The heroine of my new YA fantasy is different from all the others; this one can’t fight. And that’s the whole point.
I have a long line of bad-ass female fighters in my stories; Jovanka, Gulatta, Risto, all five bodyguards of the Scildan, Sister Aeryn. I’m an equal-opportunities-blood-and-mayhem writer.
But then this teenage girl turned up and wouldn’t leave the stage. Unlike the others, she didn’t have strong magic and an insane training regime since childhood. Yari Tamm is an ordinary teenager. Mostly.
Okay, she’s got her talent as a truth-sayer, but that mostly gets her into trouble, not out of it. People keep trying to kill her and she’s largely reliant on a circle of friends and allies to deal with the violence.
Yari is our Everyman, or Everywoman. None of us is Buffy Summers, Lara Croft or Gina Corano. We don’t have years of combat training, magical powers or The Force. For the most part, ordinary people run from violence. Unfortunately, Yari puts herself in harm’s way and has to cope.
The protagonist must… protag
That’s not saying she’s a passive bystander. Like all my heroines, resistance is in her blood.
Yari survived the Empire as a runner for the resistance, although it nearly killed her. In Part One of her story, she breaks into a fortress twice. Once to search an archive, the second to save the Council from a coup. She willfully walks into a defended mansion to interrogate an aristocrat.
When violence breaks out around her, she stabs an assassin in the leg defending someone else. When mercenaries attack, she batters one with a frying pan. A vengeful aristocrat comes after her, she pulls a similar move with a skillet. But she’s still no Katniss Everdeen.
In Part Two, Yari acknowledges she needs to learn to fight. But she’s starting a long way back. She’s a slightly-built teenaged girl up against a lot of grown men, military veterans and hired muscle. She doesn’t have the power of premonition or telekinesis. She can’t telepathically compel opponents to surrender.
She’s got wit, invention and a little insight from her built-in lie detector. That’s it.
Cue Training Montage
Yari tries. By the Maker, does she try. Risto and Captain Ledran both give her lessons. She’s not hopeless, but pre-meditated violence isn’t her thing. Her truth-saying talent kind of helps, but she’s un-tested.
When that test comes, she struggles free of a couple of kidnappers, but in her first sword fight against an experienced man, it’s over in one move. It’s a learning experience. Nobody goes from scavenger to Jedi in ten minutes. Yes, Rey, we’re mocking you.
Yari’s second fight goes a little better. She manages to apply her training and magical talent to disarm an overconfident, arrogant jackass. But when she trains with two sisters from a martial culture a little older than herself, she’s handed her ass on a plate.
It’s a devastating lesson. So far, so much the standard try-fail cycle of the hero’s journey.
In most fantasy stories, we see this training arc. The young protagonist goes from apprentice to master, tries, fails, tries again, fights the antagonist, slays the dragon. Whatever.
So how does Yari fare at the end of Part Two? She’s not the deadly Corsair like Risto, or the brutal armored Viper like Mikailut. She’s not even the journeyman soldier like Ledran.
Fighting isn’t her talent, it’s truth. Yari acts decisively, but not with violence. I made a decision with this young protagonist. This one can’t fight.