02 03 Melody Jackson, Author: Character Spotlight: Toran 04 05 15 16 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 31 32 33

Character Spotlight: Toran

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 Hi everyone!! I'm here with another character spotlight about possibly one of my favorite characters: Toran.

(Picture from Pinterest)
(Picture from Pinterest)

Unfortunately, neither of these truly capture the essence of Toran's trademark grin, though the second one definitely shows his underlying sadness.

Anyway, onto a little description:

Toran is 20 years old and lives in the mountain with his quirky father, Nole, and his dragon companion Argo. His mother died when he was young, so he has been raised mostly by his father, which is a very interesting experience given Nile's oddities (which we'll explore more in a later post). He has thick, dark brown hair and eyebrows, as well as brown eyes. He's very tall and broad shouldered, and he wields an impressive amount of skill with a blade.

Fun fact: Toran learned to fight with a sword when he was only eight. As he tells Kaena in "The Dragon Within": "I got into places I shouldn't have been, found a sword and started swinging it around. Mother was furious, but Father thought it was the greatest thing ever."

If you remember from the last character spotlight (if not, it's here), I mentioned Jarden's name was originally Toran. But then I decided to change things, and Toran became his own unique person. Over time, his role, motives and past have changed, but a few things have always stayed constant: his role as Kaena's companion/protector and, of course, his mischievous grin.

At one point, Toran was not such a nice guy. In my development of him, he was at one point a smuggler or someone else doing illegal activities for his own gain, and also a massive flirt( well, he still kind of ended up being a flirt, but not so much during the story--just before).
 He also owned a ship at one point and was a "salesman" that Kaena ran away with when he found out about her dragon and said he would help her, because it wasn't safe for her to stay at home anymore.

As you can see, Toran has changed a lot from the first few drafts. One thing that rather surprised me while writing the book is how deep and thoughtful Toran is. I had him figured as a carefree jokester who wanted to see the world, but he developed into so much more than that, which I'm really glad for.

One more interesting thing: Kaena used to have a massive crush on Toran. It originally ran throughout the story, but I ended up greatly disliking the entire idea and tossed it from the story--though I did mention that Kaena still used to have a crush on Toran, but that was before the story begins, in the years she can't remember. It made quite an interesting scene when Toran brought it up to her. ;)

Well, that's Toran for you! Next week I'll be talking about another favorite character of mine, Treya.

Okay, I really need to stop saying "favorite character". I love them all; I can't really choose a "favorite". Besides, that would be favoritism, and I can already hear the characters complaining about that. Let's face it; they're all my favorite characters. ;)

And that's all for now, folks. :)

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