Jar-eel the Razoress can be difficult to get a handle on.
Rather than think of her as a heroine, it might be easier to think of her as the Moon Goddess incarnated in the world.
Intoxicating (dare I say maddening) beauty, music, and poetry are among her powers. So are blood, war, and carnage. Jar-eel is youthful and impetuous, constantly striving for more power than any mortal has been allotted.
Jar-eel is the driving force and personality of the Lunar Empire at this time and probably has been for the last decade. We talk a lot about Moonson this and Moonson that, but the Red Emperor dares not challenge his divine “daughter”. It is Jar-eel that suppresses the White Moon Rebellion, after all. It is Jar-eel that defeats Dranz Goloi in single combat. The emperor, satraps, and generals react to her and not the other way around.
It is important to remember that Jar-eel was literally born for this role. She is the daughter of the Red Emperor, great grandaughter of Hon-eel, and the culmination of a century of Eel-ariash clan schemes and magical investigations. She was born into the absolute pinnacle of power – and her entire life has been about gaining ever more raw power. Magic, unimaginable wealth, skill, education, beauty – Jar-eel was born into it all. And through ruthless determination has gained far more.
Jar-eel is not Frank Miller’s Superman – a superhero forced into the service of politicians and manipulators. Jar-eel IS the embodiment of the Lunar Empire (and not merely the Lunar Way) and its ambitions in the mortal world. If there is something positive about the Lunar Empire, she embodies it. If there is something negative about the Lunar Empire, she embodies that too. She is the Light AND the Darkness. She is civilization AND madness. She is beauty AND destruction.
After defeating Dranz Goiloi and the Pentans in 1626, Jar-eel prepares to restore Lunar rule to Dragon Pass. She leads the army (along with her “father” the Red Emperor) to Dragon Pass to defeat the rebels. She spends two years in the Underworld, and during that time the Lunar Empire fights among itself. That gives us a pretty good idea of just how important she is to the Lunar Empire and the Hero Wars.
To what extent does she make internal policy? Or is she focussed on suppressing threats at home and abroad? I don’t think there is a distinction made here. Nor do I think it is “policy” as we would understand that. The Lunar Empire is the possessions of the Red Goddess in the mortal world, with the Red Emperor as her steward. But Jar-eel IS the incarnation of the Red Goddess in the mortal world.
So if Jar-eel decides that something is to be done or that she is going to do something, who is going to challenge that. There are of course limits to all of this, but whatever they might be are untested and uncertain.
Has she ever been seen to go ‘off-script’? Jar-Eel the person, as opposed to the mythic force/avatar? Seems like she was a Hero sort of entity from very early on. Jar-eel was one year old when she was part of her first major heroquest. Eight years old when she was Illuminated and traveled to the Red Moon. She IS the script.
Has there ever been a point in time where Jar-Eel actually had doubts regarding her role in preserving the Lunar Empire? As in they weren’t actually in the right? No thoughts like that has ever been spoken by her. Such expressed doubts would be very worrying! But despite her power, her ability to defy death, her cosmic insight, etc., Jar-eel is a mortal woman. And all mortals have doubts and fears.
Like most (all?) other Gloranthan heroes, Jar-eel is literally awful. She inspires wonder, reverence, and terror even in the most powerful. She recognises no boundaries, no limits, no authority but her own.
I personally find her the most terrifying of all the Gloranthan heroes – Harrek included.