Some people think that Cassidy, the female lead from Bound as the World Burns is dumb. An airhead.

I mean, the apocalypse is here, right? Why isn’t she out there, kicking some ass?

And I just have to boggle at that mindset. The story is this: Cassidy is an 18 year old girl who has been living with her two parents. She’s an only child who excelled in history and English, but didn’t enjoy math or science as much. She loved reading and preferred things with a fantasy bent. She liked fairy tales and dreaming of prince charming.

She spent weekends giggling with the small circle of girlfriends that she had, but she was always too shy to talk to that sweet boy in her class that she liked. He liked her too, but he was even shyer, and he was going to force himself to ask her out before she left for college.

But then the world ended.

Cassidy was dragged into a bunker by a random passerby, but as the days ticked by all of the others in the bunker abandoned her, leaving her alone. She was convinced that once whatever happened up there finished, there would be aid workers who would come to her rescue.

In short, she was a naïve and sheltered 18 year old who didn’t have any training in skills that we think of as ‘strong’. She was afraid – terrified – of what was happening. She thought it was the rapture, in part.

When a big, strong, black military man enters her life, however, she’s both scared and intrigued. He had a gun, and knowledge of war, and knew what was happening out there. He was also very clever, and knew how frightened she was. He wasn’t misogynistic to tell her to get prettied up for him. He was trying to distract her from the horrors that the sweet woman should never have to experience.

I just wish that when we talk about strength and weakness that we don’t talk about them in such black and white terms. Cassidy was weak. She was scared. She wasn’t cut out for a world of terror and war, but that doesn’t mean she was stupid or always weak.

If the world had kept spinning, she would have gone to College. Her parents didn’t want her to – they wanted her to settle down with a husband and have a large family that they weren’t afforded by God. She convinced them, however, and that took strength. She wanted to be a teacher. That would take intelligence.

And yes, that’s all in the background. That’s all never said in the book, because the focus of the book was on the apocalypse and the blooming love between her and Leon.

We don’t always see every side of people in books and entertainment. In different situations, people are weak, or strong, depending on their past. Their education. Their upbringing.

No character is wholly weak, or wholly strong, and being weak isn’t a personality flaw so much as it’s a natural part of being a human. I don’t want to write only strong women. I don’t want to write only perfect characters of any gender or sex. I want to write people, people who are flawed and wonderful and horrible. Who are capable of doing good, or bad, or nothing at all. Who have positive and negative traits.

The other day on Pinterest I saw this one thing about Tom Hiddleston. He said:

What Marvel is so clever at is that they make their heroes flawed, and their villains heroic.

That’s what I love about books. What about you?