act as their legal consort, so that they could have children to raise together, pretty much right up until the point when Padmé became Queen and then Sabé became Senator, and the two seemed to drift apart somewhat, despite their status as sworn lady and chosen handmaiden.
In truth, Sabé and Padmé did not so much as drift apart as they stubbornly enforced and maintain a distance between them that one had become convinced was absolutely necessary, for the sake of propriety and morality (as Padmé feared somehow taking advantage of Sabé, as her sworn lady. She felt it would be wrong to have a romantic relationship with the woman who was essentially giving up her life in order to protect her and even pretend to be her, in order to draw the fire of any/all enemies), and the other was absolutely determined to respect and to hold to the limits that had been enforced between them (since she was too proud, for one thing, to be the one to admit that the distance between them was wrong, and she was too good to push for something that Padmé did not seem to want - even if she did seem to sometimes still want what they’d once had). The story of Sabé and Padmé’s tragic and doomed love is whispered about among the other handmaidens, who often conspired to try to find a way to bring the two back together, and so the other handmaidens were all caught entirely off-guard and dumbfounded when their lady secretly handfasted Anakin Skywalker, especially since it was a not so very well-kept secret (well, not well kept by their lady. The handmaidens guarded the knowledge quite jealousy, though, and there were few outside of milady’s immediate family and Obi-Wan’s circle of friends who were aware of the fact) that both women loved and desired Obi-Wan Kenobi and regarded him as the absolute perfect choice for a shared consort.
Sabé has essentially been regarded as an extension of Padmé by all of the handmaidens for Padmé Amidala, and those of the handmaidens who actively served for Padmé and are still living will easily and gladly transfer their loyalty and their love to Sabé. If asked, they would reply that they also feel perfectly at ease to transfer their loyalty and their vows to Dormé, who has been a tireless teacher of Queens Firsts and alternate decoys and has essentially been regarded within the handmaiden coteries as a second Sabé. Those who have been trained as handmaidens but who didn’t have a chance to truly serve Padmé before her untimely death are pretty much so equally in awe of both of the former Queen’s Firsts that they’re (mostly) just as thrilled with the prospect of becoming handmaidens for either Sabé or Dormé as they had been with the notion of becoming handmaids for Padmé Amidala. Their natures and convictions and interests and training incline them to a life of service to the people (whether directly through politics or humanitarian work or indirectly, through service to one dedicated to such things), and to be given the chance/choice to serve with Milady Sabé or Milady Dormé (rather than see all of that training possibly go to waste and not be given a chance to act on their ideals) is, essentially, a perfect solution to a painful problem, for them.
Let’s see . . . what else should I probably mention here . . . ? Sabé was born left-handed, yet, because Padmé was right-handed, she taught herself to be pretty much wholly ambidextrous by the tender age of about five and a half. Dormé taught herself to be ambidextrous at an even younger age because she was left-handed to her mother’s and her legal father’s right-handedness, and it seemed one more way to try to close the distance between them. Most of the handmaidens who have been true handmaidens and not just guardian handmaids (again, there is a difference. The first rank can serve either as decoy, if needed, or can competently help their sworn lady perform all of her duties, in essence picking up half to two-thirds of the load of work, to help ease her burden. The second rank is much more skilled in areas of combat/defense and perhaps also such tasks as the everyday running of the household - shopping, seeing to the clothes and the linens, preparing hot baths for their lady and seeing to it that she’s supplied with enough hot tea and food to get through even the longest of days, helping with matters of protocol and etiquette so that petitioners and such won’t embarrass themselves before their lady, seeing to wardrobe and makeup and jewels and such - and perform these tasks so that the others will not have to be troubled with such trifles) are therefore also ambidextrous, because their lady is right-handed and their most famous/beloved (and technically born left-handed) teachers insist that being able to use both hands/arms in combat is an advantage that they cannot afford to do without.
Colors do have significance on Naboo, but I haven’t worked out all the specific messages that such colors could send yet, aside from the obvious mourning/grieving in shades of purple. And blue, depending on the color, can mean either penance and apology (dark navy blues tending towards black or dark indigo - which gives a whole new level of meaning to those dark blue and purple dresses Padmé wore in AotC and RotS, doesn’t it?) or else signify guardianship (lighter, sky or water hues). I’m going to adapt some meanings associated with the various colors of the lotus blossom into the color meanings for Nabooians, particularly when it comes to the traditional clothing and costumes worn by the handmaidens as well as by the monarchs and Senators. (The white lotus represents the state of spiritual perfection and total mental purity - bodhi - and is associated with the White Tara and proclaims her perfection. The pink lotus is the supreme lotus, generally reserved for the highest deity and so associated with the Great Buddha himself. The red lotus signifies the original nature and purity of the heart - hrdya - and so is the lotus of love, compassion, passion and all other qualities of the heart, not to mention being the flower of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. The blue lotus is a symbol of the victory of the spirit over the senses, and signifies the wisdom of knowledge, so it is the preferred flower of Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom.) I’ve looked up some meanings that are generally attached to color in different real-world traditions, but have yet to sort through them all and get everything hammered out to my satisfaction, so that meanings will seem to match the colors observed in the films. If anyone has any suggestions to make regarding the meanings of colors, now would be a good time to mention them!
As stated elsewhere on this LJ, I recently decided that Sabé’s regnal name is going to be Kandala’mikama. That’s quite a bit longer than the other regnal names of known Queens of Naboo in both the films and the EU, but then, Sabé is going to be a Queen unlike any that they have had lately - a Queen of a more mature age, chosen for her wisdom and experience, rather than her believed innocence/purity. The name has also been chosen for five reasons: it fits a similar pattern of names for both Padmé Amidala and Shmi Skywalker (which evokes various associations with the padma or sacred water lily [i.e., lotus blossom] and the goddess Lakshmi); in my mind, all those K’s evoke the name of Keira Knightley, which I think is a nice nod to the actress; it basically contains the name of Kamala (“she of the lotus”), which is a common epithet of goddess Lakshmi; it essentially contains the name of Kamalatmika (the goddess Devi in the fullness of her graceful aspect - i.e., shown as seated on a lotus, symbol of both purity and the life force that pervades creation); and it also contains most of the word that is the sacred mandala (i.e., a circle metaphysically/symbolically representing the cosmos, a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective), a symbol that’s often employed as a sort of spiritual teaching tool for focusing the attention of aspirants and adepts, either by helping them establish a sacred space or as an aid to meditation and trance induction, and which has ties to the chakra (as in, the divine circle or wheel, which in turn ties to the notion of the wheel of history/time, which I think is a concept that would be not unfamiliar to those in the GFFA who make a study of the Force), and which frankly makes me think of the symbol of the Open Circle Armada that Obi-Wan and Anakin were put in charge of and so makes me want to smile.
(Note: In Buddhism, the lotus is sacred not only because it transcends the darkness of the water and mud where its roots are, but also because of its perfectly symmetrical petals, which resemble a mandala).
Sabé’s regnal name may or may not end up being shortened in everyday use. I haven’t quite come to a decision on that, yet (though I’m leaning towards something like Kan’ama). I rather think that regnal names may be tied in to the Force-centered spirituality that pervades Nabooian culture, in which case a Queen (or Senator) might or might not be given more than one name, as time passes, as a sort of epithet (in the metaphoric sense, essentially as a reduced or condensed appositive either attached to a person’s name or given in place of a proper name, as what might be described as a glorified nickname meant to specifically conjure up a certain quality/attribute of said person) . . . Anyway, it took me forever to come up with a name I liked enough to finally stop waffling on, and I’ve yet to come up with a suitable name for Dormé. I’ve decided that, given the traditions that surround the monarchy and the way that the Senator acts as a sort of elected monarch who’s expected to intervene for the whole of the sector and perhaps even the whole of the galaxy rather than just the whole of the planet, regnal names are assigned to Nabooian Senators as well as to their monarchs, though a name assigned to a monarch is usually carried over if one who’s been a Queen or King of Naboo later becomes a Senator. (Which means, actually, that Palpatine is a regnal Senatorial name and not a real, legal, given name in any actual sense of those words. Readers might want to tuck that little fact away in the back of their heads.)
I’m torn between trying to figure out a way to continue the whole lotus blossom/Lakshmi theme or altering the focus to maybe more accurately reflect just who Dormé is. The problem with the first is that everything I can come up with sounds either too much like names that carry too much baggage for me (because of other real-life people or other characters I’ve read about) or else they look/sound too much Padmé or Sabé’s regnal names or real names or else they’re too much like Shmi’s name; and, with the second, well . . . My brain keeps circling around the whole “dark angel” title that’s become associated with Dormé in fanon (because of cariel's Dormékin AUs) and coming back to Kali and not thinking that the connotations associated with that name or any name too like it will go over too well for a Senator in the SW ’verse. *Snerk* I’ve toyed with the names Sundari’maya or Maya’sundari or else Sundala’maya or Maya’sundala (from “Maya,” a word that means illusion but that connotes the veil that the goddess Lakshmi, as Mahamaya, casts over Brahman, and “Padmasundari,” an epithet for Lakshmi meaning “one who is beautiful as a lotus,” which would be appropriate for our Dormé, since she’s also Rose), but I can’t decide if I like any of the possible variants I can come up with any more than any of the others, and I want Dormé’s name to be something special, dangit, and not just something that’s two or three clever references all jumbled up in one name. So I don’t suppose anyone has a favorable opinion on any of these or a possible alternative, eh?
If there’s anything else that should be added here, I can’t think of it right now, so . . . Y’all feel free to ask questions, and I’ll try to answer them if I can!
PS: A list of the customs/rules (tentatively) associated with naming children on Naboo can be found at http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/106978.html
PPS: I’ve recently been informed of a regnal name that’s given to Dormé in a (I believe) work in progress (or in the planning stages?) of cariel and bloodraven77, and it’s so perfect it’s practically the same name I’d initially chosen to give to Leia, as a traditional Nabooian childhood name. I like it so much that I’m altering my childhood name for Leia ever so slightly and, with the permission of cariel and bloodraven77, planning on keeping it in reserve to use for my Dormé’s regnal name. And I’m so happy right now I could just burst, so thank you thank you thank you to cariel, for letting me know about it!!!
PPS: The notion of epithets being so fitting on a world that deals in regnal names and in giving private names of honor to children when they reach adulthood (as referenced by Padmé in the second book of my Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith trio, when she refers to being given the “blood name” of Arianeira, “as is traditional when a girl-child of Naboo comes to the full flowering of her womanhood”), I’m fairly certain that Padmé Amidala will have been given two epithets while still living (one after the events of TPM, the other after the events of AotC) and one when dead, those being Maha’kamala, Maha’dhairya, and Maya’sundari (all variants of one kind of another of historical epithets for or specific aspects of Lakshmi/Mahamaya/Kamalatmika). This being so, I imagine that Kandala’mikama may be the final of several loving epithets rather than the core regnal name Sabé is given when first elected Queen. This may change, though, depending on whether or not I decide Kan’ama or something similar is too short for a proper regnal name and whether or not I decide her original regnal name might need to be something else entirely (less similar in tone to Amidala).
Addendum: I now have an additional document in four posts up that expands on the fashions in the prequels (regarding Alderaan/Delaya, Chandrila, Naboo, and also, to an extent, Coruscant) over https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/265905.html here and https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/266070.html and here https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/266273.html and here https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/266583.html if anyone is interested!
Sorry about the font apparently randomly changing types whenever it feels like it: I genuinely have no idea why it's doing it (I am copying and pasting from a Word document that has the same font in the same size throughout its entirety and I don't remember this happening when I made the original/shorter post) and I don't know how to fix it, short of trying to retype the entire document here and I just don't have the time to do that.
(Note: Padmé’s paternal grandmother, Winama [Shelané being her childhood/shadow name. It’s a custom of Naboo explained in the TtRotS trio - newborns are given names other than their legal first names to be used by family and friends while those children are young, to confuse any evil spirits that might wish to try to possess them and so keep them from being able to successfully possess them. It’s half superstition and half something inspired by an only dimly remembered method for driving out the mind/soul of a Sith or Dark Jedi wishing to possess another’s body. Padmé’s childhood/shadow name is actually Sabia. I haven’t come up with Sabé’s other name yet - Dormé’s childhood/shadow name actually is her name in the canon/EU. Her given, legal name I decided to make be Ryseidas, which breaks with Nabooian tradition for names {and is a reflection of the fact that she might be the issue of rape and attempted murder} - but if you have suggestions, I’m willing to listen! I’m horrible at coming up with names!] Naberrie, was the Queen’s First for the last of the rare monarchs who married in office. Lataré Madeva Nabishu Najaffa reigned roughly sixty years prior to Padmé Amidala Naberrie Skywalker, married Aldron Najaffa - who went on to become King immediately after her elected reign as Queen ended - in her eighth year to close a rift that was threatening a political uprising, and bore three children to him during his eight-year reign as King. When Lataré’s youngest turned fifteen, her First, her beloved Shelané [Winama Tannis], finally felt free to marry her long-time suitor and former chosen companion of Aldron Najaffa, Keibhan Naberrie. They had three children, only one of whom lived long enough to marry, and it was he who became Padmé’s father, Ruwee. As she married so late in life Winama, like Lataré and her husband [who were essentially of an age with Winama], should be considered as belonging to the generation prior to the generation that birthed Dormé’s mother, Illyn. And yes, similarities in certain last names to other known family names on Naboo are deliberate on my part and meant to reflect bloodlines that converge at some point in the past. The Najaffas are distantly related to the Jaffas, just as the Nabishu and the Nabish [and likely any other family with a name similar to Bishu or Bish] are. I’ve cast a brightly blue-eyed, curly haired brunette Greta Garbo as Winama - though she often kept her hair smoothed straight or into very large, loose curls, to more closely match the appearance of her lady - and Vivien Leigh as Lataré Madeva Nabishu Najaffa. Keibhan Naberrie I’ve cast as Sir Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, and Aldron Najaffa as Errol Flynn.)
Specific Differences:
#1.) Dormé and Sabé are alternate versions of the Dormé and Sabé of the canon and EU, just as they are alternate versions of the Dormé and Sabé of the various AU versions of canon/EU that I consider to be an established part of fanon (specifically as with the Dormé and Sabé of cariel's various AU Sobiwan and Dormékin series). They are alternate not just in that they live in a version of the GFFA where events went in a different direction than in the canon/EU (and from the way they did in cariel's and cariel and bloodraven77's AUs based on the varying outcomes of certain possible points of divergence from the canon/EU), but because they inhabit parallel universes that I believe exist in according to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics/quantum indeterminacy. (This would be the theory of multiple universes existing in parallel dimensions, birthed by the varying outcomes of events in which it was possible for many different outcomes to result. Did y’all ever see the tv show Sliders? It was technically based on this physics theory.) The concept is basically the same as that of the multiverse, as explored in some kinds of comics. What you get is essentially the same basic soul/spirit of a person, only shaped/influenced by an environment and by circumstances that differ in some respects from those that shaped/influenced the same character in canon/EU or in a different AU.
Thus, Dormé is Dormé Tammesin rather than Dormé Jaffa. This is so because another of the deadly hive viruses (which were only just beginning to be something that science/medicine could control/combat in the prequel-era) brought to Theed by an infected spacer swept across Naboo roughly forty-five years prior to the outbreak of the Clone Wars (which in my AU occurs on Productivity Day 1,000 ARR [After Ruusan Reformations] or 25,001 ARF [After Republic’s Founding], since you can’t very well use the EU BBY/ABY dating system used in the post-OT era in an AU where the Empire doesn’t ever really exist), and it essentially wiped out almost the entire extended family of Dormé’s mother - said family being an extremely wealthy and traditionally politically active or influential member of the unofficial aristocracy of Naboo. The only survivors were Dormé’s young mother (who was around two at the time the plague struck) and two slightly older male cousins - dependents of the family, who’d been taken in and adopted to keep them from being raised by other family members (i.e., their fathers, after the deaths of their mothers) considered to be unsuitable by Dormé’s mother’s family.
To make a long story short, another family - middle-class and ambitious enough to crave connections to the unofficial nobility - took in Dormé’s mother, Illyn, and her two cousins (currently tentatively named Katerol and Druthma) in order to marry the two male cousins to their two daughters and so be able to claim both the name of Illyn’s family as theirs and the vast majority of the wealth and property left behind by the family’s untimely demise. Illyn was essentially cheated out of her inheritance and treated like both an unwanted burden and drain on their resources (as this foster family had only two children by blood, both daughters) and a charity case dependent entirely on their largesse and whims. Illyn, being a strong-willed woman and self-educated enough to know what she was being robbed of, did not take this kind of treatment very well, and fled from this family as soon as she was able to, at the tender age of twelve, by secretly securing a scholarship in the city of Theed and then stowing away on a convoy bearing grain bound for Theed. Once in the city, she presented herself at the Palace on a day when the monarch and ruling court were traditionally opened to the people for petitions and complaints, and testified against the foster family that had unlawfully appropriated her inheritance and treated her badly (neglecting and even abusing) her entire time with them, demanding that she be repaid both what she’d been legally due as well as damages for what she’d suffered with them most of the past decade, so that she’d be able to set herself up independently in Theed and support herself as she pursued a higher education.
Unfortunately for Illyn, her foster family, coffers swollen with misgotten gains, had allied itself with the currently reigning King (a King who ruled not quite twenty years prior to the reign of Padmé Amidala and for only one four-year term, due to many failures of justice during his time in office, who I’ve cast as Spencer Tracy and named Muruka [and by the way, I’ve cast Marlon Brando as King Veruna, the monarch prior to Padmé Amidala]), who would not be voted out of office for another three years. However, luckily for her, she caught the eye and heart of another petitioner - a member of the growing staff/guard of the young Princess of Theed (who would be Naboo’s next monarch) - and, after essentially being taken in by Adeé Russe, the Princess of Theed (cast as Katherine Hepburn), as an orphan/ward of the city (in direct defiance of the King’s ruling) and a somewhat tumultuous romance and courtship, legally wed this member of the Princess’ staff/guard at the tender age of about fifteen. Not long after her marriage to Cianus Tammesin (tentatively cast as William Hurt), the King of Naboo was soundly beaten by the Princess of Theed (who therefore became Adeé Ashtara Russe) in the election, and Illyn was finally able to file a legal claim and complaint against the foster family who had mistreated her so badly. Things went well for her, but unfortunately the family’s fortunes had suffered since the King’s defeat as well as on account of the profligate spending of its new heads (following the mysterious deaths of the former heads of the household in a boating accident during a summer squall) during most of the previous three years. It essentially would bankrupt the family to pay the damages that the courts awarded Illyn, and so, in a desperate attempt to avoid having to pay, the cousins and their wives decided to hire a locally known thief, kidnapper, extortionist, and rumored murderer-for-hire to get rid of the problem for them.
Illyn ended up being raped and beaten/tortured half to death before the early arrival home of her husband could put a stop to events. The hirling, caught and mortally wounded (from a combination of a dagger to the back from Illyn and a blow to the head by her husband that cracked the man’s skull and made it impossible to move him), confessed to everything, and the family was not only ruined but banished from Naboo, their names and rights to the planet legally stripped from them (which is why I refer to them only as “the family” or foster family. Their name - and so also the name of Illyn’s blood family - was ritually blacked out of the records of Naboo, recorded only in the infamous book of traitors and exiles. To distance herself from all that had happened to her, she gave up right to the name and demanded that it never be spoken where she could hear it). To compound the tragedy, it was discovered that Illyn was pregnant roughly a month after the attack, and it would not be possible to tell, without definitive blood and DNA testing, whether the child was the product of her loving marriage or of the brutal rape. Illyn resolved to keep the child and to suffer no such tests (as she could not trust herself to be able to bear the knowledge and raise the child as her own, if the child was indeed a result of the attack), after her husband declared that the child was his and, if she proved able to carry the babe to full turn, would be legally acknowledged as his heir, no matter how it might have come to be.
A full term of pregnancy (given the ten months of the galactic standard calendar) is not quite eight months, for most humans and near-humans. Dormé was born not quite six and a half months after Illyn discovered her pregnancy - a little early to be the product of the attack, but small and slightly sickly, as though perhaps born slightly before full term. So absolutely did she resemble her mother and her mother’s family - brunette, dark eyed, fair skinned, and slender of build - that it could not be accurately guessed, thus, who her father had been. She lacked both the coarse curly hair of her mother’s rapist and the surprisingly fair hair of her legal father. But at least two of her later siblings did not let this uncertainty stop them from using the knowledge of what she might have been (the child of a rapist and a killer-for-hire) to torment her, and her mother and legal father, for all their fine words and good intentions, never could treat Dormé quite as well as they did their two younger boys and precious youngest child and daughter, even though Dormé was an extremely bright and beautiful precocious little girl. She pushed herself both to succeed and to exceed all expectations of her abilities, to be the best at everything she did, in an attempt to earn the love and respect of her distant father and chilly mother, but it did not good, until finally an even more bright and beautiful young teenager named Padmé Naberrie ran for and became elected Queen of Naboo, and word went out across Naboo that the traditional program of handmaidens/chosen companions and guardians of the monarch would be reinstated, and volunteers were wanted . . .
As for Sabé, well, her mother (Elynna Dahn Nabish, who can be pictured as Romy Schneider) suffered a miscarriage not quite two years before Sabé was born (the girl would’ve been named Ivetta Dahn and would’ve grown up to look like Yvonne Catterfeld if she’d survived), and, following the death of her mother in a freak accident when she was about ten months of age, her father (Callume Nabish, who can be pictured as Callum blue), who had only been in a three-year trial handfasting to her mother, was so devastated and felt so ill-equipped to deal with raising a baby on his own that he arranged for another to become her legal guardian. Sabé therefore moved in with her maternal grandmother and her husband (Siraphé Dougraessa Dahn, who can be pictured as Magda Schneider, and Alenn Dahn, who can be pictured as Sam Neill), in Theed (in a house just up the street from a certain lovely yellow-colored stone home), and her grandmother, Siraphé, adopted her formally and legally changed her last name to Dahn. Sabé was a lovely little precocious four-and-a-half-year-old (who most often went about with bare feet, when she could get away with it) when the Naberries moved in down the street with an equally precocious child nearing her fourth year of age who looked so much like her that strangers would often mistake them for sisters and even twins, and the two girls quickly became inseparable. It was widely believed that the two would be legally handfasted by the time they both reached the age of consent/majority, at least until it became obvious that Padmé’s heart was so set on the realm of politics that any such legally binding action would have to wait. It was nevertheless believed by their families that the two would be life-partners and perhaps find a third willing to act as their legal consort, so that they could have children to raise together, pretty much right up until the point when Padmé became Queen and then Sabé became Senator, and the two seemed to drift apart somewhat, despite their status as sworn lady and chosen handmaiden.
In truth, Sabé and Padmé did not so much as drift apart as they stubbornly enforced and maintain a distance between them that one had become convinced was absolutely necessary, for the sake of propriety and morality (as Padmé feared somehow taking advantage of Sabé, as her sworn lady. She felt it would be wrong to have a romantic relationship with the woman who was essentially giving up her life in order to protect her and even pretend to be her, in order to draw the fire of any/all enemies), and the other was absolutely determined to respect and to hold to the limits that had been enforced between them (since she was too proud, for one thing, to be the one to admit that the distance between them was wrong, and she was too good to push for something that Padmé did not seem to want - even if she did seem to sometimes still want what they’d once had). The story of Sabé and Padmé’s tragic and doomed love is whispered about among the other handmaidens, who often conspired to try to find a way to bring the two back together, and so the other handmaidens were all caught entirely off-guard and dumbfounded when their lady secretly handfasted Anakin Skywalker, especially since it was a not so very well-kept secret (well, not well kept by their lady. The handmaidens guarded the knowledge quite jealousy, though, and there were few outside of milady’s immediate family and Obi-Wan’s circle of friends who were aware of the fact) that both women loved and desired Obi-Wan Kenobi and regarded him as the absolute perfect choice for a shared consort.
Sabé has essentially been regarded as an extension of Padmé by all of the handmaidens for Padmé Amidala, and those of the handmaidens who actively served for Padmé and are still living will easily and gladly transfer their loyalty and their love to Sabé. If asked, they would reply that they also feel perfectly at ease to transfer their loyalty and their vows to Dormé, who has been a tireless teacher of Queens Firsts and alternate decoys and has essentially been regarded within the handmaiden coteries as a second Sabé. Those who have been trained as handmaidens but who didn’t have a chance to truly serve Padmé before her untimely death are pretty much so equally in awe of both of the former Queen’s Firsts that they’re (mostly) just as thrilled with the prospect of becoming handmaidens for either Sabé or Dormé as they had been with the notion of becoming handmaids for Padmé Amidala. Their natures and convictions and interests and training incline them to a life of service to the people (whether directly through politics or humanitarian work or indirectly, through service to one dedicated to such things), and to be given the chance/choice to serve with Milady Sabé or Milady Dormé (rather than see all of that training possibly go to waste and not be given a chance to act on their ideals) is, essentially, a perfect solution to a painful problem, for them.
Let’s see . . . what else should I probably mention here . . . ? Sabé was born left-handed, yet, because Padmé was right-handed, she taught herself to be pretty much wholly ambidextrous by the tender age of about five and a half. Dormé taught herself to be ambidextrous at an even younger age because she was left-handed to her mother’s and her legal father’s right-handedness, and it seemed one more way to try to close the distance between them. Most of the handmaidens who have been true handmaidens and not just guardian handmaids (again, there is a difference. The first rank can serve either as decoy, if needed, or can competently help their sworn lady perform all of her duties, in essence picking up half to two-thirds of the load of work, to help ease her burden. The second rank is much more skilled in areas of combat/defense and perhaps also such tasks as the everyday running of the household - shopping, seeing to the clothes and the linens, preparing hot baths for their lady and seeing to it that she’s supplied with enough hot tea and food to get through even the longest of days, helping with matters of protocol and etiquette so that petitioners and such won’t embarrass themselves before their lady, seeing to wardrobe and makeup and jewels and such - and perform these tasks so that the others will not have to be troubled with such trifles) are therefore also ambidextrous, because their lady is right-handed and their most famous/beloved (and technically born left-handed) teachers insist that being able to use both hands/arms in combat is an advantage that they cannot afford to do without.
Colors do have significance on Naboo, but I haven’t worked out all the specific messages that such colors could send yet, aside from the obvious mourning/grieving in shades of purple. And blue, depending on the color, can mean either penance and apology (dark navy blues tending towards black or dark indigo - which gives a whole new level of meaning to those dark blue and purple dresses Padmé wore in AotC and RotS, doesn’t it?) or else signify guardianship (lighter, sky or water hues). I’m going to adapt some meanings associated with the various colors of the lotus blossom into the color meanings for Nabooians, particularly when it comes to the traditional clothing and costumes worn by the handmaidens as well as by the monarchs and Senators. (The white lotus represents the state of spiritual perfection and total mental purity - bodhi - and is associated with the White Tara and proclaims her perfection. The pink lotus is the supreme lotus, generally reserved for the highest deity and so associated with the Great Buddha himself. The red lotus signifies the original nature and purity of the heart - hrdya - and so is the lotus of love, compassion, passion and all other qualities of the heart, not to mention being the flower of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. The blue lotus is a symbol of the victory of the spirit over the senses, and signifies the wisdom of knowledge, so it is the preferred flower of Manjushri, the bodhisattva of wisdom.) I’ve looked up some meanings that are generally attached to color in different real-world traditions, but have yet to sort through them all and get everything hammered out to my satisfaction, so that meanings will seem to match the colors observed in the films. If anyone has any suggestions to make regarding the meanings of colors, now would be a good time to mention them!
As stated elsewhere on this LJ, I recently decided that Sabé’s regnal name is going to be Kandala’mikama. That’s quite a bit longer than the other regnal names of known Queens of Naboo in both the films and the EU, but then, Sabé is going to be a Queen unlike any that they have had lately - a Queen of a more mature age, chosen for her wisdom and experience, rather than her believed innocence/purity. The name has also been chosen for five reasons: it fits a similar pattern of names for both Padmé Amidala and Shmi Skywalker (which evokes various associations with the padma or sacred water lily [i.e., lotus blossom] and the goddess Lakshmi); in my mind, all those K’s evoke the name of Keira Knightley, which I think is a nice nod to the actress; it basically contains the name of Kamala (“she of the lotus”), which is a common epithet of goddess Lakshmi; it essentially contains the name of Kamalatmika (the goddess Devi in the fullness of her graceful aspect - i.e., shown as seated on a lotus, symbol of both purity and the life force that pervades creation); and it also contains most of the word that is the sacred mandala (i.e., a circle metaphysically/symbolically representing the cosmos, a microcosm of the universe from the human perspective), a symbol that’s often employed as a sort of spiritual teaching tool for focusing the attention of aspirants and adepts, either by helping them establish a sacred space or as an aid to meditation and trance induction, and which has ties to the chakra (as in, the divine circle or wheel, which in turn ties to the notion of the wheel of history/time, which I think is a concept that would be not unfamiliar to those in the GFFA who make a study of the Force), and which frankly makes me think of the symbol of the Open Circle Armada that Obi-Wan and Anakin were put in charge of and so makes me want to smile.
(Note: In Buddhism, the lotus is sacred not only because it transcends the darkness of the water and mud where its roots are, but also because of its perfectly symmetrical petals, which resemble a mandala).
Sabé’s regnal name may or may not end up being shortened in everyday use. I haven’t quite come to a decision on that, yet (though I’m leaning towards something like Kan’ama). I rather think that regnal names may be tied in to the Force-centered spirituality that pervades Nabooian culture, in which case a Queen (or Senator) might or might not be given more than one name, as time passes, as a sort of epithet (in the metaphoric sense, essentially as a reduced or condensed appositive either attached to a person’s name or given in place of a proper name, as what might be described as a glorified nickname meant to specifically conjure up a certain quality/attribute of said person) . . . Anyway, it took me forever to come up with a name I liked enough to finally stop waffling on, and I’ve yet to come up with a suitable name for Dormé. I’ve decided that, given the traditions that surround the monarchy and the way that the Senator acts as a sort of elected monarch who’s expected to intervene for the whole of the sector and perhaps even the whole of the galaxy rather than just the whole of the planet, regnal names are assigned to Nabooian Senators as well as to their monarchs, though a name assigned to a monarch is usually carried over if one who’s been a Queen or King of Naboo later becomes a Senator. (Which means, actually, that Palpatine is a regnal Senatorial name and not a real, legal, given name in any actual sense of those words. Readers might want to tuck that little fact away in the back of their heads.)
I’m torn between trying to figure out a way to continue the whole lotus blossom/Lakshmi theme or altering the focus to maybe more accurately reflect just who Dormé is. The problem with the first is that everything I can come up with sounds either too much like names that carry too much baggage for me (because of other real-life people or other characters I’ve read about) or else they look/sound too much Padmé or Sabé’s regnal names or real names or else they’re too much like Shmi’s name; and, with the second, well . . . My brain keeps circling around the whole “dark angel” title that’s become associated with Dormé in fanon (because of cariel's Dormékin AUs) and coming back to Kali and not thinking that the connotations associated with that name or any name too like it will go over too well for a Senator in the SW ’verse. *Snerk* I’ve toyed with the names Sundari’maya or Maya’sundari or else Sundala’maya or Maya’sundala (from “Maya,” a word that means illusion but that connotes the veil that the goddess Lakshmi, as Mahamaya, casts over Brahman, and “Padmasundari,” an epithet for Lakshmi meaning “one who is beautiful as a lotus,” which would be appropriate for our Dormé, since she’s also Rose), but I can’t decide if I like any of the possible variants I can come up with any more than any of the others, and I want Dormé’s name to be something special, dangit, and not just something that’s two or three clever references all jumbled up in one name. So I don’t suppose anyone has a favorable opinion on any of these or a possible alternative, eh?
If there’s anything else that should be added here, I can’t think of it right now, so . . . Y’all feel free to ask questions, and I’ll try to answer them if I can!
PS: A list of the customs/rules (tentatively) associated with naming children on Naboo can be found at http://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/106978.html
PPS: I’ve recently been informed of a regnal name that’s given to Dormé in a (I believe) work in progress (or in the planning stages?) of cariel and bloodraven77, and it’s so perfect it’s practically the same name I’d initially chosen to give to Leia, as a traditional Nabooian childhood name. I like it so much that I’m altering my childhood name for Leia ever so slightly and, with the permission of cariel and bloodraven77, planning on keeping it in reserve to use for my Dormé’s regnal name. And I’m so happy right now I could just burst, so thank you thank you thank you to cariel, for letting me know about it!!!
PPS: The notion of epithets being so fitting on a world that deals in regnal names and in giving private names of honor to children when they reach adulthood (as referenced by Padmé in the second book of my Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith trio, when she refers to being given the “blood name” of Arianeira, “as is traditional when a girl-child of Naboo comes to the full flowering of her womanhood”), I’m fairly certain that Padmé Amidala will have been given two epithets while still living (one after the events of TPM, the other after the events of AotC) and one when dead, those being Maha’kamala, Maha’dhairya, and Maya’sundari (all variants of one kind of another of historical epithets for or specific aspects of Lakshmi/Mahamaya/Kamalatmika). This being so, I imagine that Kandala’mikama may be the final of several loving epithets rather than the core regnal name Sabé is given when first elected Queen. This may change, though, depending on whether or not I decide Kan’ama or something similar is too short for a proper regnal name and whether or not I decide her original regnal name might need to be something else entirely (less similar in tone to Amidala).
Addendum: I now have an additional document in four posts up that expands on the fashions in the prequels (regarding Alderaan/Delaya, Chandrila, Naboo, and also, to an extent, Coruscant) over https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/265905.html here and https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/266070.html and here https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/266273.html and here https://polgarawolf.livejournal.com/266583.html if anyone is interested!
Sorry about the font apparently randomly changing types whenever it feels like it: I genuinely have no idea why it's doing it (I am copying and pasting from a Word document that has the same font in the same size throughout its entirety and I don't remember this happening when I made the original/shorter post) and I don't know how to fix it, short of trying to retype the entire document here and I just don't have the time to do that.