Q&A: Who is your go-to character for a laugh?

All of them! One thing I love about my protagonists is that each of them has personalities that lend themself to making different scenes comical. Kain is the first to find the comedy in things, so if the joke needs to be said, he’s the most likely to say it. If you fall, he will help you up… but he will laugh first. Actually… he might be too busy pointing and laughing to help you up. He’s also got my flaw of over-explaining things. If I want to get exposition out without it being boring, I can have him do all the yadda yaddas and have either of his friends pick on him about it, adding levity to what could have been a “boring exposition dump.”

LaTao has a nearly eidetic memory, meaning that she can remember an image with impressive accuracy after seeing it only briefly. She can memorize things without a mnemonic device or anything. She’d lose to Doctor Stephen Strange in a game of Jeopardy, but she’d beat Sheldon Cooper. For the good of Galtimer, she uses this ability to learn and master magical incantations to better defend those she can from the forces of evil… or she’ll remind you of something embarrassing in front of everyone! If I want to bring up the past for humor, then it’s time for some LaTao dialogue. Mess up in front of her, and you’re gonna hear it for life!

Sage, however, is likely to be the butt of the jokes. He’s naive to a fault and likely to read the room poorly, not know what’s going on, and stumble right into the comedic situation. If I need someone to trip and knock something over, not get the joke, or be the straight man and set up the punchline, that’s Sage. Like 16-year-old me, naughty jokes just go right over his head. Don’t get me wrong, Sage will chime in every now and then with a good joke or two, but as a comedy dispenser, he’s easier to use as a foil than a jokester.

I will definitely be revisiting this question in a few years. There are several characters that join the squad, each with their own quirks and idiosyncrasies. The first gives LaTao plenty of reasons to be snarky and petty. I’m all about that banter, and there will always be characters that disagree… but if I want it to be a funny moment, Kain will bring the silly, LaTao will bring the snarky sass, and Sage will chime in with more ammunition for the others!