Red
protagonist · human
A girl named after a hood her grandmother made her, sent up a path with a basket, who meets somebody on the way and answers his questions.
What they are like
- Kind
- 9/10
- Brave
- 8/10
- Clever
- 8/10
- Honest
- 9/10
- Curious
- 9/10
- Patient
- 5/10
How we meet them
Being given an instruction, agreeing to it, and meaning it at the time. That gap between meaning it and doing it is the entire story, and it is one every child recognises immediately.
Personality
Polite to a fault, which is the whole problem, and much braver than she gets credit for. She notices everything and, crucially, says it out loud.
What they want
To get bread and butter to a poorly grandmother, and to be the sort of person who does errands properly.
How they change
Goes from answering a stranger's questions because it seemed rude not to, to trusting the feeling at the back of her neck and saying so at the top of her lungs.
How they speak
She speaks in short, exact sentences, and she repeats things back. When she is frightened she does not go quiet, she gets more precise. The famous four lines are not a child being fooled; they are a child working out loud.
How the story treats them
The story is usually told as though she is foolish. She is not. She is eight, and she has been taught that being rude is worse than being wrong, which is what actually gets her into trouble.
One surprising thing
The hood is the only thing anyone remembers about her, and it is also the only reason the wolf can spot her from a distance in a dark wood.
If they were real today
She would be the child who tells a teacher that something is wrong before she has any evidence, and turns out to be right.
Things they say
- “What big teeth you have!”
- “I knew.”
- “Straight up the path.”
Key moments
She means it at the time
Red promises to go straight up the path and not into the trees, and she genuinely intends to. The story turns on how little that intention survives a wood full of bluebells.
“Straight up the path.”
The thing at the back of her neck
When the wolf asks where she is going, Red knows she should not answer. She has no reason and no words for it, and she answers anyway because staying silent seemed rude.
“My grandmother's. The cottage past the mill, with the blue door.”
Working it out loud
In the cottage Red sees that everything is wrong and, instead of going quiet, narrates every observation until the truth is out in the open and she is already moving backwards.
“WHAT BIG TEETH YOU HAVE!”
Who they know
The Wolfenemy
He asks pleasant questions. She answers them because not answering seemed rude.
Grandmotherfamily
One of them made the hood. The other is named after it.
The Woodcutterrescuer
He had been half-listening to a conversation that did not sound right, forty steps away.
Red's Motherfamily
A clear rule, given without a reason, agreed to sincerely and broken within the hour.
Characters like Red
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