ODR Character Spotlight: A Wish and a Prayer

Wishton Ackford is the narrator of The Order of the Dark Rose. His perspective regarding his adventures and investigations with his business partner, Manny, are important to the book. Let’s take a look at his character.

Wish is an unemployed copywriter, not a fighter, and certainly not a mage. In his world, not only is magic real, it is commonplace and used as technology. However he is often dismayed or unsettled by events involving magic. Such encounters as these are the unusual for him in his experiences because magic is more than technology and there are those willing to use it for nefarious purposes.

As a neophyte sidekick, Wish is not really that experienced with magic, nor does he have any practical knowledge. His understanding of magic is mainly informed by common technology. As such, he’s grown up with magic but really doesn’t know that much about it. Correlating back to reality, one may drive a car but know little of it’s technology. The same is true of electricity or computers. Deep knowledge isn’t required to make use of a car, electricity or computers and such is the case with Wish and magical technology.

Wish is very uncomfortable with spells and such being used around him because he doesn’t know what will happen. For this reason, he is often checking for his own magical weapon which doesn’t require any magical knowledge to use: a fleer gun.

This weapon, which operates off of a magical cell like most such technology in the book, provides Wish a fighting chance against powerful magic users. It is an equalizer for him, but only in a limited sense. An attacker or someone who intends harm can easily use other forms of magic on him such as a hex, dangerous elemental spells, and even charms. Because of this possibility, Wish often experiences a lot of anxiety in situations that could – or do – escalate into some sort of confrontation.

Wish isn’t religious, but Manny is. However, the frequently awkward and dangerous situations in which Wish finds himself leaves him considering a prayer to get himself through difficulties.

Manny is well-educated about the use of magic. Wish can easily be caught off-balance by all kinds of spells and various forms of magic. A wand pointed at someone is like pointing a gun for you and I, except anything can happen.

Investigations with Manny are not easy since Wish finds his business partner rather opaque as a tangential thinker. Their cases are even more fraught with uncertainty since they are usually after someone who has broken the law or is willing to do so. Fighting is not Wish’s forte so he’s often tense, anticipating negative events because he never knows what’s going to happen.

Wish is kind of a Dr. Watson-like character, except he isn’t a veteran and he’s only trained as a writer, not a doctor. He learns some skills pertaining to the nature of magical investigations as the book progresses, but he’s still often off-balance while working from his wits and the slim experience he gains over the course of the book. His anxiety remains, and even builds, compounded by the growing understanding that his partner may well be the target of an unknown mastermind-nemesis.

Wish increasingly finds himself caught up in events well beyond his abilities. His main resources are Manny and his experience as well as his Fleer gun. It all makes for a character observing events from a skewed perspective, caught between the fear of being penniless or dead, maybe worse if he ends up cursed like Manny.

I hope that lends a bit of insight into the narrator of The Order of the Dark Rose. You can find out more about the book on its page or click to any of the listed retail sites during this post.

Look for more posts like this one in the near future as I progress with the next volume in The Cursed Mage Case Files, The Unseen Hand.

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