The many evolutions of Magic Under Glass: SPOILERS! Annalie and Karstor

Karstor was not in the first version of Magic Under Glass at all. Garvin, on the other hand, was alive and well. Okay, maybe not that well. He had an OMINOUS COUGH.

Karstor first turned up in version 2, where he was a bit more unsettling, more creepy foreign necromancer than helpful guy who is next in line for head of the Sorcerer's Council. At this point Nimira wasn't supposed to be sure who was the good guy:

“Good evening, Hollin.” A man stepped in to our conversation, his lips already fixed in a sardonic twist; I gathered that he and Hollin did not get along. “You must introduce me to your guest.” He had a foreign accent; a slight heaviness to certain syllables, a sharpness to his ‘r’s.
“This is Nimira,” Hollin said, his manner very stiff. “She will be the Lucida Moria to Roman’s Alberre Ranson.”
Only the man’s eyes and fingers moved—two fingers sliding thoughtfully against each other, eyes touching upon me before fixing on Hollin. “Will she, now?”
“Go away,” Hollin said. “Find a corner and pout.”
“Let me have a moment with your ‘Lucida Moria’.”
Hollin’s fingers wrapped round my arm. When I tried to pull away, they tightened. “I said, go away.”
“Don’t be difficult,” the man said. “What would I do with her that should frighten you? I only want to speak to this woman who is spending time with Roman.”
“Frightened? Of you? You’ll always be a step behind me.” Hollin paused, and then released my arm. “Fine, speak with her, but only because I don’t feel like arguing about it.”

Annalie, originally, was going to be like the character who often appears in Victorian fiction who is ILL and BEARS HER FATE WITH BRAVERY but occasionally REGRET. This is from version 1:

“Nim,” Annalie repeated. “Nimira. It’s pretty. Does it mean something?”
“Strong and solid.” I smiled. “My mother said it was because I had such thick legs as a baby, and I wouldn’t stop kicking. Apparently I kicked my parents in the face on more than a few occasions. It doesn’t make me sound very delicate, does it?”
“It might be good to be strong and solid,” she said. “How old are you?”
“Sixteen.”
“Only sixteen. Just the age I was when—“ She faltered. “When everything happened.” She pointed to a photograph in a silver frame, sitting atop a bookshelf. “See me there? Just a regular girl, so happy to be getting married.”
I rose from my seat to get a closer look at the picture of a girl with brown hair swept high and topped with a headdress of tiny beads and orange blossoms. Her soft eyes and soft smile seemed to suggest a future filled with golden days and simple delights.
“You were beautiful,” I said, and then realized this sounded rude. “Or—still are, I mean—“
“I know. I’m not beautiful like this. Anyway, I’ve learned there’s more to my life than that. All those silly dreams I once had for myself are dead and gone.”


Now I kind of want to slap her. Well, she was just a bit player, really, and she was married to creepy over-the-top Hollin, so I figured she had to be kind of...well, I don't want to say dumb, because smart women can make bad decisions, but either naive or desperate or easily deluded. But when Hollin changed in version 2, Annalie needed to change as well. The new Hollin just wouldn't have fallen for the original Annalie. I wanted them to have shared a real connection in the past, a desire for adventure and a desire to escape the society they had grown up in.

Thus concludes my series of posts on the character's origins. Crazy. And now I'd better go pack because by this time tomorrow I'll be heading for the airport to go to DC!