How different would your character's life be if they were in the real world?

Iron Mongering, I guess…

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Depends because there’s three scenarios.

  1. Everything is hunky-dory.

In the real world, there wouldn’t be any magical creatures who destroyed an entire village and killed everyone in their path. So… it’s likely that my MC’s family would still be alive and everything would be good. He was fourteen when they died, so if he lived life without the magic mumbo-jumbo, he would’ve been a freshman (ninth grader) in high school if he lived in the US (because, technically, he wouldn’t be living here unless his family moved—he’d be living in Egypt, I imagine close to Cairo or one of the neighboring cities) and dealing with the stress of puberty and crushes… He wouldn’t be a nerd nor a jock, but he might be into Martial Arts and hoping to visit Japan one day. If we’re talking his age now, at seventeen, he’ll be a junior (eleventh grader) in high school (again, US standard) and thinking about universities to go to, his future. I’d imagine him studying abroad (probably Japan) and seeing where life takes him.

  1. Things are not okay.

In the real world, while magic isn’t real, murder is. And his family could’ve been murdered or died in any kind of way (like a car crash). If this happened, he would’ve stayed with family (grandparents, maybe) until he was old enough to live on his own. He would’ve grieved for a long length of time, but eventually moved on and found a small bit of peace. I’d imagine, in this scenario, he would’ve found some kind of passion to focus on so he could forget life, probably studying swords and swordsmanship or get into astrophysics.

  1. Revenge and possible dark paths.

And finally, in the real world where murder is very real and humans become a bit over-reactive—especially when it comes to anger and depression—my main character would find a dark path to walk on. If his family was murdered, he’d hunt for them and kill them just like in the novel. Though without all the fantasy and science fiction elements. He might also take a liking to more crime, or probably become a vigilante. If he gets thrown in prison, he could find peace again and I’d imagine him going into the army because he believes in punishing the bad guys.

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