Igraine the Brave

Title: Igraine the Brave                                          

Author: Cornelia Funke
Igraine lives in Pimpernel Castle with her mother, her father, her older brother and her talking cat, Sisyphus. Her parents, the Fair Melisande and Sir Lamorak the Wily (or the Witty), are magicians, and her brother Albert is training to be one too. Igraine, though, unlike her family, is uninterested in magic. She wants to be a knight, like her great-grandfather Pelleas.

Pimpernel, built by one of her ancestors, was often besieged before Igraine was born. The motive? Igraine's family owns the Singing Books of Magic. The castle has few neighbours, the closest being the Baroness of Darkrock, whose two pleasures in life are horses and drinking spicy mead.
The day before her twelfth birthday, as Igraine tells Sisyphus that life at Pimpernel is a bit boring, the master of horses at Darkrock, Bertram, rides to the castle. He has bad news. Osmund the Greedy, or Osmund the Magnificent (it depends on who's talking), the nephew of the Baroness, has arrived unexpectedly at Darkrock. Rumour has it that he wants the Books of Magic.

Melisande and Sir Lamorak are not worried. They assure the anxious Bertram that they can take care of Osmund.
However, they make a little mistake while finishing Igraine's birthday present...and both are turned into pigs. Talking pigs.
Meanwhile, Osmund is coming. The Baroness has disappeared.
Igraine's parents, now being pigs, can't work magic. And that means that they can't get rid of Osmund and his army until they turn back into humans. For that, they need giant's hair. Unfortuntely they're out of stock.

Osmund and his castellan, the Iron Hedgehog, a.k.a Rowan Heartless, show up outside Pimpernel and warn Albert and Igraine that if the Singing Books are not handed over to Osmund the next day, the castle will be beseiged.
As it is an emergency, the books agree to help Albert hold off Osmund until Igraine returns from the journey she has volunteered to go on- to the hills in the west to get giant's hair.
She succeeds, and meets the Sorrowful Knight along the way, who helps her. And then she learns that the cure will take an hour during which none of Pimpernel's magical defenses will work.

Will Sir Lamorak and Melisande turn back into people without losing Pimpernel? Will Osmund get what he deserves? Will the Sorrowful Knight become happy? And finally, will Igraine become a knight?

Maybe it's below my age group. But even though I'm a teenager, I enjoyed it. And if you like knights, smart girls, magic and twists in the story, I think you will too.

...And Foes Bear Arms To The Doors Of Death

 Drum roll, please....

Seven half-bloods shall answer the call

To storm or fire the world must fall

An oath to keep with a final breath

And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death

(This post will probably be twice as long as my two previous ones. And it will have LOTS of spoilers. Be prepared.)

In the old myths of Greek and Roman mythology, the gods had half-human children, called demigods, many of whom went on to become famous heroes- Hercules, Perseus, Achilles, Odysseus.

Who said that wasn't the case now?

And now, we come to the final eight characters, from Percy Jackson and the Olympians and The Heroes of Olympus, by Rick Riordan.
Annabeth Chase from PJO and Hazel Levesque from HoO finished first and second, respectively. Leo Valdez from HoO came first, closley followed by Percy Jackson from (predictably) PJO in second place. The least popular characters in both categories- Jason and Reyna from HoO.

What is the appeal these characters have?

Readers please note that the survey was held BEFORE the release of the House of Hades (Book #4, Heroes of Olympus, also called HoH) in the first week of this month, so the views of the voters on the following characters could not have been affected by anything in that book.

The hero of the first series, PERCY JACKSON, is the son of Poseidon. He's a popular character. Undoubtedly. I mean, look at his powers- he can control the water, breathe underwater, survive a fall into the Mississippi River from the top of the St.Louis Arch, can talk to horses, and whip up a hurricane. Amazing. And it's not like he's 'too perfect'. In The Titan's Curse, he thinks that there was a time when people watched black-and-white TV and hunted dinosaurs. Reality check, Percy! People never hunted dinosaurs, and black-and-white-TV came way later. And he makes a lot of jokes.

“Ever had a flying burrito hit you? Well, it's a deadly projectile, right up there with cannonballs and grenades.”

There's also the fact that he's a dyslexic, ADHD kid who's labelled as a 'troubled child', which is mentioned on the very first page of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Theif ('...Am I a troubled kid? Yeah. I guess you can call me that'). He goes on to become a leader at Camp Half-Blood (for demigod children of the Greek gods). It's one of those zero-to-hero stories which reaches out to kids. His fatal flaw is his loyalty- according to Athena, he will do almost anything to save his friends or family. But then, Athena doesn't like Percy because a) he's Poseidon's son and b) he likes her daughter.
He got one negative vote. Why?
Maybe it's because of Annabeth. Annabeth is Percy's girlfriend, and in my opinion, sometimes Percy and Annabeth can be...difficult to read about when they're together, from The Last Olympian onwards. Maybe this affected that voter's decision.

The 'genius' of the series, ANNABETH CHASE, is a daughter of Athena. She has, unfortunately, no magic powers, but she does have intelligence (i.e. a brain that is not stuffed with seaweed, as she claims Percy's is), fighting skills, and a magic invisibilty cap on her side.
She's dyslexic too, but as far as I can see, if she's ADHD, that's hidden pretty well. She's an aspiring architect who is put in charge of redesigning Mount Olympus after it is 'trashed' by the Second Titan War.
She's brave. She's quite loyal (she doesn't give up being loyal to Luke, even after he hosts Kronos, which is saying something), she's intelligent, she's a really good strategist. However, she isn't as good at fighting with a sword as Percy is, preferring to fight with a knife (it's possible this was mainly for sentimental reasons- Luke gave her the blade) and resorting to her mind when others resort to their powers. I always wished that she had magic powers- wouldn't it be cool if she could, say, summon a flock of berserk war owls or something?
It's ironic that she got no negative votes, while it's possible she pulled down Percy.

The typical tough girl, CLARISSE LARUE, is a daughter of Ares. She has no powers mentioned, but she is a fighter with a wicked electric spear (which she calls Maimer, whereas everyone else calls it- behind her back- Lamer). Hardly surprsising, as daughter of the war god. She was entrusted with taking care of his chariot for one day (the first story of The Demigod Files, on a day which went crazily wrong) and so it's kind of obvious that she's one of the kids her dad is more partial to. She made friends with Silena Beauregard- totally unexpected- and the rage she felt when Silena died, combined by the fact that the monster was fated to be killed by a child of Ares, allowed her to slay the drakon threatening Mount Olympus.

I personally like Clarisse. She's a very flawed character, but she has a sensitive side. I think she's put down too much, but since I wasn't voting...yeah, she wasn't really close to the top. People who like Percy don't like Clarisse because it's almost always Percy vs. Clarisse. Plus, she kept the whole Ares cabin at camp when the rest of the campers were fighting to protect Olympus.
Technically, Percy helped Clarisse a LOT, and it may also be because she didn't really thank him. Thanking someone is foreign territory to Clarisse, so I think it's justified. Also, once she did show up at the battlefield, she did amazing. She killed the drakon, she led her cabin and various others into battle, screaming at everyone and fighting nonstop, making the enemy army back off.
But, like I said, not many others share my opinion.

Moving on to the next series, we come to the opening character, JASON GRACE, the son of Jupiter (Greek: Zeus). The HoO series starts with The Lost Hero, which starts with this sentence- Even before he got electrocuted, Jason was having a rotten day. So we can consider him the opening character.
He's got some awesome powers- the ability to control the winds, to fly, and to summon lightning. He's been trained not to show his feelings, to be brave, to lead...
...To be too perfect. I guess that's why he ended up labelled 'Least Popular Boy Character' (again, keep in mind that this survey was held before the release of HoH. He might have gotten more points if it had been after).
Even in HoH, Piper -Jason's girlfriend, who I very unwisely excluded from the survey- is shown thinking about what people said about Jason (Piper knew what her friends whispered about Jason- that he was too perfect, too straitlaced...), and apparently the voters agreed.

The praetor of New Rome, REYNA RAMIREZ-ARELLANO, (whose full name isn't mentioned until HoH), is a daughter of the Roman goddess, Bellona. She shares more than one similarity with Annabeth, such as the fact that they both are strong fighters, good strategists, and don't have magical powers (well, Reyna isn't shown with any, so we're assuming she has none).
And look at the difference in the total number of points they recieved. Annabeth at 16 and Reyna at 5. Eleven points. Big difference.
Reyna has a kind of difficult background. She and her sister are from San Juan (why they left is never mentioned, but based on what Jason remembers about a conversation with Reyna, I think there's another tragedy or something involved), and they worked for Circe- until Percy and Annabeth wrecked the island. Her sister, Hylla, went on to become the leader of the Amazons, while she went to Camp Jupiter, eventually being named praetor.
She faces huge problems- the creepy teddy-bear-slaughtering augur Octavian, descendant of Apollo, stirring up the camp against her; her colleague and fellow praetor Jason's disappearance and reappearance; Percy, the guy who wrecked her home, showing up suddenly at camp and becoming the other praetor; the Argo II's appearance; Percy and Jason's departure to take part on the quest to fulfil the second Great Prophecy.

I like Reyna, the way I like Clarisse. I think both of them are put down way too much. But, like I said, I didn't vote.
Now, if her background wasn't discussed, I could justify dislike of her. She's a Roman (Romans are apparently notoriously stony and emotionless), and she's the praetor, which basically means that she's the leader of the super-strict, abide-by-the-rules-or-else-face-death Twelfth Legion Fulminata, and therefore has to set an example. So she's "stonier" than most.
Apparently. Because she's also accused of being "clingy"- trying to find a boyfriend. She liked Jason, but he disappeared (and later reappeared with- guess what?- a girlfriend). Then Percy shows up- a cool guy- but even though he's lost his memory, he claims he has a girlfriend (which he does).
How stony and clingy go together is beyond me. But...I didn't vote....so Reyna was least popular girl character at 5 points.

Back from the dead, we have HAZEL LEVESQUE, Roman daughter of Pluto. She has the power to bend precious metals and stones to her will- summoning it from nearby, making it move around, twisting it to her liking. Oh, and one more thing- though she's not sure about it since she's been back from the Underworld, the metals and stones she affects are cursed...they will kill anyone else who touches them. She also is really good underground
Hazel died sixty or seventy years ago, when she stopped Gaia taking over before the giants rose. Now, Hazel is one of the Seven of the prophecy, trying to stop Gaia- again.
She doesn't have as much experience as Percy, Jason, or Annabeth, but she is just as powerful. She's the youngest- well, that's a debatable point, but assuming that we skip all the years she was dead- of the Seven.

She's not confident of her abilities, because she was put down often, both in her previous life and this one. Her boyfriend, Frank, was one of the few who helped her out, in this life, before she met the rest of the Seven. However, she's relatively calm in a fight- as in she doesn't lose her head when she stabs a monster. Hazel is protective about her brother, and by all descriptions a nice kid.
There've been only three books so far featuring Hazel, so she wasn't yet as popular as some of the other characters...but she came second to Annabeth. No mean feat.

"Oh, bad," he muttered. "Bad. Bad." He looked across the table at Frank and Hazel. "You guys remember Polybotes?"
"The giant who invaded Camp Jupiter," Hazel said. "The anti-Poseidon you whacked in the head with a Terminus statue. Yes, I think I remember.” 

A boy with some really cool powers inherited from his mom, FRANK ZHANG is the son of Mars. His mother's family is descended from some ancient heroes, and he has the blood of a lot of different gods and heroes, so he's not exactly a half-blood, it's a more complicated fraction...okay, you get the point.
He has the power to turn into any animal he wants. Even Percy's jealous.

He's practically ALWAYS unsure of himself. But he does have the courage to do brave things, like the other demigods do.  And, like most of the other characters, he does make funny comments.

Under the tarp was an old steel rowboat with no oars. The boat had been painted dark blue at one point, but the hull was so crusted with tar and salt it looked like one massive nautical bruise.
On the bow, the name Pax was still readable, lettered in gold. Painted eyes drooped sadly at the water level, as if the boat were about to fall asleep. On board were two benches, some steel wool, an old cooler, and a mound of frayed rope with one end tied to the mooring. At the bottom of the boat, a plastic bag and two empty Coke cans floated in several inches of scummy water."Behold," Frank said. "The mighty Roman navy.” 

He's targeted a lot by Leo (proof will be shown later in this post). He's pretty likeable, and scored 14 points, one less than his girlfriend Hazrl.

And finally, the most popular character in the whole survey, LEO VALDEZ, the son of Hephaestus.

His power can be summed up in one word- fire. He's immune to it and can summon it. And he's amazing with tools. 

He's the 'seventh wheel', he doesn't really fit in, and he's a complicated character, one who hides his serious and worried side and shows off his crazy and funny side.

If you need to be convinced any more, here are some Leo quotes.

-"I try not to think." Leo admitted. "It interferes with being nuts."

-"Well done, Frank Zhang," Leo said dryly, doing his impression of Chiron the centaur. "That is exactly how people beat Chinese handcuffs. They turn into iguanas."

-“Any moment now..." The girl stared out at the water. 
No magical raft appeared. 
"Maybe it got stuck in traffic," Leo said.

Basically, he's VERY popular.
The Most Popular Character award goes to Leo Valdez, who scored 20 points! Applause....

And that brings me to the end of the character-analysis-posts I've been doing.
See you next time on Cartwheels in the Rain.