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GUYS!!! I HAD AN EPIPHANY!!!

So, I’ve been rubbing my three brain cells together about the issue of Acyn. More specifically, Acyn being annoying. (Admit it, you’ve all thought it. I have.) He’s not completely annoying, but he’s constantly straddling the line of annoyingness.

I thought it was just his personality and that’s the only thing making him interesting, then I figured out the actual problem while watching OSP’s video about the smart guy in a five-man band. Acyn squarely fits this trope and I knew that when I started writing him.

So, Red mentioned that one of the main issues you run into with that character is that they’re always either overpowered or useless. It made me realize that Acyn doesn’t really…. do anything. He’s just there to give exposition and be funny now and then and be a foil for Sahar.

And then I remembered Sanderson’s three principles of good characters.

Likeability: Pretty fine, maybe 7/10. He’s kinda annoying now and then but he genuinely cares about his friends and has a rock solid moral compass even when the others are sliding all over the place.

Like, he probably has the most fixed morals of all the characters. You’d think it’d be Sahar but once someone hurts someone she loves morals go out the window and it’s just straight up murder. (not even an exaggeration)

Competence: Decent. Maybe 6/10. He’s excellent at anything that involves straight-up book knowledge, but even then it’s a toss up and he may only know part of it. Problem is, the other characters are mostly well-educated. (Like, half of them are royalty, it’d be weird if they didn’t know this stuff.) He has the broadest knowldedge of all the characters and it does come in handy now and then, but if it’s really that important, one of the other characters probably knows it too.

Now comes the problem. Proactivity. Like, practically no score. He doesn’t acknowledge a problem until it’s practically punching him in the face and even then, he doesn’t want to solve it. Even Faye, who canonically cried during her only fight scene and only wants to go home, has way more agency.

He never comes up with an idea, only corrects other people’s ideas. He hasn’t had an original thought during the entire series because he dedicates most of his screentime to avoiding the problem.

So… that needs fixing. It’s not even a hard fix, I just can’t believe I didn’t notice it before.

Also, had another couple interesting ideas. In my book, the five man band is more like a seven man band but it’s never more than five or six of them active at the same time.

For those of you who don’t know, five man band is a common way to structure character groups so they all have dedicated roles. There’s the Leader, the Lancer (the leader’s (more edgy) foil), the Tank, (most reliable fighter) the Smart Guy, (Actually thinks) and the Heart. (The only character with social skills.)

I initially thought Liorah was the leader, because… duh, she’s the protagonist. Until I figured out that no, she’s the Lancer! Gavril is the Leader and she’s his foil and ‘sidekick’. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have agency, only that he has more of a traditional hero personality and tends to be in charge when they’re together.

In the original setup, I thought Sahar was the Lancer because she’s Liorah’s best friend, but she’s actually the Heart, the character in charge of having empathy and keeping the others from commiting war crimes.

Ferran is pretty squarely the Tank, he’s the only character whose fighting skills don’t wildly fluctuate or toss themselves out the window in terror. He’s also the only dependable character. Someone help him.

Acyn is the Smart guy, no explanations needed.

Admittedly, the five-man band changes as the characters develop and swap places and appear and disappear. (….I’m not going to elaborate on that.)

This was all irrelevant, I was just excited about it and wanted to rant about it 🙂 Thank you for coming to my TED talk XD