Writing HTTG: Kate
Katherine Auberdine, the protagonist of Heir To The Gallery, and the eyes through which the readers see much of the story. The story itself predicates on her as a character, and her as a flawed heroine. But her development was not entirely planned, yet it is integral to how the story itself played out. I will discuss my thoughts on her development as a character in my mind here.
Obviously, this is spoiler territory; read at your own risk.
As I’ve noted, when I first conceived of Heir To The Gallery, I wanted to do a story about characters swapping gender. What this means, then, is that I would need a lead character to actually do the gender-swap. I had decided to do guy-turned-into-girl, and I wanted to keep the names similar. Bouncing in my head a little brought me to Kit and Kate; as Katherine is on my list of “Female Names I Like”, I went with it.
I wasn’t entirely sure of her character at first, though. Especially as Kit during the setup (lampshaded by Max in An Ocean Of Snow), although I let that slide mentally because it was “just” setup. I fished for a while once I had Kate on Earth, as I was feeling out the other characters (Ami, Kate’s family) and trying to fit it all together into one unified whole. With my realization of Ami as second-fiddle, it made sense to make Kate the linchpin of her group. It would give me drama when she dropped the ball, and it became fodder for the reality-warping nature of magic. That second part was unplanned, but worked its way in beautifully.
Feeling Kate out also meant understanding her personality, and one of the things I like to do with my deeper characters is to give them each a Virtue and a Vice. At some point in the future, I intend on writing up what I mean by this, but I essentially liberally borrow from the New World Of Darkness on the issue. In either case, as I came to understand Kate and she fell (or was pushed) into the “mother” role, I came to know her Virtue to be Fortitude. When I decided explicitly that she and Johnathon would get together (back during the first chapter), I gave her Vice as Lust (interestingly, Johnathon has the same Vice).
Kate was meant to be a strong character from the beginning, and a lot of her physical description is modeled on what I find attractive in women: tall, thin, and athletic. She’s a model character, both in her playing mother and moderator to her group of friends, but also in her stalwart faithfulness and loyalty, and her natural good looks (she never wears makeup during the entire story). It is, very distinctly, Author Appeal. A lot of things in HTTG can be traced back to my logic of “I like it, so I’ll put it in.” I like strong, athletic women, and therefore my main character is a strong, athletic woman.
This is particularly enhanced when she picked up swordplay; this was mostly a realization with myself that I would want her to get into a sword fight eventually. It helped turned the story epic. I also had a scene planned where she and Ami would spar against each other, but it just didn’t feel to fit anywhere.
I digress. Personality-wise, she was the protagonist, and therefore had to stand up in the end. No matter how much she gave up or didn’t care through the story, in the end, she had to live up to whatever fate she had—becoming the Heir.
The thing is, what made me flounder the most on her for a long time was my inability to figure out what she wanted. One of the over-arching themes of the story is that of desire; in many ways, the story is a study of what desire does to people and what desire means to people. Kate’s desire was, at first, unknown to me. She floundered due to her boyish background, but that angst got tiresome after a while—not to mention being hard to keep a story up on.
This, really, is why I think the first two chapters are weak: it’s not until her identity of herself (as girl mage) crystallizes that I got a clear picture of her. Until then, she kind of goes with the flow, not really understanding what’s going on around her; she languishes in non-understanding, relying on other people to get her through things. Sure, she asserts herself some, but most of it is at Ami’s behest. The story languishes because she languishes.
Also with her gaining magic comes focus on my part for the story. By then, I had crafted Rose and Johnathon, had introduced Daniel, and had the start of my early conflict. I had a direction.
From there, Kate as a character had a very clear desire, in my mind: to be normal. It becomes painfully apparent near the end (she practically comes right out and says it in her Monologue In A Graveyard; she’s even more explicit in Denying The Messenger), and it seems a little out of place with her desire to also be a mage, and yet, it defines her. In fact, it defines the climax of the story: in the end, she has to make the choice between what she wants (”a simple, everyday life”) and what she knows she must do (become the Heir).
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Through most of her life on Earth, Kate ends up just wanting normalcy. Sure, she uses magic once in a while to help (mostly through summoning books she forgets), but she likes her position in the group—of course, as alpha female, it’s a nice position. When she dates Johnathon, she even has a good relationship with him. She’s content with what life has to give her; it’s everyone else (Rose, to an extent Daniel, Samuel, Daren) who make her life miserable. Especially after Rose’s death and the fallout, she would rather have nothing to do with the mage world.
So she is, ultimately, a determined character. Once she tastes that normalcy, coming to a crystal idea of herself, she strives to return to it. The trip to Glace was a nice vacation, but once she got lost, she wanted to get back.
You could say she doesn’t actually grow and change a whole lot through the story. She’s still the mother of the group (she chastises Daren and Samuel to stop bickering by calling them children in The Choices We Make), and she has determination. The main change for her is the realization that what she wants is insufficient and possibly counter-productive. Her monologue in the graveyard is where she talks about this to an extent (”Part of me knows I should erase it, fix it—but part of me won’t let that happen. Won’t let me let go of my life.”), and it really is the Rose ordeal and the fallout from it (Cindy’s pregnancy, the many deaths, news of war) that makes her finally realize that what she wants will always cause problems.
On the other hand, we first meet her as a relatively timid boy, later girl, uncertain of herself or her destiny. She has issues with friends, falls out with one of them (Carol), tries out love (Johnathon), even has a rival (Rose). She gets captured (Ankera), fought over (Daniel and Rose), even killed (Adow), and flirts with it several times since. After her trial, and especially after she kills Rose, she comes out of it wiser, more cautious. There is a visible disconnect between her and reality (obvious in The End Of The Year, when she toasts alone while the rest share kisses). There is a maturity that settles on her (not that she didn’t already have some, being the mother figure), to the point where she finally says “I know what I must do. Life often gives us choices that we don’t want to make, and we must choose between what we want to do and what we should do.” The Kate fresh from Nivel would never have said that.
There is, though, not a whole lot about her development to actually speak directly to. She ended up being one of the most natural characters to write (pushing hair behind her ear frequently and all), and usually wasn’t too hard.
Except for her dalliance as Kit.
I’d known since the beginning that I wanted her to switch back to a guy for a while; in fact, that got tied into Daniel’s conception (to be talked about when I talk about him). As Ankera got itself developed and I put Kate there and made her into Kit, I almost went on a sandbox, just to see what happened. I found myself amazed at how much he rebelled and how angry he got. To me, it flew naturally out of the character: the leader finds herself suddenly forced to be subservient and more so must defer to her once-follower, best friend or not. It is only natural that she be a little pissed off. The violence of the reaction surprised even me, but it also allowed me to foil Kit against Ami, and it helped build Ami’s character, too (she grows a backbone in Heated Arguments).
Jessica’s attempted rape of Kit helped reinforce the character’s powerlessness. Then when he turns around and essentially rapes Jean (Lovers By Night), it helps reinforce the flaws. Kit gives in to his Lust, his Vice—Kate still cares more about what she wants than what is right. Now, the scene is mildly problematic, because it’s not as though it was a true, violent rape. I waffle on how exactly to consider it; it’s not as though they didn’t already have an established sexual relationship. And it’s not exactly like Jean didn’t want it (Johnathon’s Vice also being Lust, and her giving up resistance rather quickly). In fact, the hesitation was more over protection than over the act itself. It’s a coercion, and one that has consequences (although ones that end up being stupider than they were in my head; namely, the whole unprotected-sex-spreads-being-Heir thing). I’m not entirely sure I condemn it enough in the story; I’m not quite sure what to think of it.
It produces two interesting foils, though. The first is when the roles are reversed: Kate is the girl and Johnathon is the boy. In this case, Kate’s resistance proves adequate, to Johnathon’s frustration. Again, it’s the desire thing: Kate is so focused on what she wants, she fights to get it, even if she tramples Johnathon in the way. Not that I’m saying it would have been better if she had given in to him on Suna-Ro, but that it highlights the fundamental flaw in Kate’s character: her desires outweigh what’s right. It shows the fundamental problem in her relationship with Johnathon: they are both characters ruled by their Lust, their Desire. This clashes.
The second foil is perhaps far more illustrative. Compare Kit’s attempted coercion with Ami’s from the poorly-named The Angel And The Butterfly. This juxtaposition is—in my opinion—the best comparison between the two relationships. Kate’s relationship with Johnathon was never meant to work out; it is, to my mind, a failed relationship from the beginning (Kate even notes this in her monologue). Theirs is meant to show a bad relationship. Ami and Daniel, on the other hand, largely represent what, to my mind, is an ideal relationship.
The two seduction scenes show this. Kate is harsh and pushy. Ami isn’t: she offers herself, and Daniel doesn’t even accept it at first. It’s obvious from these two scenes alone that Kate builds her relationship on lust, and Ami builds hers on love.
Other little things highlight the differences: Kate immediately tells Ami about all the sex she’s having. Ami takes several months to even mention it (Secrets Between Friends). On Kate’s date, she and Johnathon struggle to find things to talk about (First Date), while Ami and Daniel have many common interests (Conversations In The Gallery, which also highlights problems between Kate and Johnathon; Gathering Clouds). And so on.
Kate and Ami are foils for each other, even as ice and plant as their foci. And while I wanted the foci to play into personalities, I didn’t want it ruling them. But Kate is a korimancer, an ice mage: cold, domineering, imposing her order onto the world. Her anger tends to burn cold, and we don’t see her tremendously emotive over time. In fact, we distinctly don’t know what she feels about things once Rose comes back, further distancing her from the image of a warm, selfless person. She wasn’t.
I don’t particularly want to eviscerate her as a character, though. I still liked her a lot, and feel as though she is a good character. She has her flaw (prey to her desires), but she has her merits: loyalty, faithfulness, honesty.
Heir To The Gallery follows Kate as she turns from a weak, selfish child into a mature, selfless adult. In a way, it’s a coming-of-age story, and in a way, it’s the story of our own journey into maturity. She is a strong female character, though she is not perfect. But I still think she is a heroine, and a worthy protagonist to the story.
What can I say? I love Kate!
May 30th, 2008 at 6:10 am
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