Arkady Darell

Who She Is

Arkady (Arcadia) Darell is the young heroine of "Search by the Foundation," the second half of Second Foundation (1953). She is fourteen, clever, restless, and sure she is destined to be a writer. She is also the granddaughter of Bayta Darell, the woman who stopped the Mule, and she has grown up surrounded by that legend. Her father, Dr. Toran Darell, is a scientist who studies the brain.

The story is set about sixty years after the Mule's search for the Second Foundation, and some fifty-five years after his death. The Foundation has recovered its independence, but it has not recovered its confidence. Everyone now knows that a Second Foundation of mind-readers exists, and a small group of scientists on Terminus, including Arkady's father, has become convinced that it is secretly manipulating them.

Her Story

Arkady finds out about her father's secret circle the way a fourteen-year-old would: she eavesdrops. When the group sends one of its members, the librarian Homir Munn, to Kalgan to search the Mule's old palace for clues, Arkady stows away and goes with him.

Kalgan's ruler, Lord Stettin, is planning a war to recreate the Mule's empire, and Arkady is soon in real danger. She escapes to Trantor with the help of a talkative Trantorian farmer-trader, Preem Palver, and his wife. From Trantor, she sends her father the clue that tells his group where the Second Foundation is hiding. Using a device her father has built to jam mental powers, the group unmasks a hidden Second Foundationer in its own ranks and rounds up fifty more on Terminus. The Second Foundation seems to be finished.

The Twist

It isn't. The final chapters reveal that the whole search was guided. The fifty on Terminus were sacrificed to convince the Foundation it had won. The real Second Foundation is on Trantor. And Arkady herself had been gently adjusted by the Second Foundation shortly after birth, so that tests would never detect it. Even the friendly farmer who helped her escape turns out to be the First Speaker.

Arkady's deductions were real, and so was her courage. What she did not know was how carefully the path in front of her had been laid.

Why She Matters

Arkady carries the question that runs through the whole trilogy: can anyone make a free choice in a galaxy that someone is steering? Her grandmother Bayta's decisive act was genuinely her own. Arkady's great adventure, it turns out, was not entirely hers. Asimov leaves the reader to decide how much that matters.

She is also one of Asimov's liveliest characters. Her school essay, her schemes, and her confident misreadings of adult behavior give the second half of Second Foundation a warmth the rest of the trilogy rarely has.

In the Apple TV+ Series

Arkady has not appeared in the Apple TV+ series as of Season 3.