In Swordheart, women like Halla gain power by adopting clever tactics to accomplish their goals despite the resistance they encounter from a society that is designed to keep them powerless. The novel shows Halla advancing her quest by relying upon her sharp judgment and by forging alliances that fall outside of accepted social structures. When men such as her odious cousin or the priests and bandits on the road attempt to suppress her independence, she turns their expectations into tools she can use. As she sheds her encultured inhibitions and becomes more willing to direct her own life, she discovers that her greatest strength comes from repurposing the meager resources that her patriarchal society allows her to access.

Kingfisher opens with Halla caught inside rigid social rules. Her great-uncle has left her his fortune, yet the inheritance makes her a target for her greedy relatives instead of granting her freedom. Malva callously locks her in a bedroom and plans to marry her to her cousin Alver so that they can take her wealth. When they tell her she will be “[m]arried or buried” (2), she is so deeply mired in a false sense of helplessness that she decides that dying by suicide is the only path out of her predicament.