#channary Blackburn

[katniss-evermeme]

Ah yes, my favorite Lunar Chronicles characters: Moon Moon Darnel and Moon Moon Moon Blackburn

[chemicallyyourss]

Levana: “I can’t let my planet have another horrible Queen like my sister, I need to get rid of Selene! She won’t be fit to rule and she’ll be just like my sister! This is what will be best for Luna!”

Also Levana: Indirectly attempts to kill her niece, orders her husband and step daughter to be killed, takes babies from their parents mere hours after birth because of something they can’t control and leads parents to think it’s an infanticide but really she’s enslaving the children to harvest their blood to make a lab made virus, takes kids at young ages from their homes to tamper with their genetic makeup and make them into human-wolf hybrids and strip them of their humanity and rights, lets the majority of her planet live in poverty and work in extremely unsafe conditions and only give them weekly rations that barely sustain them at all, executes people randomly and publicly for little to no reason at times, does corporal punishment and executions of ENTIRE FAMILIES and groups of people for the little actions of a single person that could range from saying the princess is pretty to trying to flee the country to escape infanticide and slavery and poverty

[impossiblesuitcase]

Levana has two core tenets that drive her entire personal philosophy, both actively damaging and sustaining her: her need to be beautiful and her need to be loved. They are irrevocably intertwined and are ultimately her undoing.

Two people in her life dictate these notions--Channary and Evret. Channary implanted the desire to be loved and the necessity to be beautiful once Levana is disfigured. Without any willing participation from Evret, Levana carries over these insecurities, needing to be loved by him when Channary fails her and needing to keep up her glamour to feel beautiful. If Solstice is the only woman he can see as beautiful, that's what Levana must become. She sabotages her relationship with him after she shows him her true appearance; she refuses to be loved for her true self, and once he sees it, he must be disposed of. Evret lives on in Winter, who reinforces that Levana cannot ever control them as she wears her three uniform scars with pride.

With the death of these two motivators, she feels free of the burden of needing them. But the demand to be beautiful and loved is indefatigable, so she replaces them with an unearthly, ethereal glamour in her quest for vanity, and the contrived love from her citizens to feel wanted. These are both fundamentally artificial and never satisfy her, so she must always strive for more. Her body, face, voice 'improve' countless times over decades, as she is never sure that they are perfect enough. Her armies become fiercer, her inventory larger, and she sets her sights on the largest territory to conquer--Earth--all in the name of supplying her people to buy their love. Levana could have at any point abandoned her course of tyranny and used her circumstances to reform herself and her country's systemic disparity. She chooses every day to reject these opportunities and each action deepens her need to maintain the façade of love and looks. She is to be pitied, but not to be pardoned.

In order for Levana to be defeated as a villain, she must not only die, but must have her philosophy completely overturned. Kai takes the place of Evret and she replays her manipulation in the same way on their wedding day. But when she marries Kai, glamouring as his lover as she did to Evret, he dismantles her beauty, stating that she will never be as beautiful as the glamourless Linh Cinder. This directly mirrors Evret's loyalty to Solstice and it hurts Levana--not because she loves Kai in any way like she loved Evret--but because the message lives on in him. She is always inadequate.

Her glamour and her loyalties fall in one fell swoop. Her people come to her door to kill her, and her true face is blown up in the sky, permanently tainting her image. With her vanity blighted, all that's left is the fundamental nucleus of her problems: her relationship with Channary. It is the chief relationship in her life, even posthumously, and is the very cause of her perverted worldview. Levana never killed Channary and that is her greatest regret.

When Cinder arrives--Channary's near reincarnation in appearance--Levana has her second chance. It is particularly imperative to her to eliminate Selene because Levana was never loved by Channary, while Selene was. Her existence is a mockery of Levana's pain because it clarifies that Channary was capable of love and actively withheld it from Levana. However when Levana burnt Cinder alive, she levelled the playing field. She assigned Cinder a life of enduring the same prejudice and inadequacy that she faced. Therefore in their final battle, Levana likens Cinder to herself and her need to be desired. By killing Selene, she will finally prove that she has killed her need to be loved by Channary.

To do this, she sets up the perfect replica for this prophetic revenge. Cinder's friend will betray her as Channary did Levana, and Cinder will retaliate as Levana herself wished to do. It is particularly powerful that it is not Kai in the room at this final battle. Romantic love is irrelevant now. Instead it is Thorne, whom Cinder loves as family. Their almost sibling-like dynamic is now reflective of Channary and Levana. Levana asserts that this kind of love is false. But Cinder and Thorne demonstrate their loyalty to one another--even when Thorne is manipulated to hurt her, Cinder attacks Levana, not him. He proves his love in his sobs and apologies as his body rebels. Levana's final desire, to prove that love is merely a conquest and a war, is dashed.

In the end, Levana stabs Cinder, but it doesn't matter. Her worldview is shattered, her tenuous beliefs severed. That is where Levana is defeated. The final shot that kills her is simply to finalise the matter. Her tenets die with her and can be replaced with the true forms of beauty and love. Cinder and Winter, disfigured and scarred and unashamed. Kai, who loves Cinder and loves her appearance because she gave him good reason to, and never through manipulation. Cinder, who attains loyalty from the citizens of Luna and Earth alike through her action and compassion.

Love is not conquered, love is not a war; it is earned.

[winterczn]

daily reminder that channary jannali blackburn, a sadistic tyrant who ordered her seamstress’s feet to be chopped off, loved cinder more than linh adri. A TYRANT, KNOWN FOR BEING EVEN WORSE THAN LEVANA, LOVED CINDER MORE THAN ADRI.

[oliveeeia]

The only thing that Channary did right was ship her daughter (Selene/Cinder) with Kai.

[therealkaidertrash21]

channary isnt asian and neither is levana. they’re caucadian

That would be kinda impossible because Cinder, Channary's daughter, IS asian. but, ok.

Also, even if they weren't canonically asian, it wouldn't even change the plot at all if they were. it wouldn't be wrong to headcannon them that way. Like Annabeth Chase in the Percy Jackson series, in the books she was white and blonde, but in the new Disney plus series she's black. And it's ok, it doesn't change the plot, the actress is great for the job.

I guess it's fine if you don't see them as asian, but it's not necessary to send me and ask about it, because is not that big of a deal, Is not like I'm erasing representation.

[sydneyofalltrades]

it’s the way levana was ruined by her big sister channary and that abuse channeled her actions for the next 10~ years which made her practically lose her mind

[cosmicnovaflare]

The sun, the moon. Kai and Cinder from The Lunar Chronicles.

[fairygeek777]

Hoi hoiiii

I wanted to share a couple illustrations for my Winter project 🩷

My professor had us create a book dust jacket, 4 full page illustrations and 6 spot illustrations for our favorite novel!

I chose Winter since it is my favorite of the Lunar Chronicles series 🩵

I keep hearing rumors of an animated series for the novel? I hope we get some confirmation on that!

[bumblekits]

cinder in apricot? your art is so cute btw!! ♥️

She's got a lot in her mind

[wassupnye]

Selene x Kaito lives on

[chemicallyyourss]

i wanna say that i finally realized the wordplay with the Lunar Royal Family’s surname, like, 3 days ago.

It’s not even that well hidden, and I could figure out all the other little subtle wordplays in the series, but it stumped me at Blackburn??

[impossiblesuitcase]

So interesting to think about how Channary would view Cinder. Would she find her cybernetics disgusting? Of course. But would she blame Levana and declare her precious Selene innocent? Undoubtedly.

She would hate Adri for mistreating her daughter, and be proud of Cinder for reclaiming the throne and becoming queen. She would be satisfied that Cinder marries Kai—Channary's own choice—and becomes empress. But she would mock Cinder's humble job as a mechanic, and certainly would disagree with her decision to dissolve the Lunar Monarchy.

Channary loved Selene, but would Channary love Cinder?

[moonsstan]

okay but imagine vampire by olivia rodrigo but its cinder saying those things to levana.

[caliburn-the-sword]

do you ever think about how cinder couldn't cry, not even when her sister peony died?? she needed nothing more than that catharsis, but was physically incapable of it?? and then how levana can physically cry, but couldn't shed a single genuine tear for the death of her sister?? because i do. i think of it a great deal actually.

[therealkaidertrash21]

i was scrolling through Pinterest, and I found this picture that looks pretty much like how I picture Channary