Why Arlen is so Awesome
Posted by Meg
Art by adamreese2006
A lot of folks name Arlen as their favorite character in the The Demon Cycle books, whether they are writing a review, email or arguing vehemently on the Forum. Personally, I am a fan of Leesha, but that’s probably because she makes magical cloaks and cool potions.
So what draws us to Arlen? He is the first of the main characters that we meet, and his struggle seems to shape the book and his actions directly impact the future of Thesa. Perhaps it is his fierce determination we admire? Or maybe, we just love the way he obliterates corelings like a ninja.
The blog Never Say Die recently listed The Warded Man as one of the best fantasy reads out there. His sentence long review of the book might have the best summary of The Warded Man (and Arlen) I’ve ever read:
Demons come out of the ground at night to terrorise/kill folks and have to be kept back by wards, gradual decline of a largely cowed humanity as a result, young chap has enough of hiding and goes Chuck Norris on the bastards, more or less.
Now I am just picturing a warded Chuck Norris punching fire demons in the throat.
Book Banter’s review of The Warded Man does a great job exploring the roles of each of the main characters and how they effect the storyline, but describes in detail Arlen’s devastation at his mother’s death while his father is so unreachable and cowardly. Maybe the reason we like him so much is because he fits the young hero story arc of leaving his home behind and making a life for himself with the help of his talent and fearlessness. But I think the real reason we are so drawn to him is that rejects the role of being hero and fashions himself as a good samaritan, passing on the knowledge of wards and how to fight the corelings. A sort of Robin Hood character you can’t help but love.
Of course, Rojer and Leesha definitely hold their own in The Warded Man. Blogger Eric Christensen described the three main characters in a recent Warded Man review.
Although they learn similar lessons, the three protagonists do so from very different perspectives. Brett has created unique voices for each of them, making them very realistic.
What do you think? Who is your favorite character and why? Write in the comments or discuss further on the character thread on the Forum.
I think both reviews are on the mark. We love Arlen for those reasons stated, and for me, because I view his actions and choices as so completely honorable. He is a hard man in a hard world, but everything he does is in an effort to improve that world for him and those he cares for, let alone the rest of humanity. He is an amazing person for that. I feel that he will ultimately be the key to a united human victory.
That being said, he can’t and won’t do it alone. Leesha’s skills and determination are beyond measure. She values life to such an extent that she allowed herself to be raped rather than take life away from others. In a world where humanity is an endangered species, that is a huge statement, and truly an asset. She views the world in a different way than Arlen and the rest do, but her view is just as valid.
Rojer’s passion for his music is more than something commonplace – his passion has power. We’ve seen already that he is trying to share and spread his own gift. He had a big setback, but I think that his gift, and his part in the story, would be wasted if it isn’t expanded. I think he’ll play a large part in the Daylight War.
Ahman Jardin is an incredible warrior, and a credible leader for his people. Through his upbringing, however, he seems more narrow-minded. To me, this is a major character flaw. We have seen that he is willing to betray others when it suits him well enough. Black marks like that just aren’t forgotten. He’s a primary character, but not my favorite.
With all this said, I think I go back to the beginning with Arlen. His honor puts him above and beyond anyone else, and his courage is and devotion to his people are ideal traits for a hero in my eyes. Arlen is just about my ideal protagonist. He can be gritty and tough, but he knows what is right. He makes mistakes, but learns from them. I wish that all of us could be more like him.
Thanks for the outlet… I needed to let my mind run in this world again. It’s been too long.
Dan
Inevera is actually mine (which probably comes as a surprise) after reading the excerpt of her beginning her journey into the Dama’ting as well as her story in Desert Spear I feel like I want to know more about her and how she will contribute to shaping the things to come.
I like Leesha, Rojer, Renna and Abban very much, I even grew to like Jardir (somewhere in TDS). I’m also expecting to start liking Inevera, once I read TDW, but my favorite character in the Demon Cycle is, and I’m fairly sure that will always remain, Arlen Bales.
Why do people like him so much?
He is THE main character, after all.
I know that Peat ‘loves all his *children* evenly’ (Cassie, being excluded), and that he wants to write an equal amount of story from each of their’s POV, but there’s no arguing that without Arlen, there would be no story at all.
It was Arlen and his actions that influenced others to share their knowledge (ward exchange system in Fort Miln), taught them to stand together, not only in the light of day, but also under the veil of night (sharing war runes and teaching folks how to fight with corelings), and finally, gave them hope. Even before Arlen started sharing war runes, the stories of the Warded Man, capable of killing demons, spread widely around Thesa. People, slowly but surely, began believing that Deliverer has come back, and that there was a hope for them yet.
It was he, who saved Leesha and Rojer, giving them this final push, they needed to become people we now know.
If it wasn’t for his continuous search for the war runes, Jardir would have never united Krasia, and, true enough, Krasians would have never invaded Thesa, but people would remain on the defensive, during the night, until one day they would be nobody left to defend.
And Renna… poor Renna would be ripped apart by corelings, in this twisted punishment that people of Tibbet’s Brook cooked up for her.
All of the main characters can easily win you over, but it was Arlen that made all of this possible. Nothing will change that.
I think Ral stated it all pretty well. ./agree
My fav was Leesha, but when she slept with Jardir, it changed ;(
How could she?;/
And so Arlen now is my favourite Chuck 🙂
Test – my posts don’t seem to… post?
Okay then, here goes!
I think both reviews are on the mark. We love Arlen for those reasons stated, and for me, because I view his actions and choices as so completely honorable. He is a hard man in a hard world, but everything he does is in an effort to improve that world for him and those he cares for, let alone the rest of humanity. He is an amazing person for that. I feel that he will ultimately be the key to a united human victory.
That being said, he can’t and won’t do it alone. Leesha’s skills and determination are beyond measure. She values life to such an extent that she allowed herself to be raped rather than take life away from others. In a world where humanity is an endangered species, that is a huge statement, and truly an asset. She views the world in a different way than Arlen and the rest do, but her view is just as valid.
Rojer’s passion for his music is more than something commonplace – his passion has power. We’ve seen already that he is trying to share and spread his own gift. He had a big setback, but I think that his gift, and his part in the story, would be wasted if it isn’t expanded. I think he’ll play a large part in the Daylight War.
Ahman Jardin is an incredible warrior, and a credible leader for his people. Through his upbringing, however, he seems more narrow-minded. To me, this is a major character flaw. We have seen that he is willing to betray others when it suits him well enough. Black marks like that just aren’t forgotten. He’s a primary character, but not my favorite.
With all this said, I think I go back to the beginning with Arlen. His honor puts him above and beyond anyone else, and his courage is and devotion to his people are ideal traits for a hero in my eyes. Arlen is just about my ideal protagonist. He can be gritty and tough, but he knows what is right. He makes mistakes, but learns from them. I wish that all of us could be more like him.
Thanks for the outlet… I needed to let my mind run in this world again. It’s been too long.
Dan
still not working XD Is there a character limit or something? I can see my test, but my actual response won’t work.. I LIKE ARLEN
/giveup
Dan, if your message is that long, then you should split it into two or even three parts.
I’m expecting to see some good points there.
Hey Dan,
Your message was flagged for approval. Not sure why. Meg and I check the spam filter regularly, though. I cleared it. Sorry for the trouble!
Yay! Thanks, Peat! I’ll keep that in mind. Ral, I hope you like 🙂
Great comment, Dan. I nearly agree with all of it.
I feel kinda obliged to ‘defend’ Jardir, though.
True, his actions in TPM left me with a foul taste in my mouth, but as I’ve learned more about him (TDS), I realized that he’s not so bad after all. I mean, you ought to remember that Inevera played a big part in Jardir’s betrayal towards Arlen. Who knows, if it wasn’t for her, maybe Jardir wouldn’t try to kill him over Kaji’s spear?
The comparison between Arlen and Jardir as Deliverers is a commentary on what makes a messiah. It screams of the tension between an eastern theological humanism (jardir) and typical Western Individualism/humanism.
Watching both of these characters grow as respective Deliverers comments on how we as people relate to the dichotomy of good vs evil, and what humans can do about it, absent of any overtly active deity, or even with an abusive or aloof deity.
Its secular humanism vs. theocracy and the role of the messiah. This is why I’m so excited to read The Daylight War. I’m wondering where Peat is going with this theme!
Just noticed this link now – glad you liked my one-liner treatment of the book 🙂 The Painted Man and The Desert Spear are indeed great reads – got through them faster than I do most fantasy books, compelling stuff.
I think the reason why arlen is so widely liked is because he displays a kind of resistance to the corelings and is given a heroic sort of character , through out the books we’ve watched him progress from a simple farm boy to a full fledged coreling ass kicker we feel a sort of closeness to his character ,plus he is on the cover of the first book already making him the main character and aren’t main characters supposed to be favored above the rest.
First of all, I don’t know if anyone would read this, but I want to thank Mr. Peter Brett for creating charracter such as Arlen. My first book was Desert Spear, but even in that book I adored Arlen for simply being just like me. During my reading of the book, I experienced a lot of problems in my life,and I was like 15-16,and had more or less same childhood as Arlen. And then he became my hero, my motivation, from that time to today, I did a lot of things to improve myself, I became sort of workaholic, even now, though I have read the whole series couple of times, and it has been some time, I still look to Arlen as my inspiration. Sorry for long text, or some grammatical mistakes, English is not my native language,and once again, thank you Mr. Peter, you changed my life ! 🙂