lunabee34

Princess Napraxine is a really interesting character! On the one hand, it seems like she can get everything she wants except a sense of purpose (she is, as you say, an Aesthete, but she has no drive to create art, just to appreciate it). But on the other hand she's stifled by being a woman in a patriarchial society -- she was traumatized by her experience of sex, and if she was able to live a man's life she might get the adrenaline rush she craves more easily (though she would likely be equally cruel).

Her racism towards her husband and kids really struck me, and that she's not interested in her kids because they look like their father (or like bears, another case of describing the Other as animals). I feel like this probably played differently to a Victorian audience, who would be more shocked at her not caring about her kids and less shocked about the racism.

It seems like this is setting up a plot of "will Nadine get carried away by her emotions?"

Othmar seems like a different type of Other (Croatian!), but a sexier Other than Platon. (Where as Geraldine doesn't come across as Other at all, particularly to the English readership.)