Elizabeth Laurent

Date: July 9th 2015

Name: Elizabeth Laurent

Age when entered this world (New Haven): 17

Class One

Gender: Female

Likes: Literature, Classical Era Culture, Classical Music, Intriguing Situations, Interesting People

Dislikes: Homophobia, Boring People, Normality

Personality: On her proud side, Elizabeth thought very highly of herself. She for the most part thought of herself as above the general populace, and that if even she should be kind to them they were on a whole incomparable to her. She thought herself in possession of great virtue. She would, however, give an individual as much as Elizabeth thought they deserved. On her humanist side, she saw kindness and magnanimity towards others to be a necessary ideal. She could find herself bored fairly easily, and often had little patience with those that could not keep her attention. In her opinion, people who were not of interest to her were at fault, as they had failed in their goal of being intriguing beings, which should be the preeminent desire of every human. She had a sense of restlessness to herself. At first she attributed it to wanting adventure, then to wanting magic, and finally she credited it to an urge Athena had given her so she could carry out the goddess's will. In reality it was due to her anxiety from experiences from her youth. Elizabeth loved the arts, and enjoyed literature, painting, as well as music, among other things.

A few things may also be said about her philosophy to elucidate more on Elizabeth's character. She accepted mind-body dualism, as in her own experience she had felt an equal amount of pain in both bodily and emotional strife. Thus, mental stress is of equal important as physical stress, according to Elizabeth's philosophy. Having always treated all politicians with disdain, disparagingly and consistently calling them demagogues, she decried the government of her upbringing and claimed that only philosopher-kings should rule, and fancied herself as one. A ruler must also be always kind to their subjects, and most always act in the favor of the general will. All rulers must rule by virtue, and if they do not, they can be justly overthrown. Two virtues that seem particularly important to Elizabeth are heroism and magnanimity. Heroism is achieved by a willingness and an ability to do great deeds, and magnanimity is the willingness to allow ones self to stand out in a crowd. Elizabeth despised what she calls groupthink, and that original thought and individualism are the way to keep a sense of ones self, which is highly desirable. Furthermore, it is to be a goal to rise above ones peers. This, however, is considered irrelevant to Elizabeth personally, as she has already done so. In attempting to create a permanent state, she attempted to reconcile individualism and statism, something which she was never able to accomplish in any satisfactory way.

History:

Early Life Elizabeth was born in 1998 to Charles Laurent and Frances Carroll. Charles Laurent was a lover of literature, philosophy, and art who yearned for an illustrious life as a man-of-letters who gained degrees in the arts at the College of William and Mary, but ill-fortune forced him to follow his artisan family business. Frances Carroll was the last in line to a once-prestigious established family. They first met at a social gathering in 1993. Charles was 30 and Frances was 21. Charles courted Frances throughout 1994 and proposed to her in 1995, which she accepted. In 1996 they were married. In 1997 Frances was diagnosed as infertile, but in 1998 Charles and Frances' only child Elizabeth was born. For her mysterious birth she was known as a wunderkind, a wonderchild, by her family and friends of the family, a title which would reappear later.

Although a proud Virginian, she was born not in Virginia, but in the neighboring state of Tennessee, in Memphis to be precise. In those days, as largely remains the case today, Memphis was a center of criminal activity, numbering as either the first or second most dangerous city at the time of the Laurent's Family dwelling of there. It was hardly the proper environment for the upbringing of a child, but nonetheless, the Laurent Family made their home there, as many families did and continue to do. Charles, with his job as an artisan, was able to support his family with a modest income. This era of Elizabeth's pre-academic life, despite its turmoil, had the least impact on Elizabeth's psyche, which can attributed to both its bodily and mental stability. Nonetheless, after a robbery in 2001 and repeated cases of major vandalism in 2002, Frances called in favors from old family friends, and in 2003 the Laurent Family moved from their Memphis home.

The Laurent Family, gaining from the support of loyal family ties, was able to set up a home in Richmond, Virginia. This was Elizabeth's first experience with Virginia. Soon after arriving, Elizabeth celebrated her fifth birthday, a memory which she remembered clearly and remembered warmly, and which she would refer back in the future allegorically as a time of confusion and unfamiliar places, but was nonetheless able to persevere and enjoy herself. Richmond, at the time of the Laurent's Family's relocation in 2003, was the ninth most dangerous city in the nation, and thus was only marginally better than Memphis. Despite this, the Laurent Family was able to prosper, and within a year Charles had a larger than he ever had in Memphis.

This era of Elizabeth's life was perhaps one of two of the most important era in regards to the development of her personality and psyche. She became a wunderkind in the other sense of the word as well, that is, she became something of a child prodigy. She excelled far beyond her peers in respect to intelligence, performance, and achievement. By the age of ten, Elizabeth began to write in her diaries, which she would continue until the near end of her life. Through the early entries of her diaries, it is apparent that she already held nothing but contempt for her peers and instructors, and considered them devoid of intelligence, unable to create an original thought, and devoid of any qualities which would make them at all intriguing individuals. This is echoed more elegantly, but no less viciously, in passages written by a teenaged Elizabeth. It is also during this era that, dissatisfied with her personal situation, Elizabeth began to believe that she would fill her personal void by adventuring. Also, by the age of ten, Elizabeth had acquired a copy of Hesiod's Theogony, which captivated her. Its impact was so great that she named her life long companion, her Arcane Hound, after the writer. Indeed, they both filled the role as a satisfactory companion in Elizabeth's eyes. This era of Elizabeth' life ended when she was twelve, in 2010. While crime was in a vast and rapid decline in Richmond, vandalism and greater job opportunity compelled Elizabeth's father Charles to relocate the family.

They did not move out of state, however, as had been previously done. They instead move to the state's largest city, Virginia Beach. There Charles flourished in his artisan store. However, while he may have acquired as much material wealth as could be possible given his profession, what Charles was lacking in was in the emotional well-being of his family. Restlessness was inherent in both sides of Elizabeth's family. Charles, who had once attended college in the hopes of becoming a prestigious and illustrious writer and essayist, was instead compelled by situation to adopt his family business, as mentioned beforehand. Elizabeth's mother Frances also felt compelled by her strong devotion family values and the concept of republican motherhood to adopt a charade of a mother deeply devoted to instilling moral goodness in her child, and have complete devotion to her husband. In reality, Frances felt boxed in by the situation of her own creation, but could not, by her own virtue, abandon it. Theirs views on their own reality, of which both felt there were a great many things lacking, ended creating a large amount of tension. The troubles seemed to only increase with age. These had a profound effect on her personality, which has been mentioned beforehand on the section relating to Elizabeth's personality. Although both her parents deeply adored their daughter, it was insufficient for Elizabeth. Elizabeth felt only an increasing ire towards her peers and instructors, and became to believe herself to be a thing above them. She, in her diaries during these years, compares herself to Aristotle's Magnanimous Man and Nietzsche's Ubermensch. Probably due to her fascination with Classical Mythology and the Epics, she increasingly saw adventure as a way to fulfillment, something which she was unable to attain in either home life and in school. It must be stressed that adventure became a way of life for Elizabeth.

Before her arrival at the Academy, Elizabeth had one last major development. Of her personality, two major elements are present. There is the vanity and vainglory, which was created by her social anxiety exasperated by her situation at home and school. The second is her more generous and kind side, which appeared due to the aftermath of something known as Project Dear Anonymous. From what is known, Project Dear Anonymous was an English project done by the high school Elizabeth had attended, which essentially created pen pals using aliases among the students. Elizabeth corresponded with a girl named Wei-Xing Le. Although originally annoyingly verbose and arrogant, Wei-Xing's own snarky and acerbic wit was able to humble Elizabeth enough for the two to become friends. This correspondence lead to a major change to Elizabeth's personality. Notably, after the project was finished, the two of the girls met. Elizabeth eventually confessed to her romantic feelings towards Wei-Xing, but she was rejected due to Wei-Xing's own sexual incompatibility.

Arrival at the Academy

Elizabeth was visiting a haunted house in ​Virginia Beach alone, when she came across a painting. As a magical painting, she was naturally drawn towards it. The Painting threw her into another world, and she fell into Cadwell's Academy. At first feeling surprise, she later came to welcome this development, having developed an intense hatred for the world in which she had been raised. After being welcomed by the Lady Violetta, the headmistress at Cadwell's Academy, she was enrolled. She began to study hard. After being told that there was a possibility that she could be groomed to become a head of state, her ego became inflated and she had decided that she would rule over a nation in the near future. This nation would be shaped according to her own emerging philosophy, and it would eventually hold a grip around the entire world. Four months into her tenure as a student at the Academy, Elizabeth formally converted to the polytheistic faith of this world.​​​