Let’s Talk About Thom
It only seemed fair to make sure that I follow up the talk about the protagonist with one about our antagonist. I talked a little bit about him in the post about Vita, but a good “bad guy” has to stand alone just as much as he has to compliment the hero. There has to be both a reason they’re a threat and a reason they continue their tirade against the person we should be supporting.
Personality and Life
Arguably, Thom Waldgrave is the one person who goes through the most change throughout the story. He is younger than Vita by almost a year and grew up with her always close to his side. Because of Vita’s own brand of protection, this left him a lot of stability and room to become much more open and outgoing than his sister. He made friends easily. But he was also sensitive and prone to crying at moments that made it seem as though he was overreacting to a situation. His skin wasn’t as thick as Vita’s which brought him front and center for quite a few bullies.
There were a lot of times where kindness was confused with weakness. Thom suffered for it.
Secretly, all he ever wanted was to show he could stand on his own two feet without anyone’s guidance, Vita’s especially. Although he didn’t see her as someone casting a shadow, he knew there would be a time where he would have to do things on his own. Someday, he would need to come into his own and she wouldn’t have his back in the same way.
But simple wishing wouldn’t do any good. When the time finally did come, he felt ill prepared for it.
Post-Powers, Thom has gone through much more than Book One will tell. By the time he’s seen again, he has grown in both a physical sense and a mental. His fears have all been pushed back into an almost nihilistic thought process that serves to protect him from the reality suddenly thrust upon him. He has openly accepted death (the act, not the person) as a thing humans do. And rather than allow it to fill him with despair, he accepts that it’s his role in the universe to be guiding them into the after life. Or, at least, he pushes his true feelings of fear and despair down until such a time that it can be used in rage.
Post-Powers Thom is not a kind Thom.
However, his outgoing nature is still firmly in place. This makes his own search for the Horsemen easier as he isn’t afraid to approach a stranger and ask them strange questions. In fact, his nihilist philosophy could contribute to this a bit. In a “it’s pretty much meaningless anyway. What do I care if they think I’m a weirdo?” way.
He hasn’t learned the secret to doing this to his sister. No matter what, she still has an effect on him in the way that her opinions matter. This is where a lot of angry bouts really come into play. Because it’s with Vita that he’s forced to acknowledge the part of him he tries to put away. Part of him still wants to care about people but knowing what he must do makes him want to push it away for his own mental protection.
Being young and somewhat inexperienced in the world doesn’t allow him to completely accept the true level of non meaning that nihilism has to offer. And it doesn’t help that he finds care in, not only his family, but all the people he meets after gaining his powers. This includes, but is not limited to, the fellow horsemen (currently Lowell and Jordan as War and Famine), his mentor (Stan), and his love interest in Olym (Kevin).
While his companions and mentor help him with becoming Death, Kevin might hold the key to the last shred of true humanity in Thom. Ironic considering Kevin’s own circumstances.
You’ll notice there’s a few contradictions in Thom’s thought process. In a way, he’s still trying to find himself.
Abilities
As the Fourth Horsemen, Thom’s powers are ones that are very well known and pretty straight forward. Death really needs little explanation as a concept as it is a part of our very existence. However, I wouldn’t be doing my job properly if I didn’t explain some of it at least a little.
Thom was chosen to be Death subconsciously through Vita as the two beings are typically closely linked. The Power of Death (Also see: Thanatos) is made up of many different powers that allow Thom to reap a soul properly. A few of these abilities won’t fully kick in until Thom has finally died himself. For that, he has ways of compensating.
For the standard “Grim Reaper” act, he has the typical scythe, which leaves no trace of its slice when it touches its victim. To also aid in this, Thanatos typically has the ability to freeze unruly and overzealous guardians in place in order to get to their ward without having to kill a guardian in the process. Because Thom is still alive, he has yet to acquire that ability. His own guardian has adapted in order to aid in this. The guardian Bjorn has gained the ability to temporarily freeze other guardians in place to keep them from attacking his ward in a similar fashion as a deer in headlights.
As the Fourth Horsemen is partial warrior, Thom’s scythe has two different modes. There’s the traditional reaping mode then there’s the war mode in which the scythe flattens out into a battle scythe. The battle scythe is typically only used when fighting or dealing with a particularly powerful person who refuses to die.
The power of Death has its pitfalls on a living person. This causes Thom’s own healing rate to decrease and, if he refuses to take proper care of himself, he could begin to decay while he’s still alive. There is a quick and easy way to combat this and that’s to devour the souls of humans he’s reaped. The problem with this is it has to be a non-violent human and he will grow a tolerance if he isn’t careful. Also, he’s basically eating a person; as soon as they’re devoured, there’s no reincarnating for the soul. They’re gone for good.
The Apocalypse Mode of his powers are pretty much just an amplified form of his regular Death abilities. During this time, Thom’s personal life takes a backseat for cleaning out all the bodies he can. However, it is pretty much just a clean sweep which means there’s room for error and finer details are left only slightly disturbed.
This is also where his steed will comes into play most. She is a large horse with the ability to run over or through anything in her path. When compared to the other horsemen, the bond between Death and their steed arguably runs the deepest. Together, the two make a pretty intimidating team.
Development
A lot like his sister, Thom went through several stages before I finally settled on something that clicked properly. At a time, he was introduced right off the bat as a bit of a dick rather than developing over time to have dick-ish tendencies. There was also a time where they were born with their powers and Thom was basically picked on because everyone was afraid of him. (In the “everything he touches dies” type fashion.) In this time, Thom was actually more intelligent and much stronger than Vita. He eventually had to be nerfed to prevent him from being both condescending and simply just too over the top.
There was also a time where he was basically a team mate rather than the antagonist. It didn’t take me long to figure out there was a reason it wasn’t working the way I thought it should.
Thom was created with the purpose of being either a valuable teammate or an unbeatable antagonist. At least, when it came to Vita. The only way for her to win against him would be for Thom to drop dead and completely give up. Of course, this works vice versa as well. Otherwise, it would be downright frustrating.
As I mentioned in the ‘Vita’ post, the bond between the siblings isn’t the normal trope. Meaning, Thom’s not considered the annoying little brother just as Vita isn’t the aloof older sister. They’re true siblings. Not Hollywood siblings.
Thom’s actually been rather consistent in his character from version to version. It was really just him waiting for the plot to make sense around him. So, nothing terribly interesting in his development outside of what you’ll see in the story.
And here we have our “villain” of Titanic Horse! Stay tuned for more. Thank you and good night!