What is Eithne? What are her motives?
Eithne is a character I fell madly in love with from the get-go. She had the potential to be uniquely different. You already know what she looks like (see Eithne, the girl of his dreams) but it wasn't her looks that made me fall for her as a character. Here's the spoiler: she may look twenty, but she's really more like ten. She's an android of sorts, pre-built and with a ten year old consciousness. She's no child, possessing all the necessary intellect of an assassin and social grace of a Duchess. However, she can be very childish in the fact that she wants all of our protagonist's attention, she loves to be pampered and treated like a princess. She has a tween's self-centeredness but the sense of a much older woman. An interesting combination, no?
Her roots, in my mind, come from the idea I was building before I built this idea. The proto-idea didn't go far, as I realised it was really cliche. However, the idea of a starship's AI becoming sentient, and falling head over heels for its Captain, stuck. That was Eithne (originally I called her Blaze, as the ship was The Blazing Oblivion, a name I plan to reuse). Her mannerisms and social ideas borne of holovids and broadcasts of soap operas and television drama. I've kept a lot of this at the core of Eithne (also known as Agent Red) and her true identity - that of a robot in disguise - isn't well known, restricted to one or two characters who might only be mentioned in passing.
Some of my less openminded cohorts think the character origin is disgusting, bordering on me writing about a twelve year old and a forty year old man (a la Lolita
) but that's not my goal at all. My desire was to create a unique female character, one that could illustrate the width and breadth of a woman in hyperbolic exaggeration. Both strong and soft, cunning yet innocent. A character who, most of the time is a princess always saying "Me-Me-Me!" but when needed, when it really hits the fan, she's suddenly tough as nails, nose to the grind, ready to fight and die.That's how I think of women I suppose. Call me a monster, a chauvinist, whatever you want, but it is. I'm a believer in treating a woman, in the most relaxed and simple of situations, like royalty, but always being ready for them to grab the bull by the horns. Because deep down, I know they can grab the bull by the horns. I've got nothing but faith in the strength of a real woman, the Wonder Woman inside the Plain Jane. But right next to that Amazonian is Princess Peach, all damsel in distress, rescue me Mario! Is that such a horrible way to think of a woman? Is it such a horrible way to depict a female character, especially when I have other females in the story who act entirely differently? I don't think so. You be the judge in the comments.
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2 comments:
Sounds like a female Data from start trek, meets as you say, princess peach. This is an interesting character indeed. Almost the same as the big burly man’s secret is that he’s a big softy inside. I would expect any woman to have a pair and stick up for themselves no matter how much they act like a princess. You don’t have anyone else to stick up for you. Because after all life is too short to put up with bull-shit.
a little less Data. Her robot aspect isn't obvious, she's very well designed that way, you'd never assume she's a machine.
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