I Heart Characters! #1: Warrior Woman Fae Love Pet Sidekick

I Heart Characters! is a weekly meme hosted by Dani at Perspective of a Writer to share our love of great characters. Each week Dani will assign a topic/type of character that we must find examples of in the various media we consume (books, TV shows, movies, comics, podcasts, etc.).

I’ve wanted to participate in this meme since I first heard of it but kept forgetting to do it. So for my first post, I’ll combine all the ones I’ve missed. I’ll start with the topic that kicked off this meme:

Warrior woman

I take this to mean a powerful female character so I choose:

Jane McKeene

Jane is the protagonist in Justina Ireland’s recently published alternative historical fiction YA novel, Dread Nation. The story is set couple years after the U.S. Civil War, which was cut short because the dead began to rise — i.e. ZOMBIES!! The novel isn’t exactly horror, but many might categorize it as such because there are zombies in it. It’s not scary.

Jane is our narrator and when the story begins, she is at a school that trains Black girls to fight the zombies (called Shamblers) to protect White people. Because of the Native and Negro Reeducation Act, Native Indian and Negro teens are forced to attend these combat schools. Jane is one of the top students, though her tendency to say what she thinks doesn’t make her popular with the students or teachers.

I chose her for this category because she is a total badass. She is smart but knows how to fight and strategize. Her pluckiness often gets her in trouble, but she’s quick witted and just as often is able to devise a way to either ease her situation or figure out a way to escape it. Her character is the reason why I enjoyed this story as much as I did and read it so quickly.

Next topic…

Fae love interest

Meaning a member of the fae who is attracted to or is in love with the main character. Hmm…

the incubus

So I just realized that I haven’t read many books where there are fae creatures that are romantically interested in another character. The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark is the only such book I’ve read in a while. It’s a paranormal romance about a woman who secures a job at a small college in upstate New York and learns that most of the staff is fae.

The protagonist, Callie, is also involved with an incubus, a male demon that has sex with sleeping women, that visits her every night. Th incubus fits this category. He definitely has the hots for Callie… And so does every other good-looking, single guy in the second book of the series, The Water Witch.

Now for this week’s topic…

Pet sidekick

A real or paranormal pet sidekick that loves the main character. I had to choose my favorite:

Nighteyes

Nighteyes is a character from Robin Hobb’s Realm of the Elderlings series, an epic fantasy series made up of several trilogies, and is the pet sidekick of one of the main characters, FitzChivalry Farseer. Nighteyes first appears in the Farseer trilogy, which begins with Assassin’s Apprentice. He is a wolf and is the wit animal to Fitz.

In the series, the Wit is a type of magic that enables humans and animals to communicate and connect on a deeper level. Humans who are Witted, meaning they have the magic ability, are able to bond with an animal who may become their companion. Nighteyes is a companion to Fitz but is also a friend, a brother, and sometimes even a leader. I loved reading about their relationship and loved that Nighteyes can be viewed as a character separate from Fitz. My favorite thing about Nighteyes is his humor and how perceptive he is. He’s one of my favorite characters in the series.

Well, that’s it for me. Which characters would you choose for these topics?

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