Snapdragon

Jacks is a mentor to Snaps, the protagonist. She is a tall white woman with short gray hair and one green eye, with an eyepatch over her missing eye. As she attests, she is often confused for a male due to her androgynous appearance. When she is working outside, she wears a long sleeve black cloak and a wide-brimmed black hat. Inside, she wears casual clothes like bright t-shirts, shorts, and Crocs. This dissonance surprises Snap, who had preconceived notions about what a witch looked and acted like. Jacks met Snap’s grandmother Jessie at a motorcycle race when they were young. Though the two loved each other, they separated because Jacks didn’t want kids. At the end of the graphic novel, Snap reunites them.

Jacks’s influence helps Snap move past her assumptions about witches and magic, and Snap helps Jacks become more accepting of different types of magic. Initially, Jacks has strong opinions that the stereotypical trappings associated with witches are junk that distracts from the real uses of magic. Jacks teaches Snap that witches are “always on the outside. And so, witches got made into scary things to be feared. To excuse the cruel things done to us. That’s what scared folks did. Still do” (122). The town, for instance, thinks that Jacks is a witch who “fed her eye to the devil” and eats roadkill and pets (1).

Though Jacks doesn’t seem bothered by the town’s rumors, in her youth, she was kicked out of her house by her parents. Her parents saw her as an outsider and rejected her for it. This memory haunted Jacks, affecting her relationship with Jessie and her desire to have kids, lest she hurt them the way she was hurt. Jacks’s strict way of performing witchcraft, and her avoidance of the objects stereotypically associated with witches, is her way of keeping Snap away from the hurt of rejection.

Jacks has two animal familiars: One-Eyed Tom and the buck spirit. Jacks hit One-Eyed Tom, a fox, with her motorcycle while driving emotionally after splitting up with Jessie. She used magic to re-animate him by feeding him one of her eyes and stopped riding her motorcycle altogether. This linked the two of them. Jacks can see what One-Eyed Tom can see with their shared eye. She used him as a sentry to keep Jessie’s family from harm after their separation. The buck is a spirit of a buck deer that Jacks saved after it was hit by a car on a road near her house. While most spirits move on, the buck never left her. It re-animates Jacks’s old motorcycle so she can come to Snap’s aid after One-Eyed Tom saw Chuck attacking her. Both animals help Jacks because of the empathy she showed them.

Lulu is Snap’s best friend and her friendship with Snap helps show The Strength of Found Family: Snap unquestioningly accepts Lulu’s interests, actions, and presentation as she moves toward socially transitioning. She is Black with dark skin and dark hair which is short until Snap makes it grow. Lulu plays baseball with the bullies, so she is hanging out with them when they push Snap into the dead possum. Lulu is the only person who tries to check on Snap. She and Snap live in the same trailer park and they become friends when Lulu compliments G.B., and they bond over their shared love of the Witch Hill movies.

Lulu and Snap have very different personalities. Lulu is nurturing, steady, and likes “girly” things, while Snap is brash, outgoing, and dislikes “girly” things. Lulu tells Snap she doesn’t “care if you don’t like girly things. You don’t make fun of me for liking them” (66). The reason for their friendship isn’t due to their similarities, but because neither of them judges each other for their differences.

Over the course of the graphic novel, Lulu socially transitions. When she meets Snap, she still goes by her deadname. Lulu begins painting her nails and wearing the skirt Snap gives her, then going by her lived name Lulu at home and school. The bullies make transphobic comments about Lulu, and Lulu and Snap both stand up against them.

At home, Lulu is fully supported by her parents. After she comes out to them, her mom stops making her wear her brothers’ hand-me-downs and lets her pick her own clothes, while her dad reads books to educate himself about having a trans child from the library. Lulu and Snap inspire and support one another: Snap’s magic is triggered because Lulu wishes she had longer hair, and Snap inspires Lulu to take up magic herself.

Violet is Snap’s mom and is Black with dark skin and hair, which she wears in braids, and she has tattoos on her arms. She is a hard-working single mother who is recovering from a relationship with her abusive ex-boyfriend named Chuck. She works several jobs and takes night classes to get her degree. She often gets home late at night, leaving Snap to take care of herself after school. She worries she’d been “relying on [Snap] to take care of herself too much” (185). Despite this worry, Violet is unflinchingly supportive of Snap. When a bookseller says the book about skeletons Snap is interested in isn’t suitable for “little girls,” Violet defends her. She humors Snap when she gets “grouchy ‘cause all the skeleton decorations were ‘anatomically incorrect’” (185).

She is also sensitive about Snap’s struggle to navigate her identity. She gently asks if Snap feels like she’s “a boy? Like the way Lu’s a girl” (110). She doesn’t ask out of judgment, but so she can better support her child’s needs. When Snap confirms that she feels like a girl but doesn’t act like it, Violet is quick to point out that there is no one way a girl should act, and the important thing is how Snap always defends her friends.

Violet’s family has a tradition of naming their daughters after their mother’s favorite flower. This is how Snap got her full name, Snapdragon. Violet’s own name is a testament to her mother Jessie’s continued feelings for Jacks, who brought her violets when she returned her handkerchief.