Morally Gray Heroine
She is not the villain — but she is not the woman you'd want explaining herself in court, either.
The morally gray heroine refuses the clean lines the genre used to offer her: she is competent, she is on the right side often enough, and she is willing to do things the chosen one wouldn't. Monza Murcatto running her war of vengeance, Cersei in moments the books let us inside her, Bayaz's various female pieces, every romantasy heroine whose ends justify means the reader is supposed to flinch at. The archetype works because she is honest about the cost of effective action, and the reader is asked to keep loving her anyway.
The appeal is the discomfort, used well. Expect rationalizations the reader can see through before she can, sympathetic motivations under unsympathetic choices, and the genre's grimdark tradition put to interesting work. She is funny, often, and clear-eyed about herself in ways the heroines around her aren't. This is the archetype for readers tired of paragons and ready for a protagonist whose ethics live in the gray — where most real ones do.
- Honest about the cost of action
- Sympathetic motives, hard choices
- Self-aware rationalization
- Grimdark register done well
