*nods* And Sabriel I think was set up to have an easier time being different thanks to her upbringing -- she knows her background, she's growing up knowing that she'll be Abhorsen someday, and she's different from the caravan folks she's raised around at first, and then different from the girls in the boarding school over the Wall, but thanks to her father she still has a sense of place and continuity and belonging -- and the moving back and forth between different cultures that they've done throughout her life also helps to sort of normalize that sense of difference, if that makes any sense? She knows the world is bigger and more diverse than whatever subsection of it she's living in at the moment. Whereas Lirael, she's got the Gojyo thing going on where her very appearance instantly marks her as obviously different from all of the rest of her blood relations that she knows about, and she has no idea about the unknown father her looks take after; and I can vouch from experience that even in the best of circumstances where you're not being teased or called ugly, looking so drastically different from your family can be...an odd experience. And while she's adequately provided for physically, her emotional needs for a warm parental figure weren't being met, so she doesn't have that foundation for a secure sense of self that Sabriel did with her relationship with her father. Finally, growing up immersed as she did in a single rather insular culture, I don't think she got the same sense of relativity Sabriel did at an earlier age; sure, she saw the occasional visitors from other groups, but day in and day out her total cultural experience was the Clayr.
It could have been much much worse, of course; nothing in the books even seems to hint that there was any sort of teasing or cruelty based on her appearance or obvious "racial" difference, or being an orphan; and nobody ever even teases her about being a late bloomer where the Sight is involved. (Which was actually one of the little bits I found a little harder to believe, because kids are kids and even if the Clayr were blessedly free of deliberately cruel bullies, teasing happens, and it doesn't have to be mean-spirited or deliberately cruel to hurt, especially when the target is as insecure and sensitive as Lirael was.)
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timeasmymeasure
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It could have been much much worse, of course; nothing in the books even seems to hint that there was any sort of teasing or cruelty based on her appearance or obvious "racial" difference, or being an orphan; and nobody ever even teases her about being a late bloomer where the Sight is involved. (Which was actually one of the little bits I found a little harder to believe, because kids are kids and even if the Clayr were blessedly free of deliberately cruel bullies, teasing happens, and it doesn't have to be mean-spirited or deliberately cruel to hurt, especially when the target is as insecure and sensitive as Lirael was.)