Naír

When I first started reading the books, and I reached the Veres part, I thought all the way until almost the end, when I started interacting with fandom and viewing the fanarts, that Veres was supposed to be an islamic country styled after Al-Andalus or some other caliphate. Maybe Byzantium, if not (even if anything Akielos is obviously Byzantium) I supposed this is my own bias, being andalusian and all that, but all the descriptions of the palace, the intricate not figurative decorations, the baths, the importance of culture… the sex thing was weird, but not too much, and when the clothes were described I imagined complicated and beautiful golden age muslim tunics. I didn’t get the French-baroque impression of Vere is what I’m saying. I thought; well this is quite a bit of orientalism, and the names thing is weird but the french had a large presence in north africa during colonialism and maybe the author is shit like that? Blond and blue-eyed Laurent was easier; I have some vague knowledge there are some people in Morocco that are like that in appearance and it doesn’t make them less Moroccan. So I just went along because I was enjoying the books and I didn’t take them seriously. Then, to my incredulity and disappointment, and well a little of embarrassment because all the clues were there and I was deluding myself, I realized Vere was supposed to be Alt!France. Which, you know, if Akielos wasn’t so blatantly Alt!AncientGreece-Rome I would have bought much earlier. But my first impression was that it had to be more or less on the same temporal continuum without realizing that as fantasy land author could do whatever she wanted, and my mind went to just after the disintegration of the Roman Empire and well. Vere is clearly just nextdoor of Akielos and facing the Mediterranean were I’m concerned I jumped conclusions xD (And the author clearly knew what she was doing, which was pleasant to know, i felt relieved xD)

So well, to this day the impression I have of Vere is much more this (all images from the Reales Alcázares de Sevilla) :

Or even this:

That anything French relating to the Sun King. 

Geez. I would love to see a fic take this direction with the story. It’s like an itch of mine that never got fulfilled and now I want that fic. It’d need a lot more of historical research and everything but it would be fascinating how the cultures of alt!whatevsmoreconvenientCaliphate (my knowledge is severely lacking I’m sorry, high school didn’t teach us beyond al-andalus and a bit on the muslim empire) and Alt!notsoAncientGreece would interact ;_; (given actual history it could have been… difficult and tense, but well. it could’ve been amazing)