Pretty Flower
- Pretty Flower is underestimated because of her beauty
- She is reluctant to perform many tasks expected of her because of her gender
- The Liar tries to make her realise her power
Pretty Flower is the Pharaoh’s daughter in ‘The Scorpion God’. She is lauded for her beauty and has an elaborate silver mirror which gives the user the ‘most precious gift of all – a reflection with neither flattery nor distortion’. Pretty Flower is reluctant to perform some of the tasks expected as the royal daughter, and is friends with the Liar, a mysterious and tantalising character.
In one of the more bizarre, yet funny, scenes in the story, Pretty Flower performs a dance in order to seduce her father. He dismisses her dance with a ‘Very good, dear’, and continues to ignore her. Pretty Flower is humiliated.
After the Pharaoh’s death, the Head Man forces her to admit that she has been having an affair with the Liar, and the final moment of the story gives Pretty Flower an important decision…
Absence of distortion, absence of flattery was exactly what Pretty Flower needed. She sat, gazing at her magical sister who gazed back, and they both became absorbed.