So the character I'm writing about, his name is Etzeo. Etzeo is a male magic user, a mix of three of the races that hate eachother the most. RE's are high magic users, VE's are down to earth fighters, and Bannik's don't have magic. They all hate eachother, so Etzeo is an outlier, as in all of the groups hate him. He is quite a strong magic user. He was a street rat, and can speak almost all of the languages in the surrounding countries fluently. Right now I have him introduced as "The Magician" he was hired by my lead's captors to heal her, so they could question her. I want them to be introduced again when she gets away from her captors, and runs away to the city. Then for them to kind of have a begrudging friendship, leading to like a I-would-kill-for-you type relationship. Thing is I'm not sure if this is how I want it to go. I bounced about having him as a kind of Romantic Interest, or a brother type figure. I'm still not totally sure. Any advice of what role this character should play?
Well, first of all, is he a POV character or a secondary character? If he's a POV character, his magic aptitude as you say might be a little OP at the start.
Sounds like he's the lead character. And it all depends on what kind of story you want to write and I hate telling others what to do with their creation but maybe this will help you. And the fact you're asking what role he could play is never good, because it suggests he may not have one past the first act. First, if he was a "street rat" how did he manage to learn languages so fluently. Was he that lucky that people would teach him for free? Or maybe he had one person who taught him how to live on the street and also taught him languages. You may have figured it out all ready but it did make me question. I'm also not sure if you're asking what role he should play in your book or in the life of your female character. Adding in a romance is often what writers do when they have a character they don't know what to do with. It's also predictable when you have a male and female lead.
Etzeo right now isn't set up to be a main character, at least in the beginning of the book. He learned languages from being on the street, speaking to so many people that he picked up the languages one at a time.
You could look at relationships like that of the one between Arya and The Hound in GoT. If you haven't seen or read GoT. The Hound is a mercenary or something and originally takes Arya to ransom her at Winterfell or something like that. He eventually becomes a grudging mentor to her if not a surrogate father figure. Obviously you don't want this guy to be a father figure to your MGC but you want something along the lines of surrogate family. Now, going with that, you don't have to define what kind of familial bond gets created. You don't even have to say they're like family. What you need currently, which I'm sure is the actual reason you're having trouble with working this out, is a reason for him to care at all about her. As a street rat and hated by everyone he won't have a pleasant disposition towards people unless it's falsely pleasant to hide aggression and malcontent. Your MGC needs to gain his trust somehow and that will be extremely hard won and liable to falter at the slightest of missteps. Really it seems like you want to write the magician as the main MC, but have the story move forward via the MGC. Which will leave you with a mostly passive MC in the magician. Oh, actually, it may not be up your avenue of things to watch but Beyblade Metal Fury has a relationship between Kenta and Ryuga that may help you. Ideally you would watch from the first Metal Saga series Metal Fusion to get a hold of his character more but suffice to say he's a lone wolf psychopath with no compunctions about killing people. Between Kenta and Ryuga, despite the fact that Ryuga spends most of the Metal Fury series seemingly ignoring Kenta as he follows him. He eventually grows a great respect for Kenta and we notice that Ryuga isn't really trying to leave him behind, he's just taking the most challenging route to wherever he's going and is keeping his pace slow enough that Kenta can keep up but challenging enough that Kenta is essentially being trained by him. By the end of the series he is fond of Kenta. That's a huge step from loner psychopath. Really Ryuga's characterisation and growth throughout the Metal Saga is one of the best things to come out of that show. The reason Ryuga eventually cares for/ respects Kenta is that the kid doesn't complain when things get hard and he doesn't give-up either. Kenta is resilient and determined and these are things Ryuga values in a person. Your MGC needs to play to the traits that Etzeo values in a person so he won't leave her in the dust.
(One questions, what does MCG mean?) Thank you for this. I've seen some GoT episodes with Arya and the Hound, and I do like their relationship. I think with the different roles that Etzeo plays, Abigail could definately find a way to connect with him. He and her right now, have just met, and she doesn't know his actual name, or what he looks like. She will be healed at least once more by him, and then I want them to meet each other proper when she is smuggled away to a city. I think your advice helped a lot on where this character is gonna go.
