The story's details truly reveal the extent of Deonn's deviation from the norms found in speculative fiction. The most crucial part of Deonn's divergence begins with the first page of the prologue and the pronoun she uses: I. This entire story is told from Bree's point of view. When discussing the Dark Other, Thomas talks about how they are the antagonists and therefore, their perspectives are deemed wrong. She asks, "What does the fantastic look like from the point of view of the monster?" [1] Legendborn does precisely that. The story is told from the perspective of the antagonist, monstrous, Dark Other. The entire story shows Bree's feelings, struggles, and responses to being deemed the antagonist by many of her peers. Deonn pulls The Dark Other to the protagonist's spot, proving that even the dark-skinned outcast can be a powerful and beloved character.

Because the story is from Bree's point of view, the reader sees several occasions where Bree displays agency over her situation. In The Dark Fantastic, Thomas discusses how "Black girl characters in mainstream science fiction and fantasy do not offer agency," [2]. Black girls in contemporary media often experience their decisions being made for them by the white main character. However, since Bree Matthews is the main character, no one else can make decisions for her.

Even though Bree is the main character, she can still be controlled by the people and situations around her, especially since the setting is a predominantly white institution (PWI) and her world is filled with magic. The first chapter ends with Briana's first interaction with the Legendborn as they fight a shadowborn monster. She looks over and sees Selwyn Kane, the mysterious male who approaches her earlier in that chapter. When he looks at her, he grows irritated and nods towards her. Bree describes what happens next and says, "A vicious snap of invisible electricity wraps around my body like a rope and yanks me backward…I resist, but the rope sensation responds, tight pain in my body blossoming into a single utterance: Leave. The word materializes in my brain like an idea of my own that I'd simply forgotten," [3]. The next chapter opens with her heading towards the road before she trips and falls into a tree, the pain from the tree bark pulling her out of her thought of leaving. All of her memories come rushing back to her. She realizes that Sel took away her intention of staying and replaced it with the idea of leaving. At the same time, he took away her memory of the flying creature she saw and replaced it with a creatureless form of the incident. She states, "In that second, I realize I have a choice. I can go find Alice…Alice will be worried sick. I can leave, like Selwyn told me to…Or I can stay," [4]. We later find out that her defeating Sel's spell is nearly impossible, and her agency proves to be vital to her and a power she carries throughout the story. Her agency becomes part of her magic and power in the world of the Legendborn.

However, this is not the only scene where she exhibits agency. The next day, Bree discovers that she had seen the magic she saw last night one time before: at the hospital on her mother's deathbed. The police officer at the hospital had something to do with the Legendborn. She quickly starts to wonder why her memory was changed and wants to know the truth behind her mother's death. She needs to know if her mother's death was truly a car accident or something to do with her time at UNC. As punishment for leaving campus and attending a party, she gets assigned a peer mentor by Dean McKinnon. When she is on a walk with her peer mentor, the seventeen-year-old Nick Davis, she sees a sign of the magic she saw last night and from the police officer at the hospital three months earlier with her mother on her deathbed. Her determination to know the truth drives her to run after the magic and find herself face-to-face with another demon. Nick, another Legendborn, fights off the shadowborn, but not without Bree getting injured to the point of passing out in the process. Nick takes her to the healer, and when she wakes up, Nick and her talk. He thinks she is someone sent to test him but eventually realizes that she is actually a onceborn who knows nothing about their world. When she explains that she can resist Sel's spell, Nick quickly tells her to let him do it when he comes in to alter her memories again. However, Bree knows pain pulled her out of it last time and bites on the inside of her cheek while Sel performs his spell. The following day, after receiving a lecture from her best friend and roommate Alice Chen, who thinks she was out at a frat party, Bree brushes her teeth. When she brushes her teeth, the pain from the cut on her inner cheek brings all her memories rushing back. She quickly gets around and figures out Nick's schedule before sneaking into his class. She convinces him she remembers everything, and Nick tells her to let it go. Nick says, "Here's what's going to happen: I am going to ask Dean McKinnon to assign you another mentor…You are going to stop asking questions and move on with your semester… I'm sorry, Bree, but that's final," [5]. Bree responds with a snicker, and Nick scowls at her. Bree leans into Nick's ear and responds with, "We may have experienced a life-threatening demon attack together, and you may have saved my complete and total bacon - again, thank you - but this isn't over. I don't know who you think you are but you can't tell me what to do," before standing up and leaving while thinking, "Time for Plan B," [6]. Even after everything she has seen and her injuries, Bree remains stubborn and determined to figure out the truth about her mother. She uses her agency to claim as much power as she can as a onceborn. She tells Nick he cannot control her and takes matters into her own hands. She does not let the Legendborn tell her what to do. She initiates Plan B and goes to the Lodge where she was healed the evening before and claims her power, her choice, over the situation. This scene is when she and Nick agree for Nick to reclaim his previously rejected title as King Arthur's Scion and claim Bree as his page during trials where she will compete to be a Squire to Nick's Scion. Without her taking back her agency from Sel's magic and pushing Nick to help her discover the truth about her mother, there would be no story. Bree would not be confused and curious about her ability to break Sel's spell, nor would she even remember what happened. She chooses to break the spell and stay in the woods. She chooses to hunt down Nick and deny his orders. She chooses to go to the mysterious Lodge in the woods and start her adventure of finding out the truth. Not only does Bree, a woman of color, have control in Legendborn, but her agency is one of the most important aspects of the beginning of her adventure.

Bree's adventure to discover the truth of her mother's death is not without struggles. Often, books that include characters of color do not discuss what their race means for the character. Carrie McClain discusses this in her blog post about the book and says, "I've read so much fiction with Black folks as protagonists where the skin color of the protagonist is mentioned a few times…the glaring problem of how they navigate their world isn't always sincere," [7] Many of the characters of color who are protagonists, their race is not vital to the story and are often made diverse for the sake of it and could just as easily be white. The character's race does not change how they navigate the world like it does in real life. However, Deonn makes the book about Bree's race and the struggles that come with it. Many of the Pages going through the trials have trained their entire lives to be Squires. For generations, many families have been Squires to the Scion of one of the knights. All of these families are white, so Bree is the only obvious person of color in the organization. 

Just under halfway through the book, Bree is standing in the Lodge's lobby with Nick when some ladies, members of the families or previous Pages, enter. One of them goes to hand Bree an umbrella. She asks Bree to take it and dry it before dinner before starting to talk again. When she realizes a couple of words later that Bree had not followed instructions, the lady goes, "Did you not hear me?...Where is your supervisor?" [8] Thankfully, Nick tells the lady that Bree is his Page. She continues her racist comments and says to Nick, "I would expect you to select a Page from the [family] to your line, as is tradition," [9]. Nick quickly tells her he chose Bree for a reason before his father enters the room and disrupts the interaction. Nick and Bree leave the lobby. Bree remains furious and thinks, "All I see are obstacles. Women who want their children in my spot. White women who assume a Black girl in the Lodge is a servant, not a member," [10] These obstacles want to see her lose and cause issues within her story. Her race automatically puts her at a disadvantage to many of the adults in the organization, as even at the end of the trials, she needs to be selected as a viable Squire.

These ladies are not the only ones with these racist beliefs. One of the other pages competing, Vaughn, comments on Bree cheating the trials. He accuses her of sleeping with Nick to gain his favor and tells her she cannot guarantee her spot as a Squire. When she responds that she knows she might not be selected, Vaughn retorts with "Good…Because a lot of us here have waited and trained our whole lives to become a Legendborn Squire. And we're not going to let some affirmative action bullshit fuck up our chances," [11] Bree grows frustrated, angry that her race makes it hard to blend in as she and Nick discussed. Her skin color makes it wrong to be there, and therefore, she will be noticed. After taking a moment to ensure she was not going to lash out at Vaughn, she accuses Vaughn of being a bigot and a bully before pointing out his anger towards her shows hia insecurities about winning the tournament and the carelessness, disloyalty, and insubordination that comes with him questioning Nick, the future king, and his choices in a Page. When Vaughn responds by trying to attack Bree, many turn their attention off of her and onto him. That was Bree's plan: to respond to the bigotry and bullying in a way that would not make her seem unworthy of being a Page but also get the attention off of her and onto someone else. She responds to racism in the story strategically and shows just how powerful and intelligent she is. Not only does racism in the story make her race believable, but it also displays her capabilities as a character. She overcomes more than a white person in her situation and remains strong and level-headed despite the comments and assumptions.

Legendborn's climax holds a vital twist that truly shows the exceptionality of Deonn's book. In her magazine article, Zetta Elliott discusses the extent of slavery stories in historical fiction and how many believe that these stories bring up an awful past that shames readers. She retorts by saying that "I believe speculative fiction generates the kind of narrative possibility that enables us to revise, re-view, and reclaim the past," [12]. Deonn's twist does precisely that. We discover that Nick's father is trying to start a war so King Arthur will awaken. Everyone rushes to where Excalibur is buried in stone to stop Arthur from calling upon his Scion and starting the war. However, Nick seeing all of his friends either die in front of him or at least face drastic injuries causes the awakening to occur despite his efforts. Nick stands there confused when he tries to pull Excalibur from the stone and fails. Bree's ancestor calls to her, and she lets her in, assuming it is another one of the instances of traversing her ancestor's memories like she does several times at this point in the story. However, as memories flash before her eyes, she finds that Nick is not the Scion of Arthur; she is. Nick is the Scion of Lancelot, the knight right below Arthur in rank, and Bree is the Scion of Arthur. One of her ancestors lived on a plantation of one of the previous Scions of Arthur. When the plantation owner and Bree's ancestor had a child, the child became the heir to the Knight's abilities. At that moment, the bloodline switched to Bree's family. She takes on the abilities of King Arthur and pulls Excalibur out of the stone. However, the most essential part of this twist is how it happened: the plantation. Most books like Legendborn stay within the fantasy aspect of it and ignore the real world. However, Deonn uses both fantasy and history to create a mind-blowing twist. She brings the importance of African-American history into a speculative fiction story and does not ignore the history like many others would.