March 21st, 2009: In which a newcomer foretold in Mea Culpa arrives early Saturday morning.

Speaking of The Littlest Edward--he was a bit agog when Serafina arrived because he had never before seen a woman so... indifferently clothed, let's put it that way. That's a whole hell of a lot of fabric she's got goin' on there, yes, but it's basically an entire dress made out of silk scarves arranged in a vaguely skirt-like fashion. Maybe they cover the goods, maybe they don't, and Serafina doesn't really care either way. She does wear leggings (no, really, she does), but even those are transparent and not really all that effective, judging by the look on Edward's face when she turned her back to him. And when she leaped from the file cabinet to the shelf over my desk, I'm pretty sure I heard him whimper, "I'm going to hell now."

Featuring

• Galadriel

• Purple Arwen

• Helm's Deep Aragorn
• Lyra Silvertongue (and Pan)
• Faramir Two
• The Littlest Edward
• Serafina Pekkala

Notes

• Because Serafina was my absolute top priority in terms of saving up for new dolls, I had already half-planned how she would fit into the story when she arrived as a surprise gift from a reader. The donor gave me enough warning that I started the planned "Edward attacks Iorek" storyline immediately rather than wait a couple of weeks, so that Serafina would have a reason to show up. And because she arrived in the mail the afternoon before I posted Mea Culpa, I was able to put in the alethiometer foreshadowing just in time.

• I went out and clipped a juniper branch from the shrubs in my front yard on Friday afternoon right after she arrived.

• Because she was a gift, that's where the idea that Serafina arrived "on her own" came from.

• I took the picture of Serafina at the front door at about 7:30 on Saturday morning because 1) I had the house to myself and 2) I figured I was less likely to be spotted by neighbors out and about. I should really just give up and accept that I am, in fact, That Crazy Doll Lady.

• What I couldn't quite get across in photographs was that the problem isn't just that Serafina's dress (which is gorgeous) is sheer--it's that, when you move or pose her, the "scarves" have a tendency to part and expose her legs. And sometimes more than her legs.

• "Which man on The Shelf is going to be my lover?" In the book, Lyra's destiny is confirmed when she's able to use the alethiometer to pick out which cloud-pine Serafina had used. In the movie, Serafina simply has Lyra ask the alethiometer, "Which man on this ship was my lover?" Yes, that exact wording.

• I don't want to give away too much, but... you really, really do not want to turn a witch's proposition down. There's a character later in the series who is murdered on sight by a witch (an extremely minor character) he had rejected years before. For whatever reason, even though the witches seem to be somewhat emotionally detached in everyday dealings (although their lovers' comparatively short lifespans cause them "great pain," and the death of Serafina's child led to the end of the aforementioned affair), you do not want to mess with them. It's like their feelings are so extreme, they're either completely composed and otherworldly, or they come after you with a knife.

• When I started drafting this entry from my notes, I had come up with the question ("Which man is going to be my lover?") but not the answer. I sat down and hashed it out for sure before I posted the entry. There are no clues or intentional foreshadowing, however. Somewhat to my surprise, a majority of readers wanted it to be The Littlest Edward.

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See also

• Dolls

• The Secret Life of Dolls