"The Girl Who..."

...on the subtler art of literary subtext

I love literary themes.

Not to the point I think every sentence in a book is brimming, bubbling, sparkling, and overflowing with with unspoken, overwhelming meaning.

But I do love the subtler themes running in-between the lines of a great literary piece (or film)¹. It means the author was thinking about what they wrote. They weren’t aiming for a mindless action snippet that would be forgotten in a matter of days. They wanted to convey something our souls would still ponder centuries later.

And throughout my pro-life fantasy story, the story about a girl who should have died, is the subtler subtext of dehumanisation.

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It’s obvious the culture that Saoirse lives in dehumanises her for surviving the grimmark². What’s not so obvious are the little ways Saoirse dehumanises herself because of said grimmark.

In some ways, it probably is obvious. Book one sees Saoirse wrestle through the grief of the reality she is someone who wasn’t meant to live, and that reality (amplified by cultural ostracisation) is constantly at the forefront of her mind. She sees herself as a mistake. A liability… and assumes everyone else does too, not realising the few who love her think themselves lucky she’s in their lives at all.

Characters like Adam and Muirgen, mistakenly assume because they’ve told Saoirse she matters, she automatically believes and embraces it. That she can set aside years of hateful bias against grimmark-survivours and carry on.

But for Saoirse, that’s easier said than done. She’s reduced her own life down to a demeaning, ugly headline: “The Girl who Should Have Died”.

And it’s a literary theme that appears again. And again.

“The Girl who Hijacked a Prophecy”…“The Girl who Opened the Grimdark”… “The Girl who Was Better Off Dead”, and so on³. It sounds grim, I know. But please trust me. I don’t write about sad, dark things for the sake of it. I don’t leave Saoirse to her despair.

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Quiggs⁴ is the first person in Saoirse’s life to catch onto her little “I’m the girl who…” habit and sees Saoirse’s trapped in her own mind. Yes, Adam is her best friend and Muirgen is Saoirse’s adoptive mother. But they’re so close to Saoirse, they only see her grief, not what it’s mentally doing to her.

When Quiggs comes in, he realises almost immediately and pushes back. “You aren’t the girl who should have died. You’re the girl who defied death.”

This stuns Saoirse. Saoirse, who sees every mistake she makes as proof she really “should have died”⁵. She doesn’t see her existence as something meant for good. And while this interaction near the end of book two doesn’t completely change her mind, it flips the script and turns Saoirse’s entire worldview upside down.

Eventually, near the end of book four (further burdened by and drowning in her own mistakes, haunted by the horrifying things the Weaver has whispered in her ear), Saoirse finds real healing⁶⁷.

And that healing frees her to go about doing what’s needed to save the world in the final book.

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1. Bilbo with an acorn from Beorn’s garden in The Desolation of Smaug is one of my favourite examples of this.

2. A dark magic ab*rtion.

3. At least one “The Girl Who…” motif appears as a chapter title in the prelude and each of the subsequent book. Each one is demeaning in some way, reflecting Saoirse’s tragic view of her own life, amplifying her constant habit of dehumanising herself.

4. Quiggs is a sort of father figure to Saoirse.

5. Um, yes. I know Saoirse’s story is a sad one, but it does have a very happy, healing ending. I promise. Also, I just really love reading teen angst.

6. I could say more, but I don’t want to spoil this for you. However, you ought to know half the scene is already written, and it’s beautiful :’) Also, it’s Gospel coded <3

7. Just call me “The Footnote Queen” :)) Yes, I wasted a footnote on this <3