#composite character

Okay. I'll have to take your word for it.

The crux of YHWH seems to be that he's a composite of many other gods, god traditions, myths, legends and other superstitions all collapsed down to a single character. Legends and tales involving different and competing gods or demigods have been reworked into monotheism, attributing all the contradictions, contentions and drama to a single individual.

Imagine if the personalities of the Simpsons family were all incorporated into a single person. That's YHWH.

I’ve mentioned this to a few on Discord before, but they could have just combined the characters of Lila and Zoe into ONE single character.

Despite being portrayed as a major antagonist, Lila hasn’t seen much use. In addition, her lies are so outrageous that it makes everyone else look dumbed down in order to believe her rather than making Lila out to be a real credible threat.

Zoe, on the other hand, while nice and sweet, feels superfluous. She’s ultimately just a replacement for Chloe since Thomas didn’t want her to be a hero. If that was really the case, no Bee user was really necessary. There are a multitude of other options the writers could use besides needing individual holders for the Miraculous: still as of yet unrevealed Miraculous, dual wielding, and potions come to mind. These are gimmicks that they have introduced but done very little with, even if they would be extremely useful to the heroes at this point, and even act as game breakers for the fight against Hawk Moth.

So we have one character not being used enough and another one introduced at the last minute with little purpose. The simple answer would be to simply combine the two into one single character:

Chloe’s sister, who is a massive liar and manipulator but hides it behind a sweet facade.

If Zoe was more like Lila, I could see her using Chloe as a tool to make herself look better. After all, who would ever suspect Zoe of anything when Chloe is right there? Always a bully. Always overly emotional. Always acting out. Always demanding to get her way and throwing massive tantrums and running to Andre whenever she doesn’t get what she wants.

It would ultimately be what ends up causing trouble in the family. Zoe would cause trouble and then frame Chloe for things and Chloe would know Zoe was actually responsible and in turn blame her and throw a tantrum. Andre would of course cater to Chloe, but that would just make everyone watching think that Chloe is falsely blaming Zoe for what she does and getting away with it, which only makes people sympathize with Zoe and like her more. The fact that Chloe would be telling the truth would be overlooked. And Audrey would see the difference in behavior as well. And when it comes to which of her daughters to take with her to New York to be with her and see the inside of her industry...well, of course she's going to take the "well behaved daughter".

It could even play into Chloe’s character arc and show how she develops. Zoe would regularly lie and blame Chloe for things she did, and Chloe would react in a way that seems more like a child throwing a tantrum to not have to deal with a consequence rather than a girl who was upset over being falsely blamed for something that wasn’t her fault. And since she’s so used to it, she ends up just responding that way to everyone in general.

As the only one who knew Zoe was lying and getting away with it, she’d ultimately feel she’d have to throw the tantrums and demand her father punish Zoe to see any justice done. But even this only helped Zoe in the end, as it would cause everyone else to see Zoe as the sympathetic figure who is being falsely blamed by her immature sister...they wouldn’t know Zoe was the one who started it in the first place.

And that would be how they grow up. With Zoe antagonizing and setting up Chloe while Chloe would have outbursts in response that everyone felt they just had to put up with. And when Audrey leaves for New York and needs to decide whether to take her daughters with her...well, clearly Zoe is so well behaved and polite and wonderful while Chloe is demanding and accusatory.

Zoe would know this, and as New York would come with more opportunities for her, Zoe would want to go...and all the better if she can cost Chloe the opportunity. So she sets up another incident framing Chloe. Chloe of course tries in vain to tell everyone Zoe did it. And no one believes her.

Audrey ultimately deems Chloe unable to handle it, so she goes to New York with just Zoe, and leaves Chloe behind.

It’d explain why Chloe acts as she does in canon and is so reliant on her father’s authority for any perceived slight. She felt her sister always got away with everything and her father has been the only one in her corner. In her mind, her actions are always the lesser problem compared to the wrongs of someone else because she has that inner need to see justice done after all that time dealing with someone who always seemed to sidestep it.

Cue Chloe’s character arc, as she starts to or is even FORCED to start to take notice of just what SHE’S doing. How she’s hurting people and how her own behavior is unjust. As she grows and stops responding to every perceived slight, she gains the ability to better handle situations without blowing up. And even, dare I say, starts to gain real friends.

Then Zoe returns. And it seems like a perfect opportunity to play again at the tricks and manipulations she subjected Chloe to as kids. Only this time, Chloe is able to not only NOT respond, but to outwit her. AND she has support this time.

It wouldn’t undo all of Zoe’s manipulations over the years. And it wouldn’t justify Chloe’s own bullying. But it would better explain a lot of why she is how she is, and offer more of a step for her to break out of it.

The TV version of Camina is a composite of four different characters from the novels: Samara Rosenberg, “Bull” de Baca, Michio Pa, and Camina Drummer herself.  Her friendship and history with Naomi Nagata is pulled from Sam, who was a close friend of Naomi’s who Naomi even briefly lived with when her relationship with Holden and the Rocinante was on the rocks.  Her storyline in season three aboard the Behemoth was a mixture of Bull and Michio’s storyline in opposition to Ashford, but primarily Bull.

Now, her current storyline in season five is a direct pull of Michio’s individual story in Babylon’s Ashes, and with the additions of the other characters to the backstory it works much better than it did in the novel.

The problem with Michio’s storyline in the novel -- which I complained about while reading it -- was that she is a character who knowingly and willingly joined, supported, and enabled a genocidal monster.  Marco Inaros never had a proverbial gun to her head to force her compliance, she heard his plan and of her own free will decided that it was a good plan and she wanted to be part of it.  When she later in the novel decides to betray him because of a different evil action it rings incredibly hollow.  Like that “Leopards Eating People’s Faces” meme, “I didn’t think that when I decided to support a man who would kill billions of innocent people on the other side that he would also kill some innocent people on our side”.

Camina in the TV series, on the other hand, wasn’t a party to his plan to attack the Earth.  Before this we saw her actively oppose his ideology and work against him.  She had no idea it was coming and so does not bear any guilt for helping it to come about (She does blame herself for not killing Inaros when she had the chance, but it’s not the same thing).  Afterwards, when Inaros offers her faction the opportunity to join his navy, he absolutely does have the proverbial gun to her head.  There’s a lot of implied threats -- and some directly-stated threats as well -- that if she doesn’t join his ‘Free Navy’ her faction will be hunted down.  And not just by him, either.  His actions were so brazen that Earth will be driven to take revenge on all Belters, so even if she repudiates him the UN forces will still be gunning for her and without the support of the Free Navy there will be nothing to stop them.  This pressure, plus the fact that Inaros’s attack has already happened and she can’t do anything to stop it, gives her an “out” when she inevitably later decides to betray him.

I predict that she won’t actively betray him just yet in season five, but that it will happen in season six to directly align with the adaptation of Babylon’s Ashes.  When she does turn against him she’ll be able to say “I couldn’t have stopped the attack on Earth then, but now I can stop [XXXXX]” or “I thought we had no choice but to submit in order to survive, but this price is too high”.  And this will allow we-the-audience to grant her our permission to do so, instead of viewing her as a hypocrite.

So a while back me and Maddie designed some composite characters for each other based on characters that we enjoyed and design traits we liked, and this is the one she did for me. I've decided to name them Enfys. I get the feeling that they probably run a magical candy shop or something, they give off that sort of vibe.

Commissions ~ Redbubble ~ Patreon

~If you like, please consider reblogging to show your friends!~

It'd also be a way of showing a lesson of how to deal and not deal with that sort of person. Because the sort of manipulator that Zoe would represent is in a lot of ways worse than the standard bully that Chloe is.

Part of Chloe's problem in this setup would be in that she's overly reactionary in general. She would be especially sensitive to what Zoe does and wouldn't handle it well because she's so focused on what Zoe is doing that she doesn't realize why people don't believe her. If she stayed calm and thought things through, she could avoid falling into Zoe's trap.

The lesson that Lila presents in canon is supposed to be that lying is bad, but it doesn't work because Marinette is our point of view character and she knows from the start that Lila is lying. As such, we as the audience knew going in that Lila was a liar and is in the wrong with no buildup or reveal to it because it's literally the first thing we learn about her in the episode and the series proper. Because of this, it feels more jarring that the lesson seems to be more that Marinette is the one wrong for calling out Lila's lies and hurting her feelings than Lila is for choosing to lie about her in the first place when it is clear that Lila is not a good person and we are NOT supposed to be supporting her.

It would hit more if Marinette and the audience walked into this situation just as blind as everyone else. Because Zoe would be subtle and not overreach in her lies. Rather than rely on false claims of relationships, she would play on the emotional heartstrings of the class more by throwing Chloe under the bus and making herself look like Chloe's victim. Tell stories about their childhood and all the ways Chloe tried to get her in trouble over the years (especially as it would technically be the truth). That would immediately gain her the sympathy of the entire class and Marinette (as she has been Chloe's go-to victim) AS WELL AS the sympathy of the audience since we would know about Chloe and how she is by this point so the idea of Chloe bullying and mistreating her sister would seem pretty likely.

Then have the reveal come out slowly but surely. Hints here and there that indicate Zoe may not be as innocent or as much of a victim as she initially appears. Show a shot of Chloe ranting to Adrien. Show Adrien trying to support Chloe and everyone chalk it up to him being her friend and not knowing better. Have Marinette overhear Chloe's version of the past event Zoe mentioned. Have Zoe pull a similar stunt in current day and someone actually pay attention and notice things aren't lining up. Have someone actually witness the confrontation between Zoe and Chloe where Zoe smugly admits to setting Chloe up again.

That sense of betrayal would hit the audience then about as much as the character and would cement that yes, Zoe is the one in the wrong here. With none of this, "yeah, she did wrong but so-and-so did worse so that equals it out" BS that the show tends to do.

No Bobbie Draper at all, which is disappointing since I love Bobbie, but which actually makes sense because even though everything turned out all right it doesn’t make any sense for Mars to have sent her right back out to continue dealing with the same situation.  I probably wouldn’t have complained if they’d tried to fudge things to keep her involved, like having her be routed there accidentally, but since I ask for my stories to make sense I suppose I can’t complain when they actually do it.

There was a complete personality reversal for Ashford.  He makes almost all of the same actual decisions in the show as he did the book, but from different angles and in an entirely different way.  The TV!Ashford is straight badass and rock-solid competent.  He may be wrong, and in fact he is wrong, but that’s just because he’s wrong.  book!Ashford on the other hand is a preening egotist driven by fear and fear of failure.  Instead of viewing the information and coming to an incorrect conclusion he’s driven by panic and pettiness and the need for personal vengeance.

Camina Drummer simply isn’t present at all, which surprised me since I didn’t know she was a character that the TV series decided to introduce early.  Her role is instead filled by Bull and Pa, and also Sam, and I must say I was honestly surprised by what happened with Sam.

This all lead to the unusual situation where I knew exactly where the story would go, but not how they’d get there.