Linh Cinder, or Princess Selene, is the main protagonist in the Lunar Chronicles series. Cinder is a 16-year-old cyborg, and at the end of the series’ first book, she learns that she is the missing Lunar princess. When Cinder was three years old, her aunt, Queen Levana, tried to have her killed. Somehow, Cinder survived and was “smuggled down to Earth” (51), where she was hidden for several years. Since then, rumors have run wild, and Princess Selene has been the “most-wanted person in the world” (51) for the last 13 years. At the beginning of Scarlet, Cinder still struggles with the shock of learning her true identity. Throughout the novel, she finds herself torn between her dreams for her own life and the new expectations placed upon her as the rightful heir to the Lunar throne. Cinder doesn’t want to be responsible for other people; in fact, “all Cinder had ever wanted was freedom” (149), and accepting her role as the princess of Luna feels like the opposite of freedom.

In the first novel, Cinder was a renowned mechanic in New Beijing, but her fame always came with a stigma because of her cyborg status.