In today's character spotlight, we're focusing on Wu, the process that went into creating his character, his motivations and his impact on the story. Read on for more information about this pivotal character in the first installment of the Luckborn Series.
Goths, Uelfin and Minority Rule in Cratom
In order to give you a better picture of who Wu Bane is and what motivates him, I want to take a moment to explore the city he came from, which is where the bulk of his arc takes place. Cratom is a peculiar place in that it holds much sway within the kingdom it belongs to, and reverses the power dynamics inherent therein as a small minority holds absolute power over the majority population. A population who holds substantial power in the kingdom to which the city belongs.
The ethnic group Wu belongs to is the Goths, who are one of several influential minority groups within the broader ethnic group, the Byrnese people. The Byrnese are the dominant ethnic group in the Byrne Plains, the center most region of Yu Danh Hao. While the Goths do control the Gotha Kingdom, they are subordinate to another population, the Uelfin, in Cratom.
Uelfin possess some peculiar features, which I will go into more detail about in a later character spotlight about another man who has a significant impact on the story being told here. What is important to note is that they possess the unique ability to see and influence the future, as descendants of God Lanfin, the God of Music and Keeper of Time. Their maternal ancestor is the river spirit, Oe, whose band runs through Cratom, and its because of this relationship to the river that they enjoy the power they do in Cratom, even as the represent a rather small slice of the overall population. They are effectively the city's landlords, and the Goths must contract with them in order to enjoy any semblance of economic mobility in their society. This is something most Uelfin take for granted.
In writing Wu Bane's arc, I found myself invested in highlighting the struggles of marginalized groups in a tourism driven economy wherein a small ethnic minority rules absolutely (a matter which I will be extrapolating on in a later piece about Class Warfare in the United States). This made for interesting dynamics when juxtaposed against the inverted Cinderella narrative I chose to write for him.
His motivations are simple. He wants revenge against a woman who betrayed him when he was young, and climbs into bed with a nefarious actor who may not be entirely trustworthy in order to see his ends met. This is the enemy of my enemy in practice, with both actors having motivations that align with each other out of necessity for now, but are not conducive of a lasting friendship or trust. Building on that was difficult, but also gave me the opportunity to work from a perspective entirely alien to me; using the classic fairy tale as inspiration to write a dark, politics based and assassin heavy arc that simultaneously focused on a criminal organization and its role in Cratom, and allowed me to break down the dynamics in a minority rule system.
Wu would enjoy power in Cratom as his birthright, while his own people continued to suffer in a discriminatory model that placed immense privilege on the Uelfin upper class, and must work an Uelfin's motivations into his schemes in order to get what he wants. He does not himself benefit from the power his family enjoys as an outsider, because of the schemes of the evil stepmother who wants his father's power transferred to her son, his half brother. Working from this framework ultimately led to a dynamic I'm still very invested in, the results of which I may revisit in later books in the series.
A Tough Nut to Crack
Wu was a difficult one to pin down. I wasn't sure what to do with him initially, and ended up having to dispose of about 10k words in his arc in order to set him on a course I was satisfied with. Altering his motivations to suit the plot I had selected for him turned out to be the right choice, and I am very happy with the way his arc in Tears for the Moon God turned out. As authors, sometimes we have a character we know has potential to be great, but don't quite know how to pin down the character's voice, motivations and needs in order to make them compelling to ourselves. I think of what Robert Jordan had to say about Mat Cauthon, and though Wu Bane did not take me two books to figure out, he posed the greatest challenge to me in relation to the work I've created.
Wu's arc is an inverted Cinderella story in which an evil stepmother serves as the primary antagonist to him in a quest for revenge. The quest is complicated when he becomes entangled with another character who is trying to flee from his home city, Cratom. He is also part of a marginalized ethnic group, but his family enjoys a kind of power not extended to others of their ethnic group because they are wealthy and influential in the Gotha Kingdom, which Cratom is a special jurisdiction within.
These factors may sound familiar to you. Cratom's economy, though largely driven by tourism, reflects income disparities and a theme of soft power via nepotism as a vehicle for upward mobility in said economy. The means by which those goths who live in the city are able to achieve success for themselves and their families must inherently be tied to rules which actively work against them, with most of those who get anywhere at all being skilled at navigating the system as it is, and playing from the defensive. Often aggressively.
Queerness in Cratom
Wu is also one of the many queer characters in this work, a gay man who has an intimate relationship with another who is, for most of this book, half a world away. In turn, both the assassin he falls in with and the Uelfin man he must abide are queer, but their story does not hinge on their queerness in order to extrapolate on its themes. Rather, queerness in this society is well accepted and treated as normal, allowing for their story to follow its trajectory to its end without becoming bogged down with gratuitous romances. Nonetheless, with the Uelfin in question being the owner of a brothel which trades in both men and women, there is no shortage of sexual imagery for those who enjoy a little spice with their fantasy.
Wu Bane is a character who fascinates me, and I feel as I would have committed more time to him in Tears for the Moon God if I had the additional pages to dedicate to him. Maybe one day, I will write some short stories about him. Perhaps about his relationship with Dupec Safar, but for now he lives in the pages of this novel. I hope, in getting to know him, you find him interesting, if not always likeable. He has been a little frustrating to me, all things held equal, but he has nonetheless been enjoyable to write.
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