Katrina Tigris

Katrina Tigris - who prefers to be known as Tiger - born on 2 April, 992 in the Underworld, is a Bengal tigress shapeshifter who survived the Jawa massacre at the age of 7 - in which her parents were killed in. She first appears in the third book Tainted at the age of 15. She is Atara's older sister - who she has looked after all her life.

                                                                                                                   

                                                                                                                 Human form

Appearance
Katrina is described as not as pretty as her younger sister, and has a more tomboy, ruffian look to her. Fifteen-year-old Katrina has cropped-short, flicky, messy, straight fiery orange hair with a side fringe that covers one eye. She has large, round emerald green eyes which glimmer like a cat's and freckly, pale skin. She is quite slender and not as endowed as her sister, and is also quite muscly for a female - although not overly so. She is well-toned. She often wears a pair of trainers - or high-tops of going out - and generally looks like a chav. She'll wear the occasional pair of skinny jeans, but generally either denim shorts, tracky bottoms with high-tops or a pair of old, scruffy t-shirt. She'll also wear either a normal short-sleeved t-shirt or a hoody if it's cold. Her jeans often have holes in them or grass-stains that won't come out due to the fact that she's often out playing footy or climbing or something - apart from the skinny jeans that she saves for best. She looks very similar to her younger sister facially, with her small button nose, full lips (although doesn't possess the cupid-bow shape) and strong jaw. She has rather long eyelashes. She never wears make-up (unless it's for a special occasion, and even then she'll only wear a bit of mascara and eyeshadow.) Although not as pretty as her sister, some people remark that as she gets older she's getting to be as pretty as her sister. Others say that she's already natually pretty.

She is quite tall for her age as well, as at 15 she is already 5"8 and by the end of the series grows a little bit more to 5"11. People say that she looks much older than she really is - although she isn't very well-developed, unlike her sister - who is much better endowed than she is.

Personality
Katrina suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, and does not like to get close to anyone physically or emotionally. This is due to the serious trauma as a child witnessing her parents being killed in front of her and due to the trauma of being part of the massacre. She had hid Atara from witnessing it - which is partly why Atara never developed the disorder. Due to this disorder, Katrina can be unpredictable and violent in certain situations - at the beginning of the series she is very withdrawn and refuses to talk much. When she is put in a situation which does remind her of that event, she becomes increasingly under stress as a result, the others found that it was best to stay away from her - as Whitney found out the hard way - although afterwards Katrina was horrified at what she had done and Whitney beared her no prejudice for it. As Katrina begins to receive psychological help and visits a psychoanalyst regularly, she begins to move on from her past and her symptons begin to relieve a bit - but never completely go away.

It is fair to say that Katrina has a bitter personality and is one of the harshest characters in Hellrider - due to her bitterness and her prejudice against humans and even human-born shapeshifters - as they are related to the race which killed her parents. On the other hand, she is by no means an intentionally nasty person. She has every reason to hate humans. When she doesn't like you, she'll just completely ignore you or say some mean things to you - and she will show when she doesn't like someone. She is fueled with anger, determination and prejudice that stems from her traumatic childhood. She is generally friendly, but tends to close herself off and build barries around herself due to her childhood. She doesn't like getting emotionally close to people, and will only let you come as close as she wants you to be. Even with her sister - who is the closest person to her - states that even she can't get to her sometimes. She is quiet and withdrawn amongst her peers and feels unable to connect to them emotionally. She'll unintentionally hurt people and push them away - usually out of impulse - and also due to her post-traumatic stress. She acts primarily on instincts and has a violent temper. She is quick to resort to violence to solve a problem. She can also get depressed and is quite a pessimistic person. She is very feisty and fierce - sharp and blunt with her words - which she unintentionally hurts people with. She is proud to be a tiger, and is not easily intimidated - leading her to often act recklessly.

She is also clearly haunted and traumatised by her past, as she - out of the two sisters - is the one who remembers the most and has clearly been affected by it most. This event is what changed her and shaped her for life.

Despite these seemingly negative traits, she - in actual fact - cares about everyone who she is close to, and is very grateful to those who have looked after her all these years. She is extremely protective of those she cares about - especially her sister - as she can't bear to lose anyone else. On the other hand, she doesn't like being protected and told what to do by others - often leading her to clash with people.

She is quietly confident - confident in her fighting abilities - and is extremely talented. She is restless, energetic and athletic, having a love for sports such as athletics, football, rugby, swimming and tennis. However, she hates netball, stating that it's "too girly and whiny." However, due to her inability to focus for long periods of time, she has a hard time concentrating and tends to be poor academically.

She is a tough tomboy at heart, and loves to be outdoors and loves to explore the woods - especially forbidden places like the Forest of Nightmares. Most of her friends are boys, and she doesn't tend to get along too well with girls, often getting into verbal fights. She often tries to fist fight with them, but they run away, and she complains that they're "pussies." She sometimes gets into fist fights with boys, with some boys saying that she's "strong for a girl." But when she fights, she is honourable - never using her claws lethally. She'll sometimes unsheath them to intimidate her opponents, but will never use them against an opponent - unless of course she gets really mad.

Due to her friendships with lots of the boys, lots of the girls in her year get jealous - which doesn't help her popularity much. However, Katrina claims that they're merely platonic relationships - which is true for the most part. But, unbeknownst to her, most of the boys fancy her as they're impressed with her abilities and that she's "different to the other girls."

Katrina isn't popular at school, and often goes on bouts of rages - even in class - due to her post-traumatic stress. Whenever someone tries to get close to her or tries to hug her, she might flinch back or push them. This has caused people to label her a "nutcase" and a "lunatic who needs to be locked away in a mental home" - something which angers her younger sister and her friends around her - especially people like Whitney. Duma has even gone as far as to label her as a "danger to society" - although not in a mean way exactly - but which still earned him a punch in the face by Atara.

As Katrina develops a crush on one of the boys, she becomes confused by her feelings and tries to deny them and hide them. This could also be related to the fact that she doesn't show much emotion anyway unless when she is angry. She becomes self-conscious and begins to worry that she isn't "girly enough" and "pretty enough" as she begins to look around her and realise lots of the "pretty girls" get the boys. She also fears relationships due to her mental illness - fearing to get emotionally close to anyone and fearing physical contact. What she doesn't realise is that she is primary talk for most of the boys anyway. She even tries stealing her sister's make-up to try and make herself look prettier and wishes that she was as pretty as her sister, until Atara says that she "prefers the tomboy her" and that "make-up doesn't suit her." She goes on to say that, "she shouldn't try and change herself for anyone" and that "if they don't like her as her then they can sod off." This generally contradicts the fact that she usually couldn't care less what others think or for fashion or her appearance, for that matter. Atara's speech gives Katrina more confidence, although she is still confused by her feelings which prompts Texas to examine her symptons and state that she is "sexually attracted to Raji." This makes Katrina shudder in response - as she hates getting emotionally close to people - let alone being sexually attracted to a boy.

She hates being hugged and being touched physically by others, but learns to overcome this fear as she begins to open up to others and as she receives psychological help. She may seem apathetic, but lets out her "soft" side that others rarely see and more emotional side - like towards Texas as Texas is an orphan just like her. Katrina - deep down - can feel deep emotions, but tends to bottle them up all inside of her partly because she is afraid of looking "weak" - but mostly due to her fear of getting close to people due to her mental illness. She hates looking weak and will stay strong no matter what - even if she doesn't feel like it on the inside. If she is feeling sad, she will tend to cry in private. The only emotion she can't bottle up is her anger, which explodes unpredictably - especially if she experiences a flashback or a nightmare etc. The fact that she has disciplined almost all emotions allows her to block her mind from people trying to look into it - telepathics such as Nadine - as Nadine cannot read her mind and Nadine is a very powerful telepathic. As she manages to control her anger as the series goes on, she becomes a skilled Clauseum, able to block her mind from witches and wizards and mind-readers that can try to penetrate her mind. Psychics also can't see her decisions, either. Her strong will-power and mind prevents people from trying to take-over her mind as well.

As Hellrider goes on and her psychological help begins to work, she learns to discipline her anger and let go of her prejudice and becomes a lot softer as she gets older, gradually letting down her emotional barrier - and physical barrier. She opens up more and becomes braver and more responsible. She learns to chanel her energy and gets better at school. She becomes less uptight and more laid-back - allowing people to understand her more and for her to be better-liked. In addition to that, she begins to go for counselling as well to talk about her past which at first she's very reluctant to, but it eventually helps her to overcome and let go of her sadness and anger. She also does cry once in front of her friends, causing even Chica to comment that, "she has never seen her cry as much as me before." But, this stops when she finds out the truth about the Massacre towards the end, and she reverts back to her aggressive, vengeful, angry, traumatised and haunted self - inadvertedly going back to square one again.

Katrina's fatal flaw is her recklessness and her determination to avenge her parents' and brother's death - as she finds out that it wasn't just humans who were responsible - but Diabla and some supernatural hunters had lead the massacre in order to simply eliminate any "competiton" getting humans involved in order to fuel more hatred between humans and shapeshifters. When Katrina finds out this and finds Diabla, she becomes fearful and attacks on instinct in anger and revenge. This, ultimately, causes her death - leaving her sister devastated.

A running gag of the series is that she hates her birth name and prefers to be simply known as "Tiger." When the group first get to know her, Atara tells them just to call her Katrina - resulting in a lot of physical (and verbal) attacks from Katrina. The reason being is that Katrina hates her name, commenting it's "too girly and yucky."

Katrina is proud to have been her parents' daughter, and is very honourable about them. She tries not to be so overly-self-conscious about her name, as she wouldn't want to hurt her parents.

Katrina is generally a good person, and all she wanted was for those she cared about to be safe from danger.

Katrina is ruled by Aries - the ram in the Zodiac - and the element of fire and her cardinal quality. Therefore, she occasionally (or often for some of them) displays these qualities alongside her usual ones: impulsitivity, a fiery temper, adventurousness, recklessness, irritableness, stubborness, assertiveness, aggression, eagerness, enthusiasm, practicality, courage, competiteveness, arrogance, lack of  discipline (which she manages to overcome throughout the series), a tency to leave things undone and very confrontational.