@Paperok
Carissa Kuronas is my favorite character I have ever written. Her development throughout the first 75% of the series and how she is basically me implemented into the story. Let me explain in detail (Though I´ll try not to go into too much detail as I do not want to intimidate my critiquer with too broad a block of text)
In The Moriantes Boy (Book 1) When she is first introduced in chapter 1, Carissa is seen from afar by Michael (another of the main protagonists). Michael comments that he is very close to Carissa noting that he at one point considered the possibility that he could have a romantic relationship with her. This thought is turned on its head in a moment as the perspective shifts to Carissa where she immediately displays her feelings for Michael; she sees him as she would a stranger. This is important because this is Carissa´s character, she never tried to get comfortable with the other civilians of Flora in the years she lived there. She only wanted one thing, eternal personal peace. (Much more on this later)
Carissa was born on Kleoa, the smallest planet of the Queen Galaxy. (for context the population is 48.4 million, tiny planet) Her parents were young (mother/ Rose Kuronas 21, father/ Sable Kuronas 20) they lived far north in a quite large town, Yanis. Betsy Shinzen had recently begun her rule over the planet; she was a naive queen unprepared for the trials and choices she would have to make. She held the planet in a tight grip because that´s what Ashley told her to do. Soldiers walking the streets keeping civilians in check, food distributed in set portions with no exceptions. Kleoans, in general, did not develop as many ¨powered ones¨ as the other planets 1 in 30 children were born with an ability on Kleoa. This made keeping the civilians in check that much easier. As Carissa grew older, she met her first friend, Zatoi Clodes. (Carissa 6/Zatoi 7) Zatoi at this point had already lost his parents to the Shinzen. He eventually was taken in by Carissa´s parents, but Zatoi never changed his name. This simple life Carissa had gone on for three more years after this event.
(Carissa age 9/Zatoi age 9) at this point in her life, Carissa was starting to get an understanding of how her ability worked, she hurt herself, and she was rewarded with power. (Carissa´s ability is omnipotence at the price of pain, she inflicts pain on herself, ie, cutting herself, and she can perform a simple task, ie, creating an apple. The power produced is dependant on the amount of pain she feels) She practiced and practiced; jamming pencils into her arm, cutting herself with blades from pencil sharpeners. Other children took notice and told their parents of this. Teachers and parents took notice and thought, She could create food with such simple injuries. She could even create weapons. Carissa´s parents feared Carissa hurting herself, they saw her scarred body and tried to prevent her from hurting herself further. Others cared not for Carissa´s life. A group of people, about 15 spanning from complete strangers to some close family came to the Kuronas home. They wanted to test Carissa; they wanted to see just how much she could make. Sable, Carissa´s father, drove them away with a shotgun. The Kuronas enjoyed three days of peace, neither Carissa nor Zatoi went to school, they sat together, talked, played games, ate, enjoyed and appreciated their happiness. Then the mob returned, with weapons.
The Kuronas were warned twice more when the mob returned, the four of them retreated out the back door as the mob broke into the front. Sable was shot instantly. The civilians chained Carissa´s legs to a tree and threatened to torture Rose and Zatoi unless she started making weapons. Unbeknownst to Carissa; Zatoi and Rose were shot and left for dead in a river. Carissa cut and cut at herself deeper than she´d ever cut before. With the weapons, the civilians waged war against the nearby Shinzen forces. With surprise on their side, the civilians managed to overwhelm the bulk of the Shinzen in the town.
A few hours after the initial attack Betsy heard of the growing revolt. Betsy ordered three platoons to Yanis to subdue the threat. The Shinzen reinforcements came in fast and hard led by the general of the Kleoan army at the time, Iager Follerson. General Iager could control temperature; he marched alone into the city from the east in a special suit. He offered the citizens a deal- surrender, and they would keep their lives. They tried to shoot him, but the temperature in the eastern part of the city dropped instantly. Guns cracked, the blood on the civilians bodies froze, the slaughter began. Waves of soldiers swept through the city all bearing mechanical suits that protected them from the bulk of the cold.
Attempting to flee one of the men that originally took Carissa went to her and unchained her broken body from the tree. He tried to force her to create a helicopter or anything he could use to escape. It was at this moment Zatoi returns, injured but alive. Zatoi tries to kill the man with a large stick but is beaten down. Carissa watches the man unleash a clip of bullets into Zatoi before running away giving up on Carissa. Carissa, cold, battered, covered in cuts bruises, and blood, begins to drag Zatoi´s body. She drags him beyond the edge of town begging for him not to die, all of her pain culminated in this moment. Every cut every bump as they dragged her kicking and screaming from her family, every bullet tearing into her father´s back as he yelled for her to run, RUN. Everything they made her make, they were supposed to be on the same side; they were supposed to be the same people huddled together under the harsh storm of the Shinzen. She fell to her knees arching back a burst of emotion tearing from her body in the form of a silent scream. She wouldn´t let him die; she wouldn´t let him leave her alone in this world. She would not let him die. Using her emotional pain as the catalyst Carissa raises Zatoi from the dead, but this isn´t all she does; from this point on Zatoi becomes immune to death. Not a perfect immortality like Michael but as effective.
The moment Carissa does this, her hazel eyes change to a very light grey. Carissa essentially cracks herself here. She does not directly feel this though; she only feels that something is missing and she just can't feel it. Like an itch that no matter what you do you simply can't make it go away; Carissa spends the rest of her life trying to satisfy that itch. This change in her personality would be obvious to anyone close enough to know Carissa at this point in her life, but there was no one. Everyone she loved had died except Zatoi. And Zatoi was hellbent on revenge. Not against the Shinzen, not against humanity, against life itself. The two of them together but not truly together eventually meet Rio Giraud who gives them their chance. You know where it goes from here; Carissa moves into Flora, keeps Rio and Zatoi informed while they work with both sides of the war. Tricking the entire galaxy and throwing it into chaos. Carissa even goes far enough to kill Jake´s brother Egleminez. Irredeemable; Jake dubs her, and he is right. Carissa retreats from the scene and gets cornered by Cameron. They scuffle, but Carissa manages to subdue him. With this Carissa realizes what she had lost, she gave up a part of herself; she gave up her metaphorical heart. Carissa cried her eyes out for the next few chapters while the climax of Legend drew to its end.
Rio retreating from the battle runs into Carissa and talks her into his final plan, the virtual reality plan where he has her create another dimension where he can create a virtual reality paradise for them. He takes her to his lab and gives her the ability of regeneration. He then lights her on fire. Carissa, using the constant pain of her body burning and regenerating; she creates a pocket dimension and absorbs the entire fortress into it. This is the last we see of Carissa, Cameron, Rio and all the others sucked into the pocket dimension until book 3.
Carissa finally has her answer; she is so close to fixing herself. Her and Rio´s plan happens to be locking themselves in a virtual reality where they can be happy. Cameron is the last person in the way of that. He is the last person in the way of her peace. Cameron and Carissa fight again but on a much larger scale than before, and it is much less balanced. Carissa having nigh-infinite power and Cameron only trying to stay alive and talk her out of it. Carissa finally pins Cameron, but instead of simply killing him she sees that this is her last chance, she wants him to know, she wants him to realize that she is not the villain here. She wants him to see that she is in the right.
Carissa uses her power to force Cameron to experience everything she went through, from her happiness with her family to her mind-shattering suffering as she lost her home. He saw everything; he saw her cut at herself he saw her tear herself to pieces then force herself back together so she could do it again. Most importantly, he saw her crack. The moment her eyes went white, the moment she went blind to the truth. He saw exactly what she had lost. He watched her carry on with her life broken; mind body and spirit. She followed Zatoi blindly letting it lead her to become a spy; she saw those around her as shadows; faceless, nameless. She marched forward through the darkness uncaring of what it would do to her; she ignored her responsibility to herself by denying herself the right to be loved. Cameron sees all of this and his eyes well up with tears. This burst of emotion surprises Carissa, Cameron pulls her into a tight hug and holds her tightly.
Carissa is overwhelmed by this and cries with him. At this point, Cameron is the only person in existence who understood everything she went through. After this Carissa and Cameron confront Rio. Carissa ends up surrendering her life to send Cameron back to the original dimension.
Carissa’s actions were not justified, but she is the biggest representation of the theme of The Moriantes Boy. The theme of TMB is the denial of responsibility. Cameron denied his responsibility to the world around him, Zaura ignored her responsibility to her friends, Jake refused his responsibility to uphold his brother's will and got him killed. Michael denied those around him of the responsibility to fight for themselves. Carissa as I stated earlier denied herself of the responsibility…. The right to be loved.
Again Carissa is my favorite character from TMB; I’m just going to leave this here to get some outside thoughts…. Yep……………thats it I guess.