Suprisingly Mature Thoughts About "The Heir" By Kiera Cass

TW: Spoilers Ahead


Yesterday, I began reading "The Heir' By Kiera Cass, the fourth in the Selection series, and today I finished. I wanted to chronicle what I thought of it, and mainly what I think of Eadlyn, the main character. Eadlyn is self centered, she is a control freak, she has built up walls around herself that she only lets a few people into, and even then, not all the way. She sometimes only hears what she wants to, and she can be blind to her flaws. She's not sweet by any stretch of the imagination, and she sometimes pushes people too hard. My points is, she's not perfect by any standards. I think it is because of this that she is such an intriguing character to me.

     She has good points too: She is fiercely independent, she has (mostly) unwavering faith in herself, she has to capacity to be good to people, and she embraces the necessary power demanded by her position (future Queen of Illea). Yet these features aren't exaggerated, and they aren't used to wash out the bad things about her. There is ample evidence of her vainness, and unwillingness to change herself or let herself be changed, especially in the beginning of the novel (by the end she has become more flexible, but only slightly), and of the coldness around her heart. Yet, that is what good moments so wonderful. Eadlyn is a protagonist who is allowed to be cruel, who is allowed to be distant, who is allowed to be cold and calculating, who is allowed to be desperate for control all the time. We know that she is often a good person, that there is nothing truly evil about her, but we see characters who don't see her goodness, who only see her bad. And we can identify with them. We can understand seeing only her flaws. But even when she's completely horrible, she's not an ironic anti-hero. She's still the hero, and it's still undoubtedly the same character. Many times when a protagonist is portrayed as momentarily bad, or an antagonist as momentarily good, you see a completely different character. But with Eadlyn, no matter what situation she's in, or if she's being presented as good or bad, it's still unmistakably her. It's quite satisfying really.