The Author’s Kingdom is a series of articles, where the Author explains his perception of Heirs to the Kingdom. It is written to cover the festive season of Christmas 2016.
The Contradictions of Jett Amber
Before you begin to read, I will warn you of a spoiler alert if you have not yet read book seven. As much as I do not want to spoil the book, this particular part of the articles does contain some hints that may affect the reading. I have tried to keep everything as low key as possible, but sadly in this particular article some important points from Book Seven had to be referred to.
Today I will open up and examine one of the most popular characters of HTTK. I am going to look deeper into Jett, the cold ruthless sword wielding comedian. This is the girl who will attack with no fear or no mercy, and all before her will fall, she will laugh and scream with delight as she fights, and yet contrary to belief, if she sees her friends hurt, her tears will be the first to fall, and as you will soon see, there is a good reason for every aspect of Jett.
When I first began to create my characters for HTTK, I decided to use the names of minerals to not only name the characters, but also explain a little about who they were. This was mainly something I used as a support technique, because it meant as I created each character and began to write them into the story, their name also triggered their behaviour, and so by using this as a kind of code, it helped me remember what each character was like as I threaded them all in together to interact with each other. One character that was always going to be prominent was Jett Amber.
Jet: Seen as the stone of sorrow, but mixed with the properties of Amber, it can have the reverse effect.
Amber: Known to clear negativity, and for healing, soothing and harmonizing. Can exert a great positive influence.
So if you look above and see the main influences, you very quickly begin to see how I was able to take some of these qualities, and weave them into her character. The one thing we all know is that Jett is loud, she holds nothing back and her brash attempts to fit in create humour amongst the group, which on several occasions in the early books breaks the ice and lifts the spirits of the group.
One aspect that I always saw as very important was her bonding with Jade. It is very clear in the early books what a misfit Jade is, and as a result it is also the cause of a great deal of unseen loneliness. Jett proves to be the cure, and as the two build up a friendship, they become inseparable and together create all kinds of mischief. Jett without realising actually helps Jade adjust and find a voice, and as a result she becomes a very integrated and important part of the Specialists.
Even the effects of the Jet Stone, which can be seen as negative plays a positive role due to the fact it is linked with Amber. There is a dark side to Jett which in the early books is not seen often, one of the elements of that is her power. Sorrow can mean many things, and I deduced that it could also mean pain. Jett prefers to use her sword to fight, it is actually really important to the type of person she will become in later adult life, but she does have a gift like all of the other members of the circle, she just chooses to only use it as a very last resort. Jett can focus her mind to create internal pain, something I show in book two when she is trapped in an impossible situation pinned to a wall. The Cutter who feels he will take advantage of this, soon experiences tremendous pain in his head as Jett’s eyes turn a violent dark blue, the result for the Cutter is death by excruciating head pains. I saw it when writing as quite a dark and sinister power compared to those of the others, and felt it fitted in well with the meaning of the jet stone.
Back in 2008 I sat in my office one evening with Louis, who was at the time working on sketches for the covers of the first editions. I had just finished the first draft copy of ‘The Darkness of Dunnottar’ which oddly enough at that time was actually being written under the working title of Dark Rock of Dunnottar, I changed the title shortly before it was published. As we looked at the book and described the action, it became clear that the working partnership of Jett and Rafe greatly appealed to him, and we talked at great lengths about the story as it was then. It was during this conversation that I mentioned that Jett was actually a multi layered character with many hidden levels which would be revealed over the next few books, I tried not to give any spoilers, but I slowly over the period of an hour pulled apart her character and showed him the reasons for each and every aspect of her characteristics. I still remember that conversation with clarity as I think it really opened her up and made him see her in a completely different light.
On the surface Jett is loud and brash, and very flaky at times, but actually like many people in this world today, a lot of it is a mask she wears to hide her real self, and it is in this area I have been able to slowly reveal the great depths of her character. Possibly the most obvious elements of this was in the chapter the “Coming of Queens” in Book Five.
During Dunnottar I showed a little bit of her vulnerability when she saw the people being brutalised by the guards and she reacted by attacking them with her gift. It was an action that alerted the Dark One to the presence of the Specialists, and had it not been for the swift action of Sinclair, they all would have been caught. Later she weeps and gives an apology, but the root of her pain and anger at the guards, was at that point she was starting to see her companions as family. In the Coming of Queens, I used a memory playing in her head, as she faced one of her most difficult opponents in the form of the brutal Ivor Walter’s.
During the fight Jett weakens under the powerful blows from Ivor, and it is at this point we get to see the childhood of Jett in the form of one of her memories. From this we discover that she has dance lessons as a small child, but whereas most parents would do this to provide fun and entertainment for their child, Scarlett has an ulterior motive. Dance teaches balance, and the more balanced Jett is, the better she is able to wield her sword in combat. As the voice of her mother talks in the back of her mind from the past, we get to hear her mother scalding her, and telling her to get up and do it again. I think at this point it becomes obvious that for Jett, childhood was more of a training camp that a fun experience. Her childhood was one long rehearsal for later life as Scarlett, a warrior queen herself, trained her eldest daughter to be even better than she was. Scarlett is incredibly competitive; we see this in small things like the meals she serves at the castle in Caerleon. Jett quips at the table, “This is just mum showing off, we will have toast tomorrow.” Losing is not an option for Scarlett, and through her endless training of her daughter, we start to see how this has been ingrained into Jett almost like a mantra. The result is exactly as Scarlett would have planned, Jett rises up and allows her training to kick in, and as a result she finds the skills and power to defeat Walters.
Once we start to fully understand her childhood, we begun to understand Jett more. Her life from almost day one was strict and controlled by her mother, her freedoms were very limited, and I think it is a direct result of her mother’s controlling nature, that breeds into Jett the rebellious instincts that become her most popular attributes for mischief. Jett learned very early to fight her mother with rebellion, and this to some degree shows the inner strength she has. I think it is very clear, she has no intention of becoming her mother, and from that appears her only real defence, she appears uncompliant. The ants in the cooks knickers, the attacks on Harry, her wild sexual deviance are all things her mother disapproves of, as they are not the sort of things that a warrior queen should be doing, this is Jett’s fight back to established her own identity and avoid the trap of being seen as cold and as calculating as her mother is.
Another telling aspect of Jett is her loyalty and protection of her little sister Ruby. It is here we start to see how much Jett values family, her sister means everything, and even though they are separated as Jett is constantly in training sessions, it is evident that for most of their childhood, Jett when free devoted her time to Ruby. The loss of Ruby is very difficult, we see that Jett struggles to let go, a moment shown here is when Robbie arrives at the graves to find Jett weeping for her sister. Even in front of her grave, and confronted with the facts that Ruby is gone, Jett cannot let go and still feels that Ruby is out there somewhere, something book Seven reveals the truth of, and here again we see that absolute dedication to her sister and her memory that plays a huge role in her loss at the bridge of the Mirrored Waters. It is clear as she defends Runestone (Who she also regards like a sister) and is cast towards her death in the Mirrored Lake, that her will power interferes with the powers of those trying to save her, and as a result she is cast beyond the reach of everyone into a land she should never have been able to access. This action as described by Tula, is something that should have thrown out the balance of all the realms, and yet for Jett it does not, which again is a direct result of her ability to create stability as her name implies. After a whole year in Maybean she finally is recovered, and yet that year to her is only a few weeks back in her home realm, but the changes within her are there to clearly see when she returns.
Book seven is a definitive turning point for Jett, here we see her confront Robbie openly for the first time. It’s almost a challenge to his leadership, and to be honest it is not done with malice, but it is clear to everyone as she turns on him and snaps back at him “Don’t you dare.” And “I am the queen of Caerleon.” It is a very important moment of clarity for everyone, but more so for Jett. Here is the moment when you finally see that in her year away she has had a lot of time to actually think over her life. In one way, it is almost as if she has given in to her mother’s wishes and has stepped right into her mother’s shoes, but we are talking of the qualities of Jet and Amber, and this is the contradiction that truly shows the hidden depths within the character. You see from my point of view it does not matter so much that her entire life has been combat training to become a warrior queen, the really important aspect her is the influence of Ruby. Through Ruby her younger sister Jett experienced love and compassion, she saw the true value to the protection of the weak, and in many ways these have had a much more profound effect on her. The love she holds deep inside for her sister sway the balance away from the cold ruthlessness she was trained in, into a more caring and affectionate person, and that as far as I see it is the defining quality that makes Jett the truly gifted and loveable character she is.
There is no doubt in my mind she will one day rule Caerleon as the queen with great authority, but because of Ruby, she will also rule with great humanity, and that makes her a very different ruler compared to her mother’s reign. Jett will probably be a much better ruler, as she will combine all the qualities of her inner self. I think I can clearly say that even though at this point I have not mapped out her future, if I do decide that she becomes a parent, I would say her approach to teaching her children will be very different from her mother’s.
There is no doubt in my mind that Scarlett loved her children, but her competitive edge and drive to prove herself as the supreme fighter who had no understanding of losing was indeed her greatest flaw, or was it? It was her drive and education that she instilled on her children that actually allowed them to find a way to revolt, and in doing so, it added a stronger and more determined if not at times softer edge to her children, and so in a way, it brought out the finer qualities of Jett and Ruby, so maybe in a weird way, it was for the better.
Jett Amber is an amazingly deep and complex character, but you have to peel away the layers to fully see and understand it, it is an aspect of the way I write that maybe my geeky side shows more than I realised. I have placed many layers within all the characters simply because to me it is a part of the natural process, due mainly to the fact that I grew up at a time where writers were deeply invested in ensuring their books could if examined deep enough reveal more than just the story.
What I have put above is just the tip of the iceberg, dig deep enough and you will be able to read far more into her character than you first realise. On the surface Jett is great fun and very bubbly, she is full of mischief and tricks and has a love of using sexual innuendo to gain an advantage by embarrassing those she deals with. But scratch at the surface and soon you will see the full depths to a girl who can lift a sword and dance like a ballerina with devastating results. In book seven Rowan comments that yes she can be flaky at times, but she is never complacent, it is without doubt a definitive explanation of her, and it also shows how deeply Rowan understands her. I am sure if you have read this and return to the books, you will start to see the qualities of her name start to show more in each of her interactions, and it is my hope that by doing so, you will enjoy her moments within the pages far more, or you can just take her as she comes and giggle at her loud and brash ways and her mischief, either way, the books are there to be enjoyed, and so I wish you well and hope I have helped to make HTTK a little more fun for you.