Chapter 16: How To Write Annabeth Chase, Part 3

4.1.4. How to Write Annabeth Chase, Part 4

where I stop being whiny and start being practical

So I've covered most OOC!Annabeth types, including a couple I'm reasonably sure are extinct. Hopefully, that's a strong enough what-not-to-do section.

We now move on to the HowtowriteAnnabeth section. And no, you're not the only one who suspects that I'm doing this purely for the sake of increasing the word/chapter count.

Let's recap. From the last few chapters, we've established that Annabeth is;

1. Loyal: Not the type to give up on people easily, as seen by the Luke fiascos. Applies both to when they are in physical as well as mental trouble.

2. Brave/Daring: She doesn't back down easily, and she fights even in cases of her being outmatched; like that time she jumped onto the Manticore when it was about to attack her friend, armed with a puny knife.

Lovely traits, both of them. They're the kind of behavioral characteristics anyone would love to have. They are also things that most action-adventure type protagonists tend to possess, because they're usually required if the writer wants people to identify with, or feel something for the character.

In addition, she is;

3. Intelligent: She can think on her feet and has a truckload of information, useless or otherwise, at her disposal.

4. Competent: She adapts to situations and can formulate actions based on what's needed at the time.

Naturally, with all the above traits going for her in addition to her good looks and athletic prowess, she is also;

5. Self-assured: She doesn't take orders, she gives them. And anyone who thinks they can shatter her self-esteem is having delusions.

All of which kinda blows up the whole sweet, shy, helpless girl-next-door image. To the point where I can safely say that Annabeth Chase is a borderline Mary-Sue.

Before anyone gets pissed off at me for saying that, hear me out.

She's pretty. Like, really pretty. She's athletic. She's a leader, a warrior, a thinker and presumably an artist. Her godly parent is the patron goddess of wisdom, which probably means that she has moments of extreme insight as well. This probably helps her to form plans and strategies which are typically better than what other people come up with.

Annabeth, I maintain, is a character who is almost perfect. Which is the typical definition of a Mary Sue.

I think I've already mentioned that I don't really agree with that particular definition of a Mary-Sue. Because I think that a character who is perfect or almost perfect makes a very good protagonist. Provided they are written with a few twists.

In Annabeth's case (because there are many ways of subverting an almost-Sue, believe me), the twists in question are her flaws. And those aspects of her character, needless to say, tend to get little to no attention. Which is heartbreaking. Because by ignoring Annabeth's flaws, you make her into a romantic ideal to be lived up to, and you stop seeing her as a character with human interactions, emotions and reactions.

And please note that when I say 'flaw', I do not mean 'hurbis'.

Well okay, not strictly true. I do mean hubris; but not in an overwhelmingly literal sense. Many of her flaws have their roots in pride, but the flaws don't start and end with 'pride'.

Since the books are told exclusively from Percy's point of view, so we don't really get a clear view of what Annabeth is thinking. But from the way she's described and the way she acts, you can come up with conclusions.

Please not that these conclusions are largely subjective, based on how you see/interpret a lot of stuff. So just hold off your disbelief (if any) until I get to the bottom and paragraph away about that.

Explicitly Stated

6. Arrogant

And yes, this is the hubris. Or at least the most tangible and obvious part of it. And it can manifest in many, many forms.

Arrogance is the trait you get when you take pride up to the highest level; which is where it would qualify as a flaw. 'Pride' as such is not the flaw, arrogance is.

As someone who is arrogant, Annabeth typically tries to dominate situations, listens to other people's opinions reluctantly and will has a very, very hard time admitting she's wrong. Arrogant people are hard to live with, and any scenario where she gets along with everyone sans disagreements, is a little unbelievable.

The actions I stated above are from one extreme of the scale, by the way. Like negative traits increase somebody's personality, the positive traits help temper them into a likeable personality. Annabeth's arrogance will be muted by her logic (if anyone has a better plan, there's a high possibility she'll listen to it, however grudgingly) and loyalty (as much as she dominates her friends, she will care about their opinion).

So you have to combine them, and reach a point in the middle that you're comfortable with. This is where things start getting a little subjective and individual, by the way.

Extrapolated Traits

7. Possessive

The other extreme (sort of) to loyalty. 'Possessive' is probably a light term to describe how she acts sometimes.

You may have noticed that she hates it when other people attempt to intrude on people she cares about. She sees Percy talking to Rachel in BotL and gets all frosty (see trait 8 below) on him.

It's not what I would call cutesy. It gets a little worrying. But that's okay, because it's a really, really fun trait to write. Seriously. Jealous Annabeth is hilarious and all kinds of Muse. XD

8. Temperamental

There was a line in TLO, where Percy said how Rachel was not at all confusing and easy to understand since she liked to be forthright. Unlike other people. And it's kind of obvious that by 'other people', he means Annabeth.

Annabeth is hard to understand (for Percy, at least) because as close as she is to him, she has moments where she tends to run hot and cold. Mostly when she's really annoyed with him.

She acts, as far as I've noticed, mostly aloof ("I don't give a damn how you're trying to ruin your life this time") when this happens. Like at the Calypso thing and the Rachel thing. But then it can build up and she screams at him ("Oh my gods, I just want to strangle you sometimes!") for tiny things. Just like a lot of normal people, in fact.

The point to note here is that while this behavior is fairly common, not all people in the world get annoyed as easily as Annabeth does. Little things can set her off, but instead of being hot-tempered (think Clarisse or maybe Thalia), she's temperamental. It makes things less obvious and more confusing, which is probably why Percy gave up o trying to understand why she acts the way she does.

Assumed Traits

These are traits which I've ran away with (because Annabeth was a little too perfect to write and I needed something to make it a little more screwed up), and which may or may not make sense. Even more so than the last few.

9. Judgmental

Judgmental people tend to judge. Quickly, like ten seconds after meeting someone. And following that, the judgment they made tends to build up in strength, to the point where nothing's going to shake them out of it.

Annabeth, bring the daughter of Athena and all, probably isn't entirely judgmental. But she has weaknesses. Strike her somewhere near to what she cares about and she tends to act… irrationally.

The example that alerted me to this as a possible trait was her stepmom. When Percy met her, she looked like a perfectly nice woman in love with her mad-genius husband. Anyone who's read up to before that point would assume, from Annabeth's opinions, that Cinderella's stepmom could have taken lessons from hers.

What I got from it was this: Long, long ago Annabeth got the impression that she was being ignored/abandoned in favour of other people who were obviously evil. And the impression stuck with her, even after her father and stepmother proved her otherwise.

The hard-to-admit-she-was-wrong part comes in here too. But to be fair, she did revise her judgment afterwards. And how anyone uses (or ignores) this possibility is really up to them.

10. Neurotic

A neurotic person, for the benefit of those of you who haven't heard the term before; is somebody who pays attention (and subsequently spazzes out over) the tiniest of details.

Considering the fact that Annabeth's motto is "Always, always have a plan," I'm assuming that she gets like this sometimes. Because if you always have a plan, it means that you pay attention to eventualities, options, possibilities and god alone knows what else. And anyone who gets into detail that much has to be at least the slightest bit… obsessive.

I picture her as somebody who, when presented with a situation, automatically starts to analyze possibilities and outcomes and how to manipulate them.

This is not really a flaw, necessarily. It's more of a quirk. But it is also possibly one of the things that make her more irritable than most; which is primarily how I tend to use it.

On Subjectivity

More than anything else I've noted down so far, my interpretation of Annabeth's flaws are subject to well… being interpretations. It's entirely (and from the general impression my sources gave me, highly) possible that you utterly disagree with my assumptions. And that's perfectly all right.

Because fanfiction leaves a lot of room for icing the cake. Not everybody writes every character exactly the same. Just so long as you stick to the basic personality and present them well, bits of embellishment are pretty useful.

However, there's a really faint line between 'acceptable additions' and 'out of character'. It requires some careful handling.

Notes:

Either done or almost done with this part.

Chapter 17: Introduction to Original Characters

Notes: Been a long time. I would dearly love to blame NaNo for the lack of updates. But that would be A supermassive blatant lie. Hopefully, this won't happen again, but I would advise against holding your breath there.

The Annabeth chapters are due for a revamp. Will do that once I'm at the crest of my Annabeth-Bipolarism again. Wouldn't be fair otherwise.