30 Day Writing Meme: Heroes & Villains

July 19, 2016 § Leave a comment

Day 17 → Favorite protagonist.

Day 18 → Favorite antagonist.

Because my darling Jouet gets to be both, I’m going to continue catching up by answering these together.

As I pointed out earlier, Jouet began as an antagonist. The point of view character was threatened by her relationship with his lover. Her second role was as a an outright villain. Genny, the protagonist of that story, is a human girl who stands in the way of what Jouet wants.

This is Jouet in the later years of her (nearly) immortal life. She is bitter and cruel after many years of sorrow and physical pain. She is not a simple villain. I have a lot of love and sympathy for her. Her roll as antagonist comes from putting her pain before all else.

In her earlier life, she a hero motivated by that same self-centered personality. In fact, it’s circumstance more than anything else that makes her the protagonist when she is caught up in the matrimonial squabble between the faerie king and queen. She falls in love with a mortal, Xiaowen, the great love of her life. And while it is love that makes her risk all she has, it is the passion thatshe feels, born of a sympathy with Xiaowen’s plight, that fuels her.

Jouet is a product of her world. Her morality is faerie morality, where power makes right. Like all faerie, she places high value on social status, the coin of Faerie. Her superiority is backed up by lineage, beauty, intelligence, and ability. She has a temperament for vengeance. She has a strong will and control of herself.

She lets me make a case for how a person’s traits and choices can present as heroic, villainous, and something in-between.

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Cris de Borja