Why Phillip Reeve disfigured Hester Shaw's face with a grotesque scar in the Mortal Engines book

Why Hester Shaw is deeply scarred in the Mortal Engines novel 

A little while ago I found a website called 'tall tales & short stories' and it featured an interview with Mortal Engines author Philip Reeve.

The article was six years old and the site is now defunct but I did copy Reeve's thoughts on Hester Shaw and her scar with the view to using it somehow one day. 

So here we go...

The interview reveals quite the insight into why Reeve did the role reversal that many books and film shy from i.e. making the female lead quite genuinely ugly.

Let me repeat that for you. Ugly, disfigured and NOT PRETTY.

Name a famous movie or book in the last 10 years where the main character is truly hideously ugly.

I'll wait.

If you found one, good on ya. Maybe Aileen Wuornos in Monster?

One example. Yippe Kay Aye.

An artist's impression of Hester

Regardless, Hester Shaw is the clear fan favourite when it comes to the Mortal Engines series. While part of her might want to live a happy, healthy life, the Hyde to her Jackal is that she is a murderous wee thing with a hair trigger for some good old fashioned ultraviolence.

And she's a bad mother...

She has also bad typing skills.

There, I said it.

So with that in mind, here's what Reeve said of Hester's scar after this interview question:

The main female character, Hester, in the Mortal Engines series is facially disfigured which I find an interesting, but welcome, choice for a female lead.

Was this a conscious decision made at the outset of writing the first book or did it evolve along the way? And what prompted this decision? 

Reeve's answer:

Women warriors are a bit of a cliche in Science Fiction and Fantasy, and they tend to be very glamorous or at least good looking.

But it struck me that people who live by their wits in wastelands tend not to be that glamorous or good-looking, and who cares about beautiful people anyway?

So I decided right from the start to make Hester ugly, and I liked the idea that the hero would slowly fall in love with her anyway, which is far more interesting than having two gorgeous people seeing each other across a crowded room and falling in love.

Then it seemed to make sense to give Hester a scar, which she's received at the hands of the villain, so there's her initial motivation - revenge - right there on her face; she's like Captain Ahab with his missing leg!

But I didn't want it to be a little cosmetic scar - the Hollywood way of dealing with facial disfigurement is always to have somebody who's a bit messed up seen from one angle but is still gorgeous from most others.

So Hester's scar is really grotesque; I didn't want her to be pretty from any angle!

I think in the first book my idea was that actually, under this hideous exterior, she's lovely and sweet, but when I went back to write the sequel I thought that someone who had been through what she has, and looks as she does, probably wouldn't be sweet and well-adjusted, so she goes further and further off the rails as the series progresses, though I hope she remains sympathetic, and even attractive in a Ripley-ish way (Tom Ripley, that is, not Ellen*).

-

When the first trailer came out, we raised concerns that the trailer shows Hester with two eyes - but we now know that Reeve's honorable vision of a key female character been trumped by Hollywood's needs for beauty. It's actually stirred quite a few people up!

*As in Ellen Ripley from the Alien films. 

1 comment hester shaw, interview