So you’ve reunited with your childhood friend and former crush, who your evil village has exiled to mutant territory for being a mutant. You are also a mutant, pursued by your evil village, and your mutation is telepathy. One of the other telepaths is a mole in the army of your evil village, and warns you that your evil village is just about to launch a deadly pincer attack that will almost certainly wipe out the mutants of mutant territory, which is where you are.Â
You are on the side of the mutants (unsurprisingly), but unfortunately they do not trust you (because you are from the evil village, your mutation is invisible, and you have also outright lied to these people before, specifically about the enemy forces). The only person in mutant territory who trusts you is your childhood friend, and she’s not in the cave you’re hiding in right now. How do you get out this vital warning of an ambush from your evil village?
A: Look for your childhood friend, hoping to find the one person who will listen to your warning before it’s too late.
B: Risk a fight by revealing yourself and telling one of the mutants who don’t trust you. If they don’t believe you, that’s on them, but at least you’ll have done your duty by trying to save the other mutants.
C: Wait it out in your hidey-hole, hoping your childhood friend will return in time for your warning to be of any use, but not leaving the cave even if she doesn’t, because that would be dangerous. (Even if your evil village killing all these mutants would also be dangerous, since you are certain they would then move on to hunting down you)
If you picked “C,” you are a coward, you get a whole village of mutants killed, including your childhood friend, and, while you successfully protect your own miserable hide, you are far from protagonist material, since a compelling protagonist takes risks, or makes sacrifices, to try and achieve their goals rather than simply doing what’s safest for them personally. Yet you are the protagonist of The Chrysalids.Â