She-Wolves

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First: an update!  A week or so ago, after I had spent the first chunk of my winter break preparing for Christmas, I was at last able to break the 100,000 word mark in my rewrite of Wordcrafter.  I hadn't had many opportunities to write during the semester, as usual; during the week my mind is too engaged with schoolwork, and on the weekends I just don't want to put the energy into the whole words-putting-into-sentences-doing.  (Many, many kudos to those of you who can juggle college and writing.  You are amazing.)  Thus, while I'd written a little here and there, returning to it properly was difficult.  But progress has been made and some fun things have been written, and I'm happy with what I've been able to accomplish before a) heading to a conference and b) starting the spring semester.

Increasingly as I write this novel, I've noticed that one of its more interesting and challenging aspects is that it is the first novel I've written that features a male protagonist and a female antagonist.  The Soldier's Cross has a female protagonist and a male antagonist; the Sea Fever books have a male antagonist and male and female protagonists; and Tempus Regina has a female protagonist and male and female antagonists.  So I guess having gone through just about every other permutation, a male protagonist and a female antagonist in Wordcrafter was inevitable.  All the same, it's presented some new and unexpected problems -- especially as this rewrite finds the villain darker, more aggressive, more dangerous.  In contrast, Justin, my main character, is, well, a nice guy: a hold-the-door-for-you, carry-your-bag fellow.

Playing these two characters off one another is great fun, but it's also somewhat sticky business.  Justin's personality, as well the book's potential readership, rules out certain actions and reactions between them; whereas Tip is free to punch Lewis in the face, and whereas Regina can vent her spleen by dressing down her (female) rival, there is a code of conduct which Justin is obliged to follow.  The villain, in turn, knows it and capitalizes on it.

Sharply, I said, “You can’t hit a woman, Ethan.” 

He flicked aside my concern as I had just flicked away his. “No,” he allowed, “and one often senses them taking advantage of the fact.” 

- wordcrafter

This kind of situation demands a unique relationship between protagonist and villain.  On the one hand, the female antagonist in many ways has the upper hand; her arsenal is packed with weapons Justin can't or won't deploy.  On the other, the protagonist can't be milquetoasty, doing nothing simply because the villain is a woman [because a) that makes for a boring story and b) is super annoying]; he has to find new weapons to use.  Writing in that tension is, I'm finding, quite difficult, but it also makes for some very enjoyable, thought-provoking character dynamics.

what are some of your protagonist-antagonist pairings? which ones have been especially challenging or fun?

 

The Villain Parallel

pinterest: wordcrafter

Villains are a fascinating set. Probably they shouldn’t be; probably we should not be so terribly intrigued by the machinations of the criminal mind. But we are. As writers, we love to peel back the layers of an antagonist (like an onion!) and explore the dynamics of his character, the motives behind his actions, the backstory that helped to shape him. It’s like a train wreck: it’s just so awful that you can’t look away.

 Some while back I wrote a post on the outworking of the villainous mind and on three critical points of his character – his motives and goals, his means of achieving those goals, and his opportunities to put those methods into action. If the antagonist is lacking in any one of these, he has failed at his purpose in literary life, which is to make the protagonist’s life as miserable and his subsequent triumph as glorious as possible. Much as the villain would like it to be otherwise, that is his true raison d’etre. Motive, means, and opportunity are the pillars of his life.

These points, however, are fairly intuitive and require little discussion: we all know what the villain is there for, and we all know that in one way or another he and the hero must butt heads.  It is, to quote Darth Vader, his destiny.  On a certain level, however, this is mere coincidence.  The hero and the villain are tossed together; the hero crosses the villain; the villain retaliates; and so the world spins down.  There is no real connection between the two.  It is the old story of the knight with the monster, or the more recent story of the hero with the evil overlord.

 Such a dynamic has been and can be done quite well, but the interesting thing about the villain-hero relationship is that, when you begin digging, you find it goes much deeper.  You find it isn't coincidence after all, and it isn't that the two just happened to peeve each other.  In some of the best villains, there is a marked parallel to the hero.  The phrase is cliche now and I don't recommend employing it, but it is no accident that "We are not so different" is a common remark from the antagonist to the hero.

To snatch an example, when we think of The Lord of the Rings, the main villain that springs to mind is Sauron himself - but for most of Frodo's journey, his closest antagonist is actually Gollum.  Sauron is way off in Mordor; Gollum is right there by Frodo's side.  And Gollum, unlike Sauron, has a close connection with Frodo.  Both are hobbits, both ring-bearers, and Frodo feels the same pull toward the Ring that destroyed Gollum years before.  In situation, they really are "not so different," and that is what makes Frodo's eventual triumph so much more poignant.  Gollum serves as the backdrop for the heroism of Frodo.

There is a quote attributed to Tom Hiddleston, the actor who played Loki in "Thor" and "The Avengers," that has been making its rounds of the internet recently: "Every villain is a hero in his own mind."  But there is a flipside of that, for I think that every hero has a bit of the villain in his heart.  We don't like to realize it; it makes our heroes less pristine, makes them more brutally honest and more like the villain than we are comfortable admitting.  We want the two to be separate, but oftentimes there is little that makes them to differ except the state of the heart - and when you get down to that bedrock, it makes both characters stand out in starker relief.

but there is a spirit in man, 

and the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding.

(job 32:8)

What Makes a Memorable Character?

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This week I am tickled to be able to play host to new authoress Elizabeth Rose, whose novel Violets are Blue was published in May 2012 and can be found on Amazon.  Elizabeth has been conducting a blog tour, and I'm very pleased that she chose to make Scribbles and Ink Stains one of her stops - especially since her guest post is on creating memorable characters.  Read, enjoy, and remember to check out her lovely blog at Living on Literary Lane!

read and enjoy

When I read a book, the first aspect of it that makes me fall in love are the characters. In my mind, the setting, plot, and dialogue are all various forms of polish that enhance the people around whom the story revolves.

That is every writer's intent, is it not? We want to write characters who are memorable. When you read Anne of Green Gables, did you love the plot of an orphan girl sent to live with a middle-aged brother and sister, or did you fall in love with the scrape-proned title character herself? She is the one we remember the best, and she is the one that keeps us reading the various sequels in the series by L.M. Montgomery. If we hadn't liked Anne, we would have never wanted to read Anne of Avonlea. 

C.S. Lewis' unforgettable opening lines — "There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it" — are a perfect example of how much a book's readability depends on the characters that inhabit it. When I first read those words as a child, I knew very little about where the plot would carry me, and yet I had already decided that I was going to like this book. Why? Because Lewis opened his book with a character that demanded your attention from the start. Already I was wondering why Eustace almost deserved his horrid name. If you don't care about the characters, it doesn't matter what fantastic plot twists the author puts in his story. You may be surprised that a man who seemed trustworthy is really the villain in disguise, but you'll only yawn in boredom when he wounds the protagonist in a duel. After all, what does it matter that the main character may die in the next three pages? You never cared about him in the first place. Frankly, you're more curious about what you'll be eating for lunch.

Obviously we don't want our readers considering the everyday occurence of a midday meal more exciting than the riveting plots we took months, even years to craft just right. We hope they'll be turning pages feverishly, laughing at certain characters' dialogue, smiling sweetly at the end of a chapter, weeping at an unexpected death. In essence, we want the people we create to become as real as life itself to whomever meets them on the page. We want to write memorable characters.

Which begs the question, what is it exactly that makes a memorable character?

Recipe for Memorable Characters

One dosage per chapter should suffice.

Both faults and virtues. Except for those who swear by the Elsie Dinsmore books, most readers find perfect characters stuffy, unnatural, and discouraging. Why? Because we can't relate to them. It's admirable to have a character who does everything right, but it's not very honest. We're all sinners, whether some wish to accept that fact or not, and we all are going to make mistakes in turn. That's not saying your characters have to be unnaturally immoral just for the sake of "being realistic", though — find a good balance between the two. If you're struggling, just observe the people around you.

Secrets. When was the last time you met a person who told you their life's backstory and everything about them in the first five minutes of conversation? If all that information is put out in the open from the start, not only does it make for some rather dull reading, it also gives the reader little incentive to continue. After all, he or she knows everything there is to know about these characters, and they've barely finished the fifth page. Keep some things secret. Show your characters' personalities through gradual dialogue and actions, rather than a never-ending paragraph of description.

Villains with hearts. Villains who simply go around slaughtering people for absolutely no reason are not very conceivable. Even your antagonists must have some small features that endear them to your readers, or a bit of background on why he or she became this way. Somehow this makes them more deadly, because it temporarily unarms you and can make the good and evil in the story seem less clear-cut (so long as you're not portraying them as good, loving, and just misunderstood, because that ploy has been used one too many times). I can assure you that there are very few people who were born wielding an uninhibited tomahawk with designs on conquering the world. If you've ever met one, I'd love to be introduced . . . from a distance, and in full-body armor, of course.

Natural dialogue. This can be a tricky one for some — myself included — but it's a very crucial part in making your characters seem real. Stiff, queer dialogue is a dead giveaway that the author doesn't know much about how real people speak in daily life. Again, if you are having trouble with this factor, just observe your family and other people around you: how they interact with each other, and how their conversations fit together. It doesn't take too long to get the hang of it.

At the heart of it, writing unforgettable characters is all about portraying real life and different aspects of human nature. Every point in the list above can be boiled down to this simple truth. Seek to portray human nature realistically, and you'll have a cast of fantastic characters before you know it.

* * *

Elizabeth Rose is a follower of the Most High who seeks to live every day of her life in accordance with 1 Corinthians 10:31. She loves all sorts of books (the thicker the better), is convinced that Irish Breakfast tea is the closest thing this world will get to heaven, dances until her feet ache, stays up until all hours writing, wears pearls at every opportunity, and obsesses over Les Misérables and The Scarlet Pimpernel. Her debut novel, Violets Are Blue, was published in May 2012. You can find her on Literary Lane, most likely with The Count of Monte Cristo in hand, and ink on her fingers. 

Les Miserables

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I picked up the unabridged Les Miserables late last month, daunted by reports of Hugo's endless harangues, but determined that if I was going to read this thing, I was going to make it worth my while.  After all, the abridged version is only 200 pages shorter; what's a couple hundred pages?  (We'll ignore the fact that the abridged is in a completely different, probably much less weighty format.)  So, trudging a bit at the start, I began.

Last week I finished the book.  Objectively it didn't take me so very long; in fact, I read it faster than I did The Count of Monte Cristo last year.  But I confess, it felt at times as though the end would never come.  The sheer amount of wordage Hugo uses in detailing things that have almost no impact on the plot is by no means exaggerated.  He starts out the book by introducing the bishop who sets Jean Valjean on the path of morality, admits on the very first page that the following accounts have no immediate importance, and then launches into a 50+ page novella of the bishop's life.  "M'gawk!" I say, profoundly.  Such passages crop up frequently and on a variety of subjects: the battle of Waterloo and the history and purpose of convents are just two subjects that get significant page-time.  And Rachel Heffington, the Ink Pen Authoress, remarked that only Hugo could leave the reader wondering whether Marius dies in order to detail the entire history of Parisian sewers.

"Lean" is by no means the adjective to describe Hugo's style.

In reading the classics, I've learned that getting used to large chunks of dialogue-less narrative is simply a matter of survival.  What bothered me far more than Hugo's verbosity was his sad ignorance in regard to spiritual matters.  Not that this was unexpected: without making him any less culpable, it is accurate to say that he was a product of his environment.  Deism rather than Christianity was the rule of the day, as even a glance over the pages of Les Miserables will show.  Thus, while he speaks of God and even, at times, Jesus Christ, everything is flavored by his philosophy: God appears as an unknowable cosmic Power, existing in every emotion or object that is "good"; Jesus Christ is afforded no higher place than that of a "good" man.  Morality, not redemption, is to be found in the characters of the bishop and of Jean Valjean; good works and not God lead to heaven.  Again, this is present in many if not most of the classics, although I found it particularly prevalent in Hugo and his contemporary Dumas.

At this point, you're probably thinking that I must not have liked the story.  In fact, this wasn't the case at all; I have a strange ability to pick things apart and criticize, and still end by enjoying the whole.  Such was the result with Les Miserables, for despite my irritation with the two matters mentioned above, there were other things that thoroughly caught my interest and won my appreciation.  Being a character-driven writer myself, I was naturally delighted by Hugo's rich cast: in his tying together of the threads of many different lives, he's like a French Charles Dickens.  (Except that it would be Dickens who was an English Victor Hugo.)  Characters come from all over France and from all walks of life: Jean Valjean, the convict-turned-"saint"; Fantine, the miserable prostitute, and her daughter Cosette; Javert, the relentless hound of a police inspector; Marius Pontmercy, a dreamer; Enjolras, the visionary leader of a band of republicans; Thernardier, a certifiable creep; Eponine and Gavroche, Thernardier's children.  These are the main players, who emerge complete from the pages.

In fact, although Jean Valjean is a nuanced character, he is hardly even the main character for the majority of the novel.  After the infamous "hump" in the story, in which Hugo tells in painful detail all about him, Marius is the primary narrator; Gavroche, a young boy living on the streets of Paris, also gets a fair share of this page-time.  In this section Jean Valjean moves to the background, seen through other characters' eyes, until Hugo returns to him after the fall of the barricades. 

Of the good characters, I think I would class Enjolras as my favorite.  He is something of an odd choice, as he doesn't play as major a role as Marius or Cosette or Gavroche; but I still liked him and found him an intriguing character, because he is so very cold and unapproachable.  (I seem to like unapproachable, as evidenced by my liking for Uncas in The Last of the Mohicans.)  As for Jean Valjean, while I sympathized with him in a detached way, his character never fully grabbed me.  Perhaps because he had a tendency to lie down and be a doormat, and I always want to grab character-doormats and shake them.  Marius and Cosette - well, I like a good romance as much as the next gal, but I confess I had a strong to desire to knock their heads together and tell them to wake up and smell the gunpowder.

Among the villains, there were really only two of any importance: Thernardier and Javert.  The former was an excellent sneak, I must say, but it was Javert who caught my interest.  He was the perfect villain for a hero like Jean Valjean, a phenomenal villain on any level.  For he was the sort of character who seems at first like a hero: dedicated, scrupulous, upright, just, even humble.  Oddly enough, as I read, Micah 6:8 often sprang to mind; Javert did justice and walked humbly (although not with His God - it would going much, much too far to say that).  But in all that, he wasn't a hero, because he never learned mercy.  This vein through his character made his struggle with Jean Valjean all the more fascinating, and his ending the more apt.

In the end, taking the book as a whole, I did enjoy Les Miserables.  The characters and the plot, woven together until they really can't be looked at separately, were enough to hold me to the pages from laborious start to depressed-but-exultant finish.  But if you read it for yourself, don't anticipate a happy ending.

The Art and Craft of Villainy

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Once upon a time, my family watched Midsomer Murders.  Looking back on it, I can hardly figure out why, but for some reason we liked the series - until Troy left and they brought in a new right-hand-man.  After that, we stopped watching and the series has, for the most part, faded from my thoughts.

Not entirely, though.  Villains seem to be the characters of the day - or month - and when Georgie and Sky released their Villain edition of Beautiful people in May, my mind soon went to a line from one of the Midsomer episodes.  I can no longer remember the exact quote, and I've no intention of trawling through fifteen seasons' worth of episodes to find it; but in the main, the detective was asking another character if he knew about the trinity of murder.  That is,

motive

opportunity

means

Three things that seem to me fitting questions to ask any villain, murderer or not.  After all, there is an art to creating a memorable villain, as much as there is an art to creating a (hopefully still more memorable) hero; greatly as a billowing black cape may enhance the awfulness of any antagonist, it is, alas, not the deciding factor of villainy.  So what about this trinity?

motive

Much is written about backstory - the primary factor in forming any character's motive, including that of the villain.  He must have some reason for doing what he does, or he will only come across as arbitrary and irritating.  Writers are forced to take into account that, depraved though human nature is, it is still considered unnatural to commit certain crimes, including murder; one usually doesn't simply wake up one morning and decide to take a jaunt before breakfast to kill a handful of people.  An impetus is needed.  What is that happened, or is happening, in the villain's life that set him on this particular path?

That said, I'll add that it isn't necessary for the villain's backstory to overwhelm the story, or even to be worth sympathizing with.  I never sympathized with Wickham, or Magua, and I've only ever remotely sympathized with one of my own villains.  Some people are just plain wicked, and it takes a great deal of effort to summon up any charitable feelings toward them - especially if they're on a page.  But you know, even psychopaths use a form of reasoning, and it ought to be lightly threaded into the story.

Another thing to consider in the search for motive is that the external impetus is not enough.  Two people will react to an event in two different ways.  One character may suffer poverty and come out on the other side with more charity and compassion; another may become Ebeneezer Scrooge.  The mental configuration of the villain is even more important than the outside events one may lob at him, for abuse and rejection and poverty and starvation and the whole shebang will only warp a character as much as he allows himself to be warped.

opportunity

The villain has to spend most of the story with opportunity, and greater opportunity than the protagonist.  The story will always be a give-and-take between the two characters, a battle in which sometimes one side and sometimes the other will come out the victor.  But for the most part it should be the villain who keeps the upper hand, for otherwise he isn't much of a villain at all.  The greater the villain's success, the greater the tension.  Thus, he must be in a suitable position for whatever it is he is attempting to do - or he must have good connections. Good connections are always to be coveted.  (Although one must take into account that if one wants a thing done properly, one has to do it oneself.  Never trust matters to the hired help.  Important advice for those who are considering ruling the world.)

means

Here there is a great deal of room in which to play.  The usual fallback means for villains to get what they want tends to be murder, but as mentioned above, that is hardly what one would call a "natural" thing to do.  The character has to be pushed very far, and have a certain makeup, to resort to that.  So before pinning the murder on him, the writer has to stop and consider whether he is in fact the sort of person to bring about his own ends by taking another person's life.  

If not, there are other means, just as wicked, some more insidious, that don't require any physical blood being spilled.  Manipulation is a good example and can take any number of forms, including blackmail; bullying also works, especially for characters who are rather childish.  For stories set in fantastical worlds, sorcery presents a whole array of possibilities.  And in any genre, there will be those villains who prefer to work entirely behind the scenes, pulling the strings so that others do the work for them.  In this instance, however, it is important to know why the puppets agreed to being on the strings in the first place...

...and then you go full circle and are back to "motive" again.

Beautiful People - Christopher

pinterest board: the soldier's cross

The title of this blog post is rather absurd, as readers of The Soldier's Cross will have noticed.  However, this round of Georgie and Sky's "Beautiful People" meme is focused on villains and, since characters from TSC show up around here but rarely, I decided to introduce Christopher.  For those of you who are not aware of what Beautiful People is or how it works, here's a summary for you:

...What is Beautiful People? Beautiful People is a monthly blog event created by Georgie Penn and Sky. It's designed to help you get to know more about your character by asking questions about them. It's simple: every month Sky and Georgie post 10 questions, and you answer them on your blog with your character of choice. To learn more, check out their blogs!

And with that squared away, I introduce you to the villain of The Soldier's Cross:

christopher

1. What is his motive?

Ambition, to some extent, but primarily straight-up greed.  The son of a merchant, landless, and with much too little money, he seeks a higher position and the increased funds that would come with it.  He does not passionately hate his vagrant lifestyle - indeed, he is rather fond of it - but it certainly doesn't provide him with much money to spend.

2. What is he prepared to do to get what he wants?

Christopher prefers manipulation to a trial of brute strength.  Up against Fiona, he will go that route; but against anyone who has the ability to stand and face him, he takes a roundabout path to his own ends.

3. Is he evil to the core, or simply misunderstood?

I don't go in for "misunderstood"; it smacks of that Deist saying that every man has a "spark of the Divine" in him and is "basically good."  Christopher is basically bad.  He is perhaps not so evil as he could be, but given an opportunity I'm sure he would fulfill all expectations in that respect.

4. What was his past like? What about his childhood? Was there one defining moment that made him embrace his evil ways? 

Christopher and his sister Leah grew up in comfort, though not in luxury.  As the only son, a great deal of pressure was put on Christopher by his father to succeed him in trade; Christopher, however, wanted the life of the nobility's sons, who had even more comfort with less work.   There was no single moment in which his heart was blackened, etc., but with his father's death he found it expedient to drop the charade of being a respectful son and get to work making his fortune.

5. Now that he is evil, has he turned his back on everyone, or is there still someone in his life that he cares for?

He had a passing affection for his mother and would sometimes correct his behavior for a few days in a row after she rebuked him, but her early death only served to convince him that the good die young, so why be good?  His father he cordially hated; his sister he regards as his queen - not in the affectionate sense, however; merely in the chessboard analogy.  She is his best means of bringing about a checkmate, and for that reason, and that reason only, he keeps her safe. 

6. Does he like hugs? 

I really couldn't hazard an answer to this question.  

7. Is he plagued by something?

Not that he ever told me; but then, he would be unlikely to do so.  

8. Who are they more similar to: Gollum or Maleficent? 

A slinking beast or a woman...  That's a difficult choice.  Gollum is more cowardly, so I tend toward him; but Maleficent is more impressively evil, so that tilts me back in her direction.  I'll say Maleficent.  

9. If your villain could have his choice of transportation what would it be? 

His own coach, highly gilded and lined on the inside with scarlet; his choice of horse would be three bays and a black, just for the element of surprise.  The difficult part would be whether to drive himself or to have a servant do it.

10. If you met your villain in the street, how afraid would you be? Is he evil enough to kill his creator?

 If I met him on the street, I would pepper-spray him.  And then run.

Merlin and Character Studies

A little while ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the BBC show Merlin. That is to say, she introduced me to the bloopers first and I laughed so hard that I figured I might as well see if the actual show was any good. I was hooked after the first one. Perhaps the second. Anyhow, I was hooked, for a variety of reasons: the cleanness, the humor, the excellent foreshadowing, and the characters. Every major player has depth that unfolds over the course of the thirteen-episode-long first season, from Merlin himself to the sorceress Nimueh, and each individual intrigued me as a viewer and as a writer. For those of you who have not seen any of the show and might want to, I have endeavored to keep this post as spoiler-free as possible.

Gaius, the court physician who takes Merlin in when the young warlock arrives in Camelot, is a fairly stoic character from the beginning and provides the father-figure that Merlin does not have. He has the caution that Merlin lacks and can come across as unfeeling in his attempts to stop the young man from rushing headlong into good-intentioned scrapes, but the screenwriters did not make him an idiot. In several instances where Merlin's plan of action is at odds with Gaius', Gaius is eventually shown to be the wiser one as Merlin, ignoring advice and blundering on, creates more trouble rather than fixing the problem.

"You have taught me so much: taught me who I am, taught me the purpose for my skills, taught me that magic should only be used for great deeds. But most of all, you have always taught me to do what is right." (Le Morte D'Arthur, Season 1 - Merlin to Gaius.)

Uther, King of Camelot, is one of the most interesting character studies of all the Merlin cast. He is not an out-and-out villain, but he certainly is not a hero, nor even a good guy; he has suffered at the hands of sorcery (yet has also benefited by it) and lives in fear of all kinds of magic, swearing that Camelot will never fall to sorcery while he is king. His fear controls him, and any mention of sorcery drives all reason right out of his head. His acts are often condemnable and either fear- or self-driven, and he shows neither mercy nor understanding.

At the same time, he is not written (or played) as a wholly black-hearted ogre with no background or emotions. While I don't believe that a person's past in any way condones evil in their present actions, or that men and women are "basically good," yet in a story it is often more believable to give an antagonist an understandable history, rather than to say, "He's simply evil. So there." The writers of Merlin pulled this off with Uther by revealing some of his past encounters with sorcery and showing both the good and the evil that came of it.

As for Uther's emotions, several episodes reveal his deep love for his son, Arthur, and for his ward, Morgana, and his willingness to do anything to protect them. While these feelings also lead to wrong choices quite often, they have the effect of softening his character somewhat so that viewers can have some sympathy for him, while still wanting Arthur to take the throne.

"...He's a broken man consumed by fear. His hatred of magic has driven goodness from his heart." (The Nightmare Begins, Season 2 - Aglain to Morgana.)

Nimueh, the arch-nemesis of Season 1, is the opposite of Uther and yet also very similar. She is a powerful sorceress whose mission is revenge for the lives of her fellow sorcerers whom Uther has killed, so she represents all that the king has sworn to destroy. At the same time, though, her past and Uther's are linked, and the writers employed the same tactic they used for Uther in giving Nimueh a history to make her an understandable - though not a sympathetic - evil. She is not thrown into the role of villain with a mere, "I hate everyone just because." She has purpose, and that makes her even more evil - and thus a better antagonist.

"I have watched so many people I love die at your hands, Uther Pendragon. Now it is your turn." (Excalibur, Season 1 - Nimueh to Uther.)

The Great Dragon whom Uther imprisoned years ago beneath the castle is the narrator of the series and something of an enigma. He is the one who shows Merlin that his purpose is to protect Arthur at all costs and to get him to the throne of Camelot, but the Dragon's motives become increasingly suspect as the first season progresses. The question of whether or not he can be trusted adds a further element of suspense to the storyline, as he is often the only character strong enough or wise enough to help Merlin. It also makes him three-dimensional and allows for a contrast between himself and Merlin, between the Dragon's self-serving mindset and Merlin's self-sacrificing spirit. Had the screenwriters made the Dragon a purely good character, it would have had the double effect of making him flat and taking out a large portion of Merlin's moral struggles.

"Your destiny is to protect the young Pendragon until he claims his crown and, when he does, magic can be returned to the realm. Only then will I be free." (Le Morte d'Arthur, Season 1 - The Great Dragon to Merlin.)

Morgana, niece and ward of Uther Pendragon, is another difficult character whose true colors have yet to be revealed. Throughout the episodes she has had dreams in which she has glimpsed the future, making Gaius, who prescribes medicine for her nightmares, wonder whether she may have the same sort of magic that Merlin does. Though she is usually a sweet and goodhearted young woman, she has a darker side - fierce loves and hates, a quick and passionate temper, and a lack of guidance. She is unpredictable and has the capacity to turn into sorceress like Nimueh, and as her character and powers are slowly revealed, they give more force to the question of her future.

"I am never going back. These are my people. They are like me. I don't feel so alone here." (The Nightmare Begins, Season 2 - Morgana to Merlin.)

Guinevere, or Gwen, is Morgana's maidservant and friend and represents her polar opposite. Where Morgana is fiery, Gwen is subdued; where Morgana is sarcastic, Gwen is sweet; where Morgana flies into a passion at the hint of injustice, Gwen accepts her lot with resignation. She is loving and full of blessings for almost everyone; but like Morgana, Gwen has convictions and frequently voices them, though she generally regrets it afterward.

An interesting point that is brought out by the second season is that, though Morgana is the king's ward and the prettier of the two women, still it is Gwen's sweetness that attracts the men and makes her the subject of the age-old question in fiction, "Who is she going to marry?" Her natural openness and affection has torn her between two men, and I have yet to find out how the screenwriters will resolve it.

"Gwen is the most kind, loyal person you would ever meet and she's been more than a friend to all of us." (Lancelot and Guinevere, Season 2 - Morgana to Arthur.)

Lancelot, probably the third most well-known character of the Legend of King Arthur, is portrayed in the BBC series as a great swordsman, but not a nobleman and thus not eligible to serve as one of the Knights of Camelot. Unlike in most of the King Arthur tales, he is a humble man whose one goal is to serve the king of Camelot, and whose character is far nobler than any real nobleman's. He has actually only appeared in two episodes so far (once in Season 1 and then again in Season 2), but the screenwriters have established him so well in those that he is not "out of sight, out of mind"; he is a critical player, but exactly what part he will eventually play remains to be seen.

"For all my words, for all that I believed, I've come to nothing." (Lancelot and Guinevere, Season 2 - Lancelot to Guinevere.)

And this is the part where you wonder where Arthur and Merlin himself have gotten to in this list. However, they deserve a compare-and-contrast post of their own, as Dr. Watson did, so their character studies will come later.

Jane Austen's Villains

Jane Austen's novels are fairly fluffy, light reads, and naturally they do not have "villains" as The Lord of the Rings has villains. Most of them do, however, have antagonists - because stories rarely work without them. Having read all of her novels, including her incredibly absurd and highly amusing "Minor Works," I found the differences in her antagonists quite interesting to note; all are smooth-talkers, but their actions and level of villainy differ from one novel to another quite refreshingly.

Pride & Prejudice: Pride and Prejudice boasts Jane Austen's most famous villain in Mr. George Wickham, the unscrupulous officer who charms everyone with his looks and winning ways. He is slippery and conniving - the sort of man most people think of when they think of Austen's antagonists. This is often the first of Austen's novels that people read, so it sets the precedent that if a man seems too good to be true, he will turn out to be the villain.

Sense & Sensibility: Sense and Sensibility (written before Pride and Prejudice) has a similar "antagonist" to Austen's more popular novel. Mr. Willoughby, the charming "suitor" of flighty, romantic Marianne Dashwood, is the quintessential knight in shining armor and fills the role of the tall, dark, and handsome hero that Wickham does in Pride and Prejudice. But though he does resemble Mr. Wickham (Austen seems to have had something against W's), he also has some unique facets. He is a much more tragic sort of character, first of all, and is meant to evoke as much pity as he does anger in the reader - though I confess, I didn't feel particularly sorry for him in the end. Secondly, the story is from Elinor Dashwood's perspective, and since she is less blinded by Willoughby's charms than the rest of her family, he comes across in a different manner than the all-deceiving Wickham.

Emma: This cheery novel does not have a Wickham-like villain, and, indeed, really does not have an antagonist at all, unless it be Emma herself and her matchmaking. It does, however, have the interesting figure Frank Churchill, who especially interested and annoyed me with his selfish, unpredictable ways. I did not know the storyline when first I watched the 1995, Kate Beckinsale production (I read the book after having watched the movie), and so I couldn't be sure how Frank would turn out by the end of it. I found him one of the more interesting Austen antagonists because of that, and also because, selfish though his deception was, he had an understandable reason for his actions that made it almost possible to forgive him.

Persuasion: Persuasion, even more so than Emma, lacked a real villain. In my opinion, the worst antagonist was also the hero - Captain Wentworth, with his offended pride and way of nursing his wrongs. However, that all worked out all right in the end and Wentworth seems to be popular among Janites, so I will say no more.

Northanger Abbey: This novel, different from all of Austen's other works in many regards, shares a feature with Mansfield Park in having two antagonists, brother and sister John and Isabelle Thorpe. John, a friend of the heroine's brother, is anything but the smooth weasel that George Wickham is; he is rough and unlikeable, suited to deceive heroine Catherine Morland, in view of her rather silly, uncritical nature. He is an irritating character, and the fact that he has a chance of winning Catherine's affection makes him more so.

Isabelle, on the other hand, is more subtle and sweet, and thus more poisonous in her influence on Catherine. She is also rather a crude, unladylike character, though, just as her brother is no gentleman. Despite how different they are from the villains of Austen's other works, they are still a thoroughly unlikeable a pair.

Mansfield Park: I left Mansfield Park for last, it having perhaps the most unique style of all of Austen's works, for all its being disliked by many fans of the other novels. It has the brother-sister pair of antagonists that posthumously-published Northanger Abbey does, but Henry and Mary Crawford are far more insidious than the Thorpes. Henry is gentlemanly, though he seems to be more of the Frank Churchill type than the dashing Wickham or Willoughby, and while heroine Fanny Price remains in the dark as to his nature, the reader is aware almost from his entrance into the story that he is unscrupulous. When bent on winning Fanny, Henry's pleasant nature is all the more nerve-wracking for the reader because of Fanny's usual submissiveness and how oblivious the man is whom she truly loves, Edmund Bertram.

But in reading Jane Austen's novels, I thought her best antagonist was Mary Crawford. Mary is everything that Fanny Price is not - charming, vivacious, witty, and also devious, selfish, and unkind - and that mix of charms and vices is one of the best things to have in any villain. She is intriguing in her vivacity, but also hateful in her cruelty; amusing in her wit, but worrisome in her scheming. I have heard others say that they actually liked her better than Fanny, but I found the makeup of her character only served to make her a more stunning antagonist and set her apart from the ranks of Austen's other "villains."

What's in a Name?

"What's in a name? that which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet;
So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,
retain that dear perfection which he owes
without that title!"

Thus philosophizes Juliet on her balcony in perhaps the most famous passage of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, referring to the fact that Romeo's surname is that of her family's sworn enemy. Philosophers will argue the validity of her idle comment that a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, and in Anne of Green Gables the heroine (most definitely not a philosopher) makes the amusing and accurate observation, "I don't believe a rose would be as nice if it was called a thistle or a skunk cabbage."

Be that as it may, I rather wonder if Shakespeare could have written his play the way he did if Romeo's name were any different - or if it would have been half as popular. "The Tragedy of Gerald and Hepzibah" fails to pull any heartstrings in me. In Scripture a name frequently reflected something about the character of its possessor, such as Solomon's God-given name, Jedidiah, and were chosen with care by the parents to have meaning; sometimes they referred to circumstances of the child's birth (Jacob, for instance), or to appearance (as in Esau), or to some great deed that was foretold about the child's life (most notably Jesus Himself). Occasionally in Scripture there is also revealed the special name by which God called a man, as in the name Jedidiah or the covenant names God gave to His people.

In fact, the answer to Juliet's question is that there is a great deal more in a name than she would think. Names, as much in fiction as in real life, are very important and carry with them strong images; and writers, as much as parents, often face a challenge in naming their characters. Sometimes a character will present himself or herself and have a name already...and sometimes they don't. More's the pity. But if the latter is true, names are too important in a story to allow any writer to just skim over a list of baby names and pick one that sounds interesting, for characters have a tendency to rebel when their name does not reflect their character.

There are several interesting ways to find a fitting name for a character. One is to recognize that letters, as well as names, come with at least a vague impression of the sort of person who might have a name starting with that. M's, for instance, are often applied to villains (Morgoth, Morgan le Fay) and seems to fit that role. If you can consider what sort of a personality your nameless character possesses, sometimes you can find a letter, or a couple letters, that especially fit - thereby narrowing down the list of names to go through.

Another way is to take into account the meanings of names; taking whatever you already know about the personality of Unnamed, you can find names by their meanings and pick one that sounds right and fits. The meaning of whatever name your character has can often play into a story - sometimes this is planned, and sometimes it is completely unintentional.

And then there is the third way, usually necessary for the most elusive characters who are simply too shadowy to fulfill any of the requirements for the above options: go to a source and start searching through names, taking into account both letter-imagery and meanings as you go. I've found it the most tedious way to go, but sometimes nothing else will work.