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Kira, Gathering Blue’s protagonist and the character to whom its third-person narration hews most closely, offers the reader a unique view into a world that has tried its best to stamp out uniqueness. From the moment of her birth, Kira has been marked as different from the other members of her community. Kira’s physical disability is the most obvious sign that she isn’t like the rest of the villagers, and it signals that she thinks differently than them, too. Unlike her neighbors, who prioritize physical strength and feats of labor, Kira is a skilled artist who creatively imagines a better society. Many of the villagers, led by Vandara, believe that Kira does not have a right to live because Katrina contravened the law by keeping her alive. As a result, Kira’s successes threaten the order of the village. She is living evidence that disposing of disabled and injured people is a despicable custom that devalues humanity and its creative ability. Kira’s abilities force the other villagers to sit with uncomfortable truths that make them defensive and hostile because they do not want to change.
Another aspect of Kira’s upbringing that differentiates her from her community is the quiet and gentle approach her mother took to raising her. This is a subtle difference, but it has played a similarly large role in shaping her into a thoughtful, nonjudgmental personality. As Kira reflects in Chapter 12, it has also made her a target for hostility from the other villagers, who consider any deviation from local custom to be a threat. Unlike Katrina, who raised Kira with loving kindness, Vandara and Matt’s mother see their children as a burden to be contained or beaten into submission. Gathering Blue consistently emphasizes the chaos and antagonism that characterize typical village life, so Kira’s longing for peace and calm is possible only because, unlike the other villagers, she has a frame of reference for what peace looks like. However, her firsthand experience of peace also marks her as privileged compared to the people who surround her, which gives them another reason to reject her.
