Ahhh, Laertia! Far and away one of my favorite characters.
Its been such fun, building her up the best I can! I've liked writing her from the very first post.
To put it simply, Laertia is a bundle of dysfunction. A Tragedy happening in slow motion. But as to what inspired her, well that requires a bit of elaboration. I've glossed over the inspirations for this character briefly, with other writers, but I decided to elaborate on each a bit here.
1: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader
Anakin Skywalker is pretty much her first and chief inspiration, and I took pains to parallel the two in key ways (Even their last names have deliberate parallels: Crownwraithe, Skywalker, both names reference something associated with something out of reach by normal means for normal people. The breadth of a sky for Anakin, the height of authority and power and influence for Laertia.) Anakin had a mother and lost her in a horrible way when he was an adult, damaging him psychologically for the rest of his life, Laertia was forced to endure without a parental figure as a child for years, and the main Parental figure in her life that shaped her turned out to have never been anything but a sadistic monster hiding behind a False Light. Laertia, in a sense, experienced the same thing Anakin did when his mother died. Her "Mother" died in her heart when the Amalgam showed her the truth on Kar Shian, but where Anakin lost his mother in a desert of sand, Laertia lost her "Mother" in a place of snow, and all of this gives them both severe mommy issues. I know many other writers have Anakin type playbys, so I decided that my approach would be to take almost all of his most negative traits, ramping them up to as close to Max as I could, and giving that to Laertia, along with trying to be as subtle as I could about other references to Vader or Anakin, such as frequent Bacta baths. This lead to her being particularly damaged early in her life over Maple for being the favorite of her Master, Ursula, and how it sort of psychologically crippled her in many ways as a Jedi, which in turn led to her eventual attempted (albeit subconscious) suicide by combat. When Laertia is first introduced, a lot of her worst fears of turning into Anakin have been partly realized (I decided it would be really interesting to have the character highly self aware of the similarity, and actively hating and despising it.): She has become a cyborg with a mechanical arm, like him, and needs special armors or gear to function in the field, requiring constant medical attention, though her sanity is kept together by doing magic and being cared for by the Android Moya and caring for her rabbits. She is extremely devoted to who she loves but her self confidence has always been harmed by her inability to correct her speech impediment, which was a lifelong issue. I wanted anyone who read to pay attention to her actions more than her words, and when she did speak, I tried to make so that hopefully, when or if someone read, they would pay attention closely to the sentiment behind the words, because they had to decipher the misspelled stuff more closely. So that, when it was removed, and her words started matching and expressing her intent and action, anyone who was caught by surprise might then realize what she is doing now is in fact totally in character, and in fact everything she has seen and done was leading up to this.
She also possesses extensive knowledge about the Lightsaber, but, like Anakin, all that knowledge and power seems to do is make her life worse.
2: Captain America/Winter Soldier
I love making Marvel references. The whole "Super Soldier" aspect of Laertia was inspired by this. But She leans much closer to Winter Soldier, "brainwashed" essentially the same way Barnes was except it was a much more subtle form of brainwashing that took place over a much longer period, and it was done essentially by giving the recipient exactly what they wanted: Purpose.
I didn't start playing up the ice references though until I had her run into Syd, and by the time she embraces Syd she truly has become a sort of Winter Soldier: She's cold to the violence and colder to the feud between the Jedi and the Sith.
3: Zatanna
Not as emphasized as much as I would have liked, admittedly. Her ability to perform at magic shows symbolized what was left of her innocence and desperation to retain her humanity. As time progressed, and she lost the chance to keep doing those, she noticably became a harder character. It was also used to foreshadow her eventual connection to the Arcane. But like I said, this influence has not been heavily emphasized. Being a famous Magician was Laertia's way to gain admiration or adoration from ordinary people, who she knew would otherwise be frightened and repulsed by her. Part of her, even now, craves to be a normal, unpowered human who can live amongst other, normal, unpowered humans and this was the closest she could get to reaching out to them and understand them...
4: Cassandra Cain (Comic Book Version)
She and Maple share this bit of Influence in that she was raised by an evil assassin and grew up really messed up as a result, but is an undeniable combat master
5: Nebula
This character influenced her rivalry the strongest when it came to her and Maple. Made better by the fact they are both cyborgs, and Laertia's parent figure had purple skin like Thanos did.
6: Renard The Anarchist (The World is not enough)
This character influenced the decision to give her Brain damage as her particular ailment. Like her, Renard possesses injuries that affect her judgement. Like Renard, she is incredibly violent, and willing and able to kill a ton of people. Unlike Renard though, her injuries do not provide any fringe benefits like inability to feel pain. They are both incredibly loyal to the woman in their lives, even to the point of being willing to die for them. Like Renard, the Woman they love is not what they appear to be...
007: Tony Stark
Gadget expert? Check. A wall displaying their armors? Check. Assisted by a beautiful woman? Check. Surrounded by Artificial Intelligence Systems? Check. Badass? Check. Has their own Iron Legion? Check.
On more general basis, I intended Laertia as the opposite of Maple in terms of skill, in that she more heavily emphasizes The Amalgam's melee skills where Maple emphasizes her ranged training (Putting The Amalgam right in the middle of the two in terms of skill)
The main reason I decided to create her at all though was because I wanted to explore what turns someone like Anakin into such a deadly threat. Is it circumstances? Or is it something inherently in their own nature that inevitably leads to rebellion? Does having people around such a person who are actively aware of the danger of the character slipping make any difference at all, even when going out of their way to avoid a tragedy like what happened with Skywalker? Or is it all a doomed effort because something is wrong with the core of the very being of the character they are trying to steer from disaster?
Honestly though, the best part of Laertia is putting in all these varying insecurities and letting them build, over her perception of herself and perceptions of others, and seeing how she changes to adept, even under intense emotional distress. But I want to emphasize, though before finishing this article, that I owe a lot to everyone who has written with me where this character is concerned, and I might not have ended up liking her even half as much as I do without the reactions and ideas of other writers to round out what I was doing with her. To all those who have helped me out in threads involving her, you have my sincerest thanks.
Its been such fun, building her up the best I can! I've liked writing her from the very first post.
To put it simply, Laertia is a bundle of dysfunction. A Tragedy happening in slow motion. But as to what inspired her, well that requires a bit of elaboration. I've glossed over the inspirations for this character briefly, with other writers, but I decided to elaborate on each a bit here.
1: Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader
Anakin Skywalker is pretty much her first and chief inspiration, and I took pains to parallel the two in key ways (Even their last names have deliberate parallels: Crownwraithe, Skywalker, both names reference something associated with something out of reach by normal means for normal people. The breadth of a sky for Anakin, the height of authority and power and influence for Laertia.) Anakin had a mother and lost her in a horrible way when he was an adult, damaging him psychologically for the rest of his life, Laertia was forced to endure without a parental figure as a child for years, and the main Parental figure in her life that shaped her turned out to have never been anything but a sadistic monster hiding behind a False Light. Laertia, in a sense, experienced the same thing Anakin did when his mother died. Her "Mother" died in her heart when the Amalgam showed her the truth on Kar Shian, but where Anakin lost his mother in a desert of sand, Laertia lost her "Mother" in a place of snow, and all of this gives them both severe mommy issues. I know many other writers have Anakin type playbys, so I decided that my approach would be to take almost all of his most negative traits, ramping them up to as close to Max as I could, and giving that to Laertia, along with trying to be as subtle as I could about other references to Vader or Anakin, such as frequent Bacta baths. This lead to her being particularly damaged early in her life over Maple for being the favorite of her Master, Ursula, and how it sort of psychologically crippled her in many ways as a Jedi, which in turn led to her eventual attempted (albeit subconscious) suicide by combat. When Laertia is first introduced, a lot of her worst fears of turning into Anakin have been partly realized (I decided it would be really interesting to have the character highly self aware of the similarity, and actively hating and despising it.): She has become a cyborg with a mechanical arm, like him, and needs special armors or gear to function in the field, requiring constant medical attention, though her sanity is kept together by doing magic and being cared for by the Android Moya and caring for her rabbits. She is extremely devoted to who she loves but her self confidence has always been harmed by her inability to correct her speech impediment, which was a lifelong issue. I wanted anyone who read to pay attention to her actions more than her words, and when she did speak, I tried to make so that hopefully, when or if someone read, they would pay attention closely to the sentiment behind the words, because they had to decipher the misspelled stuff more closely. So that, when it was removed, and her words started matching and expressing her intent and action, anyone who was caught by surprise might then realize what she is doing now is in fact totally in character, and in fact everything she has seen and done was leading up to this.
She also possesses extensive knowledge about the Lightsaber, but, like Anakin, all that knowledge and power seems to do is make her life worse.
2: Captain America/Winter Soldier
I love making Marvel references. The whole "Super Soldier" aspect of Laertia was inspired by this. But She leans much closer to Winter Soldier, "brainwashed" essentially the same way Barnes was except it was a much more subtle form of brainwashing that took place over a much longer period, and it was done essentially by giving the recipient exactly what they wanted: Purpose.
I didn't start playing up the ice references though until I had her run into Syd, and by the time she embraces Syd she truly has become a sort of Winter Soldier: She's cold to the violence and colder to the feud between the Jedi and the Sith.
3: Zatanna
Not as emphasized as much as I would have liked, admittedly. Her ability to perform at magic shows symbolized what was left of her innocence and desperation to retain her humanity. As time progressed, and she lost the chance to keep doing those, she noticably became a harder character. It was also used to foreshadow her eventual connection to the Arcane. But like I said, this influence has not been heavily emphasized. Being a famous Magician was Laertia's way to gain admiration or adoration from ordinary people, who she knew would otherwise be frightened and repulsed by her. Part of her, even now, craves to be a normal, unpowered human who can live amongst other, normal, unpowered humans and this was the closest she could get to reaching out to them and understand them...
4: Cassandra Cain (Comic Book Version)
She and Maple share this bit of Influence in that she was raised by an evil assassin and grew up really messed up as a result, but is an undeniable combat master
5: Nebula
This character influenced her rivalry the strongest when it came to her and Maple. Made better by the fact they are both cyborgs, and Laertia's parent figure had purple skin like Thanos did.
6: Renard The Anarchist (The World is not enough)
This character influenced the decision to give her Brain damage as her particular ailment. Like her, Renard possesses injuries that affect her judgement. Like Renard, she is incredibly violent, and willing and able to kill a ton of people. Unlike Renard though, her injuries do not provide any fringe benefits like inability to feel pain. They are both incredibly loyal to the woman in their lives, even to the point of being willing to die for them. Like Renard, the Woman they love is not what they appear to be...
007: Tony Stark
Gadget expert? Check. A wall displaying their armors? Check. Assisted by a beautiful woman? Check. Surrounded by Artificial Intelligence Systems? Check. Badass? Check. Has their own Iron Legion? Check.
On more general basis, I intended Laertia as the opposite of Maple in terms of skill, in that she more heavily emphasizes The Amalgam's melee skills where Maple emphasizes her ranged training (Putting The Amalgam right in the middle of the two in terms of skill)
The main reason I decided to create her at all though was because I wanted to explore what turns someone like Anakin into such a deadly threat. Is it circumstances? Or is it something inherently in their own nature that inevitably leads to rebellion? Does having people around such a person who are actively aware of the danger of the character slipping make any difference at all, even when going out of their way to avoid a tragedy like what happened with Skywalker? Or is it all a doomed effort because something is wrong with the core of the very being of the character they are trying to steer from disaster?
Honestly though, the best part of Laertia is putting in all these varying insecurities and letting them build, over her perception of herself and perceptions of others, and seeing how she changes to adept, even under intense emotional distress. But I want to emphasize, though before finishing this article, that I owe a lot to everyone who has written with me where this character is concerned, and I might not have ended up liking her even half as much as I do without the reactions and ideas of other writers to round out what I was doing with her. To all those who have helped me out in threads involving her, you have my sincerest thanks.
