The Lost Kingdom of Daughters Characters

Lazo is a Moso woman in a remote Himalayan village and the mother Sophie believed dead. In 1954 she is a young woman trained by Mother to be the future Dabu, navigating Moso free-love customs while sheltering the Starlings brothers. In 1996 she narrates her past to Sophie and reunites with Noah.

Arc: She moves from a playful young woman and future Dabu to lover of both Adam and Noah, then to a mother who chooses her sisters and village over leaving with Noah. She later gives Sophie to Noah to raise and lives in a mountain log house until their 1996 reunion.

• Sophie Starlings — her biological daughter, raised by Noah
• Noah Starlings — her lover, father of Sophie, reunited with her in 1996
• Adam Starlings — her former lover
• Ercher — her sister who becomes dabu
• Zhuma — her younger sister
• Youmi — her brother
• Mother — her mother and family matriarch
• Grandma — her grandmother and village headwoman
• Namu — friend and confidante, later rival for Adam, then reconciled
• Jizou — her former lover and suitor
• Azi — Yi woman who guides her toward Noah

Sophie Starlings is Lazo and Noah's biological daughter, raised by Noah after Lazo gives her to him as an infant. Two weeks after her fifth divorce, she travels to the Himalayan village believing her mother has been dead for forty years and confronts Lazo. She wants a husband, house, and children, unlike the Moso free-love model she learns about.

Arc: She arrives seeking a dead mother and answers, hears Lazo's history, and grows to understand her parents' choices. She reunites with Noah and asks Lazo for the Moso word for Mother.

• Lazo — her biological mother, whom she believed dead for forty years
• Noah Starlings — her father, who raised her and told her Lazo was dead
• Adam Starlings — her uncle

Noah Starlings is an American traveler and doctor searching with his brother Adam for their father's plane wreckage. Stranded in the Moso village, he is rigid about fidelity and patriarchal family values but gradually falls for Lazo. He later forgives Adam, raises Sophie as his daughter, and returns to Lazo in 1996.

Arc: From a grieving, disapproving outsider he becomes Lazo's secret lover and then a father who accepts Lazo's child. He leaves for America but reunites with Lazo in 1996.

• Adam Starlings — his younger brother, whom he forgives after betrayal
• Lazo — his lover and mother of Sophie
• Sophie Starlings — his daughter, whom he raises after Lazo gives her to him
• Colonel Robert Starlings — his missing father
• Caroline — his deceased fiancée who cheated on him
• Youmi — friend and guide to the crash site
• Zhuma — student and assistant; he rejects her romantic advances
• Azi — Yi woman he treated
• Yang Lee — fellow prisoner who reveals his father's fate

Jizou is a Moso flute player and Namu's brother who courts Lazo at the bonfire and spends a Sese night with her. Jealous over Lazo, he ambushes Adam, baits him into the Valley of Death, and is killed in their fight. The discovery of his body triggers the murder accusation against Noah.

Arc: From a flute-playing suitor and Lazo's lover he becomes a jealous attacker and is killed by Adam. His body's discovery sets off the blood-for-blood accusation.

• Namu — his sister
• Lazo — former lover and suitor
• Adam Starlings — rival who killed him after Jizou ambushed him
• Youmi — his friend
• Noah Starlings — struck him by mistake

Adam Starlings is Noah's younger brother, a curious, charming traveler who sketches the village and is drawn to Moso culture and Lazo. He becomes Lazo's lover, kills Jizou in the Valley of Death, and later accuses Noah to save himself. He dies defending the village after trying to redeem himself.

Arc: From curious traveler and Lazo's lover he becomes Jizou's killer, then Noah's betrayer. He finally fights the Yi raiders, apologizes to Noah and Lazo, and dies of a poisoned arrow.

• Noah Starlings — his brother, whom he betrays and later apologizes to
• Lazo — his former lover
• Youmi — Moso hunter who taunts him, later an ally who saves his life
• Jizou — man who ambushed him and whom he killed in self-defense
• Grandma — village elder he tries but fails to save
• Zhuma — Lazo's sister whom he helps rescue
• Namu — woman he meets at the hot spring and takes as a lover
• Colonel Robert Starlings — his father

Ercher is Lazo's pregnant sister, fearful of strangers and openly disapproving of Lazo's foreign lover. After Mother's death she becomes the family dabu, distributes chores, and gives Lazo an ultimatum over Noah. She is broken by her infant daughter's disappearance after the Yi raid, becomes paralyzed after a fall, and drowns in the hot spring.

Arc: From a pregnant, disapproving sister she becomes dabu and head of the household. Grief over her missing daughter shatters her, and she later drowns in the hot spring.

• Lazo — her sister, whom she disapproves of and later gives an ultimatum over Noah
• Zhuma — her sister
• Mother — her mother

Zhuma is Lazo's youngest sister, twelve at the start, frightened by storms and curious about adulthood and lovers. Her skirt ceremony marks her transition to a free Moso woman, and she later becomes a healer using Noah's stethoscope and mountain herbs. She dies in childbirth.

Arc: From a curious girl and Noah's rejected crush she becomes a loyal sister who helps rescue him. She later becomes a healer and mother, then dies in childbirth.

• Lazo — her older sister
• Ercher — her sister
• Youmi — her brother
• Mother — her mother
• Noah Starlings — her teacher and crush, who rejects her as too young

Youmi is Lazo's brother, a Moso hunter and drive master who has fathered three daughters and one son. He is protective of the community's women, hostile to the foreign brothers at first, and later Noah's friend and guide to the crash site. He investigates Jizou's death, sentences Noah, and dies defending the village and saving Adam.

Arc: From a hostile hunter who warns foreigners away he becomes Noah's friend and guide. He is mortally wounded while saving Adam and dies after asking about his sisters.

• Lazo — his sister
• Zhuma — his sister
• Mother — his mother
• Noah Starlings — friend and guide to the crash site
• Adam Starlings — foreigner he confronts, later fights beside, and saves
• Jizou — his friend whom he searches for
• Grandma — village elder he defers to

Grandma is the one-armed village headwoman who questions Adam and Noah and lets them stay in Lazo's barn. She leads village meetings and search parties, sentences Noah after Jizou's death, and defends the village with rifle and pistol. She is stabbed in the heart during the Yi raid.

Arc: From a suspicious but pragmatic elder who shelters the brothers she becomes a leader who sentences Noah and then dies defending the village.

• Lazo — her granddaughter
• Ercher — girl who protests bringing the foreigners in
• Adam Starlings — foreign traveler she questions and allows to stay; he tries to save her
• Noah Starlings — foreign traveler she questions and allows to stay; later sentences him
• Youmi — elder she consults
• Jizou — missing man she organizes searches for

Mother is Lazo's mother and the family matriarch, who trains Lazo to be the future Dabu and defends Moso free-choice customs. Her illness weakens her, and her death brings forty-nine days of funeral rites and a Last Ride. She dies after Lazo asks whether a woman can love only one man.

Arc: She presides over the household, weakens and dies, and her funeral becomes a turning point for Lazo and her sisters.

• Lazo — her daughter and favorite, trained as future Dabu
• Ercher — her daughter
• Zhuma — her daughter
• Youmi — her son
• Daba Mohi — ritual specialist at her funeral

Namu is Lazo's same-age friend and confidante, interested in Youmi and later in Adam. She sleeps with Adam and becomes Lazo's rival, then reconciles with her after a gift of vegetables. She promises to help rescue Noah but backs out the next morning.

Arc: From Lazo's confidante and Youmi's admirer she becomes Adam's lover and Lazo's rival, then reconciles with Lazo. She later backs out of the rescue.

• Lazo — friend and later rival for Adam, then reconciled
• Youmi — man she is interested in
• Jizou — her brother
• Adam Starlings — lover
• Sona — friend
• Douma — friend

Azi is a Yi woman whom Noah treated and whose exposure to a foreign doctor leads to her being condemned to suicide for tarnishing her husband's honor. She comes to Lazo, reveals Noah will be sold, and guides Lazo and Zhuma into the Yi village. She helps them reach Noah despite her fear.

Arc: From a shamed Yi patient condemned to die she becomes a frightened but crucial guide who helps Lazo and Zhuma reach Noah.

• Noah Starlings — Yi woman he treated; his captivity is at her home
• Lazo — woman she guides toward Noah

Yang Lee is a disfigured Chinese man and former navigator on Colonel Starlings's C-53, now a fellow prisoner among the Yi. He tells Noah the story of the 1943 crash, the copilot's death, and Colonel Starlings's death at the hands of Yi looters. His account gives Noah closure about his father.

Arc: From a fellow prisoner he becomes the source of truth about Colonel Starlings's last flight and death, giving Noah closure.

• Noah Starlings — fellow prisoner who tells him of his father's last flight
• Colonel Robert Starlings — pilot he served under as navigator

Colonel Robert Starlings is Noah and Adam's father, a US Fourteenth Air Force pilot who volunteered for the Flying Tigers and CNAC. He piloted a Douglas C-53 Skytrooper that went down in March 1943, and he was killed by Yi looters after the crash. His missing plane and remains drive the brothers' search.

Arc: Absent and dead before the main action, he is the object of his sons' search until Yang Lee confirms his fate.

• Noah Starlings — his son
• Adam Starlings — his son
• Yang Lee — navigator on his C-53

Caroline is Noah's deceased fiancée, remembered as having cheated on him before her death. Noah's inability to forgive her shapes his views on fidelity and his grief. She appears only in his memories.

Arc: She does not change in the present; her memory drives Noah's anger and his eventual reflection on forgiveness.

• Noah Starlings — his deceased fiancée who cheated on him

Daba Mohi is a Moso ritual specialist who tells Adam that mushrooms carry spiritual energy and that only locals have a spiritual connection with nature. He later performs the funeral rites that guide Mother's soul to Seba’anawa.

Arc: He serves as a ritual authority in the mushroom episode and in Mother's funeral rites.

• Adam Starlings — foreigner who questions him about mushrooms
• Mother — deceased whose soul he guides in funeral rites

Sona is a Moso woman and Lazo's perpetual rival, having taken Lazo's lover the year before. She bathes and dances with the women, teases Lazo about the foreign brothers, and appears among the women in Adam's cabin.

Arc: She remains a rival and social presence in the hot-spring, festival, and Adam's-cabin scenes.

• Lazo — perpetual rival who took her lover last year
• Namu — friend at the hot spring
• Douma — friend at the hot spring
• Adam Starlings — one of the women in his cabin

Douma is a Moso woman in Lazo's hot-spring friend circle. She asks Lazo about the foreigners and about Jizou coming to the festival.

Arc: She remains a minor friend and social companion.

• Lazo — friend at the hot spring
• Namu — friend at the hot spring
• Sona — friend at the hot spring