| “ | Sam, that's a great concept. And maybe you believe it. But I'm black and I'm a lesbian, so let me tell you: From what I know? Personal experience? There are always lines. | ” |
—Dekka about equal rights |
||
Dekka Jean Talent is a character appearing in all the books in the series and a queer icon, being a side character in the original six books and a main protagonist of the Monster trilogy.
Description[]
Dekka is one of the main protagonists in the Gone series, though at first sights she emulates a very intimidating and forbidding attitude. She is a lesbian, which was why her parents sent her to Coates.
She is a quiet person, but also very courageous and brave, while also being sensible. She's a natural born fighter, and the members of the FAYZ have a lot of respect for Dekka, even though she can look quite "scary". She has a strong moral compass and is always prepared to fight for what she believes in. While she isn't very expressive, she does care deeply for her friends and would sacrifice herself for them, even if she doesn't always show it. She is also quite secretive and good at hiding her emotions, being able to maintain a perfect poker face most of the time.
Dekka is tall and has dark skin. She is described as tall, muscular, and imposing, has cornrows (dreadlocks in the Monster arc) and a nose ring. She has a scar on her forehead from Drake she refused to let Lana heal her.
Power and abilities[]
- Gone
In the FAYZ, Dekka has the three bar ability to cancel gravity; this causes everything within a twenty-foot radius to float in midair. As she develops control of her power, she learns to use it to levitate herself short distances and can activate it briefly to cause others to lose their balance. A limitation of the power is in that it does not cancel momentum. She uses the power to kill Zil Sperry at the end of Lies.
- Monster
After being injected by ASO-1, Dekka gains the ability to morph into a strong and durable creature of similar size and shape, covered in black cat fur. She has yellow-eyed snakes for hair, sharp teeth, and four fingers in this form, and runs out of energy quickly. She can also create sonic screeches that shred everything in her path. The snakes on her head bite any threatening person that comes near her, the venom causing them to shrivel up and die.
Appearances[]
- Before the FAYZ
Dekka had always been brave and capable. She was sent to Coates because she kissed a girl in a parking lot outside a Claim Jumper restaurant. She was seen by a teacher at her school (before Coates) who reported her to her parents. Angry and ashamed, they sent her to Coates Academy to try to break the two up. At Coates, Dekka meets Brianna Berenson and develops a crush on her.
- Gone
In Gone, she is rescued by Sam, Astrid and others from Drake's cruel plastering. Astrid pretends to crush Pete's Game Boy under her cement blocks, Pete has a fit and makes the blocks disappear. She lets Lana heal her hands, but not the cut on her forehead from Drake kicking her. She meets Brianna at Coates when they are both plastered. Dekka quickly becomes infatuated with Brianna but doesn't tell her. She fights for Perdido Beach during the Thanksgiving battle and is very helpful in doing so, rescuing Astrid and Pete from underneath the rubble of the collapsed church.
- Hunger
In Hunger, Dekka reveals she has a crush on Brianna, but she would never tell her about it. She explains more about her past, too. When Sam goes to the power plant to stop Caine, he leaves her there, showing his trust in Dekka. When Sam returns, Dekka and Edilio go together to try to collapse the mineshaft and kill the Gaiaphage in the mine with her powers. When she arrives, Lana tries to shoot Dekka after having shot Edilio. Dekka then tries to protect Edilio from the coyote pack which tries to eat him mistaking him for dead. The Coyotes turn on Dekka and almost kill her until Lana returns and heals her.
- Lies
In Lies, Dekka becomes part of the newly formed council containing Sam, Astrid, Edilio, John, Albert, and Howard. They decide to tell everyone that Orsay is lying about the poof being a good thing. Dekka catches the flu and becomes sick. Brianna visits her in the night and remarks that she has some good curves, making it awkward for Dekka as Brianna does not know that she loves her. During the fire of Perdido Beach, Dekka helps topple the buildings to stop the fire from spreading. Nerezza describes Dekka as "a fat black lesbian," telling Zil to attack her. Dekka floats herself and Zil high into the air then drops him to the ground, killing him on impact. Dekka is instrumental in saving the younger kids from death after Mary leads the littles over the cliff. She uses her power to suspend the kids in midair, before slowly lowering them to the ground.
- Plague
In Plague, Dekka helps discover Lake Tramonto. She then reveals that she has become infected, and shows Sam her belly, where a bug is slowly eating its way out of her. Dekka tries to carry on normally and helps Sam. The bugs then start coming out of her, and Sam, not being able to let her die cuts her open and burns the bugs inside her. Believing these to be her last moments, Dekka calls for Brianna and confesses her feelings to her. Brianna is confused and runs away. After the bugs disappear, Lana heals Dekka so she survives. Dekka returns to Perdido Beach with Sam and he tells the people there about food and drinks they found at Lake Tramonto and how they could live there. Dekka stays as a member of Sam's group and heads to Lake Tramonto.
- Fear
In Fear, Dekka, Sam, and Jack go together to try and find the missiles. The journey is tense between Dekka and Jack, as Jack and Brianna are together. Jack also starts to talk about how Brianna keeps wanting to make out with him. They arrive to find that only one missile is left and it is boobytrapped. Assuming that Caine has the missiles, Sam decides to blow up the bomb but at a safe distance and Brianna arrives to perform the detonation. Dekka and Brianna aren't able to meet eye-to-eye until Dekka finally confronts Brianna, angry that she has allowed Drake to escape and the two start to talk about their feelings. Brianna says that's she's only 13 and is like all other FAYZ girls: probably has a crush on Sam and had a thing with Computer Jack about which she really didn't care. Brianna tells Dekka that she had always thought of her as a really cool sister. Dekka and her make-up, calling themselves the "bad-ass sisters" and they go after Drake together. Penny stops Dekka by giving her the image of her greatest fear: being infested with the bugs again. Orc is the one to rescue her and bring her back to Perdido Beach. Dekka shows kindness to Orc and is unusually tender with him. This is notable considering Orc and Dekka didn't like each other in Hunger.
- Light
In Light, Dekka helps Sam fight and ultimately defeat Gaia. She is devastated after Brianna's death. After the FAYZ ends, Dekka lives with her parents. At some point later, she goes to Brianna's parents' house and tells them all about Brianna and what she did to save people. They then give her a picture of Brianna, and Dekka frames it and hangs it by her bed.
- Monster
Dekka is working as a cashier under the name Jean (her middle name) to raise money for new motorcycle tires. She prefers not to be recognized and hates her job. Eventually the government corners her and she is injected with a mixture of water and part of the ASO that created the Gaiaphage. This gives her a new power that turns her into a cat-like creature with living snakes for hair and supersonic screeches. When they experiment on her and she kills her cat and several soldiers in this process, she escapes with Armo, and they journey to Perdido Beach. She visits the graves of those who died in the FAYZ, including Brianna. She meets Diana, who is putting flowers on the graves, and they talk. Dekka helps in the Port of Los Angeles Battle, and seeks sanctuary at Sam’s house afterwards
- Villain
After informing Astrid and Sam that Drake is back, Dekka goes with Armo to Las Vegas, where they attempt to stop Dillon Poe, but are unable to do so due to the large amount of cops that are after them. They retreat to a hotel and wait for Shade, Malik, and Cruz to arrive so they can formulate a decent plan to stop Dillon. Dekka asks Shade for a piece of ASO-3 to give to Astrid, so she is able to protect herself against Drake. In the battle of Las Vegas, Dekka uses her power to shred nearby buildings, so that the debris smothers the flames.
- Hero
The mayor of New York, Louise Chaffetz, takes Dekka and Francis to see what has happened to Agents Franklin, Wallberg, Pedroncelli and Hernandez. Dekka is appalled, and calls the rest of the Rockborn Gang.
When they hear about Bob Markovic, Dekka (who is now leader of the Rockborn Gang) and the rest of the Rockborn Gang go to his apartment to fight him. Dekka makes a plan, but it only consists of where to go, not how to fight; so Dekka’s plan fails. Dekka can’t get a clear shot at Vector, and Simone almost kills Armo. During the fight, Vector infects Detective Peter Williams, and Francis takes Dekka back up again so Dekka can put him out of his misery.
Dekka decides they need to attack again, so go to a hall where he has an army and attacks with flamethrowers. Dekka calls off the battle when she sees thousands more bugs coming back to Vector.
Dekka decides they need to try one more time so she goes to Vector’s hall. Shade finds out Vector is on a train to Washington, D.C., and Dekka gets a helicopter from General Eliopoulos. The helicopter catches up with the train and members of the Rockborn Gang jump on to save the hostages and kill Vector. This fails, and the helicopter crashes, with almost the entire group in it. Shade gets a new, faster helicopter and Dekka, Armo and Shade pop into it with Francis as Sam puts a dome around the train. Shade gets crushed and the Rockborn Gang pop back into the helicopter. The train crashes into the dome wall and Vector is killed.
Malik goes to Site L and discovers that everything is a simulation. The Rockborn Gang then votes on what to do, answer has not been confirmed by any canon sources.
Relationships[]
- Brianna
Dekka is lesbian and has strong feelings for Brianna and is very protective of her. At the end of Plague, because she is about to die as she is being eaten from the inside out by the bugs, Dekka tells Brianna that she loves her. Brianna doesn't feel the same way and she starts avoiding her. There is a lot of awkwardness between the two for most of Fear until Dekka confronts her and the two make up.
- Sam
Dekka has few friends as she has difficulty opening up to others. She and Sam support each other and understand each other well, as they are both private people. He thinks of her as an ally. If anything ever happens to Sam or Edilio, he hints that he would want her in charge.
- Taylor
Dekka doesn't like Taylor much as she annoys her. In Plague, while looking for the lake at the start of their journey Dekka is already asking Sam if she can shoot Taylor, though not really wanting to harm her badly, but she trips her with her gravitational powers.
- Edilio
Edilio and Dekka are close friends and always allies of Sam in the series. Dekka protects Edilio from the pack of coyotes in Hunger. Even though she is sick, she helps Sam and Edilio in the Fire of Perdido Beach and kills Zil Sperry. They see each other as allies. In the aftermath, Dekka calls Edilio.
- Jack
Dekka initially hated Jack because he was going out with Brianna. She also thought he had no moral center or courage. However, after he goes after Drake alone, she grudgingly starts to respect him. She is not seen mourning his death.
Notes[]
- Dekka apparently looks nothing like the actor that plays her in Astrid's movie.
- Dekka was the twelfth and final character to be confirmed to turn fifteen in the FAYZ, after (in order) Emma, Anna, Benno, Andrew, Sam, Caine, Drake, Hunter, Francis, Mary, and Sanjit. Several other characters such as Diana turned fifteen, but it is unknown exactly when.
- She is an Angels fan.
- Her favorite food is Ben & Jerry's Half Baked.
- In Plague, on the first page of Chapter 37, it suggests that her original power was not to cancel gravity, but to lessen it the amount she wants.
- She is the only protagonist to play a central role in all nine books.
- She is currently #1 on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted.
Quotes[]
Dekka to Sam:
- "Yeah, we're not really the huggy type, are we?"
- "Yeah, sure. Me and Beyoncé."
- "No thanks. I like you, Sam, but not in that way."
- "The FAYZ owes you a million moments of quiet optimism."
- "No, because we black folk can't swim."
Dekka to Astrid:
- (While saving Astrid and little Pete from the broken church) "I'm not exactly an angel, let alone an archangel, but I can get this stuff off you."
Dekka about Brianna:
- "If anyone hurts that girl, they don't get the chance to walk away."
Dekka about Drake:
- (In regards to the scar on her forehead) "I got that from Drake's shoe when he kicked me, Heal up my hands from the plastering, but leave my head. I want something to remember it by."
- "He's got Diana, and we can't leave her to him. He hates women, you know."
Dekka about Jack:
- "Of course, sometimes the flu can be fatal. A girl can hope."
- "Yeah. You know, Computer Jack? Nerdy kid? Glasses? Does stupid things like turn off the power plant? That Jack. He's sick and she's taking care of him."
Dekka to Taylor:
- "No, Taylor. The gun is in case you get on my nerves."
Dekka to Orc:
- "Yeah, well, it turns out there aren't a lot of girls interested in me, either."
Dekka before the battle of Las Vegas:
- "Lesbokitty, Beserker Bear, and Rainbow. We just need a ridiculous name for Malik and we’d be a damn Sesame Street spin-off."
Gallery[]
References[]
Goodreads question - (Michael Grant chose her power because he thought it would be cool)
| Coates students |
|---|
| Caine Soren | Diana Ladris | Drake Merwin | Dekka Talent | Brianna Berenson Brittney Donegal | Taylor | Computer Jack | Bug | Penny Andrew | Frederico | Mallet |
| Town Council |
|---|
| Sam Temple | Astrid Ellison | Albert Hillsborough | Edilio Escobar | Dekka Talent | Howard Bassem | John Terrafino | Ellen |