Masked Woman in a Wheelchair

The assignment from The Daily Writer is to write about all the different masks I wear in my different life roles, or to write a short story about a man who wears a mask as a woman to a Halloween party.

I don't want to do either of those assignments.

The problem I'm having today is how to reconcile the serial killer-czar Ivan the Terrible with the decrepit, non-functioning crazy guy in Darker Jewels by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro, with the guy who has been a vampire for 330 years and trying to get his throne back (which would incidentally save Russia from the Bolsheviks but that's not really his concern).

So how do I do that? Who is this guy I've created?

Or am I worrying too much about details that no one will ever appreciate but me? I do not have a tribe that can answer that question for me. Need to get on that.

So... who is this crazy Ivan? How does he work in my story?

The Troyat biography made it pretty clear that he was a coward and a criminal, not a fighter. He liked the sound of his own voice (need to make my story reflect that much more clearly). He wasn't much of a fighter -- unlike Henry VIII who loved to joust and show his manliness. He was cool with causing pain from an early age, but not at all cool with feeling it. He was a self-serving religious fanatic. He was a hothead. He had no sense of proportion. He was intelligent but not wise. He was paranoid. He was short-sighted.

So in my story, Ivan has acted in character in fishing Rasputin out of the river and reviving him to use him as a tool. It is in character for him to think he can take the throne back and to have no concept of the people in Russia or the forces moving it at that time. It is in character for him to think he can bully Rasputin into doing whatever he wants just because he is czar. It is in character for him to have no concept that Rasputin might not believe that he was the czar, or to care about what he used to be.

Is it in character for him to join the Savile club? I think so -- I think he would have seen the English club, generally, as a sort of sanctuary for influential Englishmen. He would not have needed to take this  course in life, but there are lots of instances where he beat a "strategic retreat." I think he would have a certain contempt for the club but he would have recognized its advantages, and 330 years of cobbling together survival tactics as a vampire would change his value system slightly. It beats living in a cave, and I think it would beat living in Liverpool as far as he is concerned, too.

Also in coming to London I think Ivan is sort of acting on that agreement he tried to get Elizabeth to come to (she did eventually offer a one-sided version of it that made him mad) so that's totally reasonable.

Ivan has never done a brave or difficult thing in all his days. Saving Rasputin is his greatest achievement, partly because it was hard and required some effort, partly because he did it entirely on his own; none of the rest of his efforts ever required that amount of organized thought. So it's all downhill for Ivan from there.

Which begs the question: In a power struggle between Ivan and Rasputin, who will win? My story as it stands requires that Ivan wins. But there is no reason to assume he would. It could easily be Rasputin.

Back to the drawing board.