Samia is a sort of wandering trickster character, largely defined by her power to travel instantaneously through an organic medium. It's like teleportation but it requires her to touch part of a biological body (ex. a root of a tree) and she can only teleport to anywhere else the same biological body reaches to (ex. just above one of the tree's branches).
Other people and organic things can be taken with her when she performs her teleportation, but Samia cannot take anything else such as metal. Because she lives in a time period before paper money, Samia ends up losing her money all too easily and as a result often resorts to relying on other people's goodwill to be fed, clothed, and sheltered in the duration of her travels.
Throughout her journeys in unfamiliar lands, Samia becomes exposed to the intimate problems that affect the people she imposes upon. Some issues can be solved with her intervention but many of them cannot. Samia herself is largely a simple-minded character, getting caught up in helping whichever party she comes across first without question. She's an honest woman in her dealings, but acts to hastily which sometimes leads to more harm than good.
The entire theme of her story would be one of the interplaying mechanics between control and helplessness; between independence and dependence. It's a battle strongly tied to gender, but it isn't necessarily restricted to it.
Samia's role as a woman and a wanderer is questioned and prodded at, her lifestyle is not always seen as welcome in the societies she travels to, but there is a sense of envy among many of them; after all, Samia can be virtually untouchable if she so desires, which is a freedom so few can enjoy (especially for the women). While Samia's strange power can be a means for heroics, it also distances her ability to connect to people on a social level, which continues to reinforce her wandering ways.
No comments:
Post a Comment