Character Analysis
Ooh, Look at Me—I'm So Mysterious
Even though the cloud cat obviously isn't human, she's a pretty major character in our story. First seen by Benjamin Malloy when he observes her birth and subsequent fall from the skies, the cloud cat is kind of an anomaly. She (we are going to stick with referring to the creature as a she so that Kate de Vries doesn't come after us and accuse us of misogyny) can't live in the air with the rest of her kind, so she is forced to eke out an existence on land. She's a fish out of water, if you will tolerate the analogy.
The cloud cat is an important character because she's a blank slate that Oppel can use as a major plot device: She's the major motivating factor that drives Kate to make hasty decisions in her desire to prove she exists, and she's also a symbol that helps depict the struggle Matt feels as a land-bound creature that longs to be airborne. (See our "Symbols" section for more on this.)
So even though there isn't much character development for this, um, character—after all, she's a wild creature and her motivations will remain a secret to everyone but her—she plays a large role in our story nonetheless.