Adelina Amouteru

Adelina Amouteru is the protagonist/antagonist and the main narrator of The Young Elites trilogy. She has the ability to create and manipulate illusions, which Michel helped to perfect. She can create an illusion of nothingness and/or invisibility and she can induce immense pain into someone's sense of touch, which can even result in death; she can weave new features into someone's face, most often over herself to hide her malfetto scars. Her ability can feed on other people's fears and the stronger their fear is, the stronger her illusion manipulation is.

She was once the Queen of Kenettra after Queen Giuletta's death. She had many successful conquests, which includes Merroutas, Domacca, northern Tamoura, and Dumor, earning her the title of Queen of the Sealands as well.

Biography

When she was young, Adelina, her mother, and her sister, Violetta, became infected with the blood fever. Adelina's eye became so swollen the doctor had to remove it with a knife and hot tongs. As her mother was an adult, she died from the disease, but both Adelina and Violetta survived. While Violetta retained her beauty, Adelina's hair turned white/silver and she was no longer desired by suitors due to the fact she was a malfetto(damaged by the blood fever) , even though she was still attractive.

On the thirteenth of Juno, 1361, Adelina overheard her father striking a business deal with a fellow businessman. In return for paying all of Martino's debts, the businessman would get Adelina as his mistress. Horrified, Adelina ran back to her room and took out a bag of silverware and valuables from underneath her bed. She had placed it there months ago, waiting for the day she'd have the courage to escape from her father. As she was leaving through her window, Violetta entered the room and asked where she's going. Adelina asked her not to tell her father, and she hugged her before departing.

While running through the streets of Dalia in Southern Kenettra, Adelina heard her father approaching on horseback. Looking back, she saw her father glaring at her fiercely. Adelina tried running as fast as she could, but it was futile, as her father grabbed her arm. He called her a thief and began pulling her back to his horse. Adelina screamed for help, but the town was empty as it was night. She managed to get loose from his grasp, but he then pulled her roughly by the hair. As he dragged her toward his horse, the world turned black and white and phantoms appeared. They whispered Adelina's thoughts to him and, terrified, he released Adelina and ran straight into his horse. Startled, the horse reared up and landed its hooves on his chest, killing him instantly.

Adelina yelled that she was innocent and didn't mean to do it. Seeing as she had no other choice, she ran. She sold things to bakers, farmers, and many other people along the way, and she earned quite a bit of gold for a few days. Soon, however, sleep caught up on her, and she collapsed. A kind woman found her and Adelina begged her to help her. The woman stared at Adelina's markings for a moment, but then kindly helped her as Adelina fell unconscious. Adelina stated she felt the woman was trustworthy. Adelina was awoken abruptly by Inquisitors, who were searching for her believing she was at fault for the death of her father. Adelina begged them she wasn't the one, and insisted it was just an accident.

Then, Adelina spotted her sister, who had a bruise on her cheek and looked like she had been crying. The Inquisitors asked her if Adelina was her sister, and after she confirmed this they placed Adelina under arrest. Violetta suddenly became angry and said that if she helped them find her sister they'd let her go. Violetta then begged Adelina to forgive her. Adelina, angry at her sister's betrayal, looked away and was dragged out by the Inquisitors.

In her prison cell, Adelina was caked in mud and her father's blood. She said every time she woke up she would see her father's ghost standing in the corner, laughing at her, saying she lost and he won. Adelina would tell him she is glad that he is dead and orders him to go away, but he would stay. Adelina did not care though, saying she was "going to die tomorrow morning."

Personality

Adelina has a dark past and twisted opinions about the people and the world around her. She has this thinking that everyone is plotting against her, even to her allies and this spurs her cruelty. According to author Marie Lu, Adelina is "not a nice girl" and "is a girl who walks in darkness." Adelina was originally inspired by Darth Vader. Her father called her a malfetto, an abomination, for ruining their family's reputation and standing in the way of their fortune. Cast as an outcast by her family, Adelina found a place to belong to with the Dagger Society. Some consider her an antihero, a protagonist who lacks moral fibre. What she seems to crave throughout the entire series is just someone who will happily accept her, and to prove that she is worthy of love. While she is very twisted and descends slightly into madness, she truly cares for certain people, including Enzo, Magiano, and Violetta.

Family

Mother

The name of Adelina's mother is unknown, but it is described that they shared a strong relationship. They sang a lot together in the garden and she called Adelina kami gourgaem meaning little wolf when she was a child.

Martino Amouteru

Adelina used to share a good relationship with her father, until the death of her mother and the loss of their money. He started blaming things on Adelina and shows favoritism towards her sister Violetta. When rumors of malfetto's with powers started spreading around, Martino pretended to care for Adelina in a bid to take advantage of her, thinking that she had powers. However, Adelina could not use her powers at the time and, frustrated, Martino broke one of her fingers to force out any hidden powers. Since that, their relationship has only deteriorated and Adelina lived in terror of her father's physical abuse.

Violetta Amouteru

Adelina shared a close and hating relationship with her sister until their mother's death. Adelina was jealous of her, and despite having the blood fever, Violetta was not scarred. She was also their father's favorite. Because of this, Adelina slowly started distancing herself from her sister. By the end of the book, Adelina finds out that Violetta did indeed get powers (the ability to remove an Elite's powers temporarily) from the blood fever, and had used it on her sister during all those times their father had abused them. This was done in order to protect Adelina from giving away that she had powers. Violetta knew their father would exploit Adelina and her gifts, if he was aware she had them. Eventually, they began to trust each other again and and made a promise to never use their powers against each other, though Adelina had secretly feared Violetta's powers.

Appearance

Early sketches by Marie Lu of Adelina and Enzo.

After surviving the blood fever, Adelina's black hair turned silver and her lashes pale. She has dark olive skin, also described to be a warm brown. Adelina also gained a jagged scar where her left eye used to be, as a doctor had to remove it when she was sick with the blood fever. She was said to be very beautiful before the blood fever. Even with her half ruined face, she is very attractive and appealing. Adelina can weave another face over her scarred one to hide her malfetto status, as well as because she is very self-conscious of her scar and hair. Adelina was once an attractive girl, but the blood fever damaged her that her father thinks she can no longer attract suitors and will mar their good fortune and reputation.After she became a consort, Raffaele used creams, ointments, and powder to hide and distract others' gazes from her scars and hair. Due to her Tamouran blood, she had her hair wrapped up in two long strips of silk in white and gold. It was bedecked with jewel pins and a silver chain with a diamond the shape of a teardrop. She wore a golden dress in loose silks. The cloth was imported from the Sunlands. The people of Sunlands often wear loose silks due to their hot temperature while the Kennettran women wore stiff corsets and lace, She wears a white mask made of porcelain, bedecked with diamonds on the edges and elaborate paint glitter with a white plumage at the center. It was commissioned by Raffaele and was meant to cover her eyes. She was taken to baths until her skin glistened, and she smelled like roses and honey. Despite being a malfetto, Adelina is still treated with luxury. Raffaele described her as being kissed by moon and water. During her time in Merroutas, she wore a Tamouran headwrap, used an illusion to hide her scars for a pretty face, her fingers adorned with bronze rings. After she took the throne, she sensed that she no longer needs to hide and wants to show everyone who their queen is, abandoning her Tamouran headwraps and illusions as a disguise. Instead, she shows her markings and no longer wears a mask. Because she is queen, she can have the finest clothes and jewels. Her silver hair, which was straggly from her attempt of cutting, is now long like a silver curtain which she ties with different hairstyles suitable to a queen and bedecks them with jewels.

Powers and Abilities

Adelina Amouteru has the abilities to create and weave illusions that can trick the sense of sight, touch, smell, taste, and sound.

Trivia

• Adelina has a little Tamouran blood.
• Because of her Tamouran decent, she has been told she looks like Daphne, a Tamouran girl who was Enzo's former lover.
• Adelina is an antihero, a protagonist who lacks many ideal qualities that most main characters have (such as morality or idealism).
• Adelina was formerly one of the series' supporting characters, but became the protagonist when Lu believed that the former protagonist, Tye, was too bland and uninspiring. Tye is now one of the series' supporting characters and goes under the name Raffaele.
• Her first love is Enzo Valenciano, however the love of her life is Magiano. She feels different intensities of warmth when she is with either of them; with Enzo being almost scalding, and with Magiano being warm and nice.
• The only reason why she hesitated before trading her life for her sister's was because she thought of the future she would never have with Magiano if she made the bargain.
• One of her last thoughts before she died was of Magiano.
• Her mortal body's failure to house the power of the gods (towards the end of Rose Society) will be that she will continue to lose control of her illusions and they will eventually destroy her mind.
• Adelina was immortalized as a constellation after Violetta begged her goddess, Compasia, the angel of empathy. Compasia took pity on Violetta and went to the Underworld to ask her sister, Moritas, for her forgiveness and carried Adelina's soul from the Underworld and placed her in the sky, turning her into stardust as she once did with her lover, Eratosthenes.
• A folklore, the Midnight Star, says that at exactly midnight, Adelina's constellation would transform her back into her human form and she would walk the earth with Magiano until the dawn separated them again; the same way Eratosthenes, Compasia's mortal lover, did with Compasia.
• Artwork by Tumblr user Deanpinterester
• Marie Lu said before the release of TRS that she based Adelina's character arc after Darth Vader's in Star Wars. [4]