About The Characters: Meet The Minor Players In “The Wall Of Night” Series — Meet Nhenir
Wow, I can’t believe it’s been seven weeks since I last pasted on About the Characters — my only excuse is getting sandbagged by the end-of-year and taking my eye off the “…on Anything, Really” ball. Mea culpa!
As you (almost certainly) know, the About The Characters series focuses on the minor characters in The Wall Of Night series, in large part because:
“I think it’s the presence of the smaller characters that “makes” a story, creating texture around the main points of view.”
~ from my Legend Award Finalist’s Interview, 2013
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 — in alphabetical order, by name, of course!
Starting where things left off before the unintended hiatus, we’re still in “N” and today’s character is not a living being, but a sentient artefact.
Dear readers, I give you: —
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Nhenir: aka the Moon-bright Helm, one of the three legendary arms of Yorindesarinen, the Derai’s greatest hero
“It is not the eyes.” The voice of Nhenir, the legendary helm that had once belonged to Yorindesarinen, the greatest of all Derai heroes, was a mixture of light and dark, speaking into Malian’s mind. “Your inner awareness must be open: you must learn to eat the dark lest it eat you.”
~ from © The Gathering of the Lost, The Wall Of Night Book Two – Prologue
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The armring was silver fire, and she knew that Nhenir, the moon-bright helm, would be as she had first seen it: black adamantine steel decorated with pearl and silver, with the phoenix wings swept up to either side and wrapped about the casque. Malian lowered the visor that was shaped into the dawn eyes of Terennin over her own, so no glamour or working born of power would cloud her vision, and closed both hands around the sword’s hilt, raising it high.
~ from © Daughter of Blood, The Wall Of Night Book Three – Epilogue
Honestly, from the moment of it’s appearance we did not think of Nhenir to be a minor character. It is constantly present with Malian and has an opinion on everything that is going on. Unlike the sword, important though it may be, we feel Nhenir is far too interactive to be considered ‘minor’.
You are absolutely right! Plainly, I was not thinking clearly when I loaded this post. 😉 I shall put it down to a bad mix of post-holidays mindset and an underlying premise that major characters are necessarily “point-of-view.” As the briefest reflection indicates, however, that is ridiculous, because if so then Raven would be a minor character — and I don’t think anyone would buy that argument. Am I right?!!
So it’s on the record. Team “Mostly Mondays” is right and Nhenir is not a minor character. I’m going to leave the post up, in order not to leave a gap in the record, but I’ll add a note that effect, in addition to our comments. 😀