Character Connection: Aliena

Don’t you just love larger-than-life characters? The ones who jump off the page and grab you? Whether you love them or hate them, you can’t be indifferent to them.

I would love to know about the characters who just won’t leave you! Most of you will probably post about how much you love (or loathe) each character, but this is a great place for the more creative ones among you to let go and have fun! Write yourself into a scene with Anne and Diana. Write a love poem in elvish for Aragorn. Draw a picture of Harry obliterating Voldemort. The possibilities are endless.

Be sure to post the book’s title and author, and be very careful not to give away spoilers while talking about how much you love your characters.

Mr. Linky will be posted here on The Introverted Reader every Thursday.

Aliena, from The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, starts off as something of a spoiled little rich girl. Don’t get me wrong–she’s feisty and I love that about her. But she is sheltered by her father and his wealth and she doesn’t realize how vulnerable she would be without both.

The family loses everything in a scene that makes my blood boil, even a couple of years after reading the book. I expected Aliena, the sheltered flower, to wilt like one.

Instead, she comes into her own.

She thrives on the adversity. I won’t get into specifics, but I respected her so much for what she went through and what she became. She has a younger brother and she does anything to protect him and help him regain his rightful place. In a time when independent women were treated with suspicion at best (and burned for witchcraft at worst), she fought hard for her independence and flaunted it. She’s a beautiful girl with a brain and she uses whatever she has to in order to get ahead.

That makes her sound a bit cold and calculating, but she’s really very passionate. She’s also a strategist who is able to keep her eye on the long term goal and do what needs to be done in order to achieve that.

My husband and I just started watching the mini-series on Netflix. We’ve only watched the first two episodes, but so far, it’s pretty good. It felt choppy at first, especially to my husband who hasn’t read this, but it seems to be settling down. It’s very violent, but if that doesn’t bother you too much, I recommend it at this point. We haven’t seen too much of Aliena yet, but so far Hayley Atwell has done a great job of portraying her and capturing that defiant gleam I pictured in her eye.

Who did you connect with this week? Link your post on Mr. Linky, then be sure to go check out the other Character Connections!

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