Liu Xi falls into that category too, except for the robot part. But Liu Xi endured a lot more trauma in a much shorter time, so she matured faster. Now that Anna endured similar, she might benefit the same way.

Also, that sort of mental and physical testing also will prove that if Anna can handle it, she's safe enough to be around people. It's not only the kind of thing that would mature a person, but it could drive a less stable one insane. So if Anna is still her gentle self, she passed the test.








I used to keep screwing that up - you can see in my earlier stories, if there were more than say, 3 people in the cast I kept rotating them so no more than 2 were on scene at a time. Often that led to half the cast of a story being forgotten halfway through.








From a writing point of view it makes things more challenging for me, which is good, because it keeps me from falling into that favorite-powerful-character trap. Sometimes I give her a scenario that's just too much, and then she screws up and something bad happens to her. It's part of her learning experience.

And from a character point of view, it does make her learn something each time. I credit her tendency to use highly unorthodox strategies and generally be very clever with being forced to learn quickly. Like the Hooded Hood once gave her one of those awful choices to fix this or this...and she decided to do both by dragging him along for the ride. Or how she often tries talking first instead of picking a fight right away - because she's lost fights before, and sometimes talking first can help her assess the risk better.