Isabeau "Izzy" Astor: A Character Analysis

Overview

Isabeau “Izzy” Astor is the female protagonist of Rebecca Yarros’s novel In the Likely Event. Introduced as a terrified nineteen-year-old college student on a doomed flight, she matures into a determined congressional aide who risks her career to find her missing sister during the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal. The plane crash that throws her together with Nathaniel Phelan becomes the defining before-and-after moment of her life. The story traces how that chance encounter, and the love that blooms from it, shapes her choices, her fears, and her eventual commitment to a shared future.

Plot Role

Izzy is the emotional and narrative engine of the novel. Her every major action—adding northern Afghan provinces to a diplomatic itinerary, breaking off a convenient engagement, quitting a job she hates—stems from two forces: her bond with Nate and her devotion to her photojournalist sister Serena. In Kabul, her public role as a political aide masks a private mission that only Nate’s discovery forces into the open ([chapter 5 evidence]). Without her stubborn refusal to leave Afghanistan, the plot would lose its central tension, and Nate would not be drawn back into her orbit.

Motivations and Traits Shown Through Actions

Izzy’s motivations are rooted in love and loyalty, often at the expense of her own safety. She hates flying after the crash, yet she boards plane after plane—to a funeral in Illinois ([chapter 18]), to Afghanistan, to the Maldives—because the people she loves matter more than her fear. Her tendency to babble under stress ([chapter 2], [chapter 10]) is not a flaw but a vulnerability she allows only when she feels safe. She carries antibiotic ointment and Tylenol in her purse, evidence of a practical, care-taking nature that survives her privileged upbringing. When she breaks up with Jeremy Covington, she does so not out of anger but with a wave of pity, recognizing that she “never got [her heart] back in the first place” ([chapter 15]). That honesty, even when painful, is one of her defining traits.

Chronological Arc and Key Decisions

2011 – The Crash

On a flight to Atlanta, Izzy meets Nate. The wing explodes; he saves her life. At the hospital, she learns his first name from a doctor’s signature ([chapter 8]). This is the seed of a connection she nurtures for years.

2013–2014 – Letters and Longing

Through letters and emails, Izzy falls deeper for Nate. She keeps his belongings—the hoodie, the iPod—as talismans. She begins working in politics, partly to build a life she thinks he could be part of, but also to escape her parents’ expectations.

2015 – Reunion and Disconnect

At Margo’s bachelorette party ([chapter 10]), she and Nate reunite. Their relationship intensifies over a birthday weekend, but Nate’s PTSD creates walls. Izzy wants full access to his inner world; he compartmentalizes. This pattern of nearness and withdrawal defines the next six years.

2016 – Grief and Distance

Nate’s mother dies. Izzy drops everything to attend the funeral, even though she knows she might not be welcome ([chapter 18]). Her actions show fierce loyalty, but also an inability to let go. Nate, however, does not invite her in.

2021 – Kabul and the Search for Serena

Izzy arrives in Afghanistan with a secret itinerary. When Nate discovers she added Kunduz and Samangan, she confesses: “Serena” ([chapter 5]). She fights State Department bureaucracy, secures a visa for Taj Barech, and refuses to evacuate without her sister. This is her most selfless and reckless decision.

2021 – Palau No-Show

Nate fails to appear for their long-planned trip. Izzy goes alone, waits two days, and returns heartbroken. The decision to go anyway—and later to accept his absence—marks a shift from infatuation to a more realistic love.

2021 – The Maldives

Quitting her political job, Izzy boards a flight without knowing if Nate will meet her. He does. She commits to a future on his terms—therapy, slow steps, shared choices—because she finally trusts that he wants the same ([chapter 33]).

Five Years Later – Epilogue

Izzy has built a career in a nonprofit, living with Nate in Maine. The peace she finds is domestic and quiet, a reward for the years of waiting and fighting.

Relationships

Nathaniel “Nate” Phelan

The central relationship of her life. Nate is both her savior (the crash) and her tormentor (his disappearances). Izzy’s love for him is unwavering, but she learns through disappointment that love alone cannot sustain them. She must demand reciprocity; in the Maldives, he finally gives it.

Serena Astor

Izzy’s sister is her anchor. Serena supports her after the crash, prods her to date, and in 2021 becomes the reason Izzy travels into a war zone. Their bond is the novel’s second love story—unconditional and fierce.

Parents

The Astors value status over connection. Izzy’s father calls her “Isa” in a way that demands composure (“Astors do what needs to be done”). She internalizes this pressure but eventually rejects it, choosing a life of meaning over prestige.

Jeremy Covington

A fiancé who cheats. Izzy stays with him largely out of inertia and her father’s approval. She ends the engagement in Kabul, recognizing that she cannot love anyone while Nate occupies her heart.

Key Decisions and Consequences

Theme and Symbol Connections

Fate Versus Timing

The novel’s central tension. Izzy and Nate are clearly meant for each other—their first meeting is a literal miracle. Yet they spend years apart because the timing is always wrong: his deployments, her engagement, his PTSD. In the Maldives, they finally seize the moment, proving that fate needs human action to become real. (See Fate Versus Timing.)

Military Sacrifice and PTSD

Izzy bears the cost of Nate’s service. She waits, she worries, she accepts that he “couldn’t be what I needed.” Her decision to wait for his therapy marks an understanding that his trauma is not a personal failure but a wound that needs healing. (See Military Sacrifice and PTSD.)

Trauma Recovery

Izzy’s fear of flying is a direct result of the crash. She never fully overcomes it, but she learns to fly anyway—because the destination matters more than the terror. This mirrors Nate’s own recovery journey. (See Trauma Recovery.)

Communication and Miscommunication

Much of their pain comes from things unsaid. Nate hides his deployments; Izzy hides her engagement. Their eventual honesty—in the embassy room in Kabul, on the plane to the Maldives—breaks the cycle. (See Communication and Miscommunication.)

Love Versus Duty

Izzy navigates duty to her family (the political career) versus love for Nate. She ultimately chooses love, but not before honoring her duty to Serena. The novel suggests that the two can coexist when duty is defined by compassion, not obligation. (See Love Versus Duty.)

Questions and Answers

1. Why does Izzy add northern Afghan provinces to the itinerary?
   She adds Kunduz and Samangan to search for Serena, who has gone missing while on assignment.

2. What does her father’s nickname “Isa” reveal about their relationship?
   It signals his expectation that she will always do “what needs to be done” without complaint, a pressure she eventually rejects.

3. Why does Izzy keep Nate’s backpack and iPod after the crash?
   They are tangible proof that he existed; she holds onto hope of finding him again. The iPod still works, giving her a small connection.

4. How does Izzy’s view of her engagement change during the Kabul chapters?
   She realizes she is settling for Jeremy and confronts his cheating. Her speech to him makes explicit that she cannot give her heart to anyone because “Nate would always be in the way.”

5. What does the call sign “Navarre” mean to Izzy?
   It references the cursed knight from Ladyhawke, forced to love from a distance. The parallel deepens her understanding of Nate’s plight—and her own commitment.

Interpretation vs. Explicit Fact

Most of Izzy’s emotional states are explicit in the text—her anger, her fear of flying, her love for Nate. The analysis above treats her loyalty and courage as interpretations grounded in those actions. The claim that she “learns through disappointment that love alone cannot sustain them” is inferred from her heartbreak after Palau and her decision to still board the Maldives flight; the novel itself shows her counting down days and packing a full suitcase, suggesting cautious hope rather than blind faith.

For a deeper look at the novel’s ending and themes, see the Ending Explained and Questions and Answers pages.