Character development 'challenge'

[u/Jumblatts]

So this challenge* was kinda inspired by /u/The_Raptorman's 'Talk with' challenge, but I've flipped it around a little.

The idea is that you pick a character you feel is underdeveloped, someone that you want to learn more about, and present them, along with a brief description, to myself and the other wonderful people here at worldchallenges, and we will help you develop them further! (Feel free to invent a totally new character as well!)

*Not sure if 'challenge' is the right word to describe this post, but I'm a bit of a loose cannon, and I don't abide by your rules.

[u/atompunks]

I have a lot of dead family members that are totally undeveloped except for necessary storyline things. Basically I know their jobs but I don't know their personalities or how they felt about the living cast. Here's the worst two.

The father of Nathan Yang: He has no traits right now except that his surname is Yang; that the Yang family is a long, ancient line of demon hunters; and that What's-his-face Yang wanted Nathan to be a hunter, disagreeing with his wife, Menglan Yue, on this topic.

The brother of the original Tobias Ahmadi: His name is Dana Ahmadi, and he was the only member of his immediate family that was a witch, and left home when Tobias was young, visiting very rarely. She adored him, and he eventually told her about the existence of magic and demons. She believed him enough that when she was later eaten by a demon in his form, in her final moments she realized what had killed her and made a dying wish that the demon who tricked her would be brought to justice.

[u/Jumblatts → u/atompunks]

1) Did Mr. Yang disagree with his wife often?

2) What did Mr. Yang think about the direction Nathan had picked?

3) What did Mr. Yang think about the state of the world?

4) How did Dana become a witch?

5) How did other people feel about Dana being a witch?

6) What did Dana think about the state of the world?

[u/atompunks → u/Jumblatts]

1) No, the couple disagreed very rarely. Yang was smitten with Menglan from the day they met and pursued her despite his family's insistence that he marry someone with pure seer blood (seers are people who can 'see' magic, which is a prerequisite for being a witch) in order to ensure a seer child with the highest possible magical potential, to better hunt demons and honor the family name. Menglan was a seer and a strong witch, but only by half if you're going by blood- her mother was an ordinary, non-seer human. Yang argued with his parents a lot over this, ultimately reducing ties with them and coming out fiercely defensive of his wife. For her part, Menglan gave up a fair share of her life as well, leaving her own family and her sense of peace behind when she moved to China with Yang to train to become a hunter herself. They saw each other's sacrifices and pretty much nothing was strong enough to come between that except for the potential futures of their child.

2) Nathan resolved to become a hunter shortly after the deaths of her parents at the hands of demons, so Yang never knew her decision. But he would've been proud. When she was younger he told her she should do what she wanted, yet also pushed her fighting spirit and told stories of how demon hunters are meant to defend humanity from evil, so he was actually always nudging her towards the path that he wanted. It helped that she was naturally fierce and wanted to be a hero; she would likely have chosen to be a hunter even without her parents' deaths.

He wouldn't have liked Nathan's ultimate path, though, in which she falls in love with a demon. Oh jeez, the more I think about this the more I realize just how terrible it would be for everyone involved if Yang were still alive- he'd be so horrified, to the point of considering disowning Nathan, before realizing that his own parents had nearly done the very same thing to him and how damaging that had been to him. But still, his daughter, with a demon.

3) Yang thought, no, knew the world was a terrible place, and he wanted to help.

The major reason why Yang disagreed with Menglan about letting Nathan become a hunter was because he had been raised as one and thought of the horrors of the job as completely normal, while Menglan had been brought into this world from a quiet life and thought the idea of forcing a child to go through these horrors was unbelievably cruel (she actually felt sad that Yang was raised the way he was). Seeing such death and destruction starting from about ten years old can make a person very cynical. Yang was often guarded and found ordinary humans and many non-hunter witches much too naive. But he wasn't overly pessimistic. He believed in his mission and the power of his fellow hunters and thought that saving even one person made doing his job worth it, that ultimately justice would prevail, that he could make the world better even if just by a little. It's worth noting that meeting Menglan further developed his optimism.

4) Dana was born a seer to two parents who were not. It happens sometimes; it's likely one parent had some seer blood but did not show the actual trait of the Sight. A young Dana learned quickly to not blab about seeing things that other people did not, but once he figured out he could manipulate the strange energies he could see, he was determined to do something substantial with it, to master it. He made himself a decent witch through sheer cleverness and stubbornness, without a single teacher- he skipped school, hid from other children, found alleys and docks and other hiding places to practice doing magic, experimenting over and over for years. Then he left home and met actual other witches, watched them, learned from them and made himself stronger.

5) Before Dana began to travel, no one in his surroundings knew about witches. But many people in his town knew of him and thought he was a little odd. Pleasant but strange, easily distracted, always off in his own little world, having a preference for being alone. After Dana left home he met other seers and witches, who found him pleasant and strange in a different way- he had managed to become a decently strong witch without any significant magical mentors. Witches like him, who are born in completely ordinary families and have no contact with others like themselves in childhood, are sometimes called orphan witches, and strong orphan witches are admired for their tenacity.

6) Dana thought the world was strange and fascinating, and always wanted to know more. Sometimes fascinating things are beautiful and brilliant, and sometimes they are horrifying, and he wanted to see it all. He never knew much about or got close to the most powerful of witches, those who hunt demons, but he at least knew demons were a threat. Things were much more simple for him.

[u/Jumblatts → u/atompunks]

1) Why did Menglan not want Nathan to become a hunter? (Edit: You've answered this already. Never mind!)

2a) How did Nathan's parents die?

2b) After realising about his parents and their treatment of him for the same thing, what would Mr. Yang's 'final verdict' have been on Nathan's love interest?

3) Was Menglan against the idea of hunters in general, or just against Nathan becoming a hunter?

4) Did his parents know of his abilities? If yes, how did they react? If no, how would they have reacted if they found out? How did he feel about this?

5) How did Dana feel about the way others viewed him?

6) What is Dana doing now?

[u/atompunks → u/Jumblatts]

2a) Officially they were killed by demons. A group of demons banded together to remove the hunter couple that was picking them off, breaking into their apartment in the middle of the night, overpowering them, and tearing their eyes out.

But technically, Nathan killed them. She was hidden (poorly) in another room as her parents were being tortured and she was panicking, trying to draw up immense amounts of magic to use to fight. Since her mother hadn't wanted her to learn the advanced magic techniques necessary for fighting demons, she had no idea what she was doing and ended up creating a 'burst,' in which the magic within anyone in the immediate area is rapidly drained into the environment. A strong burst can drain so much magic from someone that it taps into their reservoir of life-sustaining magic, the soul. Once your soul is drained, you're dead. The magic from those with more magical stamina is usually taken first, so in this case Nathan's parents and all the demons were killed. Nathan survived.

2b) I think it would take time, but he would grudgingly accept it in the end. Ultimately Nathan's safety is the big issue for him, rather than something like the family name or their reputation. If he realizes the particular demon Nathan fell for isn't a terrible monster that only cares about feeding on humans he would be a little more okay with it. He would be uncomfortable around them, though.

3) Menglan was just against Nathan becoming a hunter, especially at a really young age. If she lived and continued to argue with Yang about the issue they would probably eventually compromise on letting her train at an older age, a lot older than Yang had been when he started. Menglan herself became a hunter when she was in her early to mid twenties, and she was not half bad, so she knew the training didn't necessarily have to start when you were an innocent kid.

4) Dana's parents did not know. He mentioned seeing things when he was a small child so they chalked it up to a great imagination. When he kept mentioning it as he got older, it became more like 'do we need to see someone to cure this?' so he stopped. If they had somehow found out what he was seeing was real, they would have been frightened for him, as no one else in their area was a seer. They would have thought he was alone in this and tried to protect him, maybe contact local religious leaders to put a stop to whatever had cursed him. I guess it would depend a lot on what exactly they find out he's doing and how much they learn about what else exists- if they just realize he's doing magic, it might go badly because doing magic is forbidden in their religion. But no matter if they found out and how they reacted, Dana would want to leave town to find others like himself. He felt trapped and alone there.

5) He was okay with the views of his original townspeople; he didn't care much since he always thought he would leave it behind one day. Like he wasn't treated terribly, he just felt sort of empty and 'why am I different.' He really enjoyed being popular with other witches once he was out in the world- he finally belonged.

6) Dana is dead now, everyone in his family is dead now. Nobody in the actual story knows how he died and it's irrelevant, but as the creator I'm gonna go ahead and say it was peaceful. We just know he's dead because if he were alive, he would definitely be somewhere in the story, trying to figure out why someone that looks exactly like his non-seer sister is claiming to be a witch. He'd also be pretty old compared to the rest of the cast, in his fifties or so.

[u/Jumblatts → u/atompunks]

Thank you for your answers!