Worth

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I didn't realize it when I was writing this book but worth and value are a big themes in this series. Pirates themselves are valued based on how much their bounty is worth - the higher the bounty on their head, the more respected they are. Razia wants to be one of the most wanted pirates so that she can be valued, because she doesn't believe Lyssa has value as a person.

Examples:

• Her father only valued Lyssa because he could use her for his experiments
• She was chosen to be his assistant - not because she was special, but because she was actually the least valued child in the family, and no one would care if she never came back
• The Planetary and System Science Academy only values her because she holds the secrets to her father's work
• Same goes for Pymus

Tauron, Razia's pirate mentor, was the first person to actually see Lyssa as a person. She had nothing to offer him - no money, no skills, no nothing - and he still cared about her enough to let her escape her terrible life from time to time. (Sage, too, values her as a person , but she can't get past her jealousy of him to see it.) So it's no wonder, that she would be drawn to a profession where worth is so prominently and concretely stated. She is worth 500 credits, he is worth 17 million credits, this other guy is worth 50 million credits, etc.

I think it's an interesting allegory to women today - although our worth is not measured in such objective measurements. We are worthy if we do X, if we have Y, if we have love. We don't value ourselves as people - just as the sum of our accomplishments.

It's something I struggled with as well - feeling like I had to continuously be the best so that others would value me. For me, personally, I tend to put people on a pedestal and worry if they value me. For some folks, I could care less if they liked or approved of me. For others, having their approval is so important that I live in anxious fear that I will disappoint them. The interesting thing was once I began to value myself as I am - not as I wanted to be - I stopped caring so much about doing what other people expected of me, especially those whom I desperately seeked for their approval. 

The same for Lyssa - once she realizes that both sides of her have worth and value, she is able to finally stand up for herself against her runner, the person whose approval she desperately seeks so she can continue living her dreams, and tell him to shove it.