Amber Kim - Personality and Background

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR...Books One, Two, Three, Four, and Five

In The Know

As a slightly annoying know-it-all Amber is modelled on a variety of smug fictitious intellectuals, but very influenced by Emma Watson’s performance of Hermione Granger.

The films are the only way I know the character. I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books but I’ve seen the movies. I adore Watson’s performance of Hermione and she certainly influenced the creation of Amber. Hermione herself does actually make an appearance in The Mythic and the Illustrious Lie, or at least her doppelganger Magnolia Maguire does, during two pivotal scenes.

But although Hermione Granger did provide some of Amber’s personality, there’s someone else who provided far, far more.

Better Half

An early reader of The Mythic who knew me was the first one to notice. ‘The two lead girls are your personality cleaved in half’.

That’s very much how I think of Lucy and Amber, as the two conflicting sides of my psyche that so often fight it out—the cynical loner ruled by their heart and the kind but awkward over-thinker ruled by their head.

I wasn’t, and am not, quite as incorrigible as Amber, nor as smart, but her diligence, her civic-mindedness and interest in causes, in fairness, is all me. Amber’s attempt to free the Snuff in Book Two is totally something I would do. From me Amber also gets her neatness but I share none of her phobias, especially not her fear of speaking in public. However, while I’m not afraid of clowns, I do despise them. Yes, I do mean “despise”.

Amber, then, is a breeze to write and, indeed, to narrate. Of all the character’s voices, her’s came the most quickly and easily. I innately understood how she should sound and, unlike every other voice, it never changed as I rehearsed Book One.

Father Figures

Amber’s parents are Korean, or at least her mother hails from Korea. I apologise to anyone offended by my portrayal of Mrs Kim in the earlier books, as a stereotypical Tiger-mother who spoke in halting English. As we learn in Book Five, Amber’s father is actually from Aedea, that he is deceased, and the family name is not Kim but Kím! Mrs Kím herself explains that playing up the stereotype made for a useful disguise and allowed her to fly under the radar.

I have been sitting on the Amber-is-half-Aedean revelation since Book One. I originally intended for this to be a major plot point later in the series but Book Five is all about twists and dramatic reveals, and so I brought it forward. I also simply couldn’t keep the secret to myself for any longer! Don’t worry, there are still plenty of buried surprises and planned twists for later books!

The mark over the ‘i’ in the Kím name is called a diacritic. The fact that the Kím’s are “plumed” means that Amber isn’t just half-Aedean, she comes from an influential Aedean family. We’re told they’re from the season of Sprîng, specifically the land of Farawei. As I write this, Aedea is sealed off for our characters so it remains to be seen whether Amber will be able to meet her long-lost family…

Bonus Round

I did hint at Amber’s mixed heritage in Book One. When fighting Writhen in Aedea, Amber touches the Casket of Woe in the hope it will turn her into a useful mythological creature. For everybody else any contact with the Casket has an immediate effect. But when Amber touches it nothing happens. Amber touches it again and still nothing happens. Only with a third touch does the Casket transform her. Sure, that was a vague hint but it was my way of indicating that Amber was something special, something the Casket didn’t know what to do with at first.

Bonus Bonus Round

Given that the Casket of Woe destroyed any Aedean who touched it, it’s good the box chose to view Amber as more Terran than Aedean!