Today I am proud to feature a special guest post by my talented sister Hope Pennington, whose book FairyTale will be released soon! I enjoyed reading her assessment of the main character of the Firmament series, and I hope you will, too. I’ve invited her to write a few more of these character studies over the next weeks, so stay tuned!

First and foremost *clears throat*

Firmament-is-definitely-absolutely-most-assuredly-certainly-non-negotiably-the-best-modern-YA-christian-sci-fi-series-in-existence-cause-characters-and-space-and-action-and-adventure-and-spaceships-and-banter-and-feeeelsssssssssss!!!!

Moving forward with this assumption, let’s examine in DETAIL the main coolness protagonist Andi Lloyd.

I’m going to be covering four attributes of character study in this post: Character Type, Relationships, Habits and Quirks, and Character arc.

Now, I have no extra bonus intel about the series or what it holds so I’ll be guesstimating here as we look as what we know about Firmament‘s sweet, introverted, brave and sensitive protagonist Andi.

Character Type

My favorite thing about Andi HAS to be all the character tropes she defies. She’s not the “damsel in distress” because she’s usually the one who saves the day and saves the men around her from all kinds of trouble, but she’s also not the “sexy fighter girl.” She’s the opposite of flirty, being introverted and unassuming, and only wanting to encourage and uplift those around her. She’s frankly like a lot of smart and sweet girls that I know whose personality type is very underrepresented. Far from the passive over-emotional heroine, she always tries to solve the problems at hand and isn’t so obsessed with getting a guy that she looses her identity in just a pining wistful corner of a love triangle. Finally a girl who doesn’t have to fight and kill to prove she’s not worthless.

Relationships

Andi is warmhearted and gentle developing tender relationships with nearly everyone around her.

She’s slow to insult and quick to defend others.

She gets defensive when anyone offends someone she cares about. This is just one of the many ways she shows her love for people unconsciously.

I think one word to define how Andi’s does relationships would be: loyal.

Habits and Quirks

Andi is genuinely fascinated by medical science and loves flaunting all her medical knowledge to anyone, especially those who challenge her authority as second medical officer.

She tends to worry not when someone says they’re upset with her, but rather when they neglect to say or show that everything is good between the two. If someone comes right out and insults her she tends to get defensive and frustrated, but if they simply insinuate it she gets worried and tries to fix whatever she might’ve done to offend them.

Being very caring and empathetic gives her the ability to comfort people, make friends quickly, and pick up on tiny details that most people don’t notice, but it can also be a burden when she can feel everyone’s hectic emotions all at once and gets very tense and worn.

She always wears leggings and a skirt even though pants are an option for the women’s uniforms on the Surveyor.

Character arc

So far we’ve seen Andi grow out of her uncertainty and come into more confidence, not only in herself but in her friends, family and faith in God.

We”ve seen her get more comfortable and relaxed in her relationship with her brother and more confident in voicing her opinions.

I’m only guessing (and hoping) that we’ll see more of her growing in peace and confidence.

Assuming a lot of Andi’s anxiety and fear (in, granted, very frightening situations) comes from her doubt of herself and what God can do in and through her, I’m assuming as she learns to trust herself, her brother, the Doctor, and God in a lot of ways she’ll also find more confidence and peace, which I’m frankly really looking forward to seeing!

We’ve already seen a theme of trust in book 1, Radially, when Andi had to trust the Doctor when everything she saw and felt around her was telling her not to listen to him.

We’ve also seen strong themes of family as everyone, including the rest of the crew of the Surveyor (who are basically family at this point), gets closer as the series goes on and we learn more and more about them.

I believe and hope we”ll learn yet more about all of them and that the journeys will resolve conflict instead of drive people further apart, but only time will tell and of course everything can’t resolve perfectly all the time.

This has been A Firmament Fan”s Look at Andi Lloyd! Join me next week for part 2 where I take a look at Doctor Gerard Lloyd!



Hope Pennington is a homeschooled manga artist and sci-fi fan who blogs at TheEpicPlace.com, and the author of the soon-to-be-released YA novel Fairytale. In her spare time she enjoys coffee, YouTube, and making new friends ^_^