Return of the midnight character studies!: A look at Ra...
Whee, I love doing these things! Let's get started.
Ra is the main and title character of an older series (probably 5, 6 years now) called Eclypse (yes, it's supposed to be spelled that way, there is a reason), it's full title at the time being Eclypse: Ra of the Revolution. The series basically centers around Scin (pronounced sheen, originally Shin), a rogue soldier from the Dasrakuan army (Dasrakua can be considered this world loosely based equivalent of Hell) who went AWOL and ran away to Earth. After living a relatively peaceful life for a time, he encounters Ra, who has recently fled Ahlaria ('Heaven'), and the two become friends.
Ra was the first character I invented for the series, obviously. He is infinitely powerful with a lot of painful and dragging issues, but I wanted to do what I could to make him fun as well. I made him to be a rather devious character, causing some gods to refer to him as Loki, after the human imagined Norse god of mischief.
While on Earth with Scin, I had fun coming up with his quirks and personal details. For example, Ra is a complete Halloween fanatic, to the extent where his usual ensemble, and a good deal of the clothes he comes to own, are of the orange-black color scheme. He's also a gourmet, and nothing opens him up like good food or fine dining, which Scin often takes advantage of when he wants a favor.
Most of the time Ra is seen as playful and easy-going, but he also shows himself to be ambitious and cunning, particularly in matters concerning the 'high gods', where he quickly becomes downright ruthless. And for good reason.
In the series, he is believed to be a lesser god who defied the rulers of Ahlaria and escaped to Earth, but that is just his cover. In actuality, Ra is one of the 13 original gods who created the world billions of years previous. Ra was very unique in his making, however, and as time passed, all of his siblings eventually died out, succumbing to the flow, except for him. He became the only original god who remained untouched no matter how much time passed, and as each of his siblings died they bequeathed to him their powers.
For a long time, Ra took comfort solely in the world he and his siblings had created, but the world too was constantly changing and morphing, dying and birthing anew while he remained alive. In the beginning he spent a lot of time on Earth, interacting casually with it, but as it became harder and harder to bear he took to watching it from afar. Eventually even watching over it became too much of a burden, and in his grief he put himself to sleep, tasking the few new, recently born gods with keeping watch in his stead.
By the time he finally awoke, the gods had all but forgotten about him entirely, and had built their own respective worlds, Ahlaria and Dasrakua, around the original. However, they didn't build these new worlds to be in balance with the old one, leaving the original warped and unbalanced to so bad an extent, that eventually it would collapse and destroy itself.
As the only remaining thing Ra had from his family, this both grieved and enraged him. Instead of taking revenge however, he instead decided to destroy the world ahead of time, and then revive it just as it was using the infinite power he had, only this time properly in balance so it would no longer be endangered.
Problem was in order to do this, he needed to wait for a certain time, and possess a catalyst for both Ahlaria and Dasrakua. In other words, a native inhabitant. Ahlaria birthed plenty of candidates over the years, but Dasrakua never did, and the clock was slowly ticking.
This is where the series begins.
During his wait, Ra pretended to be a lesser god and hid in Ahlaria, allowing himself to be subjected to the will of gods who were far inferior to himself. Ra hates the head gods with a passion, so when he leaves they are in something of a panic about it, as his ire was no secret.
Of course Ra, being Ra, obviously wasn't about to be stopped. The whole thing for him is rather hilarious in and of itself.
Ra as a character for a large part of the series can be seen, in a way, as an antagonist, tramping on forces sent after him and generally raising hell in both worlds. He very much wants to destroy the world, not just to save it, but also to settle things with himself. Having lived for billions and billions of years and being the only thing that survived the flow of time has made him lonely and afraid, constantly torn between fearing his heart and feelings will die out under the pressure, and equally fearing having to watch more things he cares about die and wither away. This conflict has slowly been driving him to the brink of madness, and when pushed he shows it.
So he's all ready for an apocalypse, and there's really no way anyone can stop him, though many, including Scin try after they learn that's what he plans, not understanding the full purpose of it.
Scin is also important because he soon becomes the first thing Ra has truly cared for since his siblings died, and he's afraid Scin won't understand what he's trying to do (which he doesn't) and will reject him. Because of the emotional turmoil he suffers, Ra even goes somewhat crazy on several occasions, which furthers paints him as a bad guy.
The series itself is entirely worked out, aside from the details, so sadly I don't spend a lot of time on Ra anymore, which sucks because his dilemma of alternating between a weary, caring, and lonely individual to a vengeful, insane, and broken godly being all while trying to save the only thing he still cares about was something I loved about him, and still do. I gave him a lot to struggle with, and he earned a special place in my heart for it.
That and I really just wanted to see him have his apocalypse and tell everyone else to fuck off.
Whether this series, like many others, will ever make itself known outside my head remains to be seen.
Ra is the main and title character of an older series (probably 5, 6 years now) called Eclypse (yes, it's supposed to be spelled that way, there is a reason), it's full title at the time being Eclypse: Ra of the Revolution. The series basically centers around Scin (pronounced sheen, originally Shin), a rogue soldier from the Dasrakuan army (Dasrakua can be considered this world loosely based equivalent of Hell) who went AWOL and ran away to Earth. After living a relatively peaceful life for a time, he encounters Ra, who has recently fled Ahlaria ('Heaven'), and the two become friends.
Ra was the first character I invented for the series, obviously. He is infinitely powerful with a lot of painful and dragging issues, but I wanted to do what I could to make him fun as well. I made him to be a rather devious character, causing some gods to refer to him as Loki, after the human imagined Norse god of mischief.
While on Earth with Scin, I had fun coming up with his quirks and personal details. For example, Ra is a complete Halloween fanatic, to the extent where his usual ensemble, and a good deal of the clothes he comes to own, are of the orange-black color scheme. He's also a gourmet, and nothing opens him up like good food or fine dining, which Scin often takes advantage of when he wants a favor.
Most of the time Ra is seen as playful and easy-going, but he also shows himself to be ambitious and cunning, particularly in matters concerning the 'high gods', where he quickly becomes downright ruthless. And for good reason.
In the series, he is believed to be a lesser god who defied the rulers of Ahlaria and escaped to Earth, but that is just his cover. In actuality, Ra is one of the 13 original gods who created the world billions of years previous. Ra was very unique in his making, however, and as time passed, all of his siblings eventually died out, succumbing to the flow, except for him. He became the only original god who remained untouched no matter how much time passed, and as each of his siblings died they bequeathed to him their powers.
For a long time, Ra took comfort solely in the world he and his siblings had created, but the world too was constantly changing and morphing, dying and birthing anew while he remained alive. In the beginning he spent a lot of time on Earth, interacting casually with it, but as it became harder and harder to bear he took to watching it from afar. Eventually even watching over it became too much of a burden, and in his grief he put himself to sleep, tasking the few new, recently born gods with keeping watch in his stead.
By the time he finally awoke, the gods had all but forgotten about him entirely, and had built their own respective worlds, Ahlaria and Dasrakua, around the original. However, they didn't build these new worlds to be in balance with the old one, leaving the original warped and unbalanced to so bad an extent, that eventually it would collapse and destroy itself.
As the only remaining thing Ra had from his family, this both grieved and enraged him. Instead of taking revenge however, he instead decided to destroy the world ahead of time, and then revive it just as it was using the infinite power he had, only this time properly in balance so it would no longer be endangered.
Problem was in order to do this, he needed to wait for a certain time, and possess a catalyst for both Ahlaria and Dasrakua. In other words, a native inhabitant. Ahlaria birthed plenty of candidates over the years, but Dasrakua never did, and the clock was slowly ticking.
This is where the series begins.
During his wait, Ra pretended to be a lesser god and hid in Ahlaria, allowing himself to be subjected to the will of gods who were far inferior to himself. Ra hates the head gods with a passion, so when he leaves they are in something of a panic about it, as his ire was no secret.
Of course Ra, being Ra, obviously wasn't about to be stopped. The whole thing for him is rather hilarious in and of itself.
Ra as a character for a large part of the series can be seen, in a way, as an antagonist, tramping on forces sent after him and generally raising hell in both worlds. He very much wants to destroy the world, not just to save it, but also to settle things with himself. Having lived for billions and billions of years and being the only thing that survived the flow of time has made him lonely and afraid, constantly torn between fearing his heart and feelings will die out under the pressure, and equally fearing having to watch more things he cares about die and wither away. This conflict has slowly been driving him to the brink of madness, and when pushed he shows it.
So he's all ready for an apocalypse, and there's really no way anyone can stop him, though many, including Scin try after they learn that's what he plans, not understanding the full purpose of it.
Scin is also important because he soon becomes the first thing Ra has truly cared for since his siblings died, and he's afraid Scin won't understand what he's trying to do (which he doesn't) and will reject him. Because of the emotional turmoil he suffers, Ra even goes somewhat crazy on several occasions, which furthers paints him as a bad guy.
The series itself is entirely worked out, aside from the details, so sadly I don't spend a lot of time on Ra anymore, which sucks because his dilemma of alternating between a weary, caring, and lonely individual to a vengeful, insane, and broken godly being all while trying to save the only thing he still cares about was something I loved about him, and still do. I gave him a lot to struggle with, and he earned a special place in my heart for it.
That and I really just wanted to see him have his apocalypse and tell everyone else to fuck off.
Whether this series, like many others, will ever make itself known outside my head remains to be seen.