Well based skepticism is called being a survivor. Knowing how to apply that to the people you care for? A protector.

I’ve talked about Naida before.  But allow me to revisit the topic.

Fantasy has a nasty habit of falling into a few pitfalls.   Much of the justifications of these mindsets come from the tendency for Fantasy to mirror reality in an appropriate time period.  If you look through our history books you realize that man’s society has been pointedly Misogynistic.

Even when you take out the humanity part of it, life falls into gender roles.   We need to look no farther than mother nature to get a taste of that.  However it is amusing that when you look at the big picture humans are remarkably dull when it comes to these roles.

Event the nefarious Black Widow has a fairly noble reason for the mate killing habits that brought it’s nick name.  Can you really blame her?  The guys have a habit of eating their kids cause they’re too damn lazy to catch food!

I somehow doubt the happy ending. But it’s still touching.

The fact that it is uncommon for women to take the role of the protector in Fantasy is somewhat ironic.   It is a fairly accepted gender role in nature.   It’s instinct.  One of the things that make humans so amazing is the balance between our conscious efforts and the habits that form us.   Your surroundings as you are raised are relevant to how you act.

Naida was born into a happy, but somewhat dysfunctional family.   Bad things happen to good people.   She lost her mother to war and her father to illness.   She was abandoned, but with her best intentions in mind.

Some people put in this position could easily turn cold.   Some let cynicism shape them.    That is the amazement of humans.   We do not produce static results.  The same goes for when you are born with a Y Chromosome or not.     It’s really just a template left blank, free for us to color.

I find it intriguing how people forget that.  Part of the appeal of fantasy is your choices to ignore the ‘rules’.   Dimanagul is a story all about options.

Naida is a girl that was born with everything she could have possibly wanted.   A happy family, a roof over her head and options to do whatever her heart let her.   Then, everything was taken away.   As the years passed she realized what death meant, what being abandoned meant.   Instead of letting it darken her heart she focused on what it meant to protect others from that.

Naida left her hometown on her own accord.   The orphanage she was raised it could have supported her further, but she felt the need to pay it forward.   She knew she had the strength to go out in the world and survive.    Naida understood that there are those that cannot defend themselves or cannot bring themselves to.

She realizes that were she but a different person she could have been lost to despair.

These are the motivations that drive her.   She values those that cherish life and treat ending it as a truly horrible thing.   While sometimes it must be done, it is never done lightly.  This love also fuels her hatred, and is a key factor in why she is an interesting member of the cast of the Two Destroyers.