Trial of the Sun Queen

The motif of scars is used as a mark of various characters’ suffering and a testament to their resilience and a reminder of the novel’s violent context and trial-jeopardy structure. The characters’ attitudes toward their scars also reveal information about their backstories and characters, especially in the case of Lor.

In the world of the Fae elite, where appearances are paramount and unblemished skin signifies privilege, scars are seen as grotesque flaws. Madame Odell voices this prejudice when she sees the mark on Lor’s face and asks, “What is that on your face? […] Is that a scar?” (62), her tone treating it as a social transgression. This reaction highlights the deep societal divide between the pristine, sheltered powerful and the marked, brutalized oppressed, for whom survival itself is an act of defiance. From the outside, Lor’s scars mark her out as different and lesser, part of her role as the “Final Tribute,” the only human competitor, taken from the “slums.” Lor’s scars parallel the cruelty and hypocrisy of this system, which only masquerades as an opportunity for the Final Tribute to gain prestige, especially as the Fae simply use magic to conceal their own flaws.