Fearless (novel)

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Fearless is a young adult novel series by Francine Pascal. The story follows Gaia Moore, a teenager who was born with the inability to feel fear, as her terrorist uncle "Loki" messes up her life.

In 2003, the series was loosely adapted into a TV show starring Rachael Leigh Cook in which Gaia is an FBI agent. Only one episode was filmed; it never aired.

A short follow-up book series in which Gaia joins the FBI, Fearless FBI, was published in 2005.


Tropes used in Fearless (novel) include:
  • Action Girl: Gaia
  • Alpha Bitch: Heather. She eventually stops being this and even jumps to Gaia's defense when the FOH start mocking her in the final book.
  • Amnesiac Dissonance: Oliver/Loki following his Convenient Coma.
  • Back From the Dead: Sam, but the implication is that reports of his death were exaggerated and that he was actually held prisoner by Loki's Mooks.
  • Blessed with Suck: Gaia is fond of pointing out that humans feel fear for a reason.
    • Also, her supreme fighting skills come with a serious drawback: She can't hold back when fighting, so even a simple brawl causes her to overexert herself, which results in her passing out once the fight is over.
  • Brainwashed: We learn Tatiana was once a nice person, before getting Brainwashed... then it's never mentioned again.
  • Cain and Abel: Loki and Tom
    • To the point where, when Gaia demands Tom's location from Loki, he sarcastically asks her "Am I my brother's keeper?"
  • Cardboard Prison: Loki spends, like, one chapter in a supposed "maximum security" prison before escaping.
    • It helped that he had people working for him inside the prison.
  • Cloning Blues: Josh
  • Cuckoo Nest
  • Cursed with Awesome: Loki's point of view on Gaia's fearlessness. His attempts to recreate it don't go so well though.
  • Girl Posse: Whom Gaia dubs the "Friends of Heather", in reference to the Alpha Bitch. Said Alpha Bitch pulls a Heel Face Turn later on, while the rest of them continue to act like like little harpies.
  • A God Am I: One villain actually calls himself "God". He's quite delusional, and is viewed with nothing but contempt by the other villains.,
    • Loki as well, after the Norse god of trickery.
  • I Just Want to Be Normal: Gaia
  • It's Not You, It's My Enemies: A major hindrance to all of Gaia's relationships.
  • Love At First Sight
  • Manipulative Bastard: Loki
  • Out of the Inferno: Referenced metaphorically in "Blood": After Gaia is stopped from almost killing Skizz, Tom Moore watches her as she attends Mary's funeral. When she gives her tear-filled speech on her friend's behalf, Tom reflects that Gaia has "been through the fire and emerged tempered, not charred."
  • Parental Abandonment: Gaia's uncle killed her mother and her father is off working for the CIA.
  • Poor Communication Kills: If any of the characters ever actually explained anything to each other clearly and truthfully, 90% of the tragedy and Wangst wouldn't happen.
  • Professor Guinea Pig: Loki with the Phobosan 2.0.
  • Psycho Serum: Loki's various "Phobosan" drugs.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Ella.
  • The Mole: Anyone Gaia ever trusts. Ever. Including but by no means limited to Oliver, Ella, George, Josh, Natasha, Tatiana, and Yuri. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
  • Sequel Series: Fearless: FBI
  • Spot the Imposter: Between Tom and Loki
  • Suspiciously Apropos Music: The band Fearless.
  • Truth in Television: The scientific journal Current Biology recently reported on the curious case of a woman who does not experience the emotion of fear.
    • Francine Pascal once said that she got the idea for the series from a similar article that she read.
  • Villainous Breakdown: Ella early on, Loki near the end.
  • Wicked Stepmother: Ella, in the first major story arc (well, technically wicked foster mother, but her foster father is a friend of her biological father's, and Ella is his new wife, so close enough).