The Ballad of Never After

Evangeline is the protagonist of The Ballad of Never After, and the third-person narration privileges her perspective. After the events of Once Upon a Broken Heart, Evangeline becomes more wary of trusting those around her, especially Jacks. While she doesn’t want to be taken advantage of anymore, she doesn’t lose her optimism because she “[is] very good at hoping” (1), a trait through which Garber attaches her to the female protagonists of fairy tales. Throughout the book, Evangeline aims to see the best in people, even Jacks. She wants to think that everyone is at least partially good and that she can help people simply by caring about them. Despite her vow to be less trusting, however, she finds herself offering her trust too much by the end of the book, which results in letting Apollo close enough to work his memory-erasing magic. This irony signals a slow character development, which highlights the fact that the reader must follow her journey through several books.

Evangeline is driven by her desire to find a happy ending, a metafictional aspect of the book used to draw in the reader. She lets her heart dictate her actions, which sometimes puts her in difficult situations.