Joely Sue Burkhart

Welcome back to the show “Every Character is the Star of His Own Story,” brought to you in order to create more satisfying secondary characters.  The star of the show today is Theo, a very vile villain from the Shanhasson trilogy.  This interview dumped some very startling information into my lap, which I’ll be using as I come down to the climax and resolution of the Road to Shanhasson.

Arnold Vosloo sat down in the chair beside my desk. “Tell me about the role you’d like me to play.”

“Well…” I tried to push away the image of the Mummy and see my character, but Imhotep still stared back at me. “I had you in mind as Theo, one of the villains in the Shanhasson trilogy.”

Imhotep/Arnold smiled and my skin crawled in a delightfully creepy…yet still very Mummy-inspired…way. “I do love playing villains. But…?”

“I’m having a problem,” I admitted. “I see you sitting here and think *squee* Imhotep! Instead of *gulp* Theo. I’m trying to get deeper into his head, and I thought interviewing you would help.”

“Why did you pick me in the first place?”

“Because you’re such a delicious villain and… you’re bald. Theo’s head is mostly shaved except for his prince’s lock at the base of his neck.”

Imhotep/Arnold reached over his shoulder and pulled a long dark braid over his shoulder. “Like this?”

“Not quite. It should be longer, nearly dragging the ground, not braided, and it’s banded by golden rings for each of his birthdays.”

“How old is he?”

“Twenty one.”

“Hmmm. Quite younger than myself but I can easily adapt.”

Indeed, he did look quite a bit younger, and now the hair was right, his scalp gleaming just like I imagined. But he was still Imhotep/Arnold not Theo.

“What mannerisms does this villain have?”

That was easy. “He constantly fingers that hair. If he’s upset, he tugs on it. If he’s thinking creepy nasty thoughts, well… You get the idea.”

Indeed, Imhotep/Arnold did: his fingers crawled down the hank of hair, fingers caressing his hair with a wicked glint in his eyes that promised pain and death.

“That’s good, real good, but you’re still not Theo.”

Imhotep/Arnold shrugged. “So tell me about him. Why is he the villain?”

“He’s the Crown Prince, now the High King, and Shannari is his competition for the High Throne.”

“Blah blah blah. Tell me about him, the man.”

“He hates Shannari and wants her dead. He sold his soul to the dark side to keep his throne. He’s into torture and pain.”

“Why?”

“She’ll kill him to take the High Throne, so he has to kill her first.”

“No, why is he into torture and pain?”

I shrugged. “He just is.”

“I must know why. He’s evil, fine. He’s a villain, great. But why is he evil? When did it start?”

“The seed was always there. He was born into the royal line descended from Our Blessed Lady, the same as Shannari, but his line is Shadowed. One of his ancestors was evil, and that thread continues in the blood line.”

Imhotep/Arnold narrowed his eyes and drummed his fingers on the desk impatiently. “You’re telling me that one of your major villains is simply the villain because he was born to be bad?”

Gee, it sounded really lame when he said it that way. “Everyone has a choice, a chance at redemption,” I added defensively. “He chooses not to listen.”

“Why?”

Okay, that innocent little question was really starting to annoy me. “It’s too late for him.”

“Why?”

#&*%@!#@ !!!

“Feel better now?” Imhotep/Arnold asked mildly.

“No.”  I sighed, my shoulders slumped. I didn’t want a cartoon villain. Yeah, Theo was nasty and vile and all, but Imhotep/Arnold was right. Why was he that way? Just for my convenient little plot? How stupid was that?

“Tell me about the first person he killed.” When I sat there blinking stupidly, Imhotep/Arnold started to glare at me. “If you want me to play this villain, I get to kill people. So tell me how Theo lost his murdering virginity.”

“He killed his father.”

“Ah, now he’s starting to sound interesting. How old was he?”

Humph, no why question this time? “Young. Six or seven. He pushed him down the stairs.”

Imhotep/Arnold frowned. Funny, with no hair covering his head, I could see the plates and bones of his scalp moving, grinding together in thought. That would be cool to use. “Are you sure?”

At this point I wasn’t sure of anything. “Maybe, maybe not.” I arched a brow at him. “Why do you ask?”

Ah, it was nice to get in a little dig of my own.

“It’s too easy, too clean.”

Until I got his answer, that is, and realized I had a sneaking suspicion he was right. Damn.

“Did his father abuse him?”

“We’re trying to avoid stereotypes here, okay? His father didn’t abuse him, not exactly.” Or did he? Why did Theo hate Shannari so much? It was more than her blood, more than her right to the High Throne… Once I started asking why, I couldn’t stop.

“Skip ahead,” Imhotep/Arnold whispered, his voice sliding into silky menace that he did so well. “What’s the most horrible thing he does in your story?”

“He murders children as sacrifices to the Great Lord, Lygon, Blackest Heart of Darkness.” And what a horrible scene it was. I was going to need to scrub my brain with Clorox once I finished writing it.

Imhotep/Arnold leaned forward, his eyes swirling with something dark. Hadn’t they been blue when he walked in? I couldn’t remember. “That’s a perfectly villainous thing to do. But how can you make it awful for Theo in particular? How is sacrificing children the worst possible deed you could force him to commit?”

A thought gnawed deep in my mind, reminding me uncomfortably of wriggling worms. “He hates slaughtering children…” I didn’t wait for Imhotep/Arnold to ask me why… “Because of what his father did to him when he was a kid. His father was insane, and he thought he could cut out the evil, like it was something living and contained within his son that could be removed.”

The awful truth dawned on me, my mind racing forward, connecting dots I hadn’t even seen in that first draft so many years ago. Oh my Blessed Lady above. I’d come so close…and missed it by a mile. I could add so many things based off this. Mannerisms, horrors, skin-tingling things that had never occurred to me. “He killed his father to save himself. He killed his mother for failing to love him enough to protect him. Killing those kids…”

“…Is like suffering the same torture all over again at my father’s hands. If I’m not already certifiably crazy, I am now.”

I smiled and turned to my laptop. “Thanks, Theo.”

Sliding the prince’s lock through his fingers, he laughed, and it felt like claws had raked down my spine. “My pleasure.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 4:00 am and is filed under Writing, My Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.