Happy Birthday Phryne Fisher!

According to Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries, today (21 December) is Phryne Fisher's birthday. Last year, I wrote an entry about her similarities to the Norse goddess Freja who also seems to have been connected to the winter (or for the Australians, summer) solstice.

I have written so much about Phryne on this blog over the past 1½ years and I am sorry if you think I repeat myself, but I love her too much not to write another post about her.

A couple of days ago I celebrated my second Essiversary. 15 December 2015 was the date when I watched The Babadook for the first time. That film became deeply personal to me and Essie is so wonderful in it, that I straight away became a big fan of her.

I found Phryne sort of more as a secondary person to Essie, but I love her just as much. She is such a wild, beautiful, wonderful character that you cannot help loving her. There is a big reason why an entry about her was the first one I published on this blog.

For such a happy person as Phryne it fits very well that she was born on the, to Australians, brightest day of the year (Here in Sweden it's the darkest.). The series is set in 1928 and in a way, Phryne is a personification of the decade, not least of the popular image of the time period.

In Swedish we even call it Det glada 20-talet (the Happy 20's). Despite the image that this provokes, the 1920's was not totally happy, a fact that both the TV show and Kerry Greenwood's books deal with very well. There is an ever-present, sort of collective, PTSD sense to pretty much all the characters and the world that they inhabit. The First World War lingers despite having been over for ten years.

Phryne also has a very dark past and there certainly are dark sides to her, which I explored in my latest two blog entries about her (They can be found here and here if someone is interested.). However, she never lets them affect her very much. She is very much her happy self most of the time and I love her for it.

Another aspect that ties Phryne to the solstices is the fact that she works as a light in other people's lives. She takes in Dot and Jane and also makes Jack far more happy than he seems to have been in quite some time. She also sheds light in her crime investigations.

This summer, I created Phryne and her "family" out of Legos (They have their own Instagram account that can be found here.). Last week I made her Lucia when I let the Lego gang have a Lucia celebration. You can see her here to the left. Lucia is a light festival that is tied to the winter solstice in Sweden, therefore it fits for Phryne to be Lucia.

Happy Birthday Phryne! You are the female superhero we all need in our lives!