Nadia Parom/Lady Elapidae
- CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR...Book One
Snake Oil
Because The Mythic had to do the grunt work of showing the relationship between Aedea and our world, a lot of the correlations in the book are straightforward, especially early on.
Thus, “Elapidae” (our world) refers to a family of poisonous snakes while Elapidae (Aedea) is a hybrid snake-human. She is O’phion (an Aedean race) and “Ophion” (our world) is the name of a snake-god from Greek myth.
Snake Charmer
Elapidae is no ordinary O’phion, however. She is an Empress (not a queen – the double-S of empress sounded superbly serpentine) and demands to be called a Lady. I’m not a fan of the custom of titles presented by royalty or inherited by peerage: Sir, Lady, Earl, Count, Princess, Prince and the like. So when they are given to a character in The Mythic books it’s not necessarily meant as a compliment.
Snake monsters, and lizard monsters in general, are often shown to be green or grey. Godzilla is the most famous example. I always thought that odd since snakes and lizards come in so many vivid colours. But as homage to the status quo I made the male O’phion pale green – “lima bean green” to be exact.
However, Elapidae is bright red – and that’s for a very specific reason. In Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s glorious All-Star Superman limited series there is a bright red lizard-creature called Krull (son of Tyrannko the Dino-Czar!).
I remember being shocked that Krull was red, only realising then that green was the default colour for fictional reptile-creatures.
I was so taken with this revelation that Elapidae became “deep crimson” in homage to the series. Also, it made her look far more badass.
Her colouring is hinted at while she is in human form when she orders others around with a flick of her “carmine-red fingernail”. Carmine is a word we don’t use nearly enough.
Bonus Round
Elapidae’s human identity isn’t definitively confirmed in the books but Dr Nadia Parom is indeed a persona she created. Notice that even her self-made identity has a title! Oh, and I gave her a South African accent because of course snake-people from Aedea would sound South African.
