Time spent in reconnaissance is seldom wasted.
Nom : Ellie Linton
Age : 16 à 18 ans
Livres : Apocalypse x7, The Ellie Chronicles x3
Origine : Australienne
Ellie est la narratrice et la voix des séries, toute l’histoire est de son point de vue, c’est pourquoi les pensées des autres personnages peuvent parfois ne pas être totalement objectives.
Ellie vient d’une ferme au bord de la ville de Wirrawee. Les descriptions physiques détaillées des personnages sont rarement données par John Marsden, mais Ellie se décrit elle-même souvent comme trapue. (“‘On ne passera jamais,’ a murmuré Fiona. Comme elle faisait la taille d’un lapin et moi d’un Shetland, il était facile de comprendre de qui elle parlait en disant ‘on’.”) et quelconque. Elle est loyale envers ses amis, sa familles, elle aime le bush Australien et sa vie à la ferme, c’est une bosseuse. Les livres parlent beaucoup des différents aspects de sa personnalité : Ellie est brave mais elle a aussi peur, une héroïne malgré elle, elle porte le monde sur ses épaules et prend la responsabilité pour tout le monde.
Ellie est en perpétuelle remise en question, elle ne sait jamais comment elle va réagir suivant la situation, elle se demande sans arrêt si ce qu’elle fait est bien ou man, mais elle est aussi forte et robuste, pas seulement pour elle-même mais également pour le soutient du groupe. C’est une leader naturelle et se sent responsable de ses amis, la pression qu’elle ressent est intérieure et c’est pourquoi les autres comptent beaucoup sur elle.
Chaque personnage de la série change énormément et Ellie n’y fait pas exception. Au début, ils étaient insouciants et innocents mais dès que la guerre s’abat sur eux, elles sont bien forcés de grandir très vite. Ellie devient rationnelle, elle commence à penser tel un bon soldat. Et parfois, dans la dure réalité de la guerre, elle s’oblige à ne rien ressentir, à devenir pleinement indépendante, à oublier les relations humaines.
Un autre aspect de son caractère important, c’est son orgueil. Elle refuse que quiconque pense qu’elle peut être faible, elle laisse les autres la croire comme la plus forte de tout le groupe.
Ellie is brave…
“That was the first moment at which I started to realise what true courage was. Up until then, everything had been unreal, like a night-stalking game at a school camp. To come out of the darkness now would be to show courage of a type that I’d never had to show before, never even known about. I had to search my own mind and body to find if there was a new part of me somewhere.” (Tomorrow, When the War Began, Chapter 7.)
Ellie was innocent…
“At that moment I stopped being an innocent rural teenager and started becoming someone else, a more complicated capable person, a force to be reckoned with even, not just a polite obedient kid.”
Ellie’s pride…
“On the other hand, on this particular night, it didn’t suit me at all. I was so very tired, so utterly exhausted. I was all in. I knew I couldn’t go another step. I hated Robyn for saying that we had to. I waited for someone else to say something, though: I had too much pride to be the one. Then I realised no one was going to say it. Either they had as much pride as me, or else they weren’t as tired as me. Grimly, hating them all, I shouldered my pack.” (The Third Day, the Frost, Chapter 6)
“I didn’t confess how wrecked I was. Let them keep thinking I was Superwoman if they wanted. I knew the truth.” (The Third Day, the Frost)
Ellie on relationships…
“So we talked, first time in a long time. We’d always been friends – we were practically raised together – but I’d been finding him suffocating in recent months, so I’d given him more room. Sometimes I just wanted to breathe my own air. Wherever there was Homer there wasn’t room for much else. We didn’t seem to have the time for relationships these days. No, not the time: the energy.” (The Third Day, the Frost, Chapter 4)
Ellie realises the new reality of their lives…
“This was the new reality of our lives. I got the shakes a bit, but there was no time for that.”
Ellie realises she has to feel…
“I felt guilty even thinking about love while our world was in such chaos, and especially when my parents were going through this terrible thing. It was the steers at the abattoirs all over again. But my heart was making its own rules and refusing to be controlled by my conscience. I let it run wild, thinking of all the fascinating possibilities.” (Tomorrow, When the War Began, Chapter 13)
Ellie questions herself…
“I too had blood on my hands, like the Hermit, and just as I couldn’t tell whether his actions were good or bad, so too I couldn’t tell what mine were. Had I killed out of love of my friends, as part of a noble crusade to rescue friends and family and keep our land free? Or had I killed because I valued my life above that of others? Would it be OK for me to kill a dozen others to keep myself alive? A hundred? A thousand? At what point did I condemn myself to Hell, if I hadn’t already done so? The Bible just said ‘Thou shalt not kill’, then told hundreds of stories of people killing each other and becoming heroes, like David with Goliath. That didn’t help me much.” (Tomorrow, When the War Began, Chapter 16)
Ellie’s transition…
“Robyn said: ‘You’re better at listening than you were. You’re more sensitive to other people. You’re brave. In fact I think you’re the bravest of any of us. You’re still a bit pig-headed sometimes, and you don’t like admitting when you’re wrong, but you’ve been a tower of strength, El, you really have.’” (The Dead of the Night, Chapter 15.)
Ellie on friendship…
“The only true test of friendship is the time your friend spends on you.” (Circle of Flight, Chapter 26)
Ellie on future…
“Well, you can’t tell the future with emotions, that’s another way of putting it. So if it’s five o’clock Friday, which it is, and I’m going for a run at six o’clock which I wouldn’t mind doing by the way, if you’re up for it, it’s a waste of time for me to moon around now saying, ‘Oh I hate the idea of going for a run, I’m so tired and it’ll be so hard,’ because I don’t know how I’ll feel at six o’clock. At one minute to six I may get a sudden rush of energy and think there’s no better idea in the universe than going for a run.” (Circle of Flight, Chapter 27)
Ellie on paradoxes…
“I think I was starting to understand one of the great paradoxes. I love paradoxes. I think they contain all the truth in the world. The only trouble is that I can’t understand them. ‘The more things change, the more things stay the same’. ‘The greater your knowledge, the less you know.’ ‘Most people aren’t brave enough to be cowards.’ ‘Every exit is an entry to somewhere.’ ‘Less is more.’ I mean, I understand those, but I have to work at it. I remember during the war Homer saying to me ‘I’m an atheist’, and then adding, ‘Thank God.’ (Incurable, Chapter 11)
Ellie on life…
“Life’s about a hell of a lot more than being happy. It’s about feeling the full range of stuff: happiness, sadness, anger, grief, love, hate. If you try to shut one of those off, you shut them all off. I don’t want to be happy. I know I won’t live happily ever after. I want more than that, something richer. I want to go right up close to the beauty and the ugliness.
I want to see it all, know it all, understand it all. The richness and the poverty, the joy and the cruelty, the sweetness and the sadness. That’s the best way I can honour my friends who died. That’s the best way I can honour my parents who brought me into this world. That’s the best way I can lead a life I can be proud to call my own. I want to experience everything it has to offer: LIFE!” (The Other Side of Dawn, Epilogue)