Mothers' Day for Maria Eleonora

(this edit was originally in my Instagram Story for Mothers' Day 2024)

The ups and downs of Life with Kristina: Posterity Edition

Some songs that remind me of Kristina

Above: Kristina.

Here's a list of some songs that remind me of Kristina, her personality and certain aspects and times in her life.

1. "Let It Go", from the Disney movie "Frozen" (2013), written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and performed by Idina Menzel (Reminds me of Kristina's abdication and newfound ability to truly be and express more of her real self and be free, or at least so she thought at the time).

2. "Into The Unknown", from the Disney movie "Frozen 2" (2019), written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and performed by Idina Menzel and AURORA (Reminds me of Kristina's curiosity about Catholicism since age nine despite Sweden's intolerance and hatred of that faith at the time, and when the 25 year old Kristina made the decision to have disguised Jesuit fathers come to teach her the truth and the ins and outs of their religion).

3. "Show Yourself", from the Disney movie "Frozen 2" (2019), written by Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez and performed by Idina Menzel, Evan Rachel Wood and AURORA (Reminds me of Kristina's realisation and personal conviction that she was meant to become a Catholic).

4. "Touch the Sky", from the Disney/Pixar movie "Brave" (2012), written by Alexander Mandel and Mark Andrews and performed by Julie Fowlis.

5. "Bad Reputation", by Halfcocked (featured in the DreamWorks film "Shrek" (2001)).

6. "Changes", by David Bowie (as well as the cover by Butterfly Boucher featuring David featured in the DreamWorks film "Shrek 2" (2004)).

7. "Rebel, Rebel", by David Bowie.

8. "Pagan Poetry", by Björk (reminds me of Kristina's relationship with Cardinal Decio Azzolino).

9. "I Need Some Sleep", by Eels (featured in the DreamWorks film "Shrek 2" (2004)).

10. "Funkytown", by Lipps Inc (featured in the DreamWorks film "Shrek 2" (2004); reminds me of Kristina's eagerness to move to Italy and Rome, more appealing to her than Sweden).

11. "Stonemilker", by Björk (Reminds me of Kristina's hurt and confusion at Azzolino having toned his affection down and not being as open with her as before).

12. "Ladies and Gentlemen, We Are Floating in Space", by Spiritualized (featured in the film "Vanilla Sky" (2001); reminds me of Kristina's relationship with Azzolino and their feelings for each other as a whole).

13. "You and Me", by Plain White T's (Reminds me of K and A).

14. "Here Without You", by Three Doors Down (Reminds me of how Kristina must have felt about Ebba Sparre's passing in 1662, and also of Azzolino's reaction to Kristina's own passing in 1689).

15. "Wait For You", by Elliot Yamin (Reminds me of Kristina's hurt and confusion at Azzolino having toned his affection down and not being as open with her as before).

16. "Some Say", by Sum 41.

17. "Philosophy of Time Travel", composed by Michael Andrews for the film "Donnie Darko" (2001). (Reminds me of Kristina's secret talks with the Jesuit fathers and finding out about the truth and details of Catholicism from the source).

18. "Say It, Say It", by E. G. Daily (Reminds me of K and A).

19. "I'd Love You to Want Me", original by Lobo, cover by the Anthony Ventura Orchestra (Reminds me of K and A).

Preview excerpt of an eventual analysis/theory post: Another and the first introduction to my post on the autism theory about Kristina, preceding the one I have posted below

Source:

Christine de Suède et le cardinal Azzolino: Lettres inédites (1666-1668), by Baron Carl Bildt, 1899

Above: Kristina.

The first introduction:

In a few posts on this blog, I have mentioned in the footnotes that I believe Kristina might have been autistic, but aside from a brief part of my very first post (from 2019), which was a general biography and written before I knew all the facts and what exactly was true, false, exaggerated or myth, I have never posted about the theory in great detail. Before I get there, I first want to give an overview and breakdown of what autism is, the various traits and ways it can present in a person, my own experience as an autistic person in both childhood and young adulthood, and gradually "segue" my way to the phenomenon of retroactive diagnosis, a relatable precedent example of it for a physical disability in another famous Scandinavian monarch (one who fascinates me just as strongly), how and why I believe autism could be relevant to Kristina, and sometimes what areas I can relate to her in, following her from birth, as well as the other ways Kristina was or may have been different.

Once we get there, in addition to telling the story and circumstances of Kristina's life, I will give evidences and supplements in the form of excerpts from writings and descriptions written by Kristina herself as well as by the people she knew and met, by others of her contemporaries, and sometimes by some of her biographers, in the original languages, albeit with the spelling modernised for the sake of easier reading unless stated otherwise (one reason for this, aside from some of the original and/or copy documents he worked with and printed now being either lost or not yet digitised, is that several of the originals of the Montpellier documents that Arckenholtz published in print in 1759 and 1760 have since been lost, so in those cases he must necessarily be consulted even though he is known to have modernised the orthography to fit the standards of his day and altered or refined Kristina's literary style, wordings and expression, particularly and mostly only in the French-language letters and writings), — plus I will leave at least most of the biographers' observations from after the end of the 17th century in the original spellings or orthographies — with an English translation underneath those not in that language. If something is not available to me in the original language but in translation, I will add it either in that translation, in my own or someone else's (with due credit) translated reconstruction into the original language, and/or quote from it in English in the main body of my parts of the text. I may use a similar rearrangement for spoken quotes, sayings and statements that were spoken in the first-person but recorded in writing in the third-person. Although it might appear excessive or unnecessary to some, I believe that showing the original alongside a translation contributes to understanding and context. These English and other language translations are mine unless stated otherwise.

And if I seem to wander off topic or repeat things already described or mentioned to any degree, it is only to clarify and explain the said circumstances and contexts of Kristina's life, world and/or characteristics, such as, for example, how her family, caregivers, surroundings, social status, life experiences, and the time period and its events shaped and influenced her personality, worldview, self-image and life trajectory. For this chapter and the next, these include things such as her father's death and legacy, her mother's struggle with mental illness and what it would have been like to witness it at close quarters as a child, and simply just existing as a possibly neurodivergent royal, woman/f*m*le-p*rceived person and public figure with a very privileged social position in 17th century Sweden and in Swedish and wider European culture at that point in time.

I also believe that, due to her "characteristically" inconsistent spellings and misspellings and "erratic" penmanship and grammatical errors that were unique and inherent to her unmistakable handwriting regardless of what language or languages she was writing in and even in an era when consistent and standardised spellings and orthographies were not yet as firmly established, Kristina might have had dysgraphia, a learning disability that mainly affects spelling and handwriting, but also written expression and coherence and includes inattentiveness over details when writing — autistic people often also have a learning disability of some kind, and this one is often seen in autistic people and in people considered intellectually gifted, like she was —, so in those excerpts directly from her own hand when available, even with the modernised spelling, I have left the "capricious" spelling and grammar mistakes preserved and intact as much as possible because I believe they are valid as they are. I do the same for the handwriting of her mother Maria Eleonora, who very likely had the same condition (it is known to be genetic).

I choose to use autism-affirming and neurodiversity-affirming language, although the current diagnostic criteria are based on the medical model rather than the social model of disability and are also based on deficit-based, pathologising and outdated understandings of autism without guidance or input from autistic people. It has also been pointed out by some that a lot of said current diagnostic criteria reflect the traits of an autistic person who is struggling, upset or in distress because modern society is currently almost incapable of producing autistic people who are not traumatised by it. It should also be remembered that although some traits would have been obvious due to the nature of autism and depending on how it might present in any given individual, some traits would have been less prominent partly due to the fact that autistic people living in pre-modern and pre-industrial times and societies would have enjoyed slower-paced lives and less triggers for sensory overwhelm than their modern-day counterparts and descendants have to live with.

In addition to the many specific sources formally cited …, I also informally derive the … lists of traits and their nuances from the various and collective lived experiences of myself and many other autistic people.

Preview excerpt of an eventual analysis/theory post: The question of whether Kristina was or might have been autistic, along with a summary of her general character

Sources:

Christina, Queen of Sweden, at the English-language Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden

The article as it looked in June 2014 is here (archived at the Wayback Machine; the article in English was not archived in July of that year):

https://web.archive.org/web/20140606025132/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christina,_Queen_of_Sweden

Christina, Queen of Sweden: The Restless Life of a European Eccentric, by Veronica Buckley, 2004

Christine de Suède et le cardinal Azzolino: Lettres inédites (1666-1668), by Baron Carl Bildt, 1899

Entry on the word "lolcow" at Urban Dictionary:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lolcow

Garbo, Christina and Asperger, paper written by Federico del Monte, at Academia.edu (no publication date is given, but the earliest archive of this article at the Wayback Machine is from February 17, 2018):

https://www.academia.edu/23839975/Garbo_Christina_and_Asperger

Readings in Ethics: Moral Wisdom Past and Present, by Louis F. Groarke, Paul V. Groarke and Paolo C. Biondi, 2021

Above: Kristina.

I have decided to publish, as a preview, this excerpt from a big post I have been working on since March of this year (2024), as I want to finally do a deep dive into the question of Kristina's possible autism. It is intended to be the first in hopefully a series of posts examining this theory, namely in the form of a detailed biography looking at and breaking down the monarch's life from a neurodivergent perspective, to examine what it would have been like for her to exist as a possibly autistic and neurodivergent royal, public figure and variously feminine, masculine and g*nder-n**tral presenting person assigned female at birth in the 17th century, in a very privileged and powerful position in society, and in the Swedish and wider European culture of the time. It is an admittedly ambitious goal that is certain to unfold indefinitely and very slowly.

Before the biography proper begins, I give there a very comprehensive description of what autism is, the various ways it can present in any given person, an account of my own autism as I was growing up and how it currently presents in my case, and some examples of various other historical figures who I and/or others speculate might have been autistic themselves. Although I do realise this next is barely more than a tangent (it's an autism thing!), I also add a brief example and breakdown of another disabled person having a theory about another famous historical Scandinavian monarch possibly having had the same condition — namely the 9th century Viking warlord and king Ivar the Boneless, who is believed to have suffered from either osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), male impotence, a combination of the two, or perhaps other conditions, if his nickname is to be interpreted literally, for the sake of showing that I am not the first or only disabled person to have such a theory about a historical monarch from that part of the world. The theory about Ivar having OI originated in 1949 with the Danish doctor Knud Seedorf, who was not disabled, but it was popularised in the early 2000s by a Jordanian-British playwright and actor named Nabil Shaban, who himself suffers from the condition.

We will, of course, never know for certain whether or not Kristina was autistic, but so many contemporary accounts and descriptions of her known and confirmed traits, behaviours, personality and social approach throughout her life as well as at various stages of it — variously written by herself as well as by family, friends, acquaintances and strangers — point so much in that direction that we can, at the very least, entertain the notion. I hope this preview serves as an interesting introduction to this theory.

The preview:

If you go to Kristina's English-language Wikipedia page (which spells her name as Christina) and look at the very end of the section discussing the monarch's g*nder ambiguity and s*xuality, it is written that biographer Veronica Buckley's account (2004) suggests that Kristina might have had "a pervasive developmental disorder, such as autism" due to "her low comprehension of the need for most social norms, little desire to act, dress, or do other social norms, and her preference to wear, act, and do only that which she deemed logically practical".

I first discovered this detail of the article in July 2014, almost a year after I had first learned of Kristina's existence from the 2003 "Royal Diaries" historical fiction children's or teen book about her late childhood years (written by Carolyn Meyer), and at that time the term Asperger's syndrome was used in the article in place of the word autism. Like with Asperger's syndrome, when the DSM-5 retired the vast majority of the diagnoses covered by pervasive developmental disorder in 2013, ... it integrated most of them together into the general umbrella term and diagnosis of autism or autism spectrum disorder. But I have never forgotten that suggestion, and after I finally began to research, investigate and examine Kristina's life in earnest in early 2018 (a year before I got the idea to start this blog and after two years of very sporadic, surface-level research), the more descriptions, accounts, letters and texts I have found, read and translated, the more convinced I have become of her possible autism, although it is rarely mentioned in most modern formal and informal biographies of her or retellings of her life and character, let alone explored in greater detail. The possibility has also been mentioned by Federico del Monte (circa 2018?) and by the Groarkes and Biondi (2021). …

Although I do not like or condone everything she believed and did as a ruler or as a person, which is necessarily a massive understatement for some of those things, which we will soon list, autistic people are at worst treated like such dirt by society that to see someone who was probably one of us in such a massive position of power, privilege and authority as that of a monarch in a pre-modern era, ruling over people who would have had no qualms about treating them like trash if they had been born on the opposite end of the social ladder, it makes me fervent for ourselves and even tempted to think "Look at this maybe autistic person in power, look what they can say and do for themself in their personal life that no one gets to reprimand or criticise them for like they would with us".

But no one is infallible, and it is not right or realistic to think of anyone like they are, regardless of whether they are autistic or not. I have also come to learn the darker sides of Kristina, and some of those dark sides are troubling at best and deeply disturbing at worst, and the worst of them have made me grapple with the question of how do I reconcile my personal fascination and relatability with and interest in this potentially autistic person in power with the genuinely harmful and even evil things she believed and caused? I have become a lot more critical of her as a person and as a monarch, I have to hold her accountable for those things, call her out when they come, and accept the things that I can't change even though they are bad. And it must be remembered too that being autistic, neurodivergent, mentally ill, disabled, deformed or anything other than c*sh*t does not inherently make a person bad, creepy, cruel, dangerous, evil or "unhinged".

Kristina was and is many things: a queen, a king, a monarch who voluntarily spent most of her adult life without a crown to wear, a country to rule over, or real political power to wield; a child who from age six sincerely, wholeheartedly and of her own accord embraced having to grow up fast and mature early owing to the circumstances, time period, society and regal status she had to live in, a flawed and fallible human being; an eccentric, a free spirit, a lover, a friend, a mother in name only, the most famous Protestant to Catholic convert of her time, an adventurer, a constant self-discoverer; an expert horserider, swordsperson, gun-shooter and game hunter; a polyglot, a prolific art collector and patron of the arts, a peacemaker, a politician, an amateur philosopher, alchemist, astrologer, aphorist and archaeologist; a vagabonde physically, behaviourally and spiritually. All that is true, but not everything about her is admirable, because as for some of the most serious, harmful and disturbing of her non-fabricated vices and failings, Kristina was also a mis*g*nist, a c*l*niser and an executioner.

In addition, during the final four years of her reign, she nearly bankrupted Sweden and caused serious social unrest in the country because of her financial extravagance, incomprehension, overgenerosity and wastefulness from constantly spending money on art and parties, rewarding and/or promoting both genuinely deserving and random people for their service to the Crown or to her personally, and pumping the nobility full of hundreds of new families and members to whom she then sold or mortgaged Crown lands to accommodate them. She also packed up and took many precious books, manuscripts, jewels, silverware, tapestries and paintings along with her when she left Sweden for the Continent in the days immediately following her abdication — and all this was to the point that she couldn't or wouldn't even distinguish between what was Crown property and what belonged to her personally as the monarch. She also had no interest in or intention of becoming more financially literate, which caused her personal financial difficulties and reduced her to a royal beggar for most of her life after the abdication.

Kristina also accepted, perpetuated and even internalised the mis*g*nistic and ableist lies, half-truths and exaggerations she was told about her mentally ill and traumatised mother after being forcibly removed from her and while growing up, and she has thereby ensured that these lies, half-truths and exaggerations about her mother have been generally accepted as historical fact for almost 400 years until starting to be questioned and corrected within the past four decades.

All that is true too, Kristina needs and deserves to be held accountable for those things, and her possible autism is not the reason why she was, did or believed those bad things; although the financial difficulty for the country, to be fair, was not her fault alone, and on her part both the national and personal financial difficulties could have at least partially been the result of dyscalculia, a condition which would not have been in her personal control.

It is also just as true that Kristina has been revered and reviled by many and been made the subject of many myths, half-truths, lies, exaggerations and fabrications herself, both in life and in death. She has been called and painted as an apostate, an atheist, a s*xual predator, a bis*xual or l*sbian nymphomaniac, a deformed man or a hermaphrodite; a petulant, whiny and melodramatic womanchild, a madwoman who was clinically insane, an egoist, a neuropath; an addict to lying to, manipulating, using and duping people who she thought could be useful to her but then ending up on the receiving end herself; but she has also been called a genius, a child prodigy, a proto-feminist (in reality she was far from it), the goddess of peace, the Minerva of the North.

Due to some isolated anecdotes and accounts of some of her behaviour — which are variously authentic, exaggerated or fabrications —, if Kristina had lived in modern times she would probably even be referred to by ableist detractors with the online slang term "lolcow", meaning a usually neurodivergent and/or mentally ill person whose gullibility, social awkwardness, eccentricities and/or emotional issues cause them to get repeatedly taken advantage of, provoked, made fun of, deceived, exploited, abused and/or harassed both online and offline for people's own twisted amusement — in other words, "milked for laughs", hence the moniker — and who more often than not turn out to themselves have genuinely disturbing, harmful and even evil beliefs, sayings, doings and incidents in their personal lives, financial struggles with frequent begging, poor hygiene, low or absent self-awareness, accountability or tolerance for criticism, "bizarre" and "erratic" behaviour in public, repeated self-destructive and/or self-sabotaging behaviour, and/or delusions of grandeur and a "massive ego"; but also in modern times she has been celebrated by admirers as either and variously a l*sbian icon, a bis*xual icon, an ace/aro icon, a tr*ns icon, and an inters*x icon — these latter possibilities are present, convincing and very real, and the very latter of which we will discuss and examine later on in this particular post. But might Kristina truly also represent an early example of autism? To look at the evidences for that, we have to start at the very beginning of her life.

Kristina in some of my diary entries over the years

Above: Kristina.

I have decided to share some of the diary entries I've written about Kristina through the years. Like her, I'm interested in foreign languages and I write most of my diaries in various ones. You'll also notice that the first two entries here are naive and/or very uninformed, misinformed or underinformed (I was still a teenager at the time and only knew the basics of Kristina's life), but it got better with time. I first discovered Kristina's existence in 2013 and read about her very sporadically and mostly on a surface level depth until I began to seriously and regularly research her life starting in February-April 2018.

The diary excerpts:

"Måndagen, den 19 december 2016

De senaste dagarna har jag blivit fascinerad av drottning Kristina... Hon kände kärlek för både män och kvinnor, hon gillade aldrig at ha kvinnokläder på sig (hon bar faktiskt herrkläder under hela sitt liv, och hon var en pojkflicka under sin barndom), och hon hade en lite olycklig barndom.

När Kristina föddes trodde man att hon var en pojke, på grund av hennes djupa röst och hennes kropp var täckt med hår och en segerhuva. Barnmorskorna insåg snart deras misstag, och kungen gladde sig över att få veta att han hade en dotter, men Maria Eleonora blev rasande och försökte såra eller döda Kristina flera gånger. Den ena av Kristinas axlar var alltid högre än den andra, hon trodde att en sköterska hade låtit henne falla eller att hennes mor hade kastat henne ner, og axeln bröts.

Efter att Gustav Adolf dödades 1632, blev Maria Eleonora hysterisk. Hon sköt upp begravningen i arton månader, och hon var så ovillig att lämna kungens lik att hon vid många tillfällen måste dras bort från honom. Hon lade också hans hjärta i en liten kista som hon hängde ovanför hennes säng, och lilla Kristina fick ofta sova i den sängen. Jag föreställer mig att det måste ha varit obehagligt och läskigt. Efter en tid togs Kristina bort och växte upp i ett annat slott, för man drog slutsatsen att Maria Eleonora var för labil för att kunna ta hand om henne.

Det har också föreslagits att Kristina förmodligen var autistisk, för hon kände lite eller inget behov att följa sociala normer, och hon insisterade på att göra allt på ett sätt som hon ansåg var logiskt.

Jag tänker på autismteorin varje gång när jag tänker på Kristina, och jag har nyligen kollat en vacker film om henne och Ebba Sparre: "The Girl King". Jag blev alltid ledsen när någon blev otålig mot Kristina, eller om någon skrek åt henne eller kritiserade henne eller skällde ut henne. Det förefaller mig som förrädiskt om man skriker på en drottning."

("Monday, December 19, 2016

In recent days, I've become fascinated by Queen Kristina... She felt love towards both men and women, she never liked women's clothing (indeed, she wore men's clothing throughout her life, and she was a tomboy during her childhood), and she had a somewhat unhappy childhood.

When Kristina was born, she was thought to be a boy, due to her deep voice, and her body was covered in hair and a caul. The midwives soon realised their mistake, and the King rejoiced upon being told that he had a daughter, but Maria Eleonora was enraged, and she tried to hurt or kill Kristina several times. One of Kristina's shoulders was always higher than the other; she believed that a nursemaid had dropped her or that her mother had thrown her, and the shoulder was broken.

After Gustav Adolf was killed in 1632, Maria Eleonora became hysterical. She postponed the burial for eighteen months, and she was so reluctant to leave the King's corpse that, on many occasions, she had to be pried off of him. She also put his heart inside a small casket which she hung above her bed, and little Kristina often had to sleep in that bed. I imagine that it must have felt uncomfortable and unsettling. Kristina was eventually taken away, and she grew up in another castle because it was concluded that Maria Eleonora was too unstable to care for her.

It has also been theorised that Kristina was probably autistic, because she felt little or no need to confirm with social norms, and she insisted on doing everything in a way which she deemed to be logical.

I think about the autism theory whenever I think about Kristina, and I've recently watched a beautiful movie about her and Ebba Sparre: "The Girl King". I always felt sad whenever anyone became impatient with Kristina, or whenever anyone shouted at her or criticised her or reprimanded her. It feels treasonous for someone to shout at a queen.")

—

"Mandag 2 april 2018

Dronningen har brakt tårer i øynene på meg! Jeg ser meg selv i Kristina. Ingen forstod henne, hun opplevde kjærlighet for uoppnåelige mennesker, hun elsket kunst... Jeg ønsker jeg kunne vite hva hun kunne si om meg."

("Monday, April 2, 2018

The Queen has brought tears to my eyes! I see myself in Kristina. No one understood her, she experienced love for unobtainable people, she loved art... I wish I could know what she might say about me.")

—

"Четвъртък, 21 юни 2018 г.

... Всеки път, когато идва рожденият ми ден или Коледа, и когато мисля за подаръците, които искам, не мога да мисля за много неща, различни от книгите. ... Но искам най-много двете книги за кралица Кристина, защото тя е много важна за мен и искам да чета повече за нея."

("Thursday, June 21, 2018

... Whenever my birthday or Christmas comes and when I think about what presents I want, I can't think of many things other than books. ... But I most want the two books about Queen Kristina, because she is very important to me and I want to read more about her.")

—

"Неделя, 24 юни 2018 г.

Получих много подаръци снощи, включително пари за посещение в Исландия, но любимите ми са локумчетата, исландската риза, исландско-английския речник и книгата за кралица Кристина, която веднага започнах да чета."

("Sunday, June 24, 2018

I got lots of presents last night, including money for a visit to Iceland, but my favourites are the Turkish delights, the Iceland shirt, the Icelandic-English dictionary, and the book about Queen Kristina, which I immediately started reading.")

—

"Mercredi, le 5 juin 2019

... Vendredi, j'ai appris que j'aurai un livre sur Christine, il vient d'Allemagne et je pense qu'il va arriver dans une semaine ou deux. C'est un livre très rare, et je le veux depuis longtemps. Je pensais ne jamais l'avoir, et ... je suis impatiente que le livre arrive."

("Wednesday, June 5, 2019

... On Friday I found out that I will get a book about Kristina, it is coming from Germany and I expect that it will arrive in a week or two. It is a very rare book, and I have been wanting it for a long time. I thought I might never get it, and ... I am impatient for the book to arrive.")

—

"Pátek 21. června 2019

... Včera mi bylo řečeno, že moje narozeninová párty byla odložena na příští sobotu, protože jsme ještě neměla dost času na to, abychom to všem řekla. Jako obvykle nevím mnoho z toho, co chci jiné než knihy (kniha o Kristině dorazila v pondělí)."

("Friday, June 21, 2019

... I was told yesterday that my birthday party has been postponed until next Saturday, because we haven't yet had enough time to tell everyone. As usual, I don't know much of what I want other than books (the book about Kristina arrived on Monday).")

—

"Fredag, den 25 september 2020

... I mina brev använder [jag] franska och latinska ord med svenska som Kristina gjorde. Jag kan inte göra annorledes, hon har ju inspirerat mig så mycket. Av alla människor som har så stort inflytande på mig är endast Jónsi större. Jag hoppas att vår nådiga drottning inte är så förolämpad över detta uttalande, men jag ger henne tusen ursäkter om hon är det, och jag hoppas att hon gärna blir försäkrad på min beundran."

("Friday, September 25, 2020

... In my letters I use French and Latin words in Swedish like Kristina did. I can't help it, she's inspired me so much. Of all the humans who have such great influence on me, only Jónsi is greater. I hope our gracious Queen isn't too offended at this statement, but I give her a thousand apologies if she is, and I hope she will be assured of my admiration.")

—

"Tisdag 20 oktober 2020

Vår nådiga drottning [kröntes] till kung idag för 370 år sedan. ... Kristina tyckte bestemt inte om gravida kvinnor, men hon behöver inte oroa sig över mig. Jag vet att det skulle vara för farligt för mig att vara gravid och att föda, så i det området har hon ingen anledning att bli besviken på mig. Min rygg gör nästan ont när jag föreställer mig det."

("Tuesday, October 20, 2020

Our gracious Queen was crowned King today 370 years ago. ... Kristina definitely didn't like pregnant women, but she doesn't have to worry about me. I know it would be too dangerous for me to be pregnant and give birth, so in that area she'll have no cause to be disappointed in me. My back almost hurts when I imagine it.")

—

"Tisdag 8 december 2020

Idag är vår kära Kristinas födelsedag, 394 ..."

("Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Today is our dear Kristina's birthday, 394...")

—

"Onsdag 3 februari 2021

Om det finns någon från historien som jag liknar i karaktär är det Kristina framför någon annan som helst. ...

Jag kanske ju är villig att gifta mig, men jag håller med Kristina om att det är mig omöjligt att föda barn, ty jag har ingen avsikt att göra det. Det skulle strida helt mot min vilja och min konstitution. ... Jag började läsa när jag var tre år gammal, skrivandet kom kanske lite senare; och även om min stavning och formning av bokstäverna först förväntades vara ofullkomliga, var jag flytande och kunde uttala även de största orden utan svårighet. ... När jag var sex år gammal kunde jag sitta och se på skräckfilmer utan att gråta eller hoppa till, jag kunde läsa en roman och jag förstod allvaret och sorgen när jag såg en film om en krig och de unga pojkarna som flydde från den. Endast bilden av ett svältande barn, uttryckslöst och halvdött, hade makten att bedröva mig. ...

Jag hade inga syskon och uppfostrades främst omgiven av vuxna, så jag baserade mina antaganden och till och med mina förväntningar på andra barns beteende och förståelse på mina egna, på hur motståndskraftig, stark och orädd jag alltid var. Jag var oundvikligen förvirrad och besviken när jag hörde och såg sanningen. ...")

("Mercredi 3 février 2021

S'il y a quelqu'une de l'histoire à qui je ressemble par caractère, c'est Christine avant tout le monde. ...

Je veux peut-être me marier, mais je suis d'accord avec Christine pour dire qu'il m'est impossible d'avoir des enfants, car je n'en ai pas l'intention. Cela irait complètement à l'encontre de ma volonté et de ma constitution. ... J'ai commencé à lire à l'âge de trois ans, l'écriture est peut-être venue un peu plus tard; et bien qu'au début mon orthographe et la formation des lettres étaient imparfaites, je parlais couramment et pouvais prononcer même les plus gros mots sans difficulté. ... Quand j'avais six ans, je pouvais regarder les films d'horreur sans pleurer ni sursauter, je pouvais lire un roman, et je comprenais la gravité et le chagrin quand je regardais un film sur une guerre et les jeunes garçons qui s'enfuyaient. Seule l'image d'un enfant affamé, sans expression et demi-mort, avait le pouvoir de m'affliger. ...

Je n'avais pas de frères et sœurs et j'ai été élevée principalement environnée d'adultes, alors j'ai sans le savoir basé mes hypothèses et même mes attentes concernant le comportement et la compréhension des autres enfants sur la mienne, sur la façon dont j'ai toujours été robuste, forte et intrépide. J'étais inévitablement confuse et déçue quand j'ai entendu et vu la vérité. ...")

("Wednesday, February 3, 2021

If there is anyone from history who I resemble in character, it is Kristina before anyone else. ...

I may be willing to marry, but I do agree with Kristina that it is impossible for me to bear children, for I have no intention to. It would go completely against my will and my constitution. ... I began reading when I was three years old, writing came perhaps a bit later; and although at first my spelling and formation of the letters was expectedly imperfect, I was fluent and could pronounce even the biggest words without difficulty. ... When I was six years old I could sit through horror films without crying or flinching, I could read a novel, and I understood the seriousness and the sorrow when I watched a film about a war and the young boys who fled from it. Only the image of a starving child, expressionless and half-dead, had the power to upset me. ...

I had no siblings and was raised primarily surrounded by adults, so I unknowingly based my assumptions and even my expectations of other children's behaviour and comprehension on my own, on how hardy, strong and intrepid I always was. I was inevitably confused and disappointed when I heard and saw the truth. ...")

—

"Fredag, den 24. december 2021

... Nogle af mine bøger ankommer senere, nogle kommer fra Sverige og en anden bog kommer fra Forenede Kongeriget, fordi jeg er vild med dronning Kristina, og jeg vil altid gerne læse selv de sjældneste bøger om hende, især hvis de er på svensk.

... Takket være Kristina elsker jeg Sverige lige så højt, som jeg elsker Island, og jeg kan læse og skrive på svensk rimeligt godt. Jeg elsker det ældre sprog lige så meget som nutidens sprog, og jeg kan bruge hvilket som helst af de to ordforråd og grammatikker, alt efter om jeg føler mig venskabelig eller formel (formel, fordi jeg har lyst til at skrive på Kristinas façon sommetider)."

(Friday, December 24, 2021

... Some of my books will arrive later, some are coming from Sweden and another book is coming from the United Kingdom because I love Queen Kristina and I always want to read even the rarest books about her, especially if they are in Swedish.

... Thanks to Kristina, I love Sweden just as much as I love Iceland, and I can read and write in Swedish passably well. I love the older language just as much as today's language, and I can use either of the two vocabularies and grammars, depending on whether I feel friendly or formal (formal because I want to write in Kristina's way sometimes).")

—

"Tirsdag, den 28. December 2021

I går nat lavede jeg en kop varm chokolademælk og spiste to Hollandske stroopvafler med. Jeg fik stroopvaflerne i Lørdags med en masse Tyrkiske slik, Østrigske chokolademønter med Mozart, Italiensk nougat og Franske småkager. De tre overblivende Kristina-bøger ankom om aftenen."

("Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Last night I made a cup of hot chocolate and ate two Dutch stroopwafels with it. I got the stroopwafels on Saturday with a bunch of Turkish sweets, Austrian chocolate coins with Mozart, Italian nougat and French biscuits. The three remaining Kristina books arrived in the evening.")

—

"Föstudagur, 23. september, 2022

... Í dag fann ég loksins bókina með öllum bréfum Jóhanns Eikiblaðs til föður síns, mig hefur lengi langað að lesa þessa bók en ég fann hana hvergi stafræna þannig að þegar ég fann hana loksins síðdegis í dag hoppaði ég bókstaflega til gleði, það var gefið út af Nils Sjöberg árið 1911. Jóhann virðist hafa verið ágætur karl, hann skrifar svo lifandi um hófslífið og hann skrifar mikið um gjörðir og persónuleika Kristínu líka. Þann 28. nóvember 1649 skrifaði hann að halastjarna eða fallstjarna væri sýnileg yfir Stokkhólmi á dögunum og að Kristína hafi farið á fætur á hverjum morgni til að sjá stjörnuna en hún hugsaði í raun ekki mikið um það."

("Friday, September 23, 2022

... Today I finally found the book with all of Johan Ekeblad's letters to his father, I've been wanting to read this book for a long time but I couldn't find it digitised anywhere so when I finally found it this afternoon I literally jumped for joy, it was published by Nils Sjöberg in 1911. Johan seems like he was a nice guy, he writes so vividly about court life and he writes a lot about Kristina's doings and personality too. On November 28, 1649 he wrote that a comet or falling star was visible over Stockholm in the wee hours and that Kristina got up every morning to see the star but she really didn't think much of it.")

Note: I wrote this entry before I knew "Kristín" is the most common Icelandic form of her name... and before I found Johan's letter from 1655 saying he'd never trust any woman's words again because Kristina became a Catholic after having claimed for years that the religion one is born into is so bound up with one's honour. Needless to say, I was disappointed in his reaction.

—

"Woensdag, 16 November 2022

Ik weet wel dat ik de laatste tijd erg neerslachtig en down ben geweest, maar ... Christina's brieven hebben me vandaag wat afleiding en troost gegeven, ik vind het altijd heerlijk om haar schrift te zien en te lezen."

(Wednesday, November 16, 2022

I know I've been really bleak and down lately, but ... Kristina's letters today have given me some distraction and comfort, I always love to see and read her handwriting.")

—

"Torsdagen, den 8 december 2022

Idag är det Kristinas födelsedag, 396 år. ..."

("Thursday, December 8, 2022

Today is Kristina's birthday, 396 years. ...")

—

"Måndagen, den 9 januari 2023

Efter frukost idag fick jag en av Kristina-böckerna (»Kvinnokungen«, av Kristina Sjögren). Jag hoppas att resten av dem kommer att resa bra och komma hit säkert om de inte redan är här."

("Monday, January 9, 2023

After breakfast today I got one of the Kristina books ('Kvinnokungen' ('The Woman King'), by Kristina Sjögren). I hope the rest of them will travel well and arrive here safely if they're not here already.")

—

"Onsdagen, den 29 mars 2023

... Jag har på sista tiden tänkt att Kristinas fjärhet och otålighet har förts över till mig, men lyckligen tempererar Jónsis inflytande dem. Och även tack vare Kristinas inflytande tror jag att mina lovord när de är starkast skulle bli för ordrika, för långtrådiga och för barocka för Jónsis smak."

("Wednesday, March 29, 2023

... I've been thinking lately that Kristina's pride and impatience have carried over to me, but luckily Jónsi's influence keeps it in check. And also thanks to Kristina's influence, I think my praise at its strongest would be too wordy, too long-winded and too baroque for Jónsi's liking.")

—

"Vrijdag, 21 April 2023

... Ik heb natuurlijk geduld met de Zweedse Archieven, maar ik hoop in de toekomst meer exemplaren van Christina's eigen schrift te zien. Ik lees en studeer en denk elke dag aan Christina, zoals ik al vijf jaar doe, het is zo geweldig om haar te leren kennen en meer te weten te komen over haar leven en persoonlijkheid. Ze was niet bijzonder lief, maar ze kon dat zijn wanneer ze er zin in had. De meeste mensen zouden zeggen dat ze lelijk was met haar grote haakneus en diepe stem en onderkin met de baardhaartjes erop, maar ik vind haar niettemin mooi, en ik wou zelfs dat ik ook zo kon zijn."

("Friday, April 21, 2023

... I'm being patient with the Swedish Archives, of course, but I hope to see more specimens of Kristina's own handwriting in the future. I read about and study and think of Kristina every day, as I have done for five years, it's so wonderful to get to know her and to learn about her life and personality. She wasn't particularly sweet, but she could be when she felt like it. Most people would say she was ugly with her big hooked nose and deep voice and double chin with the beard hairs on it, but I think she was beautiful regardless, and I even wish I could be like that too.")

—

"Lördagen, den 6 maj 2023

I morse, medan det fortfarande var mörkt, såg jag kröningen av kungen och drottningen av England (det var förstås redan dagtid där, det började klockan 11 på morgonen). Lugnt, grått, fuktigt och vårlikt väder — fullkomligt. Kröningen ägde som traditionen rum i det anrika Westminster Abbey i London. Ritualerna i ceremonin har varit desamma i över tusen år. Det varade lite över två timmar. Jag kan inte skriva allt som hände, min arm skulle bli för trött och det skulle ta för lång tid, men det var väldigt vackert, högtidligt men glädjefullt. Jag missade själva ögonblicket när kungen kröntes, men drottningens egen kröning lite senare kompenserade för min irritation över att ha missat hans.

Jag har aldrig sett en kröning förut, och jag var glad över att ha fått vara ett vittne till denna, även på långt håll. Nu vet jag hur människorna som var vid Kristinas kröning 1650 måste ha känt sig. ..."

("Saturday, May 6, 2023

This morning, while it was still dark, I watched the coronation of the King and Queen of England (of course it was already daytime there, it started at 11 in the morning). Weather calm, grey, damp and springlike — perfect. The coronation took place at the ancient Westminster Abbey in London, as is the tradition. The rituals in the ceremony have remained the same for over a thousand years. It lasted a little over two hours. I can't write everything that happened, my arm would get too tired and it would take too long, but it was very beautiful, solemn but joyful. I missed the actual moment when the King was crowned, but the Queen's own crowning a little later made up for my annoyance at having missed his.

I've never seen a coronation before, and I was happy to be a witness to this one, even from afar. Now I know how the people who were at Kristina's coronation in 1650 must have felt. ...")

—

"Donderdag, 15 Juni 2023

Vandaag kon ik eindelijk naar een bijzondere liedje luisteren zonder te gaan huilen, maar dat was alleen omdat ik het zo druk had met het opschrijven van Bulstrode Whitelocke's dagboekaantekeningen over zijn gesprekken met Christina."

("Thursday, June 15, 2023

Today I was finally able to listen to a certain song without crying, but that was only because I was so busy writing down Bulstrode Whitelocke's diary entries about his talks with Kristina.")

—

"Lørdag, den 17. Februar 2024

Kristina hjælper mig også som altid. Jeg håber at arbejde mere med hendes breve..."

("Saturday, February 17, 2024

Kristina helps me too as always. I hope to work with her letters more...")

"TV Tropes" that I think fit Kristina

Above: Kristina.

I've been an avid and frequent visitor to the TV Tropes website since 2012, and after twelve years of looking there at the different kinds of tropes appearing in and used to describe various movies, TV shows, books, characters and even real-life people, etc., I've decided to try my hand at listing some tropes that fit Kristina. I'm not a "troper" on the website itself, so this is a "just for fun" thing, but without any further ado, here are some tropes that I think are applicable to Kristina. Enjoy!

The tropes (in alphabetical order, just like on the website, and with explanations and specific examples on some; some of these are necessarily as conflicting and contradictory as Kristina herself was, and of them some are respectively lighter or darker than others):

A Child Shall Lead Them: Kristina became queen of Sweden at barely six years old, although she didn't begin ruling personally until her eighteenth birthday on December 8 (Old Style), 1644.

Abdicate the Throne: One of the defining and most famous (or infamous) moments of Kristina's whole life.

Academic Athlete

The Ace: Kristina was obviously a very multi-talented person, ranging from proficient to completely fluent in at least seven foreign languages in addition to her native Swedish, was reputed to have an almost savant-level memory and recall ability, and was an expert in ancient history, politics, the arts, etc.

Acrofatic

Action Dad: Kristina had one.

Action Girl

Adipose Rex

Adorably Precocious Child

Affection-Hating Kid: Towards her mother Maria Eleonora.

Affectionate Nickname: As far as I have been able to discover at the time of writing, Kristina's nicknames among her family, friends and contemporaries included "Kerstin" or "Kjerstin", "Christienchen", "Stienchen", "Augusta" and "Hera". And that isn't even counting Minerva of the North, after the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory and the arts. She was also nicknamed the Semiramis of the North, after the legendary queen regnant of Assyria who conquered much of the Middle East and the Levant and stabilised and strengthened her empire after a brutal civil war.

Ain't Too Proud to Beg: During a meeting with the Swedish clergy in October 1660 during her visit to Sweden since the abdication, Kristina is said to have tearfully begged on her knees to be allowed free exercise of the Catholic faith during her stay.

All Girls Want Bad Boys: According to some of the defamatory, scandal-mongering pamphlets spreading rumours about her love life.

Alpha Bitch

Always a Child to Parent: Maria Eleonora saw Kristina as this, to an extent.

Always on Duty: The vast majority of the time, especially so during her reign in Sweden.

Ambiguous Gender: Starting literally on the day Kristina was born, if her autobiography is to be believed.

Ambiguous Gender Identity: The question divides posterity.

Ambiguously Bi: I hesitate to say this about a real-life person, especially since Kristina did not have access to the vocabulary, understanding and concepts that we have now; but based on the evidence, it is genuinely, seriously possible that she might have been bis*xual. There is not as much documentation (that I currently know of or can find) about Kristina's relationship with Ebba Sparre as there is about her later and longer-lasting relationship with Cardinal Decio Azzolino, but it is clear that both people were very dear to Kristina in a way that went beyond the platonic.

Ambiguously Gay: See the above.

Amicable Exes: With Ebba Sparre.

Amusing Injuries: Even as a child, Kristina likely would have seen most injuries she sustained as this. From the perspective of the theory that she was autistic, her extremely and sometimes dangerously high pain tolerance was probably due to associated interoception issues.

And Then What?: This first dawned on Kristina barely two years after the abdication, at least as far as her political ambitions are concerned.

Anguished Declaration of Love: She makes these over and over again in her surviving letters to Ebba Sparre and Cardinal Decio Azzolino, respectively.

Animal Lover: Kristina's favourite animals in particular were dogs and horses.

Antagonistic Offspring: Kristina's mother Maria Eleonora, during her chronic mental and emotional low points, sometimes saw her as this.

Anti-Hero

At the Opera Tonight: And ballets. The most famous anecdotes about Kristina at such events are from Madame de Motteville and Mademoiselle de Montpensier from the time of Kristina's first visit to France, in September 1656.

Attention Whore: Some of her contemporaries and people today might see her as this.

Authority Sounds Deep

Awesome Moment of Crowning

Badass Adorable: Kristina as a baby and during her childhood; says this about her six year old self in her unfinished memoirs:

"This [Muscovite] embassy caused a little adventure which seems to me worthy of being reported. I was so much a child that it was feared that I could not bear this embassy with the gravitas that was necessary. It was feared that they would frighten me with their barbarous manners and clothes, which were still unknown to me. So they gave me a great deal of preparation on that. I was instructed in all the ceremonial, and urged not to be afraid. This doubt annoyed me greatly, and I asked angrily, 'Why should I be afraid?'

I was told that the Muscovites were people dressed quite differently from us, that they had long beards, that they were terrible, that there were a large number of them, but that I shouldn't be afraid of them. By chance, those who were my comforters on this occasion were the Grand Constable and the Grand Admiral, who themselves had large beards, which made me say on that subject, laughing: 'What do I care about their beards? Don't you have big beards? And I'm not afraid of you. So why should they scare me? Instruct me well, and leave it all to me.'

In fact, I kept my word to them. I gave the audience on the throne, according to custom, with a mien so confident and majestic that, instead of being afraid, as has happened to other children on similar occasions, I made the ambassadors feel what all men feel when they approach anything that is greater than them, and I thrilled mine, who admired me, as one usually does over all the trifles of the children one loves."

Badass Boast: Among other examples, Kristina says this about her childhood self in her autobiography: "Those who participated in my upbringing were in despair, for I completely exhausted them and never let them rest, neither day nor night. When they tried to make me stop this tiring way of life, I made fun of them and said, 'If you are sleepy, go to bed, I can take care of myself.' Consequently, my days and hours were divided into affairs of state, studies, and sport. I devoted few moments to resting and other bodily needs that take so much time for other people."

Badass Bookworm

Badass Cape: Her coronation robes.

Badass in Distress: The famous May 1652 incident in which Kristina fell into the harbour and nearly drowned; as well as the July 1647 assassination attempt and the July 1667 riot in Hamburg, during which Kristina had to escape in disguise through the back door of the mansion she had been staying in. Almost each of these incidents ended with Kristina taking them in stride and boasting of her stamina or heroism.

Badass Pacifist: Kristina worked very hard to bring the Thirty Years' War to an end.

Baritone of Strength

Be Careful What You Wish For: Being a former monarch without a crown, a country or unlimited finances was definitely not all Kristina had believed or hoped it would be, especially in the first years after the abdication.

Be Yourself

Became Their Own Antithesis: Kristina, the child of the king who died to defend Protestantism, ultimately converted to Catholicism — something the Swedes in her time and some even today have never forgiven her for.

Because Destiny Says So: Kristina saw her abdication, her conversion to Catholicism, and her authoritative, kingly personal disposition in this light.

Becoming the Mask

Being Personal Isn't Professional

Beneath the Mask

Berserk Button: Being scolded, corrected or told what to do or what not to do (especially by women, and with the exception of a select few men, while she was growing up), her authority being questioned or defied (even long after the abdication when she no longer had political power), being lied to, and being denied or forced to wait long-term for something she really wanted or needed.

Beware the Silly Ones

Bifauxnen: That is, if one considers or believes the theory that Kristina was just a very masculine woman. Slightly subverted when considering the possibility that Kristina might have been g*nderfl**d.

Big Eater

Big Fun

Big "WHAT?!": Kristina says these in some of her letters.

Blithe Spirit

Blood Knight: She dreamed of being one but never got the chance.

Blue Blood

Boisterous Bruiser

Bookworm

Boomerang Bigot: It is revealed mainly in her surviving letters to Azzolino written during her 1666-1668 stay in Hamburg that Kristina thought of Germans (especially the women and the doctors) as silly, uncultured and ignorant beasts and barbarians and barely even human — despite and regardless of the fact that she herself was half-German through her mother and also her paternal grandmother, etc., and spoke, read and wrote fluent German since before she could remember.

Boots of Toughness

Bourgeois Bohemian: Centuries before the concept even existed.

Brainy Brunette

Brawn Hilda

Break the Haughty: Happened to her multiple times and to varying degrees after the abdication.

Break Them by Talking: Kristina did this to Monaldeschi before she ordered for his execution.

Breaking Old Trends: Kristina famously refused to marry or have children.

British Teeth: Subverted in that Kristina obviously wasn't British. Descriptions of her in at least one of the defamatory pamphlets (originally from circa 1655) say her teeth were in this condition, but the 1965 exhumation and examination of her skeletal remains confirmed this.

Broken Pedestal: Kristina, when she realised that she did not like Descartes very much upon meeting him in person, and the feeling was mutual aside from being subverted in that the two did still have genuine respect and admiration for each other.

Bruiser with a Soft Center

Brutal Honesty

Bullying a Dragon: Anyone who insulted her, as a person or as a monarch.

Bunny-Ears Lawyer

Byronic Hero

The Caligula: According to the rumour-mongers and scandal-mongers.

Camp

Camp Straight: During the Azzolino years.

The Cassandra

Casual Danger Dialogue: In a famous incident from May 1652, after Kristina accidentally fell into the waters of the harbour at Skeppsholmen and was saved from drowning (along with Herman Fleming); and far from being shaken, upset or overwhelmed at all by the shock of almost dying, after going home she was in an upbeat mood and even joked that she was used to drinking water (even though this water was "a bit salty and brackish") while Fleming was "worse off" for being used to beer.

Celibate Eccentric Genius

Celibate Heroine: At least as far as anyone knew or knows for sure.

The Chains of Commanding

Chick Magnet: Kristina was widely rumoured to be this.

Child Prodigy

Childhood Friends: Kristina with her first cousins, who also doubled as her foster siblings.

Christianity is Catholic: For herself and for Christianity as a whole, Kristina saw this as the ideal and an objective truth.

Clothing Damage: Kristina often got ink stains on her sleeves from writing so much.

Cloudcuckoolander

Cold Ham

Contrapposto Pose: Kristina in some post-abdication portraits.

Cool Crown

Cool Old Lady: Kristina was this in her later years, but since she was 62 when she died, she was hardly old by today's standards.

Costume Evolution: After the abdication Kristina started wearing men's clothes on a regular basis; and in her later years she started wearing négligés and low-cut décolletée gowns in addition to men's clothes.

Crisis of Faith: One of the most controversial and most storied aspects of her life.

Cruel to be Kind

Cuckoosnarker

Cultured Badass

The Cynic

Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You

Daddy's Girl: Although Kristina barely knew or remembered her father, the two were very close, to the point that at age three, after she saw him for what would be the last time, she is said to have cried inconsolably for three days straight — and this was a child who rarely ever cried.

Dad's Off Fighting in the War

Dances and Balls

Dark and Troubled Past: Kristina barely knew her father and was almost six years old at the time of his death and then spent the next few years living with her grieving, depressed, anxious, and traumatised mother, whose mental health and emotional stability were known to be fragile.

Dead Guy Junior: Kristina Augusta was given that name after her older sister, who had died two years earlier at eleven months old; justified in that in those days, when child mortality rates were so high, parents who had suffered the loss of one child would sometimes reuse some or all of its name for their next child. She was also named after her paternal grandmother Christina of Holstein, who had passed away a year before she was born.

Deadpan Snarker

Death Glare

Death Is a Sad Thing: Losing her father and — in a tragic irony — learning of it on her birthday, of all days, was the six year old Kristina's first experience with death. Inverted in that, due to her only sometimes having gotten to seen him, and that at an age before she was old enough to really remember him (she was only three when she saw him alive for the last time), and because his death meant she inherited the crown plus the attention and adulation, Kristina admits in her autobiography that by the time his long-delayed burial took place in June 1634, when she was 7½, she had long since recovered from her own grief; and, being an active and spirited child (and likely also autistic), she was therefore bored, annoyed and overwhelmed beyond endurance by having to participate in a days-long funeral procession, having to sit still through long ceremonies and speeches that were mostly not focused on or addressed to her, being surrounded by an oppressively somber and subdued atmosphere plus the sounds of loud weeping and wailing from her mother and the other women present in spite of how much time had passed since their loss, and also by having to wear a long, heavy and hot black mourning dress and veil. A report on the funeral procession in the "Gazette de Paris" even mentions her crying, and when we combine that remark with what she says in her autobiography, plus her very young age at the time and her likely neurotype, it is obvious that little Kristina's tears were more due to sensory and social-emotional overwhelm, upset and confusion than grief (she assures that she would have been inconsolable at losing her father if she had been old enough to understand it).

Deceptive Legacy: It seems that Kristina was told exaggerated and half-truth descriptions of and explanations about her mother by her other caregivers while she was growing up.

Delicate and Sickly: Alongside Made of Iron.

Dented Iron

Depraved Bis*xual: Some of the defamatory pamphlets and rumours portrayed Kristina as this.

Designated Hero

Desperately Craves Affection

Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life

Determinator: Among other examples, in a letter to the Comte de Brienne on February 1 (New Style), 1648, the French ambassador and Kristina's close friend, Pierre Hector Chanut, wrote: "She is indefatigable at travail in the countryside, even to the point that she remains on horseback for ten hours while hunting. Neither cold nor heat bother her." Other contemporaries also noticed this tendency.

Determined Defeatist

Did Not Think This Through

Did They or Didn't They?: With Ebba Sparre and Cardinal Azzolino respectively.

Different as Night and Day: Kristina and her mother, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg.

Disappeared Dad

Disproportionate Retribution: Her execution of Monaldeschi for betraying her plans to collaborate with the French to invade Naples and make herself queen there.

Dissonant Serenity: Kristina before and during the infamous execution of Monaldeschi.

Ditzy Genius

Divine Right of Kings: She was a firm and very devoted believer in it.

Does Not Like Spam: Kristina wrote that the only food she did not like was ham and anything made from pork.

Dork Knight

Drama Queen

Dreamworks Face: In some portraits.

Dude, Where's My Respect?: Kristina felt this way a lot after her abdication, even about merely perceived disrespect.

Early Personality Signs: There's this famous anecdote about an infant Kristina, in her own words:

"The King took me with him on his journey to Kalmar. Upon arrival, he subjected me to a little test which greatly strengthened his love for me. I was not yet two years old when we went to Kalmar. One man was hesitant about shooting the salute from the garrison and the cannons at the fortress to greet him in the customary way, as he was afraid of frightening a child as important as I was. To make no mistake, the governor there asked for the orders. After thinking, the King answered: 'Go on, do shoot. She is the daughter of a soldier and she must get used to it.'

I was with the Queen in her carriage, and instead of being frightened like any other child at such a tender age, I laughed and clapped my hands; not yet being able to speak, I expressed my joy as well as I could at that age in my fashion, gesturing that they should fire again. This little event increased the King's tenderness for me, because he hoped I was born as intrepid as himself."

Eccentric Millionaire

Elemental Motifs: Fire, fire, fire.

Encyclopaedic Knowledge

End of an Era: Her abdication in 1654 was this to the 131 year old Vasa dynasty in Sweden.

Endearingly Dorky: Many contemporary descriptions of her demeanour and personality fit with this.

Enraged by Idiocy

Entitled Bastard

Ermine Cape Effect

Ethereal White Dress: Kristina wore one on her coronation day and again on her abdication day.

Every Scar has a Story: Kristina blamed her drooping shoulder on being intentionally dropped by her wetnurse (Anna von der Linde) as a baby, but it is more likely that she was born with it or got accidentally injured by one of the midwives while she was being born; and if she really was dropped as a baby, it was most likely an accident or either unrelated or coincidental. Regardless, the 1965 examination of her skeleton found that the bones of her right shoulderblade were fused, and it might also be linked with her bent back and deformities and underdevelopment in the bones and muscles of her chest.

Everyone Has Standards

Excellent Judge of Character

Excessive Mourning: Kristina's mother subjected her to this for nearly two years after the death of her father, from when Kristina was just 6 to 7½ years old; and it stayed with her for the rest of her life as the darkest memory from her childhood, an experience that overwhelmed her with mixed emotions towards her mother both as a child and still five decades later as an adult in middle age.

Expository Hairstyle Change: In 1655 or 1656, Kristina had her head of curly brown or dark blonde hair shaved bald or nearly so and took to wearing dark men's wigs that were just as rarely combed as her natural hair and were also a size or two too big. In the 1660s Kristina began wearing her hair flat on the sides of the head with a part in the middle and with either looped braids around her ears or loose ringlets.

Face Death with Dignity

Family of Choice: Cardinal Azzolino, several of the other cardinals of the Squadrone Volante, and several favourite noblemen, artists, singers and musicians from Italy and all over Europe became something like this to Kristina during her Roman era.

Fat and Proud

The Fatalist

Fearless Fool

Fearless Infant: See "Early Personality Signs".

Feeling Their Age: Kristina sometimes expressed this during her final years, although she only lived to be 62 and was hardly elderly by today's standards.

Female Misogynist: Infuriating but true.

Feminine Mother, Tomboyish Daughter

Femininity Failure

Final Speech: She gave one at her abdication.

First Love: Ebba Sparre.

Foreign Culture Fetish: Towards French and Italian culture respectively, and to a lesser extent also to Greco-Roman culture.

Foster Kid: Kristina was this to her paternal aunt and uncle between the ages of three and six while her parents were away and later on again starting at age nine after being taken away from her mother.

French Jerk: Sometimes, and without actually being French, although she visited the country twice and spoke, read and wrote beyond fluently in the language.

Freudian Excuse: Kristina attributed her less than favourable views of women in general to her mother's behaviour and her own visceral disgust at pregnancy and childbirth.

Friend to All Children

Friendly Address Privileges: Her family naturally had these, as well as Cardinal Decio Azzolino later on; in what few letters survive from him to Kristina, and as implied from hers to him, he called her "S. M." (likely meaning "Sempre mia" — "Always mine" — in addition to "Sua Maestà" — "Her Majesty") and "my dear".

Fun Personified

The Fundamentalist: For Catholicism, even though she wasn't always conventional in her practice of it.

The Gadfly: Kristina famously had a habit of saying things specifically to shock or provoke people just for the thrill of it, sometimes intentionally but also sometimes from genuinely not understanding most social norms and social cues (she was probably most likely autistic).

Geek

Genius Bruiser

Genius Slob

Genki Girl

Gilded Cage: Kristina saw her life and her castles of residence as this during the last four years of her reign.

Girliness Upgrade: See "Costume Evolution".

Girls With Mustaches: At least during the final full year of her life, when she was 61, Kristina had a few tufts of beard on her chin.

Glory Seeker

A God Am I: It's sometimes stated that Kristina wrote that passing on the crown and throne to Karl Gustav made her feel like God creating the first man, but this is not true.

Go-Getter Girl

Good is Not Nice

Good is Not Soft

The Good King: To an extent.

Going Native: Kristina in Rome, especially in her later years.

Gonky Femme

Graceful Loser

Grande Dame: In her later years.

Grass Is Greener: Her view of Italy and the countries of southern and Mediterranean Europe compared to Sweden and by extension the rest of Scandinavia and Germany.

Gratuitous French: Appears in some of Kristina's Swedish-language letters.

Gratuitous Italian: Appears in some of Kristina's otherwise French-language letters to Cardinal Azzolino.

Gratuitous Latin: Appears mostly in some of Kristina's Swedish-language letters.

Grim Up North: Kristina saw Sweden as this to some extent.

Guile Hero

Guttural Growler

Handicapped Badass: She was near-sighted, had one leg slightly shorter than the other, and had a fused right shoulder, a hunched or bent back and a deformed or underdeveloped chest.

Happily Adopted: When Maria Eleonora's parental rights were stripped, Kristina was put (back) into the custody of her aunt, Princess Katarina, and her husband, the Count Palatine Johan Kasimir, just a few months before turning ten. For the most part, Kristina welcomed the change of atmosphere.

Hate Sink: Became this at least for a while after the infamous execution of Monaldeschi, and to an extent she was also this among the Swedish ruling class after she converted to Catholicism.

Hated By All: People's initial and lasting reaction to her execution of Monaldeschi, especially in France.

Hates the Job, Loves the Limelight

Hates Wearing Dresses: Kristina states in at least one of the surviving drafts of her 1681 autobiography that when she was growing up she hated wearing long dresses and only wanted to wear short skirts, "especially in the countryside".

The Hedonist

Held Gaze: She liked to use this to try to intimidate people, even when done playfully or teasingly.

Helicopter Parents: Kristina alleges in her memoirs that her mother Maria Eleonora was one of these to her after her father's death.

Her Heart Will Go On: Kristina likely experienced this with Cardinal Decio Azzolino (whom she had already been in love with, if not in a relationship with, for several years) after Ebba Sparre passed away in early 1662.

The Hermit: Was forced to be this against her will as a six to seven year old by and with her mother during her mourning for her father; but later on in her late 20s she was this voluntarily during the last year and last months of her reign, surrounding herself only with her favourites and closest friends during these periods.

Heroes Love Dogs

Heroic Sacrifice: In a non-fatal example, Kristina saw her abdication as this and the ultimate defining moment of her life.

The Heroine: Was often hailed as one by her men and in panegyrics.

High-Class Fan: Which she allegedly would use to repeatedly and loudly tap on the arm of her chair during a Lutheran sermon (pre-abdication and pre-conversion) to signal to the preacher that he'd better hurry and wrap it up because she was getting bored, annoyed and impatient waiting for it to end.

The High Queen

Holier Than Thou: Post-Catholic conversion Kristina towards Protestantism and Protestants, especially and namely Lutheranism and Lutherans, but she was otherwise and mostly tolerant of other faiths, and in 1686 she was famously, genuinely and sincerely shocked, outraged and grieved at the persecution of the Huguenots (French Protestants).

Honor Before Reason: Even the usually logical Kristina could sometimes be prone to this.

Horrible Judge of Character: Sometimes.

Hot-Blooded: Kristina was a huge extrovert, a free spirit, and could admittedly be reckless and impulsive.

How the Mighty Have Fallen: To an extent, and mostly according to her critics and detractors during and after her lifetime.

Human Hard Drive

The Hyena: She could laugh loud and hard and was easily amused.

Hypocrite

I Choose to Stay: Kristina was forced to resort to this in 1651 when she first attempted to get the Council's consent to abdicate; in 1669 she decided to stay in Rome after being banned from Sweden until after her grandcousin King Karl XI turned eighteen. Even after the King came of age in 1672 and showed himself more welcoming to his cousin than his regents had been, Kristina still chose to stay in Rome.

I Did What I Had to Do: Kristina saw her role in the execution of Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi as this.

I Gave My Word

I Just Want to Be Free: One of the motives for Kristina's abdication.

I Just Want to Be Loved

I Just Want to Be Special

I Owe You My Life: Kristina strongly believed and said this to her French "doctor" and friend Pierre Bourdelot after he arrived at the Swedish court in early 1652 and cured the 25 year old of her increasingly severe and life-threatening bouts of illnesses, a belief she still maintained 26 and 27 years later — with the hindsight of modern medicine, Bourdelot and his methods, recommendations and treatment plan likely put Kristina's type 2 diabetes into remission and also brought her out of what was possibly some degree of autistic burnout or nervous breakdown.

I Regret Nothing

I Should Have Done This Years Ago: Kristina made her first attempt at abdication in 1651, and the second attempt in 1654 was ultimately successful, but according to her own statement she had been thinking about it since as early as 1646, just two years after she came of age and began ruling Sweden herself; and it is likely that the idea and ultimate intention was already firm in her mind by the time of her long-delayed coronation in 1650.

Ice Queen

The Idealist

Idiot Ball

I Am Not Pretty

I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Kristina to Azzolino.

I'm Not Afraid of You: Kristina to pretty much everyone, by her own self-proclamation.

I'm Not Hungry: It could last for hours on end and eventually put her health in danger after she likely developed type 2 diabetes in very early adulthood (originally and at least partly due to interoception issues related to her possible autism, but even as a child she also consciously used it as a discipline exercise to try to make herself hardier, stronger and "manlier" so she would be "worthy of ruling").

Important Haircut: See the first part of "Expository Hairstyle Change" above.

Improbable Infant Survival: Kristina is said to have been subjected to several suspicious accidents as a baby, the first of which happened when a large beam suddenly fell across the cradle, and later one of her shoulders became permanently lowered supposedly after either accidentally falling or being dropped on purpose.

In Harm's Way

In the Blood: Kristina inherited a lot of personality traits and flaws from both parents as well as from her Vasa ancestors and relatives on her father's side.

Inconsistent Spelling: Even for the seventeenth century; she might actually have had dysgraphia, a learning disability that affects mainly spelling, handwriting and penmanship.

Inelegant Blubbering

Inferiority Superiority Complex

Innocence Lost: Losing one's father in a sudden and violent way at just five to six years old, being raised for a time by a mentally and emotionally unstable, traumatised and freshly widowed single mother when one is too young to understand why said mother thinks and behaves the way she does, losing one's other primary caregiver (paternal aunt) to death and losing the mother to parental abandonment within less than a year of each other when one is at a vulnerable age (twelve/thirteen), and just overall becoming the child monarch of a country involved in the same brutal war that killed said father during a violent and turbulent part of history, ultimately inheriting said war, and almost constantly being expected to behave impersonally and like a miniature adult with barely any privacy tends to do that to a kid.

Innocently Insensitive

Insane Troll Logic: Sometimes.

The Insomniac

Instant Expert: Kristina when it came to anything and anyone she took an interest in, at least according to descriptions and boasts.

Intelligence Equals Isolation

It Must Be Mine!: Kristina's respective failed plots to make herself queen of Naples (1656-58), to be reinstated as monarch in Sweden in case her sickly and underage grandcousin King Karl XI were to die during his minority and in spite of her having become Catholic when Sweden was a strictly Protestant/Lutheran country (1660-61), and to be elected as queen of Poland after the abdication of her cousin King Jan II Kazimierz (1668) were rooted in this.

It Runs in the Family: Kristina inherited her stubborn streak from both parents as well as from her Vasa ancestors.

It's All About Me

I've Come Too Far

Jade-Colored Glasses

Jaded Washout: To an extent, after the abdication.

Jerk with a Heart of Gold

Judge, Jury and Executioner: Kristina was infamously this to her grand equerry Gian Rinaldo Monaldeschi on October 30/November 10 (New Style), 1657, although the actual execution part was carried out by three of her courtiers — including her favourite and Monaldeschi's rival, Ludovico Santinelli. The general or majority consensus at the time and by at least older posterity seems to be a mix of that Kristina retained full legal power and authority over the members of her household and that the execution was legal and justifiable in that regard, but, at the same time, that she crossed a line not just morally by being so coldly insistent on the death sentence and unmoved by the victim's, witness' and executioners' desperate, tearful pleas for mercy or the physical and emotional agony said victim suffered during his final hours and moments, but also legally by performing the execution while she was in the territory and jurisdiction of a foreign monarch (King Louis XIV of France), deciding and pronouncing the sentence independently and in such a short and quick amount of time, and without at least allowing for a trial process first or giving more and longer consideration to the question of Monaldeschi's guilt, whatever alternative punishment she might see fit, and, again, the fact that she was a visiting ex-monarch and guest in the territory and residence of another, ruling monarch.

Keet

Kneel Before Zod: Before 1672 (when King Karl XI came of age) the Protestant/Lutheran Swedes feared that a Catholic Kristina would try to usurp the throne if the boy died young and do this to them.

Know When to Fold 'Em

The Lad-ette: Although theories vary on whether Kristina was either what we would now call a butch l*sbian or bis*xual woman or a tr*ns man or g*nderfl**d or anything in between.

Lady and a Scholar: Not much of a lady though.

Lady Looks Like a Dude

Lady of Adventure

Lady of War: Her greatest dream. It never did come true.

Large and in Charge

Large Ham

Last of Her Kind: She was the last member of the Swedish branch of the Vasa dynasty to rule, and the direct line died with her since she never married or had any non-in-ceremonial-name-only children.

The Leader

Leeroy Jenkins: As has been said before, and as is known, Kristina could sometimes be reckless, impulsive and lacking in foresight or forethought.

Les Collaborateurs: Averted — during her 1661 stay in Hamburg she tried and failed to get the kings of Spain, France, Poland and Denmark and the Holy Roman Emperor to help her reinstate Catholicism in Scandinavia.

Let's Get Dangerous!

Life of the Party

Lightning Bruiser

Like Mother, Like Daughter: As much as Kristina would have hated to admit it, she inherited her independent streak, free spirit, stubborn streak, impulsiveness and incomprehension of finance mostly from her mother.

Like Parent, Like Child: Kristina inherited her strong will and fearlessness mostly from her father, as well as her robust facial structure and features.

Like Parent, Unlike Child: Kristina rejected what she saw as her mother's vanity and hyper-feminity and extended this view to most women in general.

Limited Wardrobe: Kristina wore men's clothes for most of her adult life after the abdication.

Lineage Comes from the Father

Little Miss Badass: Kristina portrays her baby self and child self as this in her autobiography.

Living Emotional Crutch: Kristina was unwillingly this during childhood to her mother in the months and years immediately after her father's death.

Living Legend: Much like her father, but for different reasons.

Lonely Among People

Lonely at the Top

Lonely Rich Kid: Kristina as a child whenever her mostly similar-aged cousins and the children and grandchildren of her courtiers weren't around.

Loophole Abuse: Kristina made her older cousin Karl Gustav her heir to the throne and even adopted him as her son after refusing to marry him, let alone anyone else.

The Lost Lenore: Ebba Sparre became this to Kristina.

Lovable Nerd

Love at First Sight: Kristina and Cardinal Azzolino.

Love Hurts: Evident in Kristina's three famous post-abdication letters to Ebba Sparre, and also in some of her letters to Azzolino.

Loving Parent, Cruel Parent: Gustav Adolf and Maria Eleonora respectively have been portrayed as these toward Kristina.

Made of Iron: Kristina liked to believe this about her physical strength and stamina and ability to shrug off or pull through illnesses and injuries, although in reality she was often physically weak and sickly, especially during her childhood and young adulthood (she probably had type 2 diabetes and congenital adrenal hyperplasia with salt-wasting and was therefore extremely lucky to survive to 62 years of age, let alone to adulthood or even past infancy at all, with either of these conditions if she really did have them).

Make an Example of Them: Kristina's execution of the father and son Messenius at the end of 1651 (the son had written a seditious pamphlet against her and her government, and the father initially denied knowledge of it and tried to cover up for the boy but cracked under pressure and threat of torture to confess), and six years later her execution of Monaldeschi.

The Makeover: Kristina had her hair cut short or head shaved and started wearing men's clothes very soon after the abdication.

Man Hug: Probably gave these to her male courtiers and friends in informal moments, as she does with Johan Oxenstierna in one scene from the 2015 biopic film "The Girl King".

Married to the Job

Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: I think I read somewhere once that Cardinal Azzolino had something of a feminine physique (unless I am mistaken), but I'll have to look for where I found that. Kristina did possibly have something of a masculine physique at least outwardly, as an examination of her remains in 1965 found that there was no sign of it in her skeletal structure.

Master Actor

Master of Disguise: While travelling through Denmark in 1654, Kristina was disguised in men's clothes and went by the pseudonym Count Dohna, after one of her friends.

Master of the Mixed Message

Maternally Challenged: Kristina likely saw herself as this (likely also one of the reasons she knew she didn't want to have children), and when she was a child her regents saw Maria Eleonora as this when it came to her raising her.

Meaningful Rename: Upon her official reception into the Catholic Church, Kristina replaced her birth middle name, Augusta, with Alexandra, in honour of the newly elected Pope Alexander VII as well as her personal hero Alexander the Great, King of Macedon.

Messy Hair

Miniature Senior Citizens: In the last years of her life.

Missing Mom: Maria Eleonora was this to Kristina from the time of her sneak escape to Denmark in 1640 until her eventual return to Sweden in 1648.

Modest Royalty

Mommy Issues

Mood-Swinger

Morality Chain: Mainly Azzolino acted as this to Kristina.

The Mourning After: Kristina as a young child was forced by her mother to take part in this for almost two years after her father was killed.

Mouthy Kid

Mr. Vice Guy

My Beloved Smother: Kristina saw Maria Eleonora as this.

The Napoleon: Kristina was short (a little less than five feet tall in adulthood), had a hot temper, could sometimes be overconfident and hubristic, and seems to have had something of an inferiority complex.

Nature Versus Nurture

Near-Death Experience: Kristina's weak health caused her to have several of these during childhood and young adulthood.

Nephewism: Kristina's aunt and uncle, Princess Katarina and Count Palatine Johan Kasimir of Zweibrücken, raised her for much of her childhood and were like an extra set of parents to her.

Nerves of Steel

Never My Fault

Nice Girl: At least when she felt like it.

Nigh-Invulnerable: Or rather, Kristina preferred to see herself as such.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She more or less outright says this in some of her maxims and aphorisms.

NO INDOOR VOICE: Sometimes.

No One Could Survive That!: The general state of her health throughout her life (but especially during her childhood and young adulthood) in a nutshell and at its worst.

No Sense of Personal Space

No Social Skills

Non-Idle Rich

Not Afraid to Die

Not Good with Rejection: When it came to Azzolino becoming more "cold" towards Kristina in the mid-late 1660s after he'd gotten her used to their strong and mutual affection, attachment and likely romance for the past decade, she was hurt and confused and constantly assured him in her letters of her undying love and devotion to him and longing to see him again. He ended up being warm with her again later on, and permanently this time; his temporary coldness was likely due to him trying to be more mindful about his status as a cardinal and the ultimately fruitless idea that he might be elected as pope someday.

Not Like Other Girls

Not So Above It All: Cardinal Azzolino was Kristina's first and only experience loving a man romantically, something she thought was impossible until the day they met.

Not So Stoic

Not Wanting Kids is Weird: Kristina's contemporaries saw her refusal to bear children and thus give Sweden an heir as this.

Official Couple: Kristina is known to have introduced Ebba Sparre to the English ambassador Bulstrode Whitelocke as "my bedfellow"; and years later in Rome she and Cardinal Azzolino were widely suspected and then indubitably known to be in a relationship.

Old Maid: And very gladly.

Older Than They Look

Omniglot

Once Done, Never Forgotten

One of the Boys: Need I say more?

Open-Minded Parent: Although he only got to spend her first three years with her before he left Sweden and later died in battle, Gustav Adolf was this to Kristina.

Opposites Attract: The masculine, boisterous Kristina and the feminine, demure Ebba.

Outdoorsy Gal

The Outside World: After the abdication, Kristina immediately set out exploring as much of northwestern Europe as possible before ultimately going south and settling down in Rome, with Italy having been a longed-for and ultimate destination almost the whole time.

Queen Incognito: Doubles as King Incognito.

Quirky Curls

Quit Your Whining: Sometimes had this response to her underlings.

Parental Abandonment: Gustav Adolf was away fighting in the Thirty Years' War (in which he was eventually killed) for most of Kristina's first six years; and then in July 1640, when Kristina was still thirteen, Maria Eleonora escaped from Sweden and went to Denmark. Upon hearing the news of it, Kristina was so overwhelmed that she cried and cried and cried for her mother, became desperately anxious and stimmed by "wringing her hands", locked herself in her rooms, refusing to eat for days; and when her guardians tried to get in and comfort her, she refused to be comforted and even screamed at them that they were the reason why her mother had hated living in Sweden and why she had consequently abandoned her.

Parental Neglect: Maria Eleonora is alleged to have inflicted this on the child Kristina both physically and emotionally.

Parental Substitute: Kristina's paternal aunt and uncle were these to her, as were her tutor Johannes Matthiæ and the Grand Chancellor Axel Oxenstierna respectively.

Parents as People: Kristina depicts her parents this way in her autobiography.

Parting-Words Regret: After the two queens got into an argument over Calvinism and Gustav Adolf that ended badly, and after recovering from her irritated and scathingly blunt outburst, Kristina returned a day later to apologise to her mother for offending her and making her cry, with Karl Gustav in tow, and assuring her with him there that she was losing a daughter but gaining a son. This was just days before Kristina's abdication and departure from Sweden, which was ultimately the last loss Maria Eleonora could bear, and she ended up passing away ten months later, likely feeling that she was ready to go and that now she had no one and nothing left to lose. When she learned of her mother's death, Kristina retreated to the countryside outside Brussels for three weeks for the mourning period, during which time she fell into depression and, at least according to a letter from Queen Elisabeth Stuart of Bohemia, would launch into cursing fits.

Passed in Their Sleep: Technically Kristina died during what may have been a diabetic coma.

Passing the Torch: On June 6/16 (Old Style), 1654, Kristina abdicated the throne in favour of her cousin Karl Gustav. She had already made him her successor and heir in 1649, with him being declared hereditary prince and gaining the title of "His Royal Highness" on the same day as Kristina's coronation in 1650 (October 20/30).

Passionate Sports Girl

Pay Evil unto Evil: During her 1657 stay in France, Kristina infamously sentenced Monaldeschi to death for betraying her then-secret plot to invade Naples with the help of the French and make herself queen there. In the last days of 1651 she had also had Johan Arnold Messenius and his son Arnold both executed after the latter wrote a seditious pamphlet personally attacking her and her government and his father tried to cover for him.

Persona Non Grata: Kristina in Sweden during the 1660s at least (mainly by King Karl XI's regency), and in France in 1657-58 after the execution of Monaldeschi.

The Philosopher

Picky Eater: Kristina did not like pork or alcoholic drinks of any kind except for small beer.

The Pig-Pen: Kristina notoriously left her hair and even wigs uncombed for a week and sometimes for up to two weeks on a regular basis, got ink on her sleeves while writing, and would come back from hours outdoors with tanned or dirty skin and dirty, grimy hands.

Pimped-Out Cape: The robe Kristina commissioned for her coronation in 1650 was made in Paris and made of purple velvet with gold and pearl embroidered trim and decorated with 7,645 embroidered gold crowns in groups of three all over the robe. It still exists in the collections of the Royal Armoury (Livrustkammaren) in Stockholm. Sadly, the crowns and pearls have long since been peeled and torn off, with only the imprints remaining, and the original ermine fur hem and collar are also long gone.

Pint-Sized Powerhouse: As a child and as an adult (her adult height was a little less than five feet tall).

Plot-Triggering Death: Kristina became queen/king of Sweden when her father was killed during the Battle of Lützen on November 6 (Old Style), 1632, although the news did not reach her until a month later — ironically on her sixth birthday.

Plucky Girl

Politically-Active Princess: Even long after the abdication.

Pretty Boy: Madame de Montpensier likened Kristina to one when recalling in her memoirs their first time meeting in person.

Pretty in Mink

Pride

Pride Before a Fall: Multiple times.

Proverbial Wisdom

Psycho L*sbian: The defamatory pamphlets and rumours LOVED to portray Kristina as this.

Psychopathic Womanchild: Some of the pamphlets, rumours and some of her biographers during and after her lifetime portray her as this to varying degrees.

Purple Is Powerful: Kristina's coronation robe was/is purple.

Rage Breaking Point

Rambunctious Italian: Although she was Italian by choice and Italy was her adopted homeland for most of her adult life, Kristina definitely had this personality most of the time, in contrast to the quiet, introverted nature of most Swedes.

Raised by the Community: Or rather, by her court officials/regents and her extended family.

Raised by Dudes: For the most part.

Rank Up: Kristina suddenly went from being princess to queen regnant (and legally/functionally also king) of Sweden just one month before her sixth birthday.

Rated M for Manly

Really Gets Around: Was rumoured to do this with both men and women.

"The Reason You Suck" Speech: Kristina often gave these, either verbally or in writing, to people who found themselves on the receiving end of her anger, frustration or disgrace, regardless of whether it was justified or not.

Reasonable Authority Figure

Rebellious Princess

Rebellious Spirit

Reformed, but Not Tamed: In her later years.

Refuge in Audacity

Religious Bruiser

Reluctant Ruler: At least during the last four or so years of her reign.

Renaissance Man: Kristina was interested in all the hot topics of her day: philosophy, religion, history, politics, the arts, the emerging scientific understanding that was slowly but surely displacing ancient superstitions...

Requisite Royal Regalia

Rich Bitch

Rich Boredom

Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense

Riches to Rags: To a limited extent.

Royal Blood

Royal Brat

Royal "We"

Royally Bad Parent: Maria Eleonora was alleged to be this to Kristina.

Royals Who Actually Do Something

Ruler Protagonist

The Runaway

Sacrifical Lion: Her father Gustav Adolf, commonly nicknamed "the Lion of the North", was this to the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' War when he was killed at the Battle of Lützen on November 6/16 (Old Style), 1632. Sixteen years later, Kristina ultimately avenged him and the millions of other victims by helping to end said war as an active and zealous participant in the negotiations which brought about the Peace of Westphalia in 1648.

Screw Destiny: Kristina to the destiny her people thought she would have as a wife and mother.

Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior!: In her older years, sometimes.

Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!

Screw the Rules, I Make Them!

Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Kristina left Sweden just days after abdicating.

Second Love: Cardinal Azzolino was this to Kristina, following Ebba Sparre.

Self-Deprecation

Shared Family Quirks: Kristina inherited her sometimes overly daring and fearless personality from her father King Gustav II Adolf, and she inherited her anxious tendencies and almost lifelong trouble with understanding and managing finances from her mother Maria Eleonora (mother and daughter were probably both autistic, with Maria also plausibly having bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder).

She Cleans Up Nicely: Madame de Motteville made this observation when, one day during her first visit to the French court, Kristina came out to the others calmer, more subdued, less chatty, better-groomed and with her clothes better-adjusted after a day and night of her going around with grimy hands, a frizzy wig and excited, non-stop chatter and hyperactivity.

She Is the King

Shipper on Deck: In 1651 Kristina functioned as this toward Jakob Kasimir de la Gardie and Ebba Sparre, even going so far as to force a distressed Ebba to break off her engagement to Bengt Oxenstierna. Kristina tried to justify this by saying that Ebba and Bengt were cousins too closely related and that she therefore forbade their union, but it is also known that she greatly preferred the De la Gardie family over the Oxenstierna family, and she wanted to keep Ebba close to her by having her marry into that family.

Show Some Leg: The ways Kristina sat and fidgeted around in her chair while watching ballets and plays during her first visit to France (1656) resulted in this, to the shocked amazement and fascination of Anne the Queen Mother and the noblewomen present.

Shrine to the Fallen: Kristina as a young child was forced to live in one for nearly two years with and by her mother after her father was killed in battle.

The Shut-In: Was forced to be this for a few years as a young child during the most serious period of her mother's grief at the death of Kristina's father.

Significant Wardrobe Shift: See "The Makeover".

Silent Snarker

Simple, yet Opulent: Kristina wore simple clothes most of the time, sometimes men's clothes, sometimes women's clothes or even a mishmash of both, with usually only a ring, bracelet or the like to hint at her royal status.

Single-Target Sexuality: During the Swedish period for Countess Ebba Sparre (probably) and during the Roman period for Cardinal Decio Azzolino (in addition to possibly being bi, Kristina might also have been ace or demi, meaning she either experienced little to no sexual attraction or only experienced sexual attraction to someone she had a strong enough emotional attachment or bond with, in which case it's only known or at least believed or speculated that she experienced those feelings for those two people).

Sir Swears-a-Lot (or Lady Swears-a-Lot): Contrary to libellous claims that Bourdelot taught Kristina to swear, Kristina writes in her autobiography that she picked up the habit as a child growing up in early 17th century Swedish culture where everyone swore, but that she had quit it in later adulthood.

Sissy Villain: Some of her detractors, rumour-mongers and scandal-mongers have portrayed or perceived her this way to an extent, or rather as something of a masculine female or in-between equivalent.

Slave to PR

Smart People Shoot

The Social Expert: Kristina was lucky in that her royal status and position of power and authority made people see her as this even in the face of her unapologetically awkward social skills and tendency to completely miss or consciously ignore most social cues and norms.

Socially Awkward Hero

Someone to Remember Him By: Maria Eleonora saw Kristina as this for her dead father, especially since she bore a striking resemblance to him in her character, personality and physical appearance.

Sophisticated as Hell

Spell My Name with an S: The spelling of Kristina's name in English and in Swedish varies between the K spelling and the spelling "Christina". Modern Swedish predominantly uses the K spelling, although the Ch spelling was used in Kristina's time and in her own handwriting. In Italian and Spanish her name is rendered as "Cristina" and in French and German as "Christine" (in German the "Christina" spelling also occurs).

Spirited Young Lady

The Spock

Spoiled Sweet

The Starscream: The Swedes feared she would be this in the first eighteen years after the abdication.

Stealth Insult: Could deal these out from time to time.

Steel Ear Drums: Even as a toddler Kristina was not frightened or even startled or deafened by loud cannonfire going off right next to her (which is both surprising and not surprising in light of her possible autism).

Stepford Smiler: Of the "Depressed" type.

Stern Parent, Doting Parent: Maria Eleonora and Gustav Adolf respectively have been depicted as these to Kristina.

The Stoic: Most of the time, and amazingly even already as a very young child, sometimes naturally and sometimes as a result of masking or "dissimulation" both as an inherent part of being a royal and possibly also as an autistic person, in addition to being raised and schooled in the Stoic philosophy.

The Strategist

Strict Parents Make Sneaky Kids: So goes the infamous rosewater incident, when a child Kristina, desperately thirsty and dehydrated from consistently avoiding and refusing beer and wine, resorted to and made a daily routine of sneaking to drink her mother's cosmetic supply of rosewater because other water was forbidden to her since the risk of it making her sick or killing her was too great. When she was caught, Maria Eleonora allegedly slapped Kristina and yelled at her for "stealing" her water, while Kristina told her that she would have died of thirst if it weren't for that water.

Strong Family Resemblance: Kristina as a child was noted by a peasant man (Lars Larsson) and Maria Eleonora (her mother) to bear a striking resemblance to her father Gustav Adolf, especially with the prominent forehead and chin and the large, hooked nose.

Stout Strength

Suddenly Shouting: "Au Normand!"

Super Not-Drowning Skills

Sweet Polly Oliver: In order to travel through Denmark safely (there was still enmity between it and Sweden at the time) soon after her abdication, Kristina disguised herself as a man and passed herself off as her friend Count Christoph Delphicus zu Dohna (some accounts say she instead passed herself off as his cousin or his son).

Tagalong Kid: Was sometimes this to her father as a baby and toddler.

Take Care of the Kids: Inverted. During the abdication ceremony, Kristina had Karl Gustav, her cousin, promise to take care of her mother in her absence.

Take a Third Option: See "Loophole Abuse".

Taught to Hate: The regents claimed that Maria Eleonora was saying negative things about them and about the Swedes in general to the impressionable child Kristina — their future monarch, — and it was one of the reasons they cited for their recommending and authorising her removal from her mother.

Teen Genius

Tell Me About My Father: Kristina must have frequently made this request to the adults in her life while she was growing up.

That Woman is Dead: Kristina only ever performed being a Lutheran ever since she first questioned it as a young child, and in her later years she wrote that she had never been a Lutheran at all.

The Thing That Would Not Leave: The French royal family and nobility saw Kristina as this due in part to her behaviour, demeanour and antics when she revisited Paris for Carnaval 1658, just months after she had scandalised and horrified them by ordering the execution of Monaldeschi and said execution ended up being a long, botched, drawn-out torture (and exaggerating rumours and embellishments about the incident and her behaviour during it had further killed her reputation at the French court). In 1656 Mario Giandemaria had also come to see Kristina and her entourage as this when he hosted her during her residence at the Palazzo Farnese after she came to Rome for the very first time.

This is My Name on Foreign: Kristina's name in French is rendered as Christine, and in Italian and Spanish it is rendered as Cristina.

This is Unforgivable!: Kristina's general statements and demeanour towards an increasingly desperate and terrified Monaldeschi before she calmly gave the order for her men to execute him, to the horrified shock and despair of everyone present other than herself.

Thrill Seeker

To Be Lawful or Good

Together in Death: Kristina and Azzolino, after they died just weeks apart (her before him).

Took a Level in Cynic: Kristina in her later years, to an extent.

Tomboy

Tomboy and Girly Girl: Kristina was the tomboy to mother Maria Eleonora's and best friend/lover Ebba Sparre's Girly Girls.

Tomboy Princess

Tomboyish Voice

Tough Leader Façade

Toxic Family Influence: See "Taught to Hate".

Trademark Favorite Food: Chestnuts and cauliflower, if the 1697 biography is to be believed.

Tranquil Fury

Treachery Is a Special Kind of Evil: Kristina's attitude towards Monaldeschi and the "justification" she insistently used leading up to and during his execution at her orders.

Troll

Troubled Abuser

Troubled Child

Troubled Teen

Trying Not to Cry: Kristina during her farewell speech at her abdication ceremony.

Tsundere: Of the "Harsh/Spicy" type.

Turning Into Your Parent: When it came to the intensity of her love for and attachment to Azzolino and her agony at being separated from him, Kristina took after her mother and her feelings for her father, although not to the same extent.

The Unapologetic: For better and for worse.

Underhanded Hero

Unexpected Successor: Both Kristina herself to her father, and then her own successor, her older cousin Karl Gustav.

Universally Beloved Leader: Not as much at certain times in real life as in the "civilities" and panegyrics.

Unkempt Beauty

Unreliable Narrator: Kristina in her autobiography. Justified, since she was writing about events decades after they happened and about herself between the ages of newborn to about ten years of age, and she could have misremembered some things due to the passage of time, the fallibility of memory, especially when remembering things from childhood, and her brain not yet having been fully developed at the time said events happened. There's also the possibility that at least some of the stories and anecdotes about herself that she was too young to remember firsthand, but which the adults in her life told her about during her childhood and which she in turn repeated in the autobiography, were exaggerated to be more flattering to her in her mixed and individual capacities of child, person and monarch.

Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: It has to be said/admitted that Kristina could sometimes be the real-life version of this.

Unwillingly Girly Tomboy

Upper-Class Equestrian

Uptown Girl

The Usurper: Kristina tried and ultimately failed to be this to Naples when she began to miss the constant busyness and activity of ruling a realm, and the Swedes suspected and feared that she would be this at home in case the boy king Karl XI were to die in childhood (which he ultimately did not).

Verbal Tic: Kristina had a habit of writing or shouting "Par Dieu!" (French for "By God!") when amazed or outraged by something.

Villain Protagonist: Objectively so in some areas while in other areas it depends on one's opinion of her, both as a person and as a monarch — especially when it comes to Catholic vs. Protestant views of her, mainly in the older literature.

Wanted a Gender-Conforming Child: Maria Eleonora to Kristina, at least according to some biographies and some historical fiction.

Wanted a Son Instead: Maria Eleonora in many of Kristina's biographies and in some historical fiction, although realistically this feeling — if she really did have it — would have faded away and been outweighed by relief at having at least one living child.

Warrior Princess: Dreamed of being one, but never got the chance.

Warts and All

We All Die Someday

What's Up, King Dude?: To an extent.

What the Hell, Hero?: The universal reaction at the time to her ordering the ultimately botched, drawn-out and traumatic execution of Monaldeschi.

When Elders Attack: According to an early biography (1697), polemic at best, in mid-April 1689 Kristina is said to have jumped up and tried to strangle her bodyguard Merola for failing to catch and kill the abbot Vaini, the man who assaulted or attempted to assault her latest female favourite (and possible age-gap crush), Angelina or Angelica Giorgina/Voglia. But as soon as she had lashed out, and before anyone could intervene and restrain her, Kristina suddenly fainted in a relapse of the illness she had just recently recovered from, and this time it would kill her. She was just four months past her 62nd birthday.

When You Coming Home, Dad?: Kristina as a very young child in the two only known/surviving letters she ever wrote to her father.

Wholesome Crossdresser: After the abdication, and regularly.

Wild Hair

Wise Beyond Their Years: Kristina was said to be this as a child.

Womanchild: Some of her detractors during and after her lifetime have seen her as this.

The Wonka

You Are in Command Now: Kristina found out she was now queen of Sweden on her sixth birthday.

You Are What You Hate: See "Boomerang Bigot".

You Can't Fight Fate: Kristina saw her abdication and subsequent conversion to Catholicism in this light.

You Can't Go Home Again: Kristina more than happily embraced this after her abdication and departure from Sweden, and again, but this time more grudgingly, in 1669 after being temporarily banned from there.

You Need a Breath Mint: In one of the Council meeting protocols (summer 1635) it was mentioned that (according to her tutor Johannes Matthiæ) the 8½ year old Kristina had bad breath, likely linked at least partly to her illness and declining physical health at the time (possibly also as a result of neglect both by her mother and herself). One of the defamatory pamphlets (from 1655) also mentions that she stinks "honestly enough" to force people to have to shield themselves with their hands when talking with her, but it's ambiguous whether this refers to her breath or her body odour or both.

Young and In Charge: Kristina became queen regnant/king of Sweden when she was barely six years old and began ruling in fact as well as in name on her eighteenth birthday.

Youngest Child Wins: Kristina was the youngest and only surviving of four legitimate children born to Gustav Adolf and Maria Eleonora. Her only other sibling to survive to adulthood was Count Gustaf Gustafsson of Vasaborg, who was born illegitimate and was ten years older and whose mother was a woman named Margareta Slots.