Liir's Brain: Part 1
I wasn't sure I wanted to do these, but I keep getting the urge so I've decided that I'll do them though perhaps not to the originally intended extent. Mostly, these are notes for myself but they're also linked to my info page so that if another player wants to get an idea about my character beyond the description there, for whatever reason, they can read up. Anyway, moving on.

Liir's Brain: Part 1 - Just Another Monkey

During most of his childhood, Liir wasn't treated as a child.

At first, he was one of many children to be cared for at the mauntery. Upon leaving it, he became Elphaba's 'page'; Oatsie Manglehand saw that he managed her bags and did her duties, but that the two never really spoke or met eyes. During most of the journey from the mauntery to Kiamo Ko, the observations of Liir were from Oatsie; Elphaba, it seemed, didn't care much about the boy or his wellbeing.

I'd like to clear up right now that I don't hate Elphaba. I don't think horrible things about her. But she wasn't a mother. She didn't have much of an example herself, of course, and what she did was understandable. However, it doesn't change what she DID. Nor its effects on him, which is the point of this post. That's all.

Upon arriving at Kiamo Ko, Elphaba dove immediately into her own issues. Liir was quite literally forgotten. When Liir nearly died from being left in the fishwell for three days, no one had even realized until then that he was missing; after he was finally pulled from the well and resuscitated, it was discovered that he didn't even have a bed to be laid in. Sarima had thought, logically, that Elphaba would have taken such a concern in hand and Elphaba hadn't thought of it. Nanny, Elphaba's old nurse who'd just come, took the boy in hand at that point, but she never really became any kind of focal point or maternal figure due to her age and her flights of insanity. That place, unfortunately in some ways, remained Elphaba's.

Elphaba at no point told Liir where he'd come from or who might be his parents. Despite the fact that she mentally refers to him as Fiyero's son (which would make him hers as well), she refuses him any source, any base, any connection with her. Instead, she spends most of her time creating and attempting to educate winged monkeys, specifically one winged monkey by the name of Chistery.

Sarima, right from the beginning, made a point of seperating Liir from the other children. Liir was not equal to Nor, Irji, and Manek; they were the children of a prince and he was just sort of there. He was a barely tolerated presence, not a playmate. Elphaba made no point to do anything about that. Her only action was to kill Manek, an act for which she never took credit/blame and was deemed to be an accident. While it was done for Liir, the fact that he was worth such an act was never brought to his attention.

Instead, he was, for all intents and purposes, placed at the level of Chistery: servant and "monkey". His mind was never exercised, his mental categorization of self (and honestly, his social categorization) was closer to one of the monkeys than one of the children. He was not there to be himself. He did not exist to be a separate and unique entity and to fulfill his potential for his betterment. He took care of the Witch, as opposed to the other way around, and of Nanny (since she was getting more and more handicapped). He took orders, whatever she wanted and needed no matter how outlandish or ridiculous. He never learned to want things, or to have a goal, or that he could, or about feelings, or that he had any intrinsic value as anything.

He was just another one of the monkeys.

He found some sense of self by going down to visit the soldiers down at Red Windmill. They taught him things, sometimes bawdy and sometimes ridiculous, but they taught him what bits and pieces they could of being an actual human being. When they left, and took the other children as well as Sarima with them, Liir lost all examples of normal humanity. This was rather early in his life, before he turned even ten years old.

After that, he really was just another of the monkeys, just like them, pretending to be human. Trying to 'ape' humanity, making the right sounds and hoping that he got it right. Elphaba 'trained' him as surely as she trained the rest of them, but while she was trying to teach them to speak, she taught Liir to obey. None the less, there was no understanding covered in this learning, no thought process involved. Ideas were learned but never connected. Thinking was, in some ways, very much discouraged. Exploration was also, in ways, discouraged. Anything beyond what served Elphaba's interests was discouraged, and so he learned not to even try. While he would put up a token protest verbally, he never actively acted against her: he was her creature, as surely as the monkeys.

Then she died.

At this point, Liir's life took a very distinct turn because the only reason he'd ever had to live was dead. It sounds dramatic, but it's not really. His master, the one who gave him marching orders, who told him what to do, was gone. And he had two options: go the route of Chistery, who chose to keen since his master was gone, or attempt to become a person.

He became a person. He actively chose not to join Chistery in his mourning and moved on. He went with Dorothy, not really to help her but to watch over what he considered his property: the Witch's broom and her cape. Just as a wealthy man's servants might expect something to be left to them upon his death for their faithful service, Liir claimed his pay.

But there was still some of that monkeyservant thoughtprocess left. He said he would try to fulfill her obligations (to Princess Nastoya) and proceeded to try and find Nor (Elphaba's wish).

Upon trying to find Nor, he went to Southstairs (a prison beneath the Emerald City) and met a very firm dead end. He saw a side of humanity there that sickened him, that seemed worse than what a monkey could ever be, what any being should ever be. Between Shell and Chyde, he felt the need to get away from it ALL.

And that is when he made the broom fly. Wishing he could do something, wanting something besides trying to continue his bodily functions, feeling anguish but not just that, a desperate need to do something about it, give himself orders, he willed the broom back to life and flew it out of Southstairs. Where before, he had felt anguish over something horrible (the treatment of a soldier at Red Windmill), he'd cried and depended on Elphaba to do something about it (he held no power as an individual to do anything), he did something.

The next chapter of the book says that that was when Liir became himself. When he noticed his innate Liirness and discovered that he could be someone.

Hence new_to_liirness.

End Part 1