#2 - Character Development of the Main Characters

This group of people who have joined together to escape Recruiters each has a "coming to story" that is revealed at different points of the book, so we get to know them more deeply one at a time. Included below are images of a film or series character they most resemble based on their personality, but not their ethnicity as, unfortunately, most of the movies shown here have a very white cast. The main characters in the book are all fully or partly Indigenous. The images aren't who should be cast in in the roles, but familiar faces who match the spirit of the characters.

In the beginning...

("Nick Carraway")

Frenchie, 16 and Métis, is the the narrator of the story. The reader sees everything from his perspective, and he's used as a camera that shows us the rest of the group. We learn that his brother and he were running together after being separated from their parents until his brother got caught by Recruiters. His own personality doesn't stand out beyond being a nice guy who doesn't want to cause problems. He's like a big brother to Riri and has a bit of a crush on Rose in a nerdy sort of way, but his role is similar to Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby, who mainly watches the action unfold. He is, however,  innocent at the start, and refuses to kill a moose for food (Dimaline, 48-50), which is an important moment that is connected to later in the story.

(Ross)

Miigwans (Miig) is a middle aged Anishinaabe man who can speak Cree. He plays a found-father role with the group, and he tells "story" at the campfire each night, explaining how things used to be before the time of the Recruiters. He leads all the hunts and is protective of the group. He keeps them grounded and in touch with their culture.  His character reminds me of John Locke from Lost. 

("Mags")

Minerva is an elderly Anishinaabe woman by age and status who also speaks Cree. She also protects the group but in more of a nurturing way, taking on the more traditional female elder duties. She's very much in charge, controls mealtimes, and cares for the sick. She often needs to be carried because of her age. She's a bit off or wild, perhaps driven crazy by the continuing trauma. She teaches the girls childhood stories and language that isn't taught to the boys. I picture Mags, from The Hunger Games. 

("Kiara Carrera")

Rose is about 16, and half Indigenous and half Black. She didn't have a traditional life on a reservation. She's a very post-apocalyptic girl: strong and feisty and untrusting of others. She watched the group for weeks from a distance, hiding in the woods, before joining them. She's often quiet, but her coming to story reveals that her mother sent her off the reservation to be protected by her great uncles, who were very realistic survivalists in that they wouldn't travel with other men because of Rose. Uncle Jonas told her, "A child needs walls. Not brick and wood walls all the time, but some sort of walls to keep them in and others out. So they can play and they can sleep and they can move without the burden of eyes and hands. I'm that wall for you" (Dimaline, 71). She makes me think of Kiara from Outer Banks. 

("Heathers")

Wab is an 18-year-old girl who is very dark and quiet, off-putting and haunted, with a scar across her face. She seems to be attracted to Chi-Boy. She's very womanly and aged beyond her years. We don't learn much about her at this point. She's like many of the characters played by Winona Ryder. She's a bit deviant. If she were male, I'd say she's like Edward Scissorhands: quiet with a messed up vibe.  

(Brian)

Chi-Boy is in his late teens and the man of the house. He's friendly but clearly aspires to be a protector like Miig. He's described as being chunkier, and I picture him as Ned Leeds from Spider-Man. 

(Keogh)

Slopper is 9 and very childlike in how he reacts to frustration with temper tantrums, but he has lost any boyish wonder or playfulness. He was told some of the darker stories at campfire at too young an age, and it scarred him. He's like a rougher version of Neville, from the Harry Potter series.

(Holmes)

Riri is 7. She's eager to be like the others and stay up at campfire, but they stop her once they recognize the damage it can do to learn of the stories at too young an age. She's very attached to Frenchie. She's very playful and brings the light in for everybody else. When they hide in a Four Winds Resort, she jumped on the beds, and it reminded the others that they're just kids. She's like a younger, more naive version of Rue from The Hunger Games. This connection foreshadows the rest of her story.

Tree and Zheegwan are 12-year-old twins. They're background characters perhaps to make it a more substantial group. They're a classic twin duo. 

In the middle...

In the middle third of the book, things spiral for the worse for all the characters.

We learn of Wab's traumatic coming to story. She came from a city and got a job as a runner, delivering messages and packages around town because she's so fast. Her mom was a junkie living in a dumpster, so Wab had to support them. She left after a competing business enacted a horrific assault on her that started with her trusting a guy who gave her a lot of food in exchange for delivering a package that led her into the brutal trap. The backstory helps us to understand her mistrust of people, and she's able to warn the others when she spots the man she trusted in the woods later.

Riri overhears this story, which changes her from playful to sombre. Previously, Riri had found some pink boots that she was excited about wearing because they were what she imagined candy to look like. But after losing her innocence from the story, she wouldn't wear the boots again, realizing that something horrible might have happened to their previous owner. She dies after the group trusts another travelling group, and one, on drugs, grabs Riri and runs off a cliff with her. 

The death of Riri destroyed Minerva who was too distraught to walk anymore. We heard of her backstory, that her grandson was killed and she was sexually assaulted by the murderers. She had also lost her own baby to illness and cold, so she's very concerned with any sign of illness in the others, and she just couldn't take losing another child. When the group was hiding in the loft of a barn, she insisted on staying on the main floor. Then she removed the ladder to the loft and made "jingles," soup can lids strung together to wear and make noise when dancing. The noise attracted the Recruiters, who took her away, and it was clear that she gave herself up so that the group could move more quickly without her. Chi-Boy explained, "Sometimes you risk everything for a life worth living, even if you're not the one that'll be alive to live it" (Dimaline, 152). 

We also get more of Miig's backstory, that he lived with his partner, Isaac, in a cottage up north. Isaac was naive and didn't believe the severity of the residential school stories or that people actually hunt other people. He met two middle-aged men and a young girl in the forest and wanted to invite them in. The girl showed Miig that she was wearing a tracker, indicating it was a trap, but Isaac refused to run with him. After leaving, Miig searched for where they took Isaac and ended up at a windowless warehouse. He attacked a truck driver leaving the warehouse who explained that Isaac was gone, turned into just another vile of marrow filling the crates in the back of his truck. We see Miig's spiritualism and attachment to traditional rituals as he took the crates, one by one, to a lake, to empty each vile into the lake and back to the earth, no longer able to be exploited by the others in their death.

After all the stories, and the death of Riri, Frenchie starts to become more retaliatory. He went back to shoot the friend of the man who killed Riri, while in the beginning he couldn't kill an animal. Then, after the loss of Minerva, instead of continuing North to safety, Frenchie spoke up and insisted on going back to back to get the men who took Minerva. He explains,

"I said no. I'm not going north."

The rest of my little family looked at me with curiosity. Something had changed. Whether it was this second huge loss or the life I'd taken with all the speed of vengeance back at the cliff, I wasn't sure. But there was no more north in my heart. And I wasn't sure what I meant to do until I said it out loud.

"I'm going after Minerva." (Dimaline, 153)

This sudden decisive manner and take-charge, somewhat murderous, attitude, from the formerly quiet Frenchie, adds an exciting twist to the story.  

At the end...

They go after Minerva and find her, but she ends up being shot by a Recruiter. 

The character changes we see the most are with Frenchie and Rose who change after Minerva's death, and they both cut their hair. Frenchie becomes more aggressive and angry, snapping at others. He becomes more vengeful. Rose shifts in the other direction and becomes more compassionate. After they meet up with newcomers, Rose jumps in to stop the interrogation of them. 

The rest of the book ties up loose ends as Frenchie finds his dad, Miig finds Isaac, Wab and Chi-Boy get together and start a family, Slopper finds his calling running a Youth Council, and Rose and Frenchie leave the group together.

____

Works and Images Cited:

Brian, Greg. "Some MCU Fans Speculate Ned Could Become a Villain in a Future Spider-Man Movie." Showbiz CheatSheet, June 16, 2020, https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/some-mcu-fans-speculate-ned-could-become-a-villain-in-a-future-spider-man-movie.html/.

Dimaline, Cherie. The Marrow Thieves. Manitoba: Cormorant Books Inc., 2018.

"Heathers, Veronica Sawyer." The Monologue Database, N.d., http://www.monologuedb.com/comedic-female-monologues/heathers-veronica-sawyer/.

Holmes, Anna. "White Until Proven Black: Imagining Race in Hunger Games." The New Yorker, March 30, 2012, https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/white-until-proven-black-imagining-race-in-hunger-games.

Keogh, Joey. "The Actor Who Played Neville Longbottom Grew Up to Be Gorgeous." The List, June 6, 2019, https://www.thelist.com/139574/the-actor-who-played-neville-longbottom-grew-up-to-be-gorgeous/.

"Kiara Carrera." Outer Banks Wiki, N.d., https://outer-banks-netflix.fandom.com/wiki/Kiara_Carrera.

"Mags." The Games Wiki, N.d., https://thegamesrp.fandom.com/wiki/Mags.

"Nick Carroway." Listal.com, 2022, https://www.listal.com/character/nick-carraway.

Ross, Dalton. "Terry O'Quinn Reflects on Locke, 'Lost', and THAT Ending. Entertainment Weekly, Meredith Corporation, 2022, https://ew.com/article/2014/05/20/podcast-terry-oquinn-locke-lost/.