Characterization - Me (Pete)

This is a post about the Dragons Eye story line.

The story is told from a point of view - the first third roughly being from the point of view of someone originally referred to as 'Me. 'Me' is an Australian male called Pete, age 40+ - a farmer living on the edge of mountainous wilderness in South East Australia.

There are some similarities between Pete and myself.

Pete has a tattoo on his shoulder, like me. Might be the same design. He has a farm with a truck. He has two cats. In supplying details about these, I have reached into my own life.

Similarly, Pete's past is a little like my own. Caught up in the student movements of the time, we were both responsible for organizing demonstrations and confronting police over the barricades to help change the world. We both later ended up working for the state and got given the hard job of changing the world because no-one else could be bothered. Pete's frustration about the premise of the student 'revolutions' is shared with me :)
"misplaced hope that when we got there, someone would be able to point to the chapter in those unrelenting political manifestos entitled “What happens next”. But, reality was, the writers never got there. “What happens next” has never been written, just dreamed."

The conscious similarity between Pete and me ends there.

In the story Pete and Kathy have an early relationship, which fails, is briefly rekindled and then they then loose touch until they re-meet as neighbors. The story hints that Kathy's child Storm may be Pete's child.

I conceive of Pete as being headstrong and manipulative. He has proven incapable of forming a stable relationship. He is willing to take risks without thinking issues through. He is unduly attracted to quick rewards and prone to making promises that cannot be kept. He is incapable of accepting the world as it is. On a couple of occasions, the book describes 'near happiness' end-states which he simply cannot see, and is happy to desert without thought.

The book does not describe Pete's present occupation other than to hint that he looses it during his period away from the farm, but actively seeks a replacement job on his return.

In dragon form, the aelfs call him the Painter. Both Pete and Anthem are capable of great destruction in such form.



Peter Quinton
Palerang
March 2015