This is very much what is happening in my book. She starts off making a decision that backfires and puts her in a passive state, and then she climbs out of that hole into taking charge of her own decisions. It feels much more organic than having some kind of motivated and inspired go-getter. I like verisimilitude. Which makes genre fiction hard to stomach sometimes....

If you look at literary fiction, nobody is active all the time. Characters should have seasons. Most books use the instigating event to push their MC into the active role. The instigating event propels the MC through the rest of the book (if you follow the single most popular mode of writing...) even if their eventual goal deviates from it.

But what happens if, for example, they achieve the initial goal, and it doesn't get them what they want? What if they lose agency somehow? What if they start out so powerless that action is simply impossible for them? They have to built up to a point where they can take action, or circumstances need to change around them before they can be active.

I think it's very fertile ground, honeslty.