Ursula K. Le Guin wrote, “an adult is not a dead child, but a child who survived” to object to the ‘disavowal of childishness’ that was part of assuming ‘male adulthood’ in the 1970s, which usually meant the ‘denial of the value of any connection to oneself as a child or to children in general.’ The crucial matter here concerns the politics of age relations, which is instructed by adultism. In this view children are often presented as inchoate, as not yet fully human, and as 'less' than adults so that the figure of the child demarcates the boundaries of personhood, a limiting case for agency and voice. This research, following the main tenets of the new historiography on children and youth in its recognition of the historical identity of children, along with their agency, focuses on Armenian children's agency during the genocide and how children worked against unchilding. Armenian children survived under paradoxical circumstances. On the one hand, they were targets (and so, victims) of direct violence, sexual exploitation, and erasure of their identities. They were also agents who tried to fight back through escape, pretension, and resistance. In the context of the genocide, children’s agency was not a limitless ‘capacity’, or one that could bring progressive change. Agency mostly constituted the capacity to endure and suffer. Armenian survivor’s agency was also relative to several social structures, especially age, gender, and solidarity. Different genres of testimony, including oral histories, memoirs, and diaries, were used as primary sources for this paper. The analysis focuses on proud and strong self-representations of survivors that portray themselves as heroes, as self-rescuers, and as ‘agents’, who had a say in their own fates. The research highlights certain empowering tropes in survivor testimonies in which the hero is a rebellious misfit—the main subject of this essay. Through the themes of journey, play, friendship, and solidarity, the protagonist (the survivor) assumes power, resists authority, saves the weak, retaliates against bullies, and embarks upon a journey. Side by side with a child victim who had suffered from innumerable violent experiences, loss, and trauma, these survival stories also portray a proud and self-confident survivor, who came ‘through hell alive’ – and still as a child. The narratives bring to light several aspects of genocidal violence, but also the genocide survivors’ agency.