Woman of the Month: Mebh Óg MacTíre

Look at this magnificent creature. LOOK AT HER. I don’t think I’ve ever loved a character design as deeply or as instantly as I have Mebh (pronounced Maeve). Her design is impeccable: the roundness of her body, the fullness of her hair, the sharpness of her teeth: her entire personality is bursting through the lines that make up her being.

She’s a Wolfwalker, living in the forests of Ireland with her mother, able to transform into a wolf while she sleeps, and using her healing abilities on humans and animals alike. Now with her mother gone in order to find a safer place to live, Mebh has only the wolf pack for company... until she meets Robyn Goodfellowe...

Mebh instantly became one of my favourite fictional characters of all time: she’s fierce and feral and a ball of energy that practically pulsates with life. She moves with a swagger and confidence that’s so rare in female characters; raising her voice and taking up space, but finding so much joy in who she is and what she loves: her forest, her pack and her mother.

And yet, she’s still a little girl. More vulnerable than she realizes and desperately missing her absent “mammy”, you’ll end up choking back tears when she verbalizes her loneliness and fear. Children don’t do things by half: when they’re upset their hearts break, when they love it’s with their entire being, and when they’re afraid it’s like the whole world is crumbling around them.

But as she says to Robyn: “there’s two of us now”, the arc words that guide the flow of the film’s action and its central themes. Even a self-sufficient wolf-child needs a little help now and then.