Justin Zyrr-Winton, blind imbecile?

In I WILL BUILD MY HOUSE OF STEEL, we see how Justin Zyrr first meets Elizebeth Winton. He gets angry with her for screwing up an experiment while getting a private tour of the university.

Question: How could Justin Zyrr not recognize Princess Elizebeth, the heir to the crown. Blindness? Abject stupidity? Obsessive isolation?

TFLYTSNBN wrote:In I WILL BUILD MY HOUSE OF STEEL, we see how Justin Zyrr first meets Elizebeth Winton. He gets angry with her for screwing up an experiment while getting a private tour of the university.

Question: How could Justin Zyrr not recognize Princess Elizebeth, the heir to the crown. Blindness? Abject stupidity? Obsessive isolation?

Geek pure and simple, focus the time and effort put into his experiment. "just looking for love in all the wrong places".

Senior Chief wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:In I WILL BUILD MY HOUSE OF STEEL, we see how Justin Zyrr first meets Elizebeth Winton. He gets angry with her for screwing up an experiment while getting a private tour of the university.

Question: How could Justin Zyrr not recognize Princess Elizebeth, the heir to the crown. Blindness? Abject stupidity? Obsessive isolation?

Geek pure and simple, focus the time and effort put into his experiment. "just looking for love in all the wrong places".

Maybe he did recognize her. Perhaps he was not a natural groveler the way some folks are.

Actually, since she would have bodyguards he would have to know who she was. And why should that make a difference?

Also, it could be a useful ploy. There are lots of flatterers, etc. And it might just annoy Elizabeth to be forgiven EVERYTHING.

Assuming she hadn't given her handlers the slip for a few minutes-- she was all of fourteen or fifteen or so at the time, wasn't she?

During my 30+ years on this Earth, I would have been hard pressed to recognize 85% of the First Children from the multiple presidential administrations I have lived through. Especially those who are minors and thus have far less press exposure.

Potato wrote:During my 30+ years on this Earth, I would have been hard pressed to recognize 85% of the First Children from the multiple presidential administrations I have lived through. Especially those who are minors and thus have far less press exposure.

First Children are replaced every four to eight years and do not necessarily "inherit" anything of note. The more appropriate comparator would be Princes Charles, William and/or George.

Based on them, yeah, it's very hard to see how Justin missed that.

Potato wrote:During my 30+ years on this Earth, I would have been hard pressed to recognize 85% of the First Children from the multiple presidential administrations I have lived through. Especially those who are minors and thus have far less press exposure.

Indeed. I agree.

It is also quite possible that he may have been distracted by his work. Experiments require all of your attention and focus, or all of the time invested planning, setting it up and executing it is wasted and blown. Oftentimes lost forever. Many experiments are very time sensitive and some are just plain sensitive. Also, this was Justin's lab. Research wasn't simply something he did part time. His entire life was vested in it. Many researchers in lab situations are completely oblivious to life outside the lab. It is the aforementioned geek that someone else mentioned.

Plus, keep in mind that Beth wasn't the Queen then. She was simply the Princess. A 16-yr-old princess at that. Justin had to be significantly older than she. He had already had a tour of duty and left it for research. How many people in the UK recognize all of the princesses in the UK, even fully grown? Some people are just not socially aware as others, or even care. Not being overwhelmed by royalty was probably refreshing to Beth. She wouldn't have had an entire infantry following her around at that point. She's just the princess. A 16-yr-old princess who still had a lot of miscreant kid in her, hear tell it from Michelle.

Plus, I'm sure his lab was the last place he would expect to find royalty. And, at 16, although far from being decked out in common attire, she was hardly blinging from head to toe either.

Another consideration is that total strangers can pass for twins - doppelgängers. I would guess that is common in the Star Kingdom with biosculpt running rampant. There are many rabid fans purposely making themselves look as close to their idols as possible even now. Also, many other cultures look the same to others. Heck, Black people look the same to many Whites right here on Earth. And Justin is from Gryphon, not the Star Kingdom.

Is there a description of Justin anywhere?

Late edit:

I was Lab Manager for a civil engineering firm for over a decade. At my disposal was some very expensive and very sensitive equipment. I recall being livid quite a few times as well when people would ignore the red light on the door signaling tests in progress. Expensive, time consuming, time sensitive tests in progress. Ruining one of my tests oftentimes resulted in days lost. Or weeks. I had several scales that were so sensitive you couldn't breathe on them or the results would be skewed. I donned surgical masks during those tests. Much less open the door and cause a vacuum that would shake the scales as if King Kong had just walked into the room. A 16-yr-old miscreant had no business in Justin's lab! I would have freaked out too. It's worse than having someone walk into a darkroom while you're developing pics.

Justin would have been totally preoccupied with impending disaster. Not to mention the danger a lab represents to unsuspecting, uninvited intruders. I would have screamed at the president! Get the phuck out! I had deadlines to meet!

munroburton wrote:First Children are replaced every four to eight years and do not necessarily "inherit" anything of note. The more appropriate comparator would be Princes Charles, William and/or George.

Based on them, yeah, it's very hard to see how Justin missed that.

I likely wouldn't recognize them either. (Though to be fair they're not my royals) Especially in a situation where I'd not be expecting to encounter one of them.

And we don't know how much media coverage the Winston children got outside of official events. What they look like day to day might be quite different from what they look like for official events - certainly that's the case for movie stars; it's amazing to me how different someone looks in normal cloths, hairstyles, and minimal makeup compared to when they've been professionally dressed, styled, and made up.
But them I'm relatively bad at recognizing people I don't know really well, a significantly new hair style can throw me off for a surprisingly long time.

Beth had eluded her security guard.

I recall one scene of a social occasion when Beth commiserates with Honor about how Prolong had prolonged the most awkward phase of her adolescence. She had been paranoid about getting photographed from angles that revealed that she had not yet blossomed into the Wendy Williams look alike that she became.

http://honorverse.wikia.com/wiki/Elizabeth_III_Winton

TFLYTSNBN wrote:In I WILL BUILD MY HOUSE OF STEEL, we see how Justin Zyrr first meets Elizebeth Winton. He gets angry with her for screwing up an experiment while getting a private tour of the university.

Question: How could Justin Zyrr not recognize Princess Elizebeth, the heir to the crown. Blindness? Abject stupidity? Obsessive isolation?

Mainly because (1) she had eluded her security people --- a major no-no, but she was like 17 or 18 at the time --- because she wanted to see the school for herself; (2) the Crown Princess of Manticore, sans any security, was the last person in the universe he expected to see in his lab; (3) Elizabeth avoided the camera as much as she possibly could, so most folks only saw pictures of her from formal occasions where she was in court dress (or similar attire) and wearing a formal expression. She was informally dressed in casual clothes (very nice casual clothes, but still casual) and didn't look at all like the formal shots of her he'd seen; (4) he was a serious researcher and she'd walked into the middle of his experiment without noticing the "LAB IN USE" sign she would have recognized if she'd been an enrolled student and not a high school senior playing truant on her own.

I mean, this is like running into her in a laundromat when her hair's down! I defy almost anyone to recognize even their favorite rock star or actor under those conditions. You're a lot more likely to think, "Gosh, that looks a lot like Taylor Swift" or "Guy looks a lot like Denzel Washington, doesn't he?" than you are to think "Omigod! That's him (or her, as the case may be)!"