Kai (and Phoenix), Perfect Characters and Imperfect Characters (Kai Being Perfect, Phoenix Being Imperfect.)

Out of all the male characters I have written, I have two favourites.

One is the Tsar. I didn’t understand him as a character until I was writing TRANSCEND. I couldn’t find out what motivated him, what made him who he was.

And the other character is Kai.

Most of the characters in CONSEQUENCE came into my head pretty early on. Kai wasn’t one of those characters.

He didn’t form straight away, but a little bit at a time. It was last summer when Kai came into my mind. I was writing CONSEQUENCE, and I had just gotten the idea for the Estonian Institute of Scientific Research (or EISR, as it’s mostly known as in the books). I knew that Phoenix would spend quite a bit of time there without Persephone, and I knew that she would need someone to keep her company.

A few ideas for characters ran through my mind, but none of them seemed…right. At least, not for Phoenix. She is the kind of character who is very picky about whom she’s friends with. And she is also the kind of character who will not hesitate to tell me that I’m writing the book wrong (or finding the wrong cover, using the wrong words, describing her the wrong way, making her react the wrong way, blah blah blah).

But Kai was perfect for Phoenix. They had stuff in common, but they were almost completely opposite.

Kai was almost perfect, and Phoenix…well, she was not perfect. She was so opinionated, and eccentric, and ALWAYS had to be right. (Oh wait, I think I just described myself…)

And Kai was like an antidote to that. He was calm and loving and peaceful. He was the kind of person who loved everybody equally. And Phoenix was the kind of person who loved a couple of people, and would be absolutely fine if everyone else in the world just disappeared.

And somehow, Kai (SPOILER ALERT!) loved Phoenix. Perhaps because she was so different from him. Or maybe because he admired her. (Phoenix tells me that she has lots of admirable qualities. She also tells me that I can’t contradict her on that, because she is always right).

Or maybe Kai didn’t have a choice…When Phoenix loves someone; she loves them with her whole self. They become her entire world. If someone was met with the full force of her love, it would be hard for them not to return that love.

Plus, Phoenix likes to get her own way. (Like, this blog was meant to be about Kai, yet, somehow, Phoenix seems to be mentioned almost as often as he is.) So if she wanted Kai to love her, he would.

Anyway, what was I saying before Phoenix hijacked my brain?

Oh yes, I was talking about Kai.

Out of my two favourite male characters, I think Kai is my actual favourite. Though sometimes I’m like “is he realistic? Is he too nice?”

In the book I’m currently writing, my main male character is not perfect. He is very far from perfect. This proves how far along my writing has come within the last year.

In CONSEQUENCE, I had three main(ish) male characters. The Tsar, who was kind of evil. Drew, who was near perfect. And Kai, who was even closer to perfect than Drew was.

The only flaw I could find in Kai was that he dated Abynechka just to make Phoenix jealous. Abynechka is actually named after a girl called Abi who was mean to me once, so I never liked her character very much. Neither did Phoenix, though that was obviously for different reasons. Jealous is an understatement of what Phoenix felt. There is a scene in AMEND which shows that Phoenix was still mad about it, even after about thirteen years.

I sometimes wonder if it’s fair that my male characters have hardly any flaws, yet my female characters have hundreds. But recently I’ve been thinking, if people can’t be perfect in books, when can they be?

Would people read a book if male characters were uncommunicative flirtaholic idiots who were too busy looking at themselves in the mirror to notice that one of the female characters had been looking at them for the past half hour?

I wouldn’t read a book like that.

Though I did realize ~ to my horror ~ that the one thing my three favourite male characters of all time had in common was that they all tried to strangle their girlfriends/future girlfriends.

Okay, so two out of three of them had been mind-controlled, and the third one didn’t realize at the time that he would later fall in love with the alien, but still…I was kind of like “If these are fictional guys that are nice…what are the not-nice ones like?”.

The thing I seem to always read about “perfect” characters, is that they’re too unrealistic, too cardboard cut-out ish. But if characters aren’t cardboard cut-out ish, then what’s wrong with them being perfect?

Fictional characters aren’t meant to be an exact replica of real people. They have to be themselves, and if they are meant to be really abnormally nice, well then that’s who they are.

And some books need characters like that. For example, if Kai didn’t exist, Phoenix would be ten times more annoying than she is when is being as annoying as it’s possible to be. (She isn’t always as annoying in the books as I say she is, but remember, I’ve had her in my head for nearly a year, so I know just how annoying she can be).

The relationship between Phoenix and Kai is one of my favourite things to write. It’s just interesting how love can change Phoenix; make her a better person (and sometimes a worse one). It’s very different from her love for Persephone, too. With Persephone, Phoenix loves her so much, but she doesn’t trust her completely. The ultimate level of Phoenix’s trust is when she trusts someone with herself.

Therefore, she trusts Kai more than Persephone. Even though she doesn’t like to talk to Kai about her friendship with Persephone ~ which implies that she doesn’t trust him quite as much as it appears. God, that girl is complicated!

In AMEND, Phoenix and Kai are married. They’ve been together for about thirteen years. And it’s really lovely to write ~ even though Phoenix is still insecure, which sometimes makes their relationship insecure.

But it’s also interesting to write just in terms of character development. I know about characters who develop on their own, but what about ones who develop together? It’s nice to see how Phoenix is when she has someone to depend on, someone who loves her for herself (despite her many, many flaws). She’s such a complex character, and being in love gives her a kind of simplicity.

The love between Phoenix and Kai is perhaps the strongest love in the whole trilogy. Yes, Persephone and Drew would die for each other. But Phoenix and Kai would live for each other. If Kai died, Phoenix wouldn’t kill herself. She would probably die of a broken heart, but she wouldn’t choose to die.

She loves Kai enough to know that he would want her to live.

And if it was the other way round, Kai would do the same.

There were several times in TRANSCEND where I was tempted to kill Phoenix. She was being particularly annoying, and I was getting rather sick of her. I’m glad that I didn’t kill her (not just cos she would be unbearable to have in my head).

But if I had killed Phoenix, what would have happened to Kai? Well, basically he wouldn’t be too great to have in my head, either (though he’s one of those lovely characters who has the decency to let me write what I want, rather than what they want).

And if I’d killed either of them, I would have lost one of my favourite storylines. So, I saw sense, and just fatally injured Phoenix. I think she’s almost forgiven me.

Another thing about my two favourite male characters: out of all the male characters, they are the ones that Phoenix has the strongest reaction to. Whether it’s extreme hatred towards the Tsar, or extreme love for Kai, those are two of the characters that she feels the most for.