Why We Need More Morally Complex Female Characters: A Case Study in Ena of Roanswood

When I sit down to write female characters, I'm acutely aware of a frustrating pattern in literature: women are so often flattened into archetypes. The pure-hearted heroine. The nurturing mother. The femme fatale. The victim who needs saving. These cardboard cutouts serve plot functions rather than existing as fully realized people who make messy, complicated, sometimes questionable decisions.

Real women are complex. We contain multitudes. We make choices that serve our survival while violating our values. We're tempted by power even when we know it's dangerous. We hurt people we love while trying to protect them. We question our own judgment, wonder if we're being manipulated, and sometimes make the "wrong" choice for what feel like the right reasons.

So why don't we see more of this complexity in fiction?

Today, I want to talk about moral complexity in female characters, using Ena from my Shadows of Ireiale series as a case study in what happens when you let a woman be complicated, flawed, powerful, vulnerable, heroic, and questionable all at once.

The Problem: Women as Moral Absolutes

In much of popular fiction, female characters exist on a moral spectrum with very little middle ground. They're either unambiguously good (the selfless healer, the noble queen, the pure-hearted protagonist) or clearly villainous (the jealous rival, the evil stepmother, the seductress leading men astray).

This binary does us all a disservice. It suggests that female morality is simple, that women's choices are straightforward, that we don't wrestle with the same ethical dilemmas that make male characters "complex" and "interesting."

Male antiheroes get to be morally gray and are celebrated for it. Walter White. Tony Soprano. Dexter Morgan. These characters do terrible things, and audiences are fascinated by their moral complexity. But when women make morally questionable choices, they're often either:

1. Vilified immediately - she's the antagonist, full stop

2. Given a tragic backstory that "excuses" everything - she's not complex, she's damaged

3. Redeemed quickly - as if complexity is a problem to be solved rather than a reality to be explored

   
   

We need more female characters who exist in the messy middle - who make choices we might not agree with, who are tempted by things they shouldn't want, who sometimes choose wrong for understandable reasons, and who live with the consequences without neat redemption arcs.

Enter Ena: A Healer Who Kills

Let me introduce you to Ena of Roanswood, the protagonist of my Ireiale series. On the surface, she fits a familiar archetype: the young healer, gentle-souled, dedicated to helping others, sworn to "first, do no harm."

And then, in the first book, she poisons three men to death.

The Context Matters (But Doesn't Erase the Complexity)

Ena is captured by three of Lord Weylin's soldiers who make it abundantly clear they intend to assault and kill her. She's alone in the forest, physically overpowered, with no hope of fighting her way free. So she uses what she has: her knowledge of plants and poisons. She offers them tea and stew laced with moon lily extract, and watches as the poison does its work.

This is self-defense. In the hierarchy of moral clarity, killing to prevent your own murder and assault sits pretty firmly in the "justified" column.

But here's where it gets interesting: Ena doesn't feel justified.

After she escapes, she falls apart. She sobs into her pillow, unable to sleep, haunted by what she's done. The words of her healer's oath echo in her mind: "First, do no harm. I will use my skills to heal, never to hurt." She's violated the core principle of her identity as a healer, the sacred promise she made to the Goddess.

Her friends tell her she had no choice. The narrative supports that she did what she had to do to survive. But Ena can't reconcile her actions with who she believes herself to be. The guilt doesn't simply disappear because her choice was "right."

This is moral complexity. Not whether she should have killed them (she should have, and did), but the reality that doing the necessary thing can still shatter something inside you. That survival sometimes costs you pieces of your soul, even when you did nothing wrong.

The Seduction of Power

Ena's moral complexity doesn't end with that first impossible choice. Throughout the series, she grapples with something even more insidious: the temptation to use power she knows she shouldn't touch.

The Elder Stone: Power Without Easy Answers

Ena becomes the guardian of the Elder Stone, an artifact of immense magical power. The stone could solve so many problems, she could heal the dying king instantly, could protect her friends from harm, could end Weylin's threat with a thought.

But using the stone comes with consequences that aren't fully understood. It changes the wielder. It opens channels that can be exploited. It's seductive in ways that have nothing to do with good or evil and everything to do with the intoxicating feeling of having the power to fix everything.

And Ena wants to use it.

Not because she's power-hungry or evil, but because she's a healer who has spent her whole life unable to save everyone. The stone whispers that she could finally be enough, could finally prevent all the suffering she's been forced to witness helplessly.

When they successfully cure the king using moon lily extract instead of the stone's power, there's a moment where Ena feels something unexpected: disappointment. Almost as if she wanted the mundane solution to fail so she'd have permission to unleash that ancient power, to feel it coursing through her veins.

She catches herself in that moment of darkness and is horrified. But the temptation doesn't go away just because she recognizes it.

This is the kind of complexity we need more of in fiction: A good person tempted by power for understandable reasons, who recognizes the darkness in herself and is disturbed by it, but who doesn't have the temptation magically disappear once acknowledged.

The Manipulation Question: Are Her Choices Even Her Own?

Perhaps the most complex aspect of Ena's journey is this: she's not always sure her choices are entirely her own.

Weylin's Influence

Lord Weylin, the antagonist, has ways of reaching into Ena's mind through centuries of practiced manipulation. He shows her visions of a better world, speaks to her in her dreams, plants seeds of doubt about her friends' motives.

And here's the terrifying part: some of what he says isn't entirely wrong.

He offers her genuine insights about power and its uses. He shows her that the current system in Ireiale is broken in real ways. He demonstrates care for his people through healing wards and restored forests. He argues, with uncomfortable logic, that small sacrifices now could prevent greater suffering later.

Ena finds herself drawn to his vision even as she recognizes the manipulation. She questions whether her growing fascination is her own curiosity or his influence. When she makes choices that align with what Weylin wants, she doesn't know if it's because he's controlling her or because she genuinely sees merit in his arguments.

This uncertainty, this not knowing where manipulation ends and genuine choice begins, is one of the most realistic and disturbing aspects of her moral complexity.

How many of us have been in relationships or situations where we questioned our own judgment? Where we wondered if we were being manipulated or if we were genuinely changing our minds? Where the boundaries between influence and autonomy became terrifyingly blurred?

Ena doesn't get easy answers. Neither do we. And that's what makes her journey so compelling.

The Choice That Hurts Everyone

There's a moment in Ireiale's Choice where Ena makes a decision that demonstrates the ultimate form of moral complexity: she chooses to leave the man she loves to protect him from Weylin's influence through her.

Leaving Ronan

Ena realizes that Weylin can reach her through the Elder Stone, and that by staying with Ronan and her friends, she's putting them in danger. So she makes the agonizing choice to leave, to seek out Weylin directly and face him alone.

Her reasoning is sound: if she's the conduit for Weylin's influence, removing herself from Kingshold protects everyone she cares about.

But the execution devastates Ronan. He finds her gone, discovers she's been planning this departure even while lying in his arms. He feels betrayed, not because her logic is wrong, but because she made this monumental decision without trusting him enough to be part of it. She chose to protect him rather than fight alongside him, and in doing so, she violated the trust and partnership they'd built.

Both of them are right. Both of them are hurt. There is no "correct" answer.

This is what moral complexity looks like in relationships. Not villains and heroes, but two people who love each other making choices that hurt each other despite, or because of, that love. Ena choosing strategic wisdom over emotional connection. Ronan wanting agency over protection. Neither completely wrong, neither completely right.

Why This Matters: The Value of Moral Complexity

So why does any of this matter? Why should we care about creating more morally complex female characters?

Because Real Women Are Complex

First and most obviously: because real women are complex, and fiction that pretends otherwise is lying to us.

We make impossible choices. We're tempted by things we shouldn't want. We hurt people while trying to help them. We question our own judgment. We contain contradictions. We don't always do the "right" thing, and sometimes we're not even sure what the right thing is.

Fiction that flattens us into moral absolutes doesn't reflect reality, it creates false expectations about what women should be.

Because Complexity ≠ Villainy

One of the most damaging aspects of moral absolutism in female characters is that any deviation from perfect goodness often gets coded as villainy. A woman who makes a questionable choice, who's tempted by power, who hurts someone even unintentionally, she must be the antagonist, or she must be quickly redeemed to prove she's still "good."

But Ena shows us something different: you can be the protagonist, the hero of your own story, while still making choices that are morally ambiguous. You can struggle with temptation without becoming a villain. You can hurt people you love without being evil. You can question whether you're being manipulated without it erasing your agency.

Moral complexity doesn't make Ena less heroic, it makes her more human.

Because Women Deserve Nuanced Narratives

When we only tell stories about morally simple women, we're essentially saying that women's inner lives aren't interesting enough to explore with nuance. That female characters exist primarily to serve plot functions (love interest, moral compass, victim to be saved) rather than to be complex individuals with rich internal landscapes.

Ena's struggles with power, guilt, temptation, manipulation, and impossible choices give her depth. Her moral complexity doesn't make her "unlikable" or "difficult", it makes her fascinating. It makes her someone worth spending four books with, because you never quite know what she'll do next, and more importantly, she doesn't always know what she'll do next.

Because We Need Permission to Be Imperfect

Perhaps most importantly, morally complex female characters give readers permission to be imperfect themselves.

When every female protagonist is unambiguously good, always makes the right choice, never struggles with temptation or makes decisions that hurt others, it creates an impossible standard. Real women, reading these stories, internalize the message that any moral ambiguity in themselves must be a flaw to be corrected rather than a reality to be navigated.

But Ena says: you can be a good person and still be tempted by power. You can have the best intentions and still hurt people. You can make choices you believe are right and still be wracked with guilt. You can be manipulated without being weak. You can contain contradictions without being broken.

This is liberating.

Writing Morally Complex Women: What I've Learned

As an author, creating Ena taught me several things about writing morally complex female characters:

1. Give Her Real Stakes

Moral complexity emerges from impossible choices. If there's always a "right" answer that costs nothing, there's no complexity. Ena's choice to kill those soldiers wouldn't be complex if there were a risk-free alternative. Her temptation to use the Elder Stone wouldn't be compelling if there weren't genuine reasons to use it.

Put your female characters in situations where every choice has costs. Where the "right" thing isn't obvious. Where survival and values conflict. Where helping one person means failing another.

2. Let Her Sit With Ambiguity

Don't rush to resolve her moral dilemmas with easy answers. Ena doesn't get reassured that killing those men was "fine, actually." The guilt and internal conflict persist. The temptation to use the stone doesn't vanish. Her questions about manipulation don't get definitive answers.

Life is ambiguous. Let your characters live in that ambiguity without immediately providing narrative absolution.

3. Avoid the "Trauma Excuse"

It's become popular to give female characters tragic backstories that "explain" all their moral complexity. She's cold because she was abandoned. She craves power because she was powerless. She hurts others because she was hurt first.

While trauma absolutely shapes people, using it as the sole explanation for complexity flattens characters in a different way. It suggests that moral ambiguity is always a wound to be healed rather than a fundamental aspect of human nature.

Ena's complexity doesn't stem from trauma, it stems from being a person facing impossible choices with limited information and competing values. That's just being human.

4. Show the Consequences

Moral complexity means choices have consequences that aren't easily fixed. When Ena leaves Ronan to protect him, it damages their relationship in ways that take real work to repair, if they can be repaired. When she kills those soldiers, the guilt shapes her even though the choice was necessary. When she's tempted by the stone, that temptation reveals things about herself she has to confront.

Don't let your complex female characters off the hook. Make them live with their choices.

5. Trust Your Readers

One fear I had with Ena was that readers wouldn't accept a protagonist who makes questionable choices, who's tempted by darkness, who hurts people she loves. Would they reject her as "unlikable"? Would they need her to be more straightforwardly heroic?

But here's what I've learned: readers are hungry for complexity. They're tired of moral absolutes. They want characters who feel real, who wrestle with the same questions they do, who don't have all the answers.

Trust your readers to sit with complexity. Trust them to understand that a character can make mistakes without being a villain. Trust them to engage with moral ambiguity without needing everything wrapped up neatly.

The Future: More Morally Complex Women

Imagine a literary landscape where female characters are routinely allowed the same moral complexity as their male counterparts.

Where a woman can be tempted by power without immediately being the villain. Where she can make choices that hurt others without the narrative requiring immediate redemption. Where she can contain contradictions, make mistakes, struggle with guilt over necessary choices, question her own judgment, and still be the hero.

Where young women reading these stories see themselves reflected not as cardboard saints or obvious villains, but as complex human beings navigating impossible situations with imperfect information and competing values.

That's the fiction I want to read. That's the fiction I'm trying to write.

Ena of Roanswood is just one example, one young healer who kills in self-defense, who's tempted by ancient power, who makes choices that hurt people she loves, who isn't always sure where manipulation ends and her own will begins. She's flawed, complex, sometimes wrong, sometimes right, always trying, and ultimately, deeply, recognizably human.

We need more characters like her. More women who get to be complicated without being villainized. More protagonists who wrestle with genuine moral dilemmas rather than facing easy choices between obvious good and evil. More narratives that trust women to be as nuanced and contradictory as men have always been allowed to be.

Because the truth is this: women have always been morally complex. We've just been waiting for fiction to catch up.

Buy Ireiale's Peril

What morally complex female characters have resonated with you? Which women in fiction have you seen make impossible choices without easy answers? I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments.