Julian Strande

Julian Strande: Tall af, lithe, blond, brown and blue eyes (heterochromia).

Julian Strande, the titular villain and romantic lead from the Impossible Julian Strande series by Kathryn Ann Kingsley (Illusions of Grandeur, Ghosts and Liars, The Astonishing Strande Brothers), was born around 1876 and died in approximately 1912. At various points during his life, Julian was a murder, pickpocket, circus performer, magician, occultist, artist, musician, and inventor. Julian built a 192 room (192 rooms that were readily findable) behemoth of a mansion in Spring Green, WI, which he finished in 1901, and where he housed countless obscure collections. According to Julian's early memories, as he confesses in Ghosts and Liars, his first murder was committed at the age of 9 when he stabbed his abusive father in the neck. Obsessed with real magic, harnessing real power, and immortality, Julian traded his life to ensure that his soul would last beyond the grave by using the house itself as part of a spell, binding his spirit into it. Contemporary magicians believed he actually sold his soul to the devil.

Julian's date of death is approximate because his death announcement was written by Julian and sent to the papers. His body was never found.

Julian likes animals and hates people, and claims to have killed more than one person for having kicked a dog.

Issues Julian struggles with:

History of abuse

His father was an abusive alcoholic who was verbally abusive when he wasn't physically abusive. Julian's father regularly beat him and his mother bloody and called him a monster because of his unusual eyes. It was after his mother had been beaten half to death that Julian, as a child, turned on his father. However, this led to his abandonment issues.

Abandonment

Julian felt betrayed by his mother who did not protect him from the authorities, but instead blamed him for his father's murder. Although it was true, he had acted in defense of them both, and he had not imagined that she would turn on him. He ended up on the streets when she was arrested for the crime.

Mental Manipulation

In the series Harrow Faire and The Astonishing Strande Brothers, it comes out that Julian's entire memory of his early life was wrong. He hadn't killed his father, after all, but rather, his older brother, Louis, who Julian did not remember, had. Julian and Louis had together wound up on the streets and become thieves and magicians together. However, when Louis joined the cast of Harrow Faire, the eldritch entity that was the Faire itself removed Louis from the timeline as though he had never existed. All of his life with Julian disappeared, his first murder became Julian's, and Julian couldn't recognize his brother, who looked nearly like his reflection. Julian had been a murderer in his own right before forgetting his brother, having killed anyone who inconvenienced the two of them in their plans to someday become successful stage performers, and to hopefully unlock the mystery of immortality.

Abusive Relationship with Alice

Julian is an emotionally abusive partner during their first year together, whether it is intentional or not. He gaslights Alice in the extreme. He physically harms people who try to get close to her. Although he does not try to cut her off from her family, he absolutely does control and reduce who she can interact with. He terrorizes her, sneaks into her bed while she's sleeping, and on at least one occasion takes some physical liberties without express permission, regardless of what she might have been saying in her sleep.

The original publication and the box set vary slightly in the description of they ways he physically abused her. In the original publication, during the climax of Illusions of Grandeur, Julian slaps Alice when she calls him a brat. In the box set, the slap was replaced with nearly slapping her. Arguably, whether or not he slapped her once in anger, the sum total of his other abusive acts, including throwing her headfirst into his corpse pit, is irrelevant to determining whether or not the relationship was healthy.

Was his gaslighting behavior reasonable?

When Alice first met Juilan, he had no reason to expect that there would ever be a reason for her to know who he was any differently than anyone else, and by the time they were deeply into a relationship, it is true that it would have been complicated to just come out with it. But making her believe the man she loved was in danger, possibly hurt, or dead, was unnecessary.

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