Okay, so in the story I'm currently working on, my antagonist (a female warlock named Sharon Pratt) is trying to destroy the non-magical population. She disguised herself as a newsreader in New York City to be on the 'inside', and to be familar to and respected by the non-magical humans. My question is actually about her motivation. The reason she wants to destroy the non-magical population is to avenge her mother's death. Her was burned at the stake by the non-magical humans (yes, warlocks live for hundreds of years) for practicing witchcraft. My question(s): Is her motivation realistic? Is anything out-of-place? Does it bring up any questions?
It sounds pretty realistic to me, there's just one question you may need to address - why did she wait so long? (give them a chance to squirm, build up power, take them by surprise . . . there are hundreds of possibilities so it shouldn't be hard unless you're really picky, but it is semi-important.)
My first impression is that this hatred is too general. I would find it more compelling if she had a focus group for her wrath...for example, descendants of the Puritans, or the officials, who conducted the Salem witch trials and subsequent executions. Here is a link describing the entire Salem withch trial sequence of events, including many names of officials and of the unfortunate victims. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials You might study these real events and use the theme for your fiction thereby creating a specific lineage for her revenge. Otherwise, she just sounds like the typical hate-everyone psychopath. .....NaCl
I was going to focus her more on one group, but the reason I didn't was that, although the magical society known it's wrong, they tend to see the non-magical society as one race. Also, Sharon wants revenge on the non-magical humans for hating witchcraft as a whole because that's why her mother was burned. And a large percentage of the people I know see Wicca and witchcraft as Satanic (which I personally think is a load of complete rubbish - Satanic? Sure it is).
I think it sounds realistic. Revenge is a simple, yet effective, motive. Any long-lived individual would be never just 'forgive and forget', it's not as simple as being a normal human. Our lives are too short for holding grudges. But I think for someone like your antagonist, waiting and plotting until the moment's right and then 'huzzah!', a sweet victory. A good scheming plot is a lot like wine, it gets better with age. I agree with you that instead of selecting a group your antagonist generalizes. I see it a bit like the 9/11 attacks on America, and London as well. These radical extremists hate us as a whole. Not just the rich and famous. Or just the Christians. On another note: I, too, think it's a load of rubbish on how many people believe Wiccan and witchcraft as Satanic. That's a huge problem in America. A large majority of Christians believe Jews are Satanic, or that Atheists are Satanic, which is in and of itself antithetical.
I think it works and I don't see why you have to specialise her antagonism. The chances are that after centuries of plotting she probably wouldn't be in complete control of her reason in any case. One thing I would be careful of making too much of a thing out of the fact that whole magical community sees common humanity in general terms, it sounds incredibly patronising, a little bit like someone saying that all black people look the same to them.
Oops, sorry, lack of clarification... What I meant was the more 'evil' section of the magical community seeing the whole humanity as the same. And not in terms of appearance or beliefs, just in terms of being a different 'world', if you catch my meaning.
Maybe she waited to a certain time in which the non-magical population stopped believing in magic. And why all the non-magical population? She may answer this if she is the last warlock. "Why did they killed all of my kind?" "Now's my turn to kill all of their kind"
The long wait, in my opinion, seems like a flaw. If it was truely to avenge her mother's death, it would have been more instant out of a pure emotional rage. However, this can be counteracted by using a stronger motivation, such as a seething hatred that stemmed from that point (would mean she isn't off the bat wanting death/destruction) or at the time she was not powerful enough, or is laying low to discover who was behind her mother's death (possible consperacy(sp ) kind of thing, leading to major villians) Without a driving force behind a hundred years plot without action, I don't think I would be able to believe it.
She was very young when her mother was killed, so she didn't have half the power required to wipe out the non-magical humans. sp. = conspiracy.
yeah yeah.. I even had MSword open to check but it never occured to me to put it in there. Heh. Even so, after half the time to the present setting something would have probably been done... (hundreds of years.. very long time when you think about it) Sometihng like that happening during your childhood could cause enough emotional trama for her to hold a hundred year vendetta, no doubt. No one left to teach her what is neccicary to commit these acts? (enter sub character(s)) She was trying, but no efficient way? (give referance to her in lets say... WWI/II causing pandemonium in the trenches) Big gap bugs me XD
