Olivia Prior is the dynamic protagonist of Gallant whose desire to understand her family’s tragic history motivates the events of the plot. Olivia’s speech disability shapes the ways in which she interacts with the people around her. She often finds alternate and varied means of communication within a society that would rather ignore her than help her express herself; over the course of the novel, she uses a chalkboard, speaks in sign language, and expresses herself through music and visual art. Olivia’s disability, though, also makes her prone to action when she knows that her audience won’t make the effort to listen to her any other way; this is perhaps best illustrated by her attack on her classmates who try to steal her mother’s journal and mock its contents (16-17).

Olivia is a highly liminal character—she is caught between identities, realities, and ways of thinking about who she is. Olivia discovers that because of her heritage she is quite literally caught between worlds: Her mother was a human, and her father was a shadow-creature. This parental background allows her to see both humans and the denizens of the shadow-realm. Olivia’s disability and the failure of the characters around her to hear and communicate with her also contribute to her feeling of between-ness.