#carol's characterization in Engleharts run is kind of confusing. but he accidentally queercoded her so!

[rillette]

Would you mind telling me about Carol? I am only in the mid 70s, and feel like i haven't hit the heights of her yet, and might not for a while, so I challenge you to make me love her now, instead of later

omg okay so <3 i love carol saur much she is my problematic wife!! Putting this under a cut because umm there are five paragraphs and im not done yet teehee. this is more about carol's personality than comic plot since i dont want to spoil anything for you ^_^

She has some really great moments in the 80s with Wolfman's run and in Wein's run in the late 80s! Like with Hal, Carol's characterization gets bounced around depending on the author. imo, Carol's very best characterization is in the third Sleepers book, which, unfortunately, isn't as accessible as the comics are. DC hire me to illustrate it challenge.

ANYWAYS!! Carol is foil to Hal in a lot of ways. She's a product of her environment; her dad was a misogynist and she learnt to protect herself by putting herself first. Carol can be cruel, she can be calculating and manipulative to get what she wants and none of that is from being Star Sapphire, it's all her. This ruthlessness is part of what makes her such a good businesswoman.

Carol is also under an enormous amount of pressure and expectations. She's expected to be perfect, to follow in her father's footsteps and to run Ferris successfully. Part of Carol's obsession with GL is because he's everything she's expected to want; someone who can protect and care for her. Her romance with Hal is similar, Hal is someone that her dad can approve of because hal is the world's biggest boy scout. Carol promptly freaked the fuck out, shut down, and iced Hal out when he got the DUI because Hal was no longer the safe, squeaky-clean, boy-next-door her dad would approve of.

The other half of Carol's obsession with GL is because he's everything that she wants to be. Carol is desperate for the power and the freedom that comes with being GL. This is reflected later on, during the Predator arc. Idk if you've seen me post about that yet so I won't go into that in depth bc I don't want to spoil the arc for you if you haven't! I say that but it's a very confusing and not really well tied up arc anyways lol.

Anyways i want to talk about carol in the sleepers book now because she's fantastic in it and i need more people to read this fucking book. Carol is so. well characterized in it. She's cold and cruel and everything about her personality is layers and layers of built up defense mechanisms. She does not give two shits about other people, casually using them to lash out at hal.

She hates answering phones because her dad made her answer the phone growing up because he felt it was beneath him. She is so so painfully bored with normal life now that she's had a taste of the power that comes with being Super. She's desperate for excitement and adventure but she can't let herself become Star Sapphire. She is soooo <3