"Strong female character test" Lord Yu (An Ominous Book)

 On the next entry to this fun self-assessment writing activity, I have to begin veering towards supporting characters because there isn't a lot of female main characters in the series.

Why is this?

Well, because I love centering a huge portion of the plot around the Äimite Guard which due to its stringent training requirements, has a horrible gender imbalance where only 8% of the guards being female at the most.

So chances are I will start to see plenty of less important characters failing this test.

Lord Yu espouses the kind of nobleelf Lord Spaulding detests because she is living proof the Red Clan's unique Clan Leader selection criteria based on hair color is a terrible idea.

And yet despite garnering little respect in the mainland, her people love and respect her and she seems far smarter than what you'd think.

Click on the image to get An Ominous Book on Amazon!

1. Does the character shape her own destiny? Does she actively try to change her situation and if not, why not?

Lord Yu knows she is the next in line to inherit leadership of her clan. Her mother Tesra is dying of heart disease and she has pretty much already taken over duties as the clan's official figurehead.

Far less abrasive than Tesra, Yu uses her mother's terminal illness as the perfect excuse not to visit the mainland during the nation's most important ceremony in Book 3. This is with the purpose of training Richard and Vincent without unwanted prying eyes.

In book 1, Lord Spaulding warned her not to open the magical chest and showed the scar tissue on his arms as proof of its inherent danger. Against all common sense, Yu decided to veer inside.

At first sight, one would argue Yu's decisions are done under her free will without coercion. Sadly a spoiler from Book 3 proves this is not entirely true. And so she loses half a point.

Points: 0.5/1

2. Does she have her own goals, beliefs and hobbies? Did she come up with them on her own?

She wants to assist Lord Spaulding and Richard. She helps Spaulding free of charge because she is fond of him (mostly because they are the only clan leaders we meet early in the story that are mortal), whereas she finds Richard to be cute looking and believes he deserves to recover his rightful place as the king of Ayrtain.

Her beliefs are quite straightforward, but as I mention in question 1, her free will is not entirely preserved. There is no way to know if she agreed to any of the things she does in the story outside of taking the magical chest to the Elf King's palace.

We also never discover what she does in her free time.

So...

Points: 0/1

3. Is her character consistent? Do her personality or skills change as the plot demands?

Yu is a master in deceit and takes advantage of being viewed as an obnoxious clown so that King Salman never sees her as a real threat. A lot of this behavior seems to be an act.

Being raised by Tesra likely had an influence. She knows perfectly well she can barter the Elf King's cooperation under the constant threat of letting human armies enter the kingdom's territorial waters and wreak havoc. I doubt Yu would go so far because she doesn't seem to detest Lord Froylan like her mother does, but it's a good way to keep the kingdom from meddling into her personal affairs which helps move the plot forward.

Points: 1/1

4. Can you describe her in one short sentence without mentioning her love life, her physical appearance, or the words ‘strong female character’?

The incessantly loud and boisterous heiress to the obtuse Red Clan that likes to set her own rules.

Points: 1/1

5. Does she make decisions that aren’t influenced by her love life?

Despite the seemingly innapropriate flirting on Spaulding (which was more of a prank than anything serious), she agreed to take the magical chest to the capital as a personal favor to her friend... and to satiate her curiosity because she wanted to confirm whether the artifact was as dangerous as Spaulding claims.

I still have a hunch a lot of the things she did for Richard was because she was attracted to him.

Points: 0.5/1

6. Does she develop over the course of the story?

In this respect, sadly not enough. She proves a veil of increased distrust of the government when she hopelessly watches Spaulding's brutal flogging. Even though she skipped further visits to the capital to protest Spaulding's suffering, by this time in the story, her actions are not fully governed by her willpower, and so I sadly can't give her any points. 😢

Points: 0/1

7. Does she have a weakness?

I would suppose laughing so loud that makes icicles in the ceiling fall to the ground could be counted as that. Add a dabble of being crass and sprinkles of overconfidence when it comes to underestimating dangerous magical artifacts and she is definitely no Mary Sue.

Points: 1/1

8. Does she influence the plot without getting captured or killed?

Yu moves the story forward in book 3. First she trains Richard and his servant Vincent even though she knows she could get arrested if the guard finds out Richard is in the country. She gives both humans money and a map to the place where they will encounter Lord Spaulding. She later on asks her mother to send her phantom beast to the mainland to invite Richard to her city for an important message that drives the plot forward.

And sadly... well. Despite all of her contributions to the plot, she has to get a half point due to a... well, that is a spoiler.

Points: 0.5/1

9. How does she relate to stereotypes about gender?

Yu learned from her mom to make her own rules. She can flirt with anyone she wants (even an underage human! Yikes!), doesn't care what the mainlanders think about her, and still she has a good fashion sense that frequently makes men stutter.

She knows she has curves and is not ashamed to flaunt them. Might go overboard a bit.

Points: 0.5/1

10. How does she relate to other female characters?

Yu seldom visits the mainland due to geographical constraints outside of her duty to the Elf King to be present during the New Year Festival and so she doesn't have a lot of chances to interact with the main cast.

She doesn't spend much time interacting with Nelida and is instead flirting with her brother Richard. Yu found the girl to be cute but most of the scant conversation was surrounded on her frequent taunts directed at poor Spaulding.

Yu has a nice relationship with her mother Tesra albeit due to Tesra's illness, we don't have a lot of chances to see this in action.

Even though Yu knows Seiran pretty well, Seiran has a far stronger relationship with Tesra and thus they are just amicable acquaintances at best.

Points: 0.5/1

**********

The score is in! Yu gets a... 6.5. 😨

Sooo... I guess she barely squirmed into a ⭐⭐⭐ score. It isn't like... terrible given she only appears briefly in the story, but the test sure is enlightening.

Better luck next time, Yu!

"Strong female test" Leilandy Aethinford (An Ominous Book)

Continuing this fun self assessment exercise, I wish to follow up with Leilandy. She only makes a minuscule appearance in An Ominous Book 1, and then becomes an important antagonist in books 2 and 3. And spoiler! Book 5.

With so many subplots ocurring concurrently in the story, Leilandy sort of gets tossed under the rug which is a letdown because she is the only 100%  human mage in the series to become massively overpowered without being under the influence of any of the 4 Ominous Books.

She is the most human character of them all, and a reflection of the society she grew up in. I sympathize with her, albeit I don't precisely like her either. Earlier when I wrote the books, I had pondered whether either she or Trevilin could be in the hunt for the Green Book because both of them were earth mages until I ultimately scrapped the idea and went in a different direction instead.

So sit down, steal an elf's mace and summon an earth golem! 😎

Click on the image to get An Ominous Book on Amazon!

1. Does the character shape her own destiny? Does she actively try to change her situation and if not, why not?

Leilandy's survival was an accident even the Ominous Book was incapable of predicting. The book decided to keep her alive because it wanted to exploit her burgeoning hatred of the Elf Kingdom to further its master plan. In this regard, Leilandy couldn't choose to survive the extermination of her family because her mother gifted her an ancient stone necklace that was a family heirloom and the it saved her life.

She also had no chance to oppose wearing the metallic mask that is an outdated tradition of her country. In this regard, she couldn't blame her suffering on the Elf Kingdom because it isn't a cultural export of the kingdom.

What she did have was the choice to ask Trevilin to teach her how to use magic. At first sight, her petition seemed innocent enough, but it is veiled by a mattice of jealousy for Richard being first in line to the throne (which she falsely attributes to his gender instead of the fact the Earlrose family had a stronger claim to the throne). Learning magic would be fruitful because she took advantage Richard was unable to awaken his magic to usurp the throne and planned to force Richard to live the rest of his life under house arrest far away from the capital where he couldn't be a nuissance.

The subsequent invasion of Ayrtain in book 5 was commanded by her with the purpose of being the new queen and to someday conquer the Elf Kingdom.

Points: 0.5/1

2. Does she have her own goals, beliefs and hobbies? Did she come up with them on her own?

We don't get to see her enjoy hobbies in book 2 because she suffered the worst punishment due to wearing the mask. Constrained by the threat of being tied to a chair if she exposed even a smidget of skin in public and forced to wear uncomfortable clothes that made it impossible to do exercise, she spent most of her free time praying. The book doesn't hint whether her prayers were genuine or because there wasn't a lot of other permissible activities.

Her disdain for the Elf Kingdom was imbued by her society which became unfettered hatred after she ended up expelled by Richard. Taking advantage the kingdom isn't well liked in many foreign nations, she somehow ended up in Hataraj, learned the language, and chose to marry a thuggish warlord she both adores and mistreats.

The siege of Ayrtain is entirely her doing and she proves to be a pretty resourceful commander despite having poor combat skills.

Points: 1/1

3. Is her character consistent? Do her personality or skills change as the plot demands?

She initially tolerates her cousin Richard and dislikes the Elf Kingdom, but her hatred grows in equal amounts as the story progresses.

She is heartless, demeaning and sadistic. She feels no remorse seeing humans starve to death in a gibbet and enjoys being cruel to captured elves out of spite.

It is no surprise she treats her lovers with equal amounts of lovebombing and as peons. We can see proof of this by the way she obtains the loyalty of both Knight Ralph and her husband Kumar.

Her stone collar is no ordinary piece of jewelry. It becomes increasingly powerful and has rendered her essentially immortal. Had she bothered to train in magic rather than become too reliant on the necklace, she could potentially destroy the kingdom.

Points: 1/1

4. Can you describe her in one short sentence without mentioning her love life, her physical appearance, or the words ‘strong female character’?

A bitter heiress to the throne that wants to blame every misfortune in her life to the Elf Kingdom whether or not this is true or not.

Points: 1/1

5. Does she make decisions that aren’t influenced by her love life?

Her ultimate goal is to regain her perceived birthright to become the Queen of Ayrtain, become a more powerful earth mage and someday destroy the Elf Kingdom for killing her parents.

Ralph and Kumar as just two artifices she uses to make it easier to attain her wish.

Points: 1/1

6. Does she develop over the course of the story?

She starts out as a jaded young teenager that has suffered through the trauma of losing her family for reasons out of her control and evolves into a bitter, cruel woman that just happens to be both beautiful and a competent earth mage.

Points: 1/1

7. Does she have a weakness?

She doesn't know anything about her stone collar nor its weaknesses. Her judgement is clouded by her unfettered hatred of the Elf Kingdom so she never bothers to learn the full extent to her magic or show the humility to apologize to Richard and make ammends.

Had it not been for her stone collar, she would have been considered to be a below average human mage and any apprentice Aimite guard could have easily defeated her with ease.

Points: 1/1

8. Does she influence the plot without getting captured or killed?

Yes. She awakens her magic, imprisons her cousin Richard, purges the capital of knights that remain loyal to her cousin while continuing to increase her grip on power.

The stone necklace ensured she remained unharmed when she emigrated to Hataraj and she willingly learned their language and culture because of a common hatred for the Elf Kingdom.

Book 5 however has a plot spoiler and that means I had to knock decimals here.

Points: 0.5/1

9. How does she relate to stereotypes about gender?

Even though Leilandy is quite ladylike in her choice of attire, she is outspoken about her racism, mistreats men (both lovers, enemies and allies alike), and quite resourceful when it comes to emigrating to a hostile foreign country to settle down. She doesn't believe a woman should be denied the chance to become a queen and is very adamant in choosing a husband as long as he is capable with the sword, blindly obeys her every command and can satisfy her sexually.

The book seems to prove she is a bit of a contrast to the gender stereotype during her magic training where she is caught talking to flowers with the demureness of a lady while at the same time being able to summon an unladylike rock golem shaped phantom beast.

Points: 1/1

10. How does she relate to other female characters?

Leilandy only shares a strong relationship with Nelida. At first they get along very well due to finding common ground about disliking the Elf Kingdom. Leilandy even tries to guilt-trip Nelida into taking her side at least once.

Upon discovering Nelida (now under the full control of the White Book) not only is a capable air mage but she confessed she murdered their family, they become sworn enemies.

Leilandy ceases to have a relationship with Nelida but lets her posessed cousin wreak havoc to the Elf Kingdom because this made it easier to imprison Richard who is accussed of withcraft and because Nelida was busy killing elves which is something she agreed with.

Points: 1/1

*****

Point total: a whopping 9 points out of 10! 🥳🥳🥳

5 stars! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Perhaps Leilandy is blindsided by predjudice against both elves and men, and she has to rely on the magic of a stone necklace to become overpowered instead of learning how to fight better. But she is a pretty formidable female character that doesn't get the attention she deserves.

She should get a few extra points just because she looks so damn badass carrying a mace and has the audacity to talk back at Froylan. Very few characters are dumb enough to do that.