Category: Characters

Continuing the theme of Who are your favourite characters in books? and What makes a hero?, it’s time to look at what makes a villain a villain.

What is it that sets a villain apart from an antagonist?

Who are the villains in the Word Guardians series?

Well, the villains of the series are the Controllers. They want to influence the minds of readers so that they can achieve their goal, control. To avoid plot spoilers, you’ll have to read the books to identify and understand all the villains in the series. There are some characters that act as antagonists but aren’t, and vice versa. And they seem to be this way because they are either protecting themselves while they figure out who they can trust or just acting out an agenda and haven’t yet revealed their cards. I can however share the name of one of the major villains of the series though, and that’s Orfeo, the vampire with a grand plan.

Who is Orfeo?

When you first meet Orfeo, he’s busy manipulating Detective Wheeler (who I’ve talked about in Waking up to core values in a time of crisis. Wheeler tells him what is going on within the police force, so that Orfeo can gain control of the Police Commissioner, as we see in Book 2.

Why does he want to do this? Like all good villains he wants control the story, in this case both inside and out of the magical realms. He uses a form of telepathic control, and uses some readers to incite all sorts of outcomes, none of which are pleasant.  Orfeo claims all the trouble is from a small faction of insurgents called the Word Guardians. And he does this to justify a crackdown from the police.  Ultimately, he wants the Word Guardians captured.

Villain or just antagonist?

So, knowing a little more about him, is Orfeo a villain or just an antagonist? To answer the question, we need to look at definitions of each.

A dictionary definition of an antagonist is that of someone opposing another. This doesn’t necessarily have to be evil or criminal in nature, but typically is someone opposing a protagonist within a story.

In contrast, the dictionary definition of a villain is that of someone blamed for evil or difficulty. It’s antagonistic in nature, but it indicates a deeper level. It’s likely criminal, wants to see the downfall or deposing of protagonists and is often dishonest and immoral in nature.

Based on these, Orfeo doesn’t sound like just an antagonist, does he? He’s wanting to expose the Word Guardians and while doing that he’s seeding and growing hatred of their cause, for his gain. It’s immoral and points to a wider evil, that of control of people’s imaginations so that they can do his bidding.

But who prevails?

Be honest, you want to know who wins, right? The Word Guardians or Orfeo?

And of course, I can’t tell you here. You’re going to have to read books 1 and 2 to find out. What I can tell you though is that you’ll also learn a little more about his background, his relationship with his number one, Raelinn, (who I’ve also talked about in The good and bad sides of loyalty), and some of his motivations for his dastardly deeds.

So, click the button below to view the books in your usual Amazon store (all the books in the series are available in paperback and kindle editions).

Welcome to this week’s blog.  I thought, this time I’d raise the question of what trust is and why it is important.

How do we trust someone else? What impact does it have on us when we do or do not have it?

And by way of example, I thought I’d share an excerpt from Book 2 The Twisting Tales…

Detective Wheeler and Raelinn in The Void

“What are you doing?” shouted Raelinn from the end of the carriage. She started to make her way down and was incensed. “Just let me go!”

“No!” he said, exhausted. “We’re just going in circles, repeating the same story!”

“You’re lying!”

The train was accelerating out of the station. The lights of the station moved behind them and it was pitch black outside. The windows reflected the interior of the carriage.

“Why would I?” retorted Wheeler. “Don’t you see? It’s the Void?”

‘The Void,’ Raelinn thought in her mind. That rang a bell. A distant memory of a battle. Then it faded and she saw the face of the man that had tricked her and brought her here. He needed to pay.

“Orfeo told me to keep an eye on you!” she seethed. “For Index! He said you were not to be trusted!”

“So, why don’t you hit me some more then. Fly at me in rage, like you usually do about now!”

Raelinn flew down the carriageway, arms extended, with her fangs bared. Wheeler knew what to do. He dropped down, catching her and rolling her over his head. He got back on his feet quickly.

“You said I was important,” Wheeler said, watching Raelinn and playing along with what he remembered having happened before, to see if it jogged her memory.

“Yes,” she replied, hissing. Then she stopped for the merest of moments and looked confused. “This?” she asked. “I remember something.”

“Yes,” Wheeler replied. “It’s taken you a while, but what do I know? As you said at the Battle for the Peacekeepers, I’m just a simpleton!”

His words seemed to jog a memory for Raelinn. She observed him for a moment.

“You’re messing with my head!” Raelinn shouted. She moved towards him firing word arrows.

Wheeler sighed and created a shield, deflecting the word arrows. They penetrated the walls of the carriage and it started to unknit.”

What happens when we don’t trust someone

The excerpt shows that when trust is missing in a relationship, pretty much everything that’s said or done is questioned. Why is the other person saying or doing that? What are they hoping to achieve? Does it also benefit me and others?

It also underpins what we take as read or not from other sources in our lives, and I touched on this in In Life, who decides what’s the right news?

In stressful moments if the trust is not there it can lead to disaster, as Raelinn and Wheeler found out. They are literally at each other’s throats, and it takes effort for Wheeler to convince Raelinn that they need to work together to escape The Void.

The flipside. How trust forms

Conversely, when we do trust someone, we are much happier to take what is said and done as read. We know from experience that the person will speak and act in line with a particular pattern of behaviour and over time we come to rely on that behaviour.

The Mirriam Webster dictionary definition of trust includes the phrase ‘reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something’. It also mentions ‘one in which confidence is placed’, so trust is an ability to rely on someone else to make decisions and take actions in line with a particular direction.

Turning it over to you

I’m conscious I’m no expert in this topic, but I wanted to prompt the questions as I think trust and how we build it is a valuable concept to reflect on. So, for you, what does trust mean and what does someone else have to show to earn yours?

And while you’re thinking about that, if you want to learn more about what happens to Raelinn and Wheeler’s opposition in The Void, buy and read Book 2 The Twisting Tales (you’ll have to read book 1 first to set the scene 😊). Both are available in paperback and kindle editions.

Happy reading.

I thought for this week blog I would share an excerpt from my first book The Battle for the Peacekeepers, Escape from Alexandria.

It’s just a small taster to whet your appetite.

Feel free to check out the other excerpts on this site too: When Yas discovers magic and A visit to Victorian London.

Escape from Ancient Alexandria

There was a ‘whoomph’ ahead of them and the doorway appeared. The creatures behind them had also spotted it.

“Sam,” urged Yas, looking behind her and seeing the creatures approaching. She threw another word ball, but this time the creatures just continued towards them, unimpeded.

Sam grabbed Yas and pulled her through the doorway just behind him. He made it through and landed on the carpet in the library but was jerked and pulled backwards. She stopped in mid-air, half in and half out of the portal. She screamed. One of the creatures had grabbed the back of her jacket in its mouth. The other, was trying to get its serpent head through the portal.

“Sam!” Yas screamed. She could see him moving about and trying to brace himself against the edges of the doorway, but her view kept switching between the two worlds.

“I’ve got you,” he shouted back. He grabbed her tightly, kicking the serpent head with one of his feet while pulling Yas as hard as he could. “Hold on!”

Yas kicked behind her, while also reaching her other hand for a better hold on Sam. She was able to push herself up on the sphinx’s head, and in return it lessened its grip. She felt the jacket rip.

“You little. . .!” she shouted angrily behind her, kicking furiously. She heard the creature whimper and then roar. Not wanting to see what it might do next; she looked forwards into the library.

“Sam!” she shouted again in alarm.

Sam continued to kick the other creature, while also defending them both against paw grabs from the first. It was tight for space, but he was able to pull Yas forwards a little at a time. If anything, her kicking against the creatures gave her the better leverage.

Suddenly, surprising them both, an arm appeared behind Sam. The creatures were pushed back sharply out of the doorway and Yas was pulled through. She fell onto the floor while Sam rolled to the side and stood up to see who had helped.

“Close the book!” said Janine Vickers sternly. She stood still, holding her hand out, palm up, uttering words that sounded foreign.

What happens next?

What a roller coaster of a ride! Well, you’ll have to buy the book to find out who Janine Vickers is and why she helped them escape.  Do Sam and Yas leap from the frying pan into the fire? Or not? Buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers on Amazon and find out.

Psst… it’s available in both paperback and kindle editions.

Ciao for now!

Do you ever have questions in your life that you just can’t seem to answer?

You’re desperately looking for a solution and everything you try leaves you feeling as though there’s still missing pieces in your puzzle of life?

You’re not alone. That was Yas, in Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers.

Yas’s puzzle of life

At the start of Book 1, Yas’s grandfather and adopted brother have been missing for two years and nobody seems to be looking for them. Worse, her parents won’t talk to her about it. She finds this frustrating and weird, but she figures you just get on with life. You graduate from school, go to college, get a job and live a life.

In Book 3 The Shadow Readers, we also learn that her father is dissatisfied with his work, and she thinks this is the way it’s supposed to be. What she’s learned is that life is not for living your dreams and that along the way, bad things can happen to anyone. She’s quite skeptical of life’s opportunities as a result and not surprisingly critical of her best friend‘s ideas about magical realms.

Yas also feels she’s being pulled by something, and she can’t figure out what. Deep down she knows there’s more, but her conditioning won’t let her see it. She’s curious about life, preferring to spend an afternoon in her passion of reading novels and learning about history from books.

They say opportunities arrive for those that attract them

Deep down, the opportunities that Yas attracts are focussed to the pieces of her life puzzle that she can’t yet put together. She works at a bookstore which gives her the opportunity to indulge in her passion. If asked she would probably tell you that she’d rather read history by those who have written it and put it up for review by the masses, than listen to schoolyard gossip and people’s opinions. Ultimately though, there’s more to her interests in stories.

Her best friend Sam is also not ‘popular’ at school, and is a bit weird, but that’s okay. He likes talking about magical realms and how his dad is lost in one. She wonders why she attracts the ‘odd’ ones. Then she literally falls into a realm, and it feels as though her life puzzle has exploded and sent all the pieces up into the air.

Direct experience is irrefutable

If you’ve ever experienced something deeply touching or moving, the paranormal maybe, you know that once you’ve experienced it there’s no going back. Your viewpoint on whatever it is has shifted forever and your puzzle of life now incorporates that.

This is what happens to Yas once she’s met the Great Oak and Red in the Forest Realm. After some convincing that it’s real, her puzzle of life shifts. She eventually realises that her grandfather and brother went missing because of a war between the Word Guardians and Controllers. Her parents refused to talk about it because they wanted to protect her. But only by seeing that picture could she fit all the pieces of her life’s puzzle together.

Listening to the deeper knowing’s

Finally, Yas could recognise the deeper feelings that she’d had all along as ‘knowing’s’. And she could see that her puzzle of life had shifted. Instead of getting on with life, now, for her and Sam, it was about finding a job that honoured your dreams, embracing stories and standing up for the freedom of readers’ imaginations. And more opportunities were about to come their way (see Book 3 The Shadow Readers) that would enable this.

So, if you have questions you can’t answer, try to honour those deeper feelings and ‘knowing’s’. Find time to embrace your passions, even if a small amount here and there in your week. And if you want to learn more how life unfolds for Yas and Sam, read the books in the series. Buy Book 1 The Battle for the Peacekeepers using the link below.