Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-98.247.168.42-20181122042639/@comment-32987979-20190427172300

I just think that this is due to Shannon not thinking the series through enough. You know thre whole thing, show don't tell? She is really bad at this. Another thing is, Sophie is incredibly pathetic. She has 5 abilities and can't even hold her own in a fight. She's constantly described as being physically weak, unable to do the exercises her other friends (particularly male) are doing, doing terrible in P.E., etc. At least Biana and Linh are ACTUALLY strong. Maybe not so much physically, but Linh has proven herself many times by basically saving the entire team twice (in Ravagog and at Nightfall) and Biana, despite being a "girly girl," is really brave, attacking Vespera and then being able to confront her confidently despite being hurt by her.

I really just am not a fan of Sophie's character. She needs to toughen up, and I find it hard to like her  when she was FIVE abilities but still being so weak. Sophie's just not an interesting protagonist, because her entire story arc is built around her having low self confidence, being physically weak, being shy, having nervous habits. This wouldn't have been a bad thing had she gotten over them and became a stronger person, but I guess that would just be too hard for Shannon to do. After all, having the main character constantly get beaten miserably by the bad guys is an easy plot device... I guess. This is one of my least favorite parts about the books, but I have a lot of criticism for the series, more about the story itself than the lack of diversity and such. Those things would be nice, but I feel like Keeper has a lot more problems in my opinion that have to do with the plot and characters.