Honestly, my favorite character is Jean. She's the one who always puts others before herself, even when it's tearing her apart. The dynamic with her older sister Alicia is painful and real—Alicia resents their family's broken legacy, while Jean feels this overwhelming duty to fix it from within their rigid society. And then there's Tomas, the outsider artist whose perspective challenges everything Jean knows. Their forbidden friendship drives so much of the internal conflict.
A lot of readers focus on the obvious hero, but I'm drawn to the antagonist, Lord Veridian. He's not a cartoon villain; his motivations to preserve the old ways, even cruelly, stem from a fear of cultural erosion. The book makes you understand his logic while still rooting for him to fail. The climax hinges on Jean having to appeal to the humanity in him, not just defeat him. That final confrontation is stuck in my head.