* FanPreferredCouple: Rowan/Zeel, compared to Rowan/Shaaran. Also Jiller/Jonn and Allun/Marlie, which are also official pairings.
* TheScrappy: Jiller for some.
* TheWoobie: Rowan, obviously. He has to endure the bullying of both children ''and'' adults in Rin, just for being different from them, and has literally no friends his age at all prior to the series beginning. His only companions seem to be the bukshah he cares for. His own mother frets over him and continuously wishes that he were stronger and braver like the rest of Rin. There are also implications that the whole village resents Rowan for surviving the fire which killed his father, a well-loved and popular man, and do not think it was a fair trade. Rowan knows all these things, and more.
** Allun, as well. He was bullied just as much as Rowan because he looked like his Traveller father and did not have the typical Rin bravery and strength attributes. He was bullied so much over the years that he created a 'clown-mask' for himself so that no-one would know what he was truly feeling, and also so that he could protect himself from the bullying. [[spoiler: In ''Rowan of Rin'', it turns out that Allun never bothered to learn to swim like all of Rin had to, because Traveller children did not learn how to and Allun could not bear to be bullied even more by the other children for having this so-called 'weakness'.]] Both Rowan and Allun have seriously low self-esteems because of this childhood bullying.
** Zeel. She has to endure the distrust of people who find out that she's really Zebak (even if it's only initial) and possibly is distrusted by other Travellers for this very reason. It's not apparent just how much this affects her until ''Rowan and the Zebak'', when she admits that she was cold and distant toward Rowan, Perlain and Allun because she was terrified that they hated her for being Zebak, now that they had seen what they had of the cruel ways of the Zebak.
*** There's also how she was orphaned at a very young age and discovered by Ogden as a foundling. Being not truly of the people she was raised with has to hurt, as well as the knowledge that she belongs to a race which is an ancient enemy of the Travellers, Maris and Rin. [[spoiler: It's later discovered that Zeel's parents fled from the Zebak lands by boat to escape slavery and tyranny there, and in doing so gave their own lives so that Zeel could have a happy and free life.]]
*** And there's also the horrors that Zeel suffered when she was only a toddler living in the Zebak city. Though she apparently had amnesia of her time in the Zebak lands, it all comes back gradually during the quest into Zebak lands to rescue Annad from captivity. She has a mental breakdown eventually when she sees an ishkin in the Wastelands and is reminded of a horrifying rhyme that she had to learn as a toddler whenever she was in trouble which terrified her completely.
** Bronden, in a way. After hearing of how her best friend Minah was killed during a storm while out searching for a lost bukshah, it's not surprising how she treats Rowan, who is very like Minah.
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