You know what'd be nice?

[marikunin]

If in the Avatar: the Last Airbender universe, they'd introduce a girl who wasn't an extrovert. Yes, there's Mai but even she had her own confidence about her. It'd be nice if they had a girl that starts out with little or no self esteem & had to gain it from the ground up. Just saying.

Comments

[menniker.livejournal.com]

Sounds like it could be a bad idea.

A character who is shy and can't do anything on their own can't meet new characters, can't talk to random bystanders to get hints about where to go next, will never have a place to stay due to being too shy, will never have the confidence to beat anyone and will always lose.

Or maybe I'm applying too much of my own introversion and social anxiety onto this.

[hymnia.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's a bad idea per se, but I think it would be hard to execute for the reasons you say. You would essentially have a character who is very reluctant to be involved in the events of the story and the author would therefore have to manufacture ways for them to be forced into the story.

[hymnia.livejournal.com]

Well...I'm not sure it's right to conflate introvert/extravert with self-confidence/lack of self-confidence. I think they are separate issues. But if you're looking for a character who is *both* introverted and lacks self-confidence, I would say there's a shortage of characters like that in general (male or female) in action/fantasy/adventure stories.

[ryntha-doghare.livejournal.com]

Yeah, this. Introverted =/= no self confidence. And I think there are a fair decent books around where the main hero has started off feeling insecure in their 'hero identity', though I guess not in Avatar, but that IS just the one universe.