F is for Franz

It’s April, and that means it’s time for the A to Z challenge. I really must be a glutton for punishment; April is my last month of college, and I’m still an amateur blogger, but I must say, I’m looking forward to the challenge. I’m going to be writing short little blurbs about some retired characters from my DISTANT past up until recently; all of them are failed concepts. Part of me is hoping that writing about these characters will inspire me…perhaps to write more during the summer when school is out.

Believe it or not, I’m actually kind of fond of this character. Once again, his name isn’t the best, and the concepts around him might be a little too grandiose, but I do think there’s potential.

The rumors say that his family, the von Grieg family, died in a tragic fire that just so happened to break out after the head of the family, Franz’s eldest brother, declared he opposed the monarchy. Franz was a survivor of the tragedy, but badly burned on about half of his body. His vice had always been his vanity, and since he didn’t have much left to brag about, he lost his mind. It didn’t help matters that he was captured by the monarchy his brother opposed.

I think where I went wrong with it was I was young, and I didn’t know much about psychology. I wanted him to have two different personalities, what I considered multiple personality disorder. That was an error any teenager could have made. I still think he has potential to be either a redeemable villain or anti-hero, but I would have to account for his switch in personality a little bit better.

One of my favorite stories I wrote with him was about how he interacted with his adopted younger (twin) brothers. Remember when I said I had a minor obsession with twins? So far in this challenge, we’re up to two sets of twins. Ahem. Well, he and his little brothers started up a von Grieg family circus in which he was the ringmaster. It gave him a reason to showcase his good looks and his little brothers got to parade around like little acrobats. It was a very “un-noble-like” thing to do. But I thought that little tidbit made him unique.