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Fiction Corner

Alison Hawke

Broken minds

Back in September 2000 I talked about making flawed, interesting characters by giving them quirks of character and habit. I want to extend on that by introducing you to three characters I've come across recently, Ian Nottingham, from the television series Witchblade, a technomage called Galen, from the Babylon 5 universe, as shown in the Technomage book trilogy, and Kio Masada, a computer security expert in CS Friedman's book This Alien Shore.

These characters caught my imagination and kept it. They seem to be three dimensional, truly human characters. And all three show signs of mental illness.

Ian Nottingham is the bodyguard and manservant of Kenneth Irons, a billionaire businessman with an obsession for the Witchblade, a supernatural weapon worn by Detective Sara Pezzini. Nottingham's job is first to protect Irons, then Sara. What makes Nottingham interesting to me is his reaction to the insults and abuse he receives from Irons. Nottingham is subservient, he stands with his head bowed and shoulders hunched, refusing to meet his master's eye. Despite being a man of obvious skills and talent, somehow Irons has broken Nottingham's will. As a way of fighting back, Nottingham behaves in a passive-aggressive manner, thwarting his master by giving information to Sara, and defending her against orders. Nottingham clearly has a hopeless crush on Sara, and a low opinion of himself. The character seems to be a victim of serious abuse, and has developed coping mechanisms to deal with it.

Galen is introduced as a serious student, someone who never laughs, and is devoted to becoming a technomage. This dream is fulfilled in the first of the three books (the third is published in November), but it does not satisfy him. He is uncomfortable with his power, and with the advanced technology of the implants in his body that create it. After his first love, Isabelle, is killed by a fellow technomage, Galen gets very interesting. His reaction to stress is to stuff his feelings down inside himself, and not allow himself to feel. After the death of Isabelle, Galen shuts down emotionally. The unresolved grief and anger shows itself in him as deep depression. Unable to stand the pain he is feeling internally, Galen starts to deliberately injure himself.

Kio Masada comes from a future in which the human race has colonised many planets. The faster-than-light drive of the colonisation ships mutated the humans into a fantastic array of "aliens." Masada comes from a planet where the mutations affected the brain, causing conditions as diverse as multiple personality disorder and colour blindness. His own mutation rendered him incapable of reading or giving social signals (small talk, body language, tone of voice etc.), and gave him the ability to focus in on a problem to the exclusion of all else, including food and rest. He is persistent, dogged, a little obsessive, and extremely intelligent. Masada is modelled on an autistic scientist. Friedman clearly did a lot of research on both him and the female protagonist, who has multiple personality disorder.

As writers, we have to give our characters adequate motivation for doing what we make them do. Mental illness is worth researching, because it's highly likely that you know someone with a mental illness, and characters who accurately portray such illnesses have an extra depth to them. We do not write our fiction in a pristine, plastic world, and our characters should not be models of perfection either. They should be people, like us.