First of all, invisible strength can help you. In Waverly’s case, it can help you win chess match after chess match until you become known nationwide. She uses her invisible strength to put “Sand in the Eyes of Advancing Forces” (3) because this way, her opponent would fall into a trap and she could have a better chance at winning. And she could do “Double [Killings] Without Blood” (3) and “Double [Attacks] from the East and West Shores” as well as many others too. I think this is a great way to out think your opponent, because they don’t know what trap they’ve fallen into until it’s too late. Waverly could’ve used her strength in a bad way, but she only used it in a chess game, which I think is all right. And, since she spends so much time learning and perfecting these tricks, it would’ve been sad if she didn’t get to use them in a real match.
Second of all, invisible strength can aid you in doing bad things. In the story, Waverly’s mother manipulates the shopkeepers to think that she wouldn’t do anything harmful so that she could, essentially, do something harmful. “When [Waverly’s] mother finished her shopping, she quietly plucked a small bag of plums from the rack and put it on the counter with the rest of the items” (1). I think this is very wrong. I mean, Waverly’s mother is an adult and should know that what she is doing is literally shoplifting. And… that’s not a good thing… And I think if Waverly’s mother was the protagonist of the story instead of Waverly, then her mother would’ve done a lot more bad things, like, for example, lying about not being able to afford some items and manipulating the shopkeepers into letting her get them for free by telling them a sad story or something to earn their pity.
There’s also something in between, because I can’t decide if it’s bad or good, or maybe a combination of both. Once, in real life, I was at a math camp. We had worksheets that contained ten problems each and we would do two every day (There’s a question sheet and an answer sheet). Eventually, I noticed that the girl sitting next to me always seemed to have the same answers as me and get the same problems right and the same problems wrong. I mean, it could be just a coincidence, right? I decided to find out. I acted really nice and let her sit next to me again for the second worksheet of the day. I figured out all the problems, then scribbled down a really close but completely wrong answer in big writing on the question sheet and even circled it for good measure. I pretended to be satisfied and then went on to write the actual correct answer on the answer sheet, the only sheet we have to turn in. I did this for the whole sheet… It turned out, it worked. I mean, I think it worked? That’s the good part. But this time her score was zero. The teacher actually pulled her into another room to talk about it. And that’s the part where it could be bad.
This shows that Invisible Strength can be used for both bad and good, no matter if it’s in a story or in real life. Waverly used it to cleverly win her chess games, her mother used it to steal plums from the local grocery store, while I used it to prevent someone from copying answers from me… and I hope you learned something from my writing and will use your invisible strength for good.