Help with Condescending King
In my pseudo-medieval setting, one of my characters is taking a sort of feminist self empowerment arc. Sora (17) is the bastard daughter of a Duke and one of the kingdom's traditional enemies (significant features indicate her bloodline). She is a classic tomboy princess type, resistant to court procedures, more interested in learning military history and strategy (though she is an adept weaver), but she is also determined to fulfil her social role for her family. Her father is sickly and her older brother vanished a few years ago, so the king has demanded she travel to the Royal Court and find a suitor.
Since she's such an eligible bachelorette its effectively open season on her, with every young lordling in the court trying to class up by marrying the Duke's daughter. This is openly encouraged by the King, as her Duchy is a key border territory and needs the line secured ASAP.
Sora is snappy towards her suitors and puts every effort to avoid being courted, especially by her cousin, the Prince's, entourage of elitist bullies. Her independent nature is resistant to the whole affair, but she is aware of her station and tries not to draw attention. THe fight starts because one of the less popular, but more likeable lords strikes up a conversation with her, which is ended by one of the Prince's drunken louts getting abusive. His mates join in, another lord gets involved to try and break it up/protect her honour, and it gets noisy, drawing the ire of the King.
Once he's done reprimanding the suitors, his shadow falls over Sora, she is self conscious from the entire court staring at her, and he says in his thunderous, booming voice: "...I don't know...
Sora wasn't seen doing anything 'wrong', but given she is at the centre and her independent nature is widely known, the King sees it necessary to 'encourage' her to accept her role and not cause fights between her suitors. I know this isn't fair, but that's the point. She didn't encourage them, but according to the accepted conventions, her independance and resistance to their attentions is causing problems.
I've tried assigning her a chaperon, but that restricts her movements too much, and everything else I can think of is too directly insulting, not enough subtlety. I'm looking for something patriarchal and condescending, putting her in her 'place,' but not outright insulting, and providing fuel for her to rebel against later.
Any thoughts?
Attached are some concept images of Sora across her life, courtesy of the internet...I never intended to share them, so I'm going to add the artists in the comments.
