Most of the characters in Class get a pretty raw deal. While the Doctor and their companions are seeing the wonders of the universe, Sarah Jane and co. are having their own adventures on Earth, and the Torchwood crew are getting laid between dangerous missions, the teens from Class are going through it almost constantly. If I was ranking the raw-deal factor within within the main cast, I think I’d give Ram the edge, but April has it awfully hard as well (April-related spoilers.)
Even before the events of the fateful prom night that changes all their lives, April isn’t having a great time. Her dad is in prison over a drunk-driving accident that left her mom paralyzed, so her home life is difficult, and she has few friends at school. Her well-meaning friendliness is deemed by other students to be milquetoast niceness, and it’s easy for them to walk all over her. She also has the misfortune of developing a crush on Charlie, not realizing he’s actually an alien who isn’t well-versed in human social interactions and doesn’t understand the concept of letting a girl down gently.
But when the Shadow Kin attack the school during prom, April is left permanently altered. A haphazard encounter with a deadly weapon deals the Shadow King a hard blow, but he clings to life by co-opting April’s heart. There’s a lot involved in this, starting with the tried-and-true conundrum of, “Kill me, and you’ll kill her too.” The others can’t really make a move to finish off the Shadow King when he and April share the same heart. At the same time, April now has the threat hanging over her head that, if the Shadow King ever becomes too dangerous and must be stopped by any means, or if someone goes after the Shadow King without particularly caring what happens to her (such as Quill,) that’s it for her.
Beyond that, it just creates a lot of upheaval in her life. April suddenly finds herself able to know what the Shadow King is thinking at random times. His thoughts occasionally overtake hers, filling her with a callous hunger for conquering. With their shared heart influencing her feelings and actions, April must be much more guarded about her own anger, so as not to hurt people she loves without meaning to.
One silver lining in all this, for the group, is that the connection between April and the Shadow King gives them a tactical advantage. The bond causes April to gain some of the Shadow King’s powers, like conjuring the wicked-looking Shadow Kin scimitars or the ability to move in and out of the tear in time and space. These abilities give them their best chance at defeating the Shadow King, even as it puts April in more and more danger.
Throughout this ordeal, April digs deep to keep fighting, facing her own death if necessary. She wrestles between holding onto who she is and leaning into the Shadow King’s connection with her in order to use his powers. That’s a lot to put on a high school student, and yet she somehow manages to keep getting out of bed to face another day of it.
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