My character Alex has something to say in book two.  I find it funny when people mix up characters and myself.  Alex gives a speech about gin that includes his take on colonialism and modern imperialism, and it ends badly.  Gin is a drink that requires globalization, and in Alex’s time, that meant Colonisation.  He outlines these histories, and his take on them, in problematic joy. 

I get it. An author writes it, they might think it. But remember that this character is called the “Monster” for a reason.  His desire to watch things burn as he dances in the ashes is the core of what and who he is. He loves “his kids,” (maybe a true daughter more) and works in their favor, but his take on the world is one of destruction.  His take on how to help the world become a better place is to destroy it. If he could cause a zombie apocalypse he would. He sees struggle and confrontation as the chance to be truly free because the only thing keeping you down is your fear and your weakness.  Mistaking a character for an author is a funny thing. An odd thing.

Characters take on a life of their own and breath their own thoughts onto the page.  Jamie is my POV character, and she may see the world similarly to Alex, but really what she wants is freedom for everyone.  A complete end to Order in all its forms. The distinction between her anarchy and Alex’s Nihilism might seem slight, but it’s important to remember.  She wants a world without hierarchies, he just wants to burn hierarchies down and all the people within them.

Jamie is the type to join a revolution to reach the end goal of a better world, Alex joins the revolution because it allows him to destroy the current structure.  They both fight against structure societies, but the why of that devastation is important. It became clear in the first book that Alex was training his students for a purpose.  Not the purpose he told them, but because of what striving for that purpose meant for him. It meant him freed of his constraints, free to do whatever he wants, free of consequences.  

In every war, there are soldiers fighting for different reasons.  Some of those reasons are good. Some of them are bad. The why of their fight is often as important as what they are fighting.  It decides how they will go about it. When they will stop, and when they will go too far. It is one thing to say one if fighting for freedom, it is another to define that freedom.

Discussion about Raven’s Spear the 2nd book in the Trickster’s War Series.