Do you have a character who is trying to atone for the mistakes that they’ve made in their past? What was the mistake? How long does this character plan on making that wrong right? Will this character ever forgive themselves for it?
Hide spoilers if you need to and explain in detail.
My Turn:
I am nowhere near done with my novel, but I am so eager to share my thoughts on one of my characters in my novel.
Lennox Shephard.
A once highly famous and respected Mage called the Father of Creation back in the day. He is atoning for all the sins that he made in the past. This is a man who two people who was so dear to him. He was promised the world because of his talents but left it all behind to live a simple life after his horrid actions. He deeply regrets that he could not stop what happened in the past and that he led millions of people to their deaths.
Lennox was once a resident of an ancient empire that existed millions of years ago that met its end when Lennox betrayed the emperor of the empire. The emperor’s only heir had a child with Lennox but fled from the royal life to be with Lennox. Around that time Lennox was forced to create a Machina that can wield magecraft to the highest degree. This angered the emperor who sent his men to kill Lennox and his child, then forcibly take back his daughter. Unfortunately, the emperor’s child was killed along with the child. Lennox was not only heartbroken upon learning the new but was full of revenge. He sent an army of Machina to assassinate the emperor. However, these actions ended up causing the empire to fall an many innocents to die horribly. This also started the longest war between the Mages and Machina to begin.
Eventually, Lennox created a Machina with magecraft like the emperor wanted, but he will give it free will. This Machina Mage is model after his daughter and wife who he loved dearly. But seeing as how the Machina Mage couldn’t replace them, he abandoned it. Lennox who is practically immortal has been wandering the world trying to help people whil dodging trouble. He is a very wanted and dangerous man even after the fall of the mighty ancient empire.
Now, he currently living in an underground kingdom which was made into a Shadowland living simpler days with his few inventions. He made another Machina Mage that he views as his son and cherishes him dearly wishing he did the same to his previous Machina Mage.
That is Lennox’s atonement.
What about your character?
NOTE: You can ask me questions about Lennox if you want to because I am still needing to flesh him out more.
Yeah, I made Nathaniel act up like the typical teen Alpha in all these werewolf novels, and am letting it eat him alive after he “finds his mate”. Even spelled out the mechanics of why this messes a werewolf up so much.
Time regrets leading Fury (what I call the Ganondorf from his time) into the Sacred Realm. Even though he didn’t know he was being followed, and even though Melody (what I call the Zelda from his time) sent him back to before all that happened, he still blames himself.
He tries to atone by being more alert before doing anything he feels could lead his friends into danger. Sometimes he puts himself in danger to protect them.
It’s not a spoiler. The butthead does it as the opening of the book. He decided to place a bet on sleeping with a girl, and one of his friends chooses whomever is behind them–happens to be the MC. She’s not against it, just is a ridiculous thing to do and knows that the longer she drags out holding out or if she’s too enthusiastic about it, she isn’t going to be left to her own business.
The problem is that this is an unawakened psychic being with hive-like connections that requires a ton of trust to make a functional pack. A lot of the tropes don’t really fully explain what the consequences do to that type of mentality. Werewolves should be extreemly sensitive to imbalanced relationships by all the premises about packs that are in use, but the writing never follows the temperament required to make that work.
That why I wrote anything in this filed because it was driving me a little dotty.
How is Time trying to move past the feelings of regret and feeling the need to atone?
I shall use Lennox as an example:
(spoilers)
It took Lennox to die in order to finally be at ease. Even though he murdered millions of people after losing the two most important people in the world to him and even after causing a massive empire to fall along with a long running race war, Lennox was able to forgive himself and he was pleased in knowing that he did what little good he could in the world and was able to be a father again.
I know that isn’t written yet, but I have been planning for that moment to happen in my novel.
Back to you, is there someone who often not tells Time that he made a mistake and there was no need for him to beat himself up over?
Boredrum and traditionally they are…energetic. That’s even cemented in werewolf romances outside the Wattpad style. Just overcharged drives, more living than living, testosterone laden.
The reasons why they work at all is because they’re inclined to pack and mate (soulmate) loyalty, and are often a bit more like species that mate for life, prone to die without the other.
Unless you make them over into an absolute puppydog, they don’t legitimately have the specs for a comfortable relationship.
But the Wattpad variety? They tend to be psychotic.
Wind and Warrior both keep telling him it wasn’t his fault, trying to help with that.
I have a similar thing, Time doesn’t actually die though, but he comes close to it after throwing himself in front of an enemy that tried to kill Twilight, then after that Wind is crying and tells Time he was terrified for him and that he understands how Time gets worried but hates how he keeps putting himself in danger, and after that Time starts to realize that no one blames him. He does still try to protect his friends of course, but he realizes they don’t blame him, and neither do Melody or Malon, or the Sages.
My overall worldview is that they run just offset from the American Sexual Revolution, in the USA, at least. That means mates were secure up until the 60s, then isolation plays into how soon it devolves from there, hitting a low blow in the 80s. With the rise of tech (post universal internet, so roughly by 2K), all of a sudden they have to behave themselves again because they’ve been unnoticed by most governments until this point. That and they are starting to really get into the science of what they are, from genetic markers, to multiverse theory, with fairly firm evidence that the Goddess does exist and mostly interferes when the packs thoroughly misbehave.
This particular one is set roughly about 2015. The previous Alpha has reasons to not do a better job (mid-90s rise to power), and the one before him is the Alpha of the 80s (low point). The 60s era pack is too far back and mostly killed off at least through the late 80s? The worst ones are gone by 2K, easily. Doesn’t make any of the older ones still around saints by any means.
So, this guy is coming into leadership as ignorant as I can tolerate.
Middle of Nevada, about an hour out of Reno. Since it’s told from the girl’s POV, mostly, it only gets real depth on what she gets to handle, so sometimes fights are off to the side of the story.