Melancholia

 In construction 

Melancholia (true name: Plaisir) is an evil fairy who was forced to served Moloch, and she is also Michael Langdon's apprentice and Neo-Hellfire's builder. In fact, she hated Moloch very much and decided to double-cross him under Michael's influnence. She deemed Michael as her only true friend and fell in love with him in her own twisted way, but Michael never loved her. She is an OC character made by Officer Candy Apple and served as a minor villain in LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow & Sword of Kings Crossover - The Corbin Files. She is also the main antagonist (although the Disc One Final Boss before FOLIE) of the upcoming LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow Spin-Off - Firenza Junior.

After Melancholia's defeat at the hands of Michael, her original Plaisir personality casted Melancholia out from her body using Dr. Jekyll's own serum, and Melancholia turned into a much, much more vicious entity with a heart of pure evil. Whilst Plaisir had saw through Michael's true nature and fought against him as well as Michael Langdon, the serum Melancholia became perversely zealous on Michael and eventually helped him to conquer Paradise. Unlike the original Melancholia, the serum Melancolia lacks of empathy, and therefore she is pure evil with no salvation as well as hope. Turning into a beings of malevolence fueled with hatred itself, the serum Melancholia attempted to take over Plaisir once again by reenact the events that drove her host into insanity, but later the Team Witness managed to cast her back into Hell, leaving her good counterpart living happily ever after.

Plaisir
Once, as a light fairy named Plaisir, Melancholia was light-hearted and lived inside Enchanted Forest with happiness. She always pursuited happiness and will be happy to see others be happy. However, after seeing her friends burned down her best friends and tormented her, corrupted her until she became his loyal killing machine, Melancholia became a twisted fairy who loves to see people cry and drinks their tears. Her darker personality reflected many monsters who served Moloch - heartless, cruel and egotistic.

In Old Timeline, she survived Years of Tribulation and became loyal to Triggers Hell when World War III started, and she built a evil organization named Neo-Hellfire to honor Moloch. During this time, she hid herself under the ocean, watching the war raging on while planning to unleash a great flood on Earth.

However, after the New Timeline Melancholia (pacted with Michael and became his apprentice) possessed her, the future Melancholia returned to be loyal with Moloch. She also fell in love with Michael and will do anything for him as long as he pleased.

After Michael's apparent death, the past Melancholia fell into disillusions and tried to restore her twisted romance by "bringing back" Michael, and she kept capturing humans and transformed them into a Michael after another, making their voice, physical appearance and even genes are as same as him. However, what she did not know is that Michael's soul fragment had observed everything secretly. Once she completed the 4000th Michael, Melancholia was impriosoned by Michael and her soul was devoured, and all of her clones and the entire Neo-Hellfire had been taken over by Michael's Legion, proving that Melancholia was nothing more than just a pawn to Michael, not a lover.

After all of the abuse she had suffered, Melancholia had finally seen through Michael's true nature and eventually turned to hate him. When James Colby had brought Moloch's Essence to Sword of Kings universe via his painting, Melancholia arrived at the future and merged with her revived future self again. This time, she joined forces of heroes to wipe Michael's Legion, Moloch's Army and possessed zombies as much as she could, eventually betraying Michael, Moloch and Leohart, thus redeeming herself.

After Moloch had defeated and all of the Team Witness had returned back to 2020 as the Years of Tribulation was over, Plaisir chose to stay with Katarina Couteau in order to fight against Triggers Hell, Moloch's remnants, Michael's Legion, Fallen Church remnants and eventually the Fallen (Isaac Westcott) himself.

After the Fallen's final death, Melancholia/Plaisir lived for 5 billions years since fairies are immortal. However, after the Darkness itself reemerged at Multi-Universe, Michael Langdon (escaped from Triggers Hell and hid himself to expand his legion secretly) had sprung to life once more. Michael's secret return also brought back his reign of the Fallen Roman Catholic Church as a new Dark Empire. After knowing Michael's resurrection, Plaisir set out to wipe out the demonic forces that haunted her for 5 billions of years.

Serum Melancholia
''Melancholia, or at least the SERUM Melancholia, departed from her original counterpart and took away no empathy, no insecurity, no bound on her evil deeds. Born when her good counterpart suffered from a tragedy, the serum Melancholia was a zealot who was obsessed with Michael Langdon's power and might. Even when she resided in her host's body, the serum Melancholia indirectly manipulated her good counterpart, Plaisir, to becoming a enforcer of Michael Langdon, but due to Plaisir's own good personality still existed inside her body, the evil Melancholia could not take her over completely. However, Plaisir (while under her Melancholia persona) had committed numerous crimes that her original good self shall feel disgusted, including creating a savage sea monster with dead bodies of people she and Michael killed, forming Neo-Hellfire to continue Moloch's legacy, killing a minion who simply did not wake her up in time, and torturing Carl Robinson out of sheer spite. While the good Plaisir (or the good Melancholia) fell in love with Michael simply for some gratefulness, the evil Melancholia manipulated the gratitude in order to drive her original heroic counterpart insane so that the two will become one and the same. She and Michael shall make a plan to overthrow Moloch and corrupt the Roman Catholic Church. Moreover, when some part of the original Melancholia/Plaisir started to awaken, the evil side of Melancholia started to plunge her good counterpart sloiwly into nothingness, forming an internal conflict. The good Melancholia was strained and had to commit those horrid acts or she shall saw her torturous past once again. The pure good side of Plaisir noticed Michael's plan and urged her body to kill him for redemption, but as the evil side took charge, this could not come true. The internal conflict ended after the evil Melancholia was casted out from the body of the good Melancholia, thanks to Dr. Jekyll's serum. However, instead of fading away, the evil Melancholia (now known as the Serum Melancholia) turned worse and became a heartless embodiment full of boredom and void of redemption. Feeling empty after losing her body, the serum Melancholia desperated trying to send her heroic counterpart back into insanity so that they could fuse together. After killing Dr. Jekyll and, indirectly, killing Mr. Hyde, the serum Melancholia realized that the original counterpart's death will kill their evil counterpart casted out by the serum as well. Therefore, the serum Melancholia started to hurt herself to make Plaisir feeling pain, and she forced Plaisir to choose between turning back to madness again, and die alongside her evil counterpart. After her crimes being foiled, the serum Melancholia tried to plunge Plaisir back to insanity by torturing Plaisir's new friends in front of her, trying to recreate the similar event which drove Plaisir into Melancholia. The serum Melancholia was filled with nothing but evil and madness. She stood out as the most hateful version of Melancholia, ever. She was such a zealous and insane embodiment of evil that her spirit shall be damned in Hell for eternity.''

LOTM: Crossover - The Corbin Files
Melancholia first appeared in her underwater facility beneath Atlantic Ocean, and she was observing the artificial monster known as FOLIE, made from the flesh and bones of the victims that Michael killed.

At this time, the 2036 Melancholia was already taken over by her past self which fell in love with Michael. She also ruthlessly killed one of her minions merely because he did not wake her up on time, and soon she heard a report from a messenger from Moloch. She was pleased to know about Michael's success, and she was very interested on Carl Robinson, whom she referred as Firenza Junior.

Feigning her loyalty with Moloch while concealing her disgust to the demon, Melancholia assured that she remained her loyalty to Moloch before sending the demon away. Then, she turned to her premature creation before she gloated at how much destruction it would make, and she planned to drown the whole world within the tide.

After he became the Pope, Michael went to Neo-Hellfire facility and Melancholia showed him their creation. Michael was very pleased with that, and vowed to Melancholia that they shall bring a new order out of chaos. Melancholia then officially became a Mother Superior. Secretly, however, Michael planted a part of his soul inside Melancholia in order to make her deluded with a "Michael Langdon" persona and feeling as if Michael was always there beside her.

Firenza Junior spin-off
Melancholia is the main antagonist in Firenza Junior spin-off.

After becoming Mother Superior, Melancholia posed herself as a dark judge and participated the medival torture used by Neo Inquisition on their rivals and prisoners. She spared many people who claimed Michael was brainwashed by Aleister Crowley on their own free will, while those who claimed Michael was a fiendish tyrant shall face her torture and execution.

Melancholia did this in order to preserve Michael's False Hero reputation and push everything (including Vatican's fallen) on Aleister Crowley, so that Michael will escape punishment if KnightWalker Family was lost, letting Crowley to take the blame. Ironically, Crowley was completely unawared for Michael and Melancholia's plan to let him take the blame.

After Carissa escorted a captured Carl Robinson to Neo Inquisition, a masked Melancholia started to question Carl and revealed the murder of the corrupt Duke Firenza - Carl's true father, while mocking Carl being a foolish royalty who did not know his parentage at all.

Melancholia then left the room, leaving her minions to torture Carl until Erica Butcher - Matt's sister and Carl's love one who worked for Global Pact Defense - broke in and saved him. Melancholia chased them and attacked them, but she failed. Looking at the two people running away, Melancholia then started to feel her head hurt when recalling her friends being killed by Moloch. Even so, her villany overwhelmed her coincience once again, and then she started to make a brainwahsed Biagio Busoni into her puppet by giving him the Hessian mark, turning him into a dark cultist working for Neo-Hellfire. During this time, Melancholia talks to Michael's shadow within her deluded mind, and "Michael" promised her to bring Eckidina KnightWalker's downfall with Moloch's power before they both overthrow Moloch and rule the Earth together. Believing it was the Pope's own wish, Melancholia smiled. However, for others, they only thought that the Mother Superior was telling to herself.

Meanwhile, Aleister Crowley had given her the Pope's order via phone, telling her to attack the Eastern Orthodox Church members who planned to overthrown the New USSR, before going to Aldgeyr Kingdom and help them to capture La Folia - which was a prologue of Michael's plan to weaken the Orthodox Church and to pact with Kanon Rihavein & King Hamdo. What is more, Patriach Krans was one of the wise people who believed that Michael was behind all of the chaos in Europe 1 week ago.

Seizing a chance to make a difference, Melancholia was glad to accept the mission, but when she arrived at her destination, Ukraine, her "Michael Langdon" persona started to take over her, making her deluded. She believed that herself was Michael and started to dress up as his "Unknown Grand Grimoire Figure" persona in order to attack the Orthodox clergies.

However, the Patraich had defeated her and unknowningly erased her "Michael" persona for a while. Upon realizing she was dressed up like Michael and played his role all along, Melancholia screamed and fled. After that, she felt too ashame to face the real Michael and began waiting in Syberia for her chance to kill the young Patraich, but then she was delighted since she spotted that Carl and Erica was in Russia as well, with Carl went missing and Erica was under the Patraich's protection.

Soon, Melancholia seized a chance when caught the Patriach talking with Erica in the winter snow. She stabbed the Patriach from the back and started to attack Erica, but the latter was saved by Orthodox Church members. Even so, Melancholia escaped, and her plan of stopping Eastern Church had succeeded. However, Melancholia's waiting in the New USSR had wasted the running time, since after she successfully got close and assassinated Patraich Krans, La Folia was executed by Kanon.

More coming soon!

Lost Family Arc
"Those who shattered my dream to be together with my beloved one shall soak in the pugnent rain of my revenge..."

- The original Melancholia, vowing vengence upon anyone whom she deemed as enemies In Lost Family Sub Arc, Melancholia became the hidden but true main antagonist, being the one who is responsible for luring Ichabod into the haunted Fredericks Manor. She was also one (alongside Henry Parrish / Jeremy Crane) who made the golem to be released from Purgatory, which caused troubles everywhere.

Almost immediately after the demise of the Future Melancholia, the original 2013 Melancholia who possessed her future counterpart was awakened from her hyper sleep, and she became mentally insane due to her "demise". She claimed that she felt nothing but hatred, pain and sorrow during her first "death". Therefore, knowing that her mind had in fact returned to the past, Melancholia vowed to hunt down the toddler Carl for vengence. However, once she realized that Carl was also in the past, Melancholia informed Moloch about this and then, she started an attack on Carl as well as Ichabod Crane.

Due to her defeat as well as the effects of Carl's blood still existed in her mental system, Melancholia began to become mentally unstable and paranoid. She began to have illusions that Carl seperated her from her beloved Michael Langdon, and she angrily vowed vengence, not just upon Carl, but also Ichabod Crane, Abbie Mills, Sister Mary Eunice and anyone who was enemies of Michael himself.

In Fredericks Manor, Melancholia committed a murder after kidnapping a teenager highly resembled Michael, by slashing his throat and wrote the name of Carl and Ichabod on two voodoo dolls. She cursed Ichabod and vowed to cut off Ihis head using the deathly Sword of Sorrow, which had finally came into use. Then, Melancholia told the Tree Monster (who had not attack her since she was Moloch's minion) to kill anyone who invade the house.

Later, when Lena Gilbert, a decendant of Lachlan Fredericks, had arrived at Fredericks Manor (along with her own bodyguard Sam) to return to her ancestor's estate, Melancholia sliced Sam's throat and killed him almost instantly. Then, after Ms. Gilbert arrived in the house, Melancholia ordered the Tree Monster to tie Lena Gilbert with its vines, trapping her in the door and trying to kill her slowly and painfully. Then, Melancholia left without being injured.

After the missing case was out, Ichabod and Abbie arrived at Fredericks Manor to save Ms. Gilbert, but they were all trapped inside Fredericks Manor. Abbie tried to find a way out before she managed to contact with the spirit of Grace Dixon, who had lead her to the very room where Katrina gave birth to her son.

In the room Abbie then saw everything happened in the past, realizing that the reason that how this house of sanctuary had turned into a pit of hell. Soon afterwards, she had found the secret passage and informed Ichabod everything about it. In a fit of rage, Ichabod killed the Tree Monster by destroying its roots underground.

After that, Ichabod left with Abbie and Gilbert, not knowing that Melancholia was watching the scene on the roof. A sadistic smile appeared on Melancholia's face, suggesting that it was far from over. In fact, it was only the beginning of her and her Master's plan. Later, Sister Mary Eunice informed Ichabod about Melancholia's presence, warning him about this wicked fairy's insanity.

Appearance
In both timelines, Melancholia has green eyes, pale skin and a tall hourglass figure, yet her eyes will turn yellow when she went berserk. However, the future Melancholia has longer hair than her past self.

Usually, Melancholia wore suit, but when she was angry or excited, she immediately went berserk and will summon an origami armor that merged with her, turning her suit into a real black metal armor - and she called it her "Paranoia" form. In this form, Melancholia harnessed inhuman speed, strength and better fighting skills while her intellegence remained intact, making her extremely dangerous.

Original Melancholia
Because of her care, gratitude and romatic love for Michael, the original Melancholia who still had some sides of Plaisir, is not a Complete Monster, but still she has ruthless and psychopathic traits. Like Moloch, Melancholia has no tolerants to fools or failure. She even stabbed a minion of hers to death simply because he did not waked her up. At first, she hated humanity and considered humans as threats because long as she lived, she had witnessed corruptions, dictactorship and war. Her views of humanity was the same of Michael's view.



Melancholia also suffered from a split personality and she sometimes talking to a shadowy Michael inside her deluded mind, and she even dressed up as Michael while attacking Patraich Krans, Acqua of the Back and Orthodox Church clergies in Siberia. When her hood were hit down by the Patraich, Melancholia looked at herself within the mirror. Realized that she was playing Michael's role in her deluded mind, Melancholia screamed in terror before she escaped, showing her love for Michael had drove her mad. However, she was still deluded that she could not figured out that her "Michael" persona was planted by the original Michael inside her body in order to drive her insane.

Despite being manacing, Melancholia is not a completely serious person, since she had a dark sense of humor and loved to use sarcasm, making her sense of humor seemed twisted, but she could be a comic relief as well in certain circumstances.

Also, her romantic love for Michael - though she geniuely loved Michael, not seeing him as a possession - had became twisted when Michael made her a lure to make Carl Robinson came close to the cocoon of FOLIE, thus killing her future counterpart, hatching FOLIE prematurely and driving the past Melancholia as insane as Michael himself. Unknowing for Michael's demonic plan to outlive Melancholia so that he could release FOLIE earlier, Melancholia blamed Carl for her failure to raise FOLIE on Earth, since the love she had on Michael had blinded her.

After Michael's apparent death, the past Melancholia has become so twisted that she keep capturing humans and transformed them into a Michael after another, making their voice, physical appearance and even genes are as same as him. However, she became genuiuely heroic once she had realized that Michael never loved her, making her fell into a disillusion until Betsy Ross, Katrina Crane and Nick Hawley came to cheer her up, bringing back her original cheerful personality and casting the more melavolent serum Melancholia out.

After becoming a hero and joined the final stand, Plaisir embraced the true happiness she had always wished from Ichabod and his friends - a kind of true happiness that she never received from Michael or the outcome of letting people cry. It was a hard and unbelievable road to redemption since many people once considered Plaisir as an irredeemable monster.

Serum Melancholia
On the other hand, the serum Melancholia, who was splitting from the original Melancholia/Plaisir's body, was utterly different from any other versions of Melancholia.

With no empathy provided her Plaisir persona, the serum Melancholia was lack of empathy and emotions. After being casted out, she felt empty and boring without a body, and she soon went into some sort of state of madness, desperate trying to fill her wandering soul which contained nothing but pure hatred, evil and boredom. Therefore, after witnessing Dr. Jekyll's death along with Mr. Hyde, the serum Melancholia found out that the evil counterpart seperated from its host could only be destroyed when its good counterpart is dead.

Using this, the serum torturing her good counterpart by hurting herself, making the pain she suffered transferred on the body of Plaisir, so that Plaisir shall choose between a slow and painful death along with her evil counterpart, or embrace the darkness and despair by fusing with the serum Melancholia once again and turning into a unique Melancholia. During this time, Melancholia revealed to her heroic counterpart that this kind of torture is "funny to watch".

However, with the help of Mr. Gold, who managed to break the coonection between her and the serum Melancholia forever, Plaisir defied the serum Melancholia with her own will, not willing to turn back into evil once again. Then, Melancholia went berserk before she tried to kill Plaisir's friends in Team Witness, making an reminiscent of those dreadful events which broke Plaisir's spirit. Fortunately, she was casted into Nine Hellsby the soul of Vanifer just in time, but not before she desperate trying to escape her fate and drag her heroic counterpart in Hell with her.

Equipment

 * Grand Grimoire (formerly)
 * Sword of Sorrow - The New Time Melancholia's equipment made by Michael Langdon as a gift to "remember [him]". The sword is always poisoned since Michael had boiled it in toxin, and can kill people within minutes even with the slightest cut. Melancholia knows this and she hardly use this sword unless in emergency, in order to avoid hurting people that was loyal and useful to her, but due to Moloch's inflence, she like to use it to cut some of her minions she deemed useless, especially when they failed her, so that she can let Michael see them crying in sadness.
 * Spear of Sin - The evil counterpart of the Spear of Virtue, which was made by the cultists form the Order of Terror centuries ago to destroy the Spear of Virtue.

Etymology
The name "melancholia" comes from the old medical belief of the four humours: disease or ailment being caused by an imbalance in one or other of the four basic bodily liquids, or humours. Personality types were similarly determined by the dominant humor in a particular person. According to Hippocrates and subsequent tradition, melancholia was caused by an excess of black bile, hence the name, which means "black bile", from Ancient Greek μέλας (melas), "dark, black", and χολή (kholé), "bile"; a person whose constitution tended to have a preponderance of black bile had a melancholic disposition. In the complex elaboration of humorist theory, it was associated with the earth from the Four Elements, the season of autumn, the spleen as the originating organ and cold and dry as related qualities. In astrology it showed the influence of Saturn, hence the related adjective saturnine.

Melancholia was described as a distinct disease with particular mental and physical symptoms in the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Hippocrates, in his Aphorisms, characterized all "fears and despondencies, if they last a long time" as being symptomatic of melancholia. When a patient could not be cured of the disease it was thought that the melancholia was a result of demonic possession.

In his study of French and Burgundian courtly culture, Johan Huizinga noted that "at the close of the Middle Ages, a sombre melancholy weighs on people's souls." In chronicles, poems, sermons, even in legal documents, an immense sadness, a note of despair and a fashionable sense of suffering and deliquescence at the approaching end of times, suffuses court poets and chroniclers alike: Huizinga quotes instances in the ballads of Eustache Deschamps, "monotonous and gloomy variations of the same dismal theme", and in Georges Chastellain's prologue to his Burgundian chronicle, and in the late fifteenth-century poetry of Jean Meschinot. Ideas of reflection and the workings of imagination are blended in the term merencolie, embodying for contemporaries "a tendency", observes Huizinga, "to identify all serious occupation of the mind with sadness".

Painters were considered by Vasari and other writers to be especially prone to melancholy by the nature of their work, sometimes with good effects for their art in increased sensitivity and use of fantasy. Among those of his contemporaries so characterised by Vasari were Pontormo and Parmigianino, but he does not use the term of Michelangelo, who used it, perhaps not very seriously, of himself. A famous allegorical engraving by Albrecht Dürer is entitled Melencolia I. This engraving has been interpreted as portraying melancholia as the state of waiting for inspiration to strike, and not necessarily as a depressive affliction. Amongst other allegorical symbols, the picture includes a magic square and a truncated rhombohedron. The image in turn inspired a passage in The City of Dreadful Night by James Thomson (B.V.), and, a few years later, a sonnet by Edward Dowden.

Creations

 * Neo-Hellfire Cyborgs
 * Neo-Hellfire Artificial Demons
 * Lobster Men
 * Deep Fiends
 * Michael Langdon's clones
 * Mutated Biagio Busoni
 * Mutated Matt Butcher
 * FOLIE

Melody
''There was a friendly, but naive king  Who wed a very nasty Queen '' The King was loved, but the Queen was feared Till one day strolling in his court An arrow pierced the kind King's heart He lost his life but his lady laughed

Affiliation

 * Triggrs Hell
 * Moloch
 * Neo-Hellfire
 * Michael Langdon
 * Fallen Roman Catholic Church
 * Balam Alliance (indirectly)
 * KnightWalker Family (indirectly)

Trivia

 * Because of her trauma, Melancholia has a slight pyrophobia, making her dislike bombing and prefering to flood the world with water.
 * Mary-1-by-Eworth.jpgcholia was partly based on the infamous Queen Mary I of England (right; known to historians as "Bloody Mary") since she reflected the latter's ruthless, wrath and obsessive personality.
 * Melancholia is a good opera singer, and she sings her song while engaged a fight, mostly an operatic style.
 * She is obseessed with origami arts and could make origami models into real things.
 * Despite being ruthless and chaotic, Melancholia hated Eckidina KnightWalker, Junko Enoshima, Terra of the Left and Hiragi Kureto very much.
 * She believed a theory that art of paper folding was originated in Ancient China before arriving at Japan during Tang Dynasty and spawn the birth of Japanese origami.
 * Even though NOT being a Complete Monster, no doubt that Melancholia is one of the darkest villainesses ever within the entire LOTM: Witnesses of Sleepy Hollow storyline.
 * Melancholia could be compared to Harley Quinn who desired her master's love but eventually got severly abused/backstabbed.

Queen Mary I of England


Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558) was the Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 until her death. Her executions of Protestants led to the posthumous sobriquet "Bloody Mary". She was the only child of Henry VIII by his first wife Catherine of Aragon to survive to adulthood. Her younger half-brother Edward VI (son of Henry and Jane Seymour) succeeded their father in 1547.

When Edward became mortally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary from the line of succession because of religious differences. On his death their first cousin once removed, Lady Jane Grey, was proclaimed queen. Mary assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane, who was ultimately beheaded. Mary was—excluding the disputed reigns of Jane and the Empress Matilda—the first queen regnant of England. In 1554, Mary married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556.

Mary is remembered for her restoration of Roman Catholicism after her half-brother's short-lived Protestant reign. During her five-year reign, she had over 280 religious dissenters burned at the stake in the Marian persecutions. After her death in 1558, her re-establishment of Roman Catholicism was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor Elizabeth I, daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn.

Jiang Qing


Jiang Qing (Chinese: 江青; Wade–Giles: Chiang Ch'ing, March 19, 1914 – May 14, 1991) was a Chinese actress and a major political figure during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76). She was the fourth wife of Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Communist Party and Paramount leader of China. She used the stage name Lan Ping (蓝苹) during her acting career, and was known by many other names. She married Mao in Yan'an in November 1938 and served as the inaugural "First Lady" of the People's Republic of China. Jiang Qing was best known for playing a major role in the Cultural Revolution and for forming the radical political alliance known as the "Gang of Four".

Jiang Qing served as Mao's personal secretary in the 1940s and was head of the Film Section of the Communist Party's Propaganda Department in the 1950s. She served as an important emissary for Mao in the early stages of the Cultural Revolution. In 1966 she was appointed deputy director of the Central Cultural Revolution Group. She collaborated with Lin Biao to advance Mao's unique brand of Communist ideology as well as Mao's cult of personality. At the height of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang Qing held significant influence in the affairs of state, particularly in the realm of culture and the arts, and was idolized in propaganda posters as the "Great Flagbearer of the Proletarian Revolution". In 1969, Jiang gained a seat on the Politburo.

Before Mao's death, the Gang of Four controlled many of China's political institutions, including the media and propaganda. However, Jiang Qing, deriving most of her political legitimacy from Mao, often found herself at odds with other top leaders. Mao's death in 1976 dealt a significant blow to Jiang Qing's political fortunes. She was arrested in October 1976 by Hua Guofeng and his allies, and was subsequently condemned by party authorities. Since then, Jiang Qing has been officially branded as having been part of the "Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Counter-Revolutionary Clique" (林彪江青反革命集团), to which most of the blame for the damage and devastation caused by the Cultural Revolution was assigned. Though she was initially sentenced to death, her sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1983. After being released for medical treatment, Jiang Qing committed suicide in May 1991.

Catherine de' Medici


Catherine de' Medici (Italian: Caterina de' Medici pronounced [kateˈriːna de ˈmɛːditʃi]; French: Catherine de Médicis pronounced: [katʁin də medisis], 13 April 1519 – 5 January 1589), daughter of Lorenzo II de' Medici and of Madeleine de La Tour d'Auvergne, was an Italian noblewoman who was Queen of France from 1547 until 1559, as the wife of King Henry II. As the mother of three sons who became kings of France during her lifetime, she had extensive, if at times varying, influence in the political life of France. For a time, she ruled France as its regent.

In 1533, at the age of fourteen, Caterina married Henry, second son of King Francis I and Queen Claude of France. Under the gallicised version of her name, Catherine de Médicis, she was Queen consort of France as the wife of King Henry II of France from 1547 to 1559. Throughout his reign, Henry excluded Catherine from participating in state affairs and instead showered favours on his chief mistress, Diane de Poitiers, who wielded much influence over him. Henry's death thrust Catherine into the political arena as mother of the frail fifteen-year-old King Francis II. When he died in 1560, she became regent on behalf of her ten-year-old son King Charles IX and was granted sweeping powers. After Charles died in 1574, Catherine played a key role in the reign of her third son, Henry III. He dispensed with her advice only in the last months of her life.

Catherine's three sons reigned in an age of almost constant civil and religious war in France. The problems facing the monarchy were complex and daunting but Catherine was able to keep the monarchy and the state institutions functioning even at a minimum level. At first, Catherine compromised and made concessions to the rebelling Protestants, or Huguenots, as they became known. She failed, however, to grasp the theological issues that drove their movement. Later she resorted, in frustration and anger, to hard-line policies against them. In return, she came to be blamed for the excessive persecutions carried out under her sons' rule, in particular for the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre of 1572, in which thousands of Huguenots were killed in Paris and throughout France.