Avatar Dragons

An essay by Farhan Haroon

Not a single person in the novel MINRS is fit to be a leader. To be a good leader, one needs courage, creativity, good communication skills, intelligence, perseverance, social skills, vision, and above all, integrity. Sadly, the lead characters in the novel MINRS, Christopher, Elena and Fatima lack these skills. Christopher lacks courage, demonstrates several moments of indecisiveness, and has many other detrimental traits that make him not fit to lead. Fatima would not be able to get the non-grinders on her side or get them to follow her because of her rude personality. Finally, Elena has mental health issues due to the trauma she experienced during the bombardment of Perses with repeated displays of aggressive and irrational behavior. Thus these three main characters either lack the qualities needed to lead or possess qualities that hinder them from being good leaders. Even if they try to conceal their flaws, all it takes is a quick peek behind the facade to discover who they are.

Christopher is constantly living in doubt, is indecisive and repeatedly comes across as lacking intelligence. There are multiple examples supporting this observation in the novel MINRS. In chapter 15, he foolishly risks valuable diggers and people in a mock raid on the ruined core scraper just after the MINRS learn how to operate the diggers, which is like making a novice driver do the Tail of the Dragon. They lost a digger, their most important tool for doing everything and nearly lost Mandeep to a cave-in. If Elena had not foolishly risked her life by searching and finding the food after almost hitting Christopher, the whole raid would have resulted in a total loss. Another example is in chapter 12, where he is terrified of speaking to the other MINRS, which also tells us that his oratory skills and self confidence could be better. In chapter 29, when Fatima explains the code, it takes Christopher a while to figure it out despite the fact that stuff like codes and math are his specialty. This shows that Christopher is slow on grasping and reasoning and still needs significant improvement, even in his area of expertise. He is also clumsy, as shown at the beginning of the novel MINRS when he loses the cave map before saving Darcy. These examples show us that Christopher is a terrible leader, but Elena would prove to be worse.

Elena Rosales is quite possibly the worst leader in the book. Elena is an individual who has been scarred for life. She watched almost everyone she loved die in front of her and then was buried under a ton of rubble, then half her hair burned off in a fire, and she narrowly avoided being killed by the bombs over and over again for hours. Instead of becoming stronger and showing resilience following these terrible events in her life, Elena is fueled by rage and is highly aggressive towards the landers. We can see this in MINRS when she instigates the MINRS to attack the landers. She is so aggressive that she endangers others by not being a good team player on raids, manipulates team mates into taking more aggressive action and attempts to use the grinders as cannon fodder. Elena is also most likely mentally unstable and has developed PTSD, which is evidenced by many events throughout the novel. The most prominent example is when Elena has her mental breakdown at the end of the book, where she clutches the picture of her and Christopher. She also attempts to conceal her emotions but fails miserably and gets extremely jealous whenever Christopher shows affection towards Fatima, which clouds her judgment. She goes so far as to vanish for a few days. Her ignorance of developments during her absences could be detrimental to the entire team. Despite being the group’s foremost military expert, Elena not only is a student with limited knowledge but also applies this poorly. Finally, Elena has inferior social skills because she can not read the room or figure out if people are keen on listening to her. Her straightforward personality does not help her give good speeches either. Fatima, on the other hand, has a lot more communication trouble.

Fatima is a grinder who has been trapped in the caves most of her life significantly inhibiting her communication skills. Since Fatima is a grinder, if she ever became the leader, she would be unable to get the non-grinders to do anything because she just met them, and lacks trust and influence. This is shown in MINRS where she says if a non-grinder abandons a grinder for any reason, she and the other grinders would destroy the camp and run off on their own. Fatima would also be hindered by her rude personality, which restricts her ability to connect with people, so even if she trusted the non-grinders and vice versa, she still would not be able to influence them. Leaders who are not trusted, respected and lacking in influence could completely lose their team. Fatima’s technical skills and knowledge are also almost non-existent because of her secluded life, so she could never teach the MINRS how to use the mining equipment or activate the beacon. 

In conclusion, no one in MINRS demonstrates strong traits of a leader, and Christopher Nichols, Elena Rosales and Fatima should not be offered the chance to become one. Each of them has multitudes of flaws and imperfections that ruin their ability to lead. You only need to scratch the surface to reveal these detriments.