Another character analysis, though this character isn't the one I planned on talking about next. This one is named Sorena. Just Sorena. Dame Sorena if you want to be formal but she'll really insist that you don't call her by that title. Let's get to it.
Origins
Sorena is my second oldest character, having been born back near the end of 2006. The sole reason for her existence was because a video game I got into in the latter half of 2006 called
Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance for the Gamecube. For those of you who have never heard of the Fire Emblem series they're turn-based strategy games. Like chess. Only a bit more elaborate, with knights and heroes and sorcerers and other nerdy things. They also tend to have excellent stories and character development, which is always fun.
One of the characters in the game is this mage named Soren. He ended up being my favorite character in the whole game, and I'll play the game simply for the shallow reason of getting to watch him horribly maim things with wind magic in awesome ways.
Soren. Sorena. I'm sure you see the connection.
Sorena is also inspired by the White Witch from the Narnia film, more so than the book, as well as the witches from the movie Stardust, which is based on a novel of the same name. Although, the witches in these works are fairly... wicked, and Sorena really isn't.
I've always been a fan of wizards and witches and the like, and I've always thought that no good fantasy story was good without magic. So it was inevitable that I would create a character who could use magic.
Anyway, I suppose that's all I really need to say on the matter of her origins.
Personality
Remember how I said that Sorena is my second oldest character? Well, in her world she's like the oldest. I have a couple characters who are older, but they're still in conceptual stages. Sorena was born about half-way through the twelfth century, so she's nearly one thousand years old.
So she's super wise and sage-like, right? Wrong. Sorena's fairly scatterbrained and ditzy. The wisdom is there, it's just not the easiest sort of wisdom for someone to access due to her whimsical nature. She used to be super focused, but that changed due to a certain event in her early history.
Sorena is easily distracted and her attention can be captivated by the smallest thing, such as a grain of sand in the middle of a clean floor, or an insect making its way up a wall. This isn't always a bad thing though, as this allows her not to be bothered by all sorts of things and live a relatively carefree existence. It takes a grave matter in order to get her full attention, and even then she may struggle. She will also talk your ear off and is easily intrigued by the most meaningless things.
She also tends be forgetful and has difficulty with names, often getting them entirely wrong or mixing them up. Sometimes she mixes up her spells, which could be disastrous since she knows such powerful magic.
She also detests being referred to as an old woman, even though she is. It's difficult though, because even though she appears to be only in her fifties, anyone who meets her gets the sudden impression that she is so much older than she looks, and they can't help but comment on that fact.
Sorena has had a bit of a turbulent past and so she's perfectly content to spend her days doing simple things, mostly things like concocting some sort of new brew, or learning some new magic spell or discipline - which wouldn't be that difficult, as she is quite intelligent, but her tendency to be distracted counteracts her intelligence.
She is generally quite cheery but can have days where she's solemn and not very talkative, which means she's currently reliving one of her many memories. She is loyal to those closest to her, but especially Sem. (Sem being a character/persona based off of myself who shall be featured in a future blog update.) Sorena is very much dependent on Sem, more than it would appear to onlookers. He's the one who keeps her from going insane due to what she's gone through - he keeps her happy and carefree. In turn, Sorena helps Sem by keeping him human - by not letting him fall into an apathetic state of existence. Sem and Sorena are essentially soul mates, and need each other to the point where one could not exist without the other. Despite this, they're not romantically involved with each other.
Sorena is also rather stubborn and set in her ways, and still wears very outdated attire, much to Sem's dismay. She's never really been one to care about aesthetics and the way things looked. If Sem wasn't in her life any environment she inhabited would be a disaster within days. She's also not very proficient with modern technology.
The old bag is also rather careless and even reckless, but there are few things she actually needs to fear. She can be totally oblivious and despite being so smart she can be totally tactless in social situations.
Appearance
As I said above, Sorena appears to be about fifty. She stands at about 5'9" and weighs in at about 140 lbs. She has pretty pale skin, and only a few wrinkles. She possesses that sort of refined beauty that many older women have, but her clothes generally detract from that fact. Sorena's hair is silvery and wavy, and reaches down to just above her mid-back. She can't be bothered to do anything with it and so it's generally let wild. She also wears no makeup, because, again, she can't be bothered with it.
Sorena's attire consists of a slim, black, Victorian-style gown with a coal-grey corset-styled bodice. The sleeves of her dress are long and loose. She wears a black cloak as well that covers her shoulders and upper chest, and goes down to just above the end of her dress. On her feet she wears a pair of leather boots with a thicker, three-inch cone-heel.
Sorena's most striking feature is her black witch's hat, which has a crooked tip and a sapphire-blue sash tied around the base. The hat completes Sorena's very outdated "witch look" and makes it seem like she's dressing up everyday for Halloween instead of just once a year.
She has a pair of two identical silver rings inlaid with sapphires, one on each middle finger. A brooch that matches the rings holds her cloak closed.
Her only physical feature that is striking are her sapphire-blue eyes that almost seem to glow at times.
History
Now, much of Sorena's history is largely undeveloped since I have so much to work with. You can be pretty sure that she's been somehow involved in any major historical events, though my version of those events may be different than our world's.
Sorena was born in mid twelfth century England to parents who were also magicians. She showed a natural talent with magic and was considered a prodigy to her teachers. She studied both with personal teachers and masters as well as at a school. It was during that time that she drew very close to another girl named Vivian who was also very proficient with the magic arts.
After Sorena had mostly mastered general grey magic (grey magic being any sort of magic that isn't holy/unholy. Turning something into something else, or making something invisible - anything like that - is considered grey magic) she decided that her field of expertise would be weather magic.
Weather magic was an admirable endeavor, as it requires the ability to be proficient with many different types of elemental magic, and few magicians choose such difficult pursuits. Weather magic demands that Sorena be a master of wind, water, lightning, and atmospheric magic. She took on the challenge wholeheartedly and mastered the magic faster than anyone would have thought possible. Out of all the magic she studied she excelled the most with lightning magic. After passing her final test she was given the title "Weather Mage", and could summon any sort of weather phenomena, from a gentle breeze, to a bolt of lightning, to the fury of a hurricane.
Despite her very impressive feat, Sorena went even further and felt led to pursue the title of "Disaster Mage" as well. Disaster magic is magic that focuses on natural disasters, allowing a magician to
supernaturally cause them as well as prevent or stop them. It also involved learning multiple magic disciplines, including earth magic, which is the most complex and largest of the elemental categories, and has many sub-classes. It is so large a catagory that few mages could be considered proper "Earth Mages" and are typically more specialized within that field. Despite this, Sorena learned all there was to know on earth magic, as well as fire magic and deepened her knowledge of water magic, which is also a large field of magic.
With both titles of Weather and Disaster Mage under her belt, Sorena was quickly scouted by the military, along with her friend Vivian, who by that point was also very proficient in her chosen fields of magic. Sorena had enough power to almost single handedly win battles, and her only challenge came from enemy magicians on the battlefield.
After retiring from service she and Vivian grew apart. It wasn't until years later that Vivian resurfaced with a new discipline of magic under her belt - magic of the unholy variety. Up until that point Vivian was considered a saint and was often referred to as Mother Vivian. During school Vivian had mastered plant magic and from there decided to dedicate herself to the church by learning holy magic.
Vivian fell, and her venture into unholy magic irreversibly twisted her mind. She tempted Sorena with the idea of finding a way to achieve immortality. Magicians tend to live a little longer than normal humans, but not by much. Sorena, who's many battles continued to plague her in the form of post-traumatic stress dissorder, simply wanted a distraction from her thoughts and allowed Vivian to drag her into the dark magic as well. True to past endeavors, Sorena quickly learned unholy magic, but it warped her mind in a different sense than it did Vivian's. Her experience with the magic left Sorena in her current scatterbrained state of existence, and her mind was constantly attacked by lucid visions of her past experiences with war.
With much effort Sorena was able to get out of the darkness of the new magic she learned, and she vowed never to use it. It was around this time that Vivian turned her attention to the church and led several attacks against it, both because her twisted mind caused her to hate the church, but also because she was convinced that the church held the key to immortality.
Through her expertise, Vivian was able to create a disease that seriously hurt the magic population. Normal sicknesses tended to burn up in the magic blood of a magician, but there were magical ailments that magicians were not immune to. Vivian had managed to generate such a disease and used it against her enemies.
Around that time as well Sorena came to meet one of the earth's true elementals. True elementals are supernatural beings that embody one of the earth's natural forces. There are only ever seven in existence at a time, and the one Sorena met was the current water elemental.
Sorena quickly became close with the water spirit, who agreed to help Sorena fight against Vivian. Sorena herself soon became ill with the dreaded illness and the fight became all the more desperate. Sorena and the water elemental were there in the Holy City, the church's capital, when Vivian attacked it. There was a fierce battled between Vivian and her followers, and the church and its allies.
Sorena, the water elemental, and Saint Oscar, the reigning saint at the time, were forced into an area below the Holy City's inner sanctuary. It was there that Vivian inflicted a fatal wound on the still young water elemental. In its last moments the water elemental fused with a fountain of holy water, imbuing the spiritual water with even more supernatural power, but this had gone unnoticed by the remaining combatants. Sorena and Oscar desperately fought Vivian off and eventually Sorena was able to land the killing blow against her once good friend.
Oscar, who was now also ill by that time, sensed that the water was now different, and produced a golden cup - a holy grail - the object Vivian had been after. He doubted it's ability to grant eternal life, but he thought that maybe its sacred nature along with the enhanced holy water could eradicate the disease. Oscar and Sorena both dipped the grail in the water and drank it. The water purged the illness from their bodies, but also had additional properties to it. The water proved Oscar wrong by effectively stopping the aging process, and also supernaturally giving them both peak-human bodies without actually looking like peak-humans.
Oscar was now left with a method that could give eternal life to anyone. He realized that this was not something that could be known by the public, and through some testing was thankfully able to determine that the enhanced holy water consumed without the grail worked to simply purge the sickness from the body without the additional effects. To this day few people know that the fountain combined with the holy grail can bestow eternal life, and Sorena swore to keep it secret.
Sorena was left with yet another traumatic experience to deal with, and her now fragile mind was broken. By sheer luck, or perhaps by the intervention of a higher power, Sorena came to know the past water elemental's new incarnation - Sem. Sorena took it upon herself to take care of Sem, and it was from there that their relationship blossomed into what it now is today. Sem brought healing and stability to Sorena's world, and they would depend on each other through the trials that came with the following centuries.
Personal Impact
Since her creation Sorena has definitely been one of my muses, and I enjoy developing her past and envisioning her in certain comical situations. She hasn't affected me as much as someone like Lysis has, despite having being around for longer, but she's definitely provided enough by inspiring a lot of visions and scenarios.
She's also incredibly entertaining to write, as she's so much more random and amusing than my other characters.
I suppose the parts of me that are in her would be... well, the part of me that fancies myself as a wise person, and being as old as Sorena would definitely give you that. She was also born in a time where I personally felt like I had been living for much longer than I actually had been. It was a weaker time where I felt emotionally thin and stretched, and always tired. A large part of me desperately wants all that life experience just so that I can use it to be able to relate to others and help them. Also, living a long time, more than is natural, is sort of tragic in its own way, and I'm a sucker for tragedy.
Sorena also embodies my personal fear of aging and a desire to not die ever. Though, I do realize that's not just something that's unique to me - a lot of humanity wants to be forever young and all that. Immortality is a theme with a lot of my characters, but Sorena was the first to really have it. I used to tell myself that she wasn't immortal and simply really, really old, but who was I kidding?
I suppose I've also sort of over-exaggerated my tendency to be easily distracted in Sorena as well. I do have those moments where I totally space out too, as some close friends of mine can easily attest to.
Sorena's also as carefree as I'd like to be. She does have her bad days but they don't come often, so she's generally pretty content and satisfied with life - something I hope to have some day.
She's also doesn't care what people think of her. Well, actually, she's oblivious to things like that, but if she
was aware she wouldn't really care. I think that's something that's good, the ability to simply not care what other people have to say about the way you look or how you act. Sorena has no shell, she has nothing to hide - she is who she is and because of that she isn't crippled like a lot of people are, crippled by the fear of what others might think or say.
I think my next steps for Sorena are to fully flesh out her history and fully develop her relationship with Sem, and allow her to become an inspiration for me as well.
Thanks for reading =) I know I've got quite a few people reading these updates so it'd be nice to see some more feedback, whether it be in the form of comments on this page or a more private form of communication. I want to know what my readers think! ;D
The character Sorena is ©2006 James Curry a.k.a Sem
