On Votaries, I discuss characters that transform. A character that transforms too much may leave the readers confused. A character that transforms too little may leave the readers disappointed.
Gilly from Georgette Heyer's The Foundling is a great example of a character who transforms just enough.
Gilly’s uncle and trustee feels compelled to protect Gilly’s inheritance as the Duke of Sale. (His own son, who also supports Gilly, would inherit if the uncle was less responsible.)
Gilly
is a soft-spoken young man who has been coddled and protected and
watched-over all his life. He eventually goes “walk-about,” leaves his
protective supporters to have an adventure of his own.
The book is one of Heyer's travelogues, which means that Gilly encounters a con-man and a damsel in distress. He engages in several adventures and acquits himself.
At the end, when he returns home, his uncle attempts once again to "help" Gilly by blustering goodwill. Gilly finally lays down the law and makes it clear that he, not his uncle, is the Duke of Sale.
What makes the scene so perfect, however, is that Gilly remains Gilly:
The Duke raised his head and met his uncle's fierce look with one so icily aloof that Lord Lionel was startled. "I have borne enough!" he said, his voice still level and low-pitched, yet anger throbbing in it. "I will not endure any longer this ceaseless thwarting of my every wish. I am fully sensible, sir, of the great debt I owe you for your unremitting care of me...but my gratitude would be increased tenfold if you would bring yourself to believe that I am neither a child nor a fool...It is not I who stands in danger of forgetting that I am Ware of Sale!"
Lord Lionel responds: "I never say you look so like your father before....Ware of Sale, indeed. There, stop glaring at me, Gilly. I have a good mind to box your ears."
The rigid look vanished from the Duke's face. He quickly accepts his uncle's olive branch. He continues to speak in a sweet and low way, that is more effective than shouting the place down.