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Player Information
Player name: Fury
Contact: locustslie or PM the character journal
Are you over 18: Yes
Characters in The Box Already: Seth Gecko

Character Information
Character Name: Mattie Ross
Canon: True Grit (2010)
Canon Point: Immediately after Mattie shoots Tom Chaney with LaBoeuf's rifle and tumbles into the snake pit

History: Mattie Ross is the daughter of farmers from Yell County, Arkansas. When she's fourteen, her father, Frank Ross, is murdered by a hired hand named Tom Chaney, who has turned to gambling and become an outlaw. Because his death takes place away from home (in Fort Smith, where he had gone to buy horses), no one feels especially pressed to pursue his killer, so Mattie takes on this task for herself, intent on not returning to her home until she has justice for her father. To achieve this, she hires US Marshall Rooster Cogburn -- based on the sheriff’s description of her options, she feels Cogburn is the likeliest to be able to track down Chaney and bring him back for trial (and the likeliest to gladly shoot him if it becomes necessary, rather than let him get away). He has, as she tells him, ‘true grit’.

Mattie and Cogburn are joined by a Texas Ranger named LaBoeuf, who has been tracking Chaney under various aliases for shooting a state senator. LaBoeuf clashes with both of them, and winds up leaving and rejoining the party more than once. At first Mattie feels they would be better off without him, but just as she slowly comes to respect Cogburn (and to accept him as a sort of father figure), she also comes to appreciate LaBoeuf’s skills and his determination. (It’s also possible she may develop some affection for him, as she is brought to tears during a hearfelt goodbye between them.)

After some false starts and failures, they track an outlaw called Lucky Ned Pepper, whose gang it’s believed Chaney has joined, but lose him in a gunfight. Cogburn declares that he’s giving up, and LaBoeuf agrees that they’ve lost the trail for good, and leaves the two of them to set out on his own again. But in the morning, Mattie stumbles on Chaney and the rest of Ned Pepper’s men while getting water at the stream. She shoots him, but Ned Pepper takes her hostage to ensure Cogburn’s cooperation in allowing them to escape.

Mattie is left alone to be watched by Chaney because the gang is short a horse, and although Ned Pepper tells him to leave her be, Chaney attacks her. However, LaBoeuf comes to her rescue -- he heard the gunshots and met up with Cogburn, and the two men formulated a plan. Cogburn and Pepper’s men engage in a shootout, with assistance from LaBoeuf and his rifle, but Chaney regains consciousness and knocks out LaBoeuf. Mattie wrestles the rifle away and finally kills him, but the recoil sends her stumbling backwards into a pit.

Once again she’s rescued by Cogburn and LaBoeuf, but she’s been bitten by a snake, and Cogburn rides her horse literally into the ground to get her to a doctor. In the end, she survives, although she loses the arm where she was bitten. Some years later, now a spinster schoolteacher, Mattie receives a letter from Cogburn inviting her to visit him at a Wild West show he’s with. She travels to meet him but arrives only to find that he died just days before. Mattie has his body reinterred in her family cemetery. She never hears from LaBoeuf.

Personality: Even at the tender age of fourteen, Mattie Ross views herself as an adult. She’s sharp witted and sharp tongued, stubborn, and fearless. It’s clear she’s been helping her father by keeping his books already, and equally clear that her mother is incapable of handling the business side of raising their family now that her husband is gone. Mattie is more than up to this task, however -- she approaches every adult she meets as an equal, showing them respect based on their actions rather than the mere fact of their greater age. She’s well educated, especially for the time -- probably mostly at home, considering the time period and the fact that she’s female and from a rural area -- which would mean her father was probably also educated (her mother is described as being unfit for figures and unable to spell). Mattie doesn’t throw this into people’s faces by acting superior if she knows things they don’t, but she doesn’t hold back either. Rather, she acts and speaks as though she expects everyone she meets to be her equal in education and cleverness. She’s not afraid to argue and disagree with people in authority if their beliefs or interests go counter to what she knows or wants, and in fact is perfectly happy to hound them unmercifully until they give in.

For all of that, and despite the fact that fourteen would be considered a perfectly reasonable age for a girl to begin thinking of marriage (to be, in fact, already married and started on a family), Mattie is also still a child in many ways. She was strongly attached to her father, and has a subconscious need to replace him with other father-figures (particularly Cogburn, as we see by the fact that she fetches his body back home and has him buried with her family). She speaks before she thinks and acts rashly, tending to put her own needs before the needs of others. However, she’s also a good-hearted young woman, dedicated to her family, and she cares about the people who she comes to view as friends.

Items on your character at canon point:
two California gold pieces
one too-large felt hat
one very-much-too-large overcoat
one set of: shirt, belt, and trousers belonging to her father (the ones she wore on the trail)
one high-necked girl's blouse
one pair of girl's black button-up boots

Abilities: Mattie has no supernatural or magical abilities, but she’s highly intelligent and determined. She’s very good on horseback, and more than capable of taking care of herself in strange places and situations. However, she’s not as experienced in life as she likes to believe, and that leads her to sometimes bite off more than she can chew. She has good mathematical and accounting skills, and understands legal Latin and many of the common intricacies of law (perhaps, considering the paternal tone in the letter from her family’s lawyer, she spent some time learning from his books or at his side, even possibly attending occasional trials as an observer?). Mattie is also very good at employing a variety of tactics -- from her young age to her skill in browbeating -- to manipulate people into doing things the way she wants them done.

Strengths and Weaknesses: Mattie's strengths and weaknesses are often the same, differing mainly in the severity in which they're employed. In addition to the aforementioned habit of getting in over her head, she has a tendency toward temper, which can get her into trouble as she tends to mouth off equally to those who might be dangerous and to those who seem willing to overlook her sass. She is described as headstrong, which is extremely accurate, and she has a very strong sense of what is just and fair. She is also very determined to get her way when she feels she’s in the right, and will rarely back down. However, she also still has a child’s somewhat naive view that fairness and justice are more easily obtained than they realistically are. This serves her well in dealings with most adults, who are willing to forgive her flaws in light of her young age, but it also sets her up for frustrations and disappointments. Her dedication to her family and to "right" is a source of strength that keeps Mattie going despite the dangers and setbacks she encounters.

Samples
Network/Action Sample: Sample

Prose Log Sample:
Dearest Mother.

I hope this finds you in good health and spirits. Mr. LaBoeuf was good enough to allow me use of a scrap of paper and a pencil from his effects. He is a Ranger, and an earnest man though I do find him somewhat over prideful. Mr. Cogburn, the Marshal I have retained to find Papa’s murderer so that his death may be avenged, does not like him much, but I do not think Mr. Cogburn likes very many people at all. I know very many people do not like him, but that is because he is a drunkard and I will say also smells very poorly most of the time.

However, I do not wish you to feel any concern for my situation. Mr. Cogburn is not what one might consider an intellectual type of company, but he is doing his best, I feel, and despite his shortcomings (which are many but I try not to think on them and keep my hopes up instead), he is the best man for the job. Mr. LaBoeuf I do believe would also be much more helpful as a comrade were he not so set that he must find the man on his own. I do think that is selfish of him, as my claim is one of family and has the weight of law and should take precedence, but he is not overly respectful toward me and does not heed what I think.

The heavy step of Cogburn’s boots and the clatter of the wood he drops next to the fire draw Mattie’s attention sharply away, and an inscrutable frown from the man has her hastily (and a little guiltily, though she sees no true reason she should feel shame at a desire to write home) folding the paper and shoving it into her pocket. She’ll return LaBoeuf’s pencil to him later, as she feels it will cause Cogburn to fuss if she speaks too closely with the Ranger, and in truth she still smarts from his insults and finds it difficult to swallow her pride enough to share more than a few civil words with him at a time.

The two men commence to verbal sniping almost immediately, however, and what disgruntlement Mattie feels toward their too-slow progress in hunting Tom Chaney comes to roost on the heads of her traveling companions instead. All would be easy if only they would act like men instead of little boys, and Mattie swears there are times she must be the nearest thing to an adult around their campfire. If it were possible, she would leave them both behind to trade barbs and comparisons of horses and guns, and take to the trail alone. Except that Choctaw territory is no place for a lone girl, and though it irks her, she admits she lacks the experience required to track a murdering fugitive even if it were not the dead of winter to boot.

So she pulls her father’s coat around herself and stares solemnly at the two men, listening to them vent their own frustrations on one another until it seems they might come to blows, and then she puts on her best cheer and intervenes, drawing their attention away from the pricks in their own pride. And onto the little girl in a man’s clothes, riding the trail with hardened hunters in a quest for justice.