{"id":11009,"date":"2012-01-13T08:26:29","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T19:26:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=11009"},"modified":"2012-01-16T22:01:47","modified_gmt":"2012-01-16T09:01:47","slug":"guest-post-on-orbit-the-evolution-of-character-malian-of-night-and-the-heroic-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/01\/13\/guest-post-on-orbit-the-evolution-of-character-malian-of-night-and-the-heroic-tradition\/","title":{"rendered":"Guest Post On Orbit—“The Evolution of Character: Malian of Night and the Heroic Tradition”—Plus Giveaway!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Giveaway Result<\/strong><\/span>:<\/p>\n

You’ll recall that I had two x signed copies of the new UK mass market Heir<\/em> to give away with this post—and the names the Sorting Hat has given me are:<\/span><\/p>\n

Craig<\/strong>; and<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Jessica<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Congratulations Craig & Jessica—and a big thank you to everyone who commented!
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Regarding mailing the copies: Craig, I already have your address so will get your copy in the post. Jessica, if you email me on contact[at]gmail[dot]com with a postal address your copy will be on its way to you ‘interfrastically!’\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/span><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

I have\u00a0 a guest post on the Orbit blog<\/a> today, titled “The Evolution of Character: Malian of Night and the Heroic Tradition”<\/strong>, which begins:<\/p>\n

“Recently I was asked, \u2018what makes Malian, your main character in <\/em>The Heir of Night, unique in epic fantasy? And what makes a hero, anyway?\u2019 My initial response was \u2018aargh, the pressure\u2019\u2014not just of an example, but of encapsulating what is often the slow delicate process of character evolution. And Malian of Night\u2019s character did evolve over many years, from long before I first put pen to paper: sometimes in small increments, occasionally in giant leaps. I have spoken elsewhere of the similar emergence of the Wall of Night world: from around the age of 10 I had a vision of a rugged, shadowy, wind-blasted environment, and the concept of a youthful female protagonist within that world developed at much the same time. <\/em><\/p>\n

… “<\/em><\/p>\n

To read the full post, click here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/h4>\n

And please do feel free to comment—we “like” comments.:) (I’ll keep my eye on the comments board and make sure I reply if you do.)<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

But there is more.<\/p>\n

Amongst other matters, the post reflects on Malian’s character qualities, which include a sense of justice and empathy for others—and I query how\/where she might have acquired them, given the nature of the Derai society in which she has been raised.<\/p>\n

As I have said in other posts, Derai society is not only rigid and narrow in its world view—the word xenophobic might also be used—but it’s divided within itself by prejudice, suspicion and fear. So here’s the thing that drives my reflection on Malian’s character—although we may be born with an innately good natured or less well-disposed personality, I believe that the majority of our values are learned<\/em>. We are taught<\/em> that honesty and integrity matter, or that they don’t; and questions such as whether we decide to view the world in an elitist or egalitarian way are also influenced by those around us. We may rebel—but first we have to acquire the value set that teaches us to question the validity of our status quo.<\/p>\n

So my premise in relation to Malian’s character is that if she lives in a fundamentally narrow, prejudiced and intolerant society, then it would be unlikely for her to develop a strong sense of justice and empathy for others as a matter of course. Somehow or other those values have been modelled for her and she has chosen to internalise them. As the author, I believe I know who and what those models are, although—a hint—I’m not sure all of them are necessarily obvious. But the great thing about readers is that each one brings their own ideas and perspective to the story (which is why I always say that reading is an interactive process) and so may see the interplay between the characters entirely differently.<\/p>\n

Obviously you’ll have to read the book to decide what you think and make up your own mind—you may even feel that Malian doesn’t<\/em> display much of a sense of justice or empathy for others. But some of you who have already read the book may want to chip in with your thoughts and I’d be very interested to hear them!<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

And To Celebrate the UK Mass Market Release of Heir …<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>To celebrate the mass market release of The Heir of Night<\/em> in the UK there is to be a series of 3 guest posts on the Orbit blog. I’ll be doing a companion post here to mark each one and giving away 2 copies of the new mass market edition (signed of course!) for each of the 3 posts—to be drawn from commenters who either post here or<\/em> on the Orbit blog. (If you comment in both places then your name goes in the draw twice.:) ) And with The Gathering of the Lost<\/em> coming out at the end of March what better time to be reading or re-reading The Heir of Night<\/em>! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

The eligibility period for comments for the first two giveaway books will be to 12 midnight, Sunday 15 January, NZ time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Giveaway Result: You’ll recall that I had two x signed copies of the new UK mass market Heir to give away with this post—and the names the Sorting Hat has given me are: Craig; and Jessica Congratulations Craig & Jessica—and a big thank you to everyone who commented! Regarding mailing the copies: Craig, I already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epicfantasy","category-guest-blog-posts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11009"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11171,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11009\/revisions\/11171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}