About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players in “The Wall Of Night” Series — Asha
UK/AU/NZ
UK/AU/NZ
This year, I’ve resumed my “About the Characters” post series that focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series — because “I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
Initially, the series focused exclusively on characters from The Heir of Night, but now I’m continuing on with minor characters from both The Gathering Of The Lost and Daughter of Blood simultaneously — in alphabetical order, of course! (The quotes, below, are the key to whether the character appears in both or only one of the books.)
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USA
Asha: a Night honor guard in Garan’s eight-unit
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‘ The minstrel’s hands fell quiet on the strings, and Garan wondered if everyone listening felt the same way he did: like a prince in one of the old stories, waking out of a trance. “What song was that?” Innor asked finally, and the golden head lifted.
“It was composed by a minstrel of Ij who served a great lord, but fell in love with the lord’s wife. The melody was written for her and has endured beyond many works that were grander and more imposing.”
Simple tunes often did that, Garan reflected, like the marching airs of Night that were still sung by the guards, while the sagas and song-cycles of the great Derai heroes were only heard on special occasions.
“It would be pleasant to be loved like that,” Asha said softly, and the others grinned, because Asha was renowned in the barracks for always wanting stories about romantic vows and doomed love. She had been promoted from the Keep garrison after the Swarm attack five years before, one of the few guards who had managed to survive the ambush that killed the former Keep Commander and most of his troop.’
~ from © The Gathering of the Lost: The Wall of Night Book Two, Chapter 28 — Border Crossing
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USA
‘ Still smiling, Asha’s fingers tapped out a tune on the tabletop. “Doesn’t this place creep you?” she asked Garan, “The only voice you hear in this whole wing, outside our rooms, is the wind.” ‘
~ from © Daughter Of Blood: The Wall of Night Book Three, Chapter 13 — Watch and Ward
I do love Garan and his squad. They make the world real.
One of the things that has struck me about Garan and the eight-unit as I work on WALL#4 is that in many ways they function both as individuals *and* as a “single character”, ie the eight-unit is also a collective entity—which is fascinating for me because it’s definitely an evolutionary element of the story rather than a pre-planned one. But whatever function an individual character or a groups of characters fulfill in a narrative, the most important criterion is that they live and breath one the page. (Imho.)