Powerful: A Powerless Story

Makoto, also known as “Mak,” is the story’s deuteragonist and the second of its two narrators. Makoto is a blacksmith with dark eyes and hair, sharp features, and a scar running through his lips. Adena thinks that Makoto is “breathtaking…so handsome it’s piercing,” but she also observes that there is something “sharp and cold” about him (20-21). Like Adena, he is eking out existence in the slums of Loot—but unlike Adena, it is not because of his low-level powers. Nineteen-year-old Makoto is a Wielder, a status that makes him a likely assassination target; the king of Ilya will not tolerate anyone other than his son Kai possessing this extraordinary power. Makoto ran away from home after his father tried to get him to turn himself in as a Wielder; his younger cousin, Hera, ran away with him and has protected him ever since. Makoto feels that tragedy follows him, and he feels responsible for Hera being taken away for the Purge Trial. He considers it his duty to rescue her, even if it leads to his death. He also feels undeserving of a relationship with someone like Adena, whom he sees as optimistic, kind, and sunny—his polar opposite. Makoto is, by his own account, “self-serving” and “self-loathing” (33).

Just as Adena is defined by her profession as a seamstress, Makoto is defined by his profession as a blacksmith. Makoto is “hardened by life” (49), and as a blacksmith, he hammers and shapes metal, hardening it for its eventual uses. Most of his creations are weapons. Because of his own experiences in Loot, he believes that the people of the slums need to be constantly on guard and ready to protect themselves. Makoto extends this philosophy not just to physical dangers, but to emotional dangers, as well. He is constantly on guard against emotional vulnerability and interacts with others with a sharpness that leads to his symbolic identification with the many knives he shapes and carries.

Makoto is a dynamic character who is changed by his romance with Adena. Initially, Makoto closes himself off from Adena and tries to stay aloof, resisting any enjoyment of her gregarious chatter and her gentle, positive outlook. When she is harassed on the street, however, his response is protective. He finds that his “words are much softer than anticipated, as though she’s somehow coaxed the compassion out of [him]” (57). He goes out in search of the men who frightened her and risks his own safety to secure hers. Because of Adena, he eventually gives up his quest to save Hera, realizing that he is no longer willing to throw his own life away in a doomed effort to free her. After he receives gifts from Adena—the first in his life—he purchases his first gift for another person. He begins smiling for the first time, and for the first time he considers the possibility of a happy future.

Paedyn Gray is Adena’s best friend; the two have relied on one another for five years for companionship and survival in the harsh environment of Loot. Paedyn, unlike the other main characters in the story, is an Ordinary. She pretends to be a low-level Elite with psychic powers to stay safe in Loot, and she feeds both herself and Adena by stealing. Paedyn is a skilled fighter whom Adena has depended on for protection in the slums, and her strength is a source of comfort to Adena. Before the narrative begins, Paedyn rescues one of Ilya’s princes, Kai, from an attack and is selected to participate in Ilya’s Purge Trials as a result; this story is the focus of Powerless, the book that precedes Powerful chronologically in The Powerless Trilogy. Because of this rescue, Paedyn acquires the nickname “The Silver Savior,” a reference to her silver hair.

Paedyn is a headstrong, confident person who values honest talk and open-mindedness. She is the only woman at the Trial balls who does not wear the traditional green—instead, she has Adena make her several striking dresses in colors like silver and black. She is also an impressive person to whom others are attracted—she becomes a popular favorite after her rescue of Kai, and both Kai and his brother, Kitt, fall in love with Paedyn while she is in the castle. Although in her appearances in Powerful she is generally focused on her own situation in the Purging Trials, it is clear at the novella’s end how deeply she loves Adena. She is overcome with grief as Adena dies in her arms. Although Paedyn is a character well known to readers of the rest of the series, as the other books in The Powerless Trilogy are told from her point of view, she makes only minor appearances in Powerful. Most of the novella’s characterization of her comes from Adena’s memories of and thoughts about her.