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Champere Blog Entry |
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December 22, 2023, 3:00:23 AM 12/22/23: r/SketchDaily theme, "Tree Week: Free Draw Finale." (I did regular Free Draw Friday.) This week's character from my anthro WWII storyline is Sergeant Major Champere. He's the leader of the French resistance forces. He's a good guy but has rather an attitude problem and can be difficult to deal with. There'll be more about him later in my art Tumblr and Toyhou.se. Regarding his design, he went through the wringer in the Great War, so his ears are nicked and torn and he has a burn scar over his eye; his vision was impaired but not blinded. He wears an old kepi (yes, I finally learned the name of the hat Louis Dobermann wears). TUMBLR EDIT: Champere dates to before the circa-2000 reboot, I believe, yet his character has never been significantly developed. All I really knew was I'm not quite sure of his rank--major or sergeant major?--or if he was even truly in the military, and that he's a jerk. Although he receives advance warning of the planned German attack on Trench Rat Headquarters, he refuses to get involved or warn them--he even orders Papillon to say nothing--until after the fact. It's Didrika's partisan forces who arrive first to help the beleaguered Rats, despite the Rats being on closer terms with the French partisans. And you can bet that Didrika gives Champere the tongue-lashing to end all tongue-lashings for it. And likely tosses a few curses and evil eyes at him while she's at it. (Even Boris, who can't stand the Trench Rats, considers it a dirty move.) AND although he belatedly sends his men to offer after-the-fact aid, he never apologizes or explains himself, so for quite a while, Trench Rat/French relations are severely strained; Papillon, deeply humiliated (as well as hurt--Drake Rat, with whom he's quite close, is captured in the attack), is left to try to patch things up between the two groups. Champere mellows out a bit as the series goes on, but never quite warms to the Americans. I always just assumed Champere--that's likely not even his real name--was a snobby a-hole. His character has never been dropped from the story, though I've never paid much attention to him either, not being interested. As I chose him from my to-do drawing list and started brainstorming his appearance--he was going to have a mustache, but how do you do that and whiskers?--he finally, grudgingly opened up to me a tiny bit. But just a tiny bit. Many details, including his life history and his reason for distrusting the Trench Rats so much, are still unknown. I imagine they'll start emerging sometime soon, now that he's made it clear he's not just a boring snob. I've long suspected shadiness on Champere's part. Sergeant Major or Major? He's named the first on the character list, but I swear someplace he was referred to as Major. Was he ever even really in the military? Because he's not leading a military unit now--yet still goes by a military rank. Is he some kind of fraud? Is it a Red Badge Of Courage situation and he just assumed command after mistakenly being perceived as a war hero? Is he crazy? From what little I know so far, it's all kind of complicated. You notice I mentioned the Great War. Champere is indeed originally a military man. He has the wounds to prove it. He also has the bottomless hatred of Germans. I'm toying with him having encountered Captain Himmel, who also fought in the Great War--while underage--though it's unlikely as Himmel ran into Sergeant Camo Rat back then, and it just seems like too many coincidences, but who knows. He obviously had a rough time of it however, given his scars, so I imagine some of the hatred comes from that. He probably saw a lot of his fellows die miserable deaths in the trenches and it's left him not just bitter but nationalistic. Thus, he dislikes Americans as well, even though they're allied. I suspect as well that Champere is a little...not all there. I think maybe a lot of his paranoid, erratic behavior can be chalked up to mental imbalance. He was likely a sergeant major in the Great War...now that he finds himself with a partisan unit behind enemy lines (HOW a group of "French partisans" came to be in Germany is never explained, same as all these groups of Allies fighting on German soil--this was based on my childhood misunderstandings of WWII and I haven't retconned any explanation for it yet), he's assumed the title of "Major" although everyone knows he's not one; they humor him, because even though he obviously has some screws loose, he's still a charismatic, intelligent, effective leader. His irrational distrust of others can be a liability sometimes--as it is with the attack on the Trench Rats--yet this incident is more of an exception than the rule, and his men decide it's worth the risk. That being said, Champere avoids fighting except when absolutely necessary, and then when a victory is almost ensured. His group seems more invested in gathering intel and doing heavy work that doesn't involve direct combat. One major incident I know of where his men aid the Trench Rats is when they find an abandoned camp in the woods and need to handle the bodies; Didrika's guys for once aren't so helpful due to superstition, so Champere sends some of his guys to carry away the dead instead. (See Reseda's entry.) They also frequently trade with the Rats and Didrika's partisans. Again, I'm not sure why any of this is, why these guys are in Germany if it's not primarily to fight... ... ...Hm. Uh. Anyway. That particular detail needs to percolate, and indeed, you just saw my brain hiccup with a tiny bit of an idea. It only JUST peeped into my head, and may be forgotten tomorrow...but as I said...percolation. Is that a word? Well, it is now. I'm picking this up again after sleeping and WELP, indeed, more of Champere's story is coming out. Normally I'd start gushing it out here, but it's still heavily under development, is really weird and convoluted, either needs research or for me to make it up whole cloth (considering how much of it seems based on a mix of semi-religious psychotic delusion and actual supernatural experience), and to share it while it's so nascent would be a mistake. As a teaser, some of the stuff that's begun to emerge (which is all subject to change) is: A WWI battlefront vision, Turquoise and Nixie, the earliest days of Projekt Weltuntergang, the Thule Society, a secret pledge and a mission (maybe finally explaining why/how these French guys end up in Germany?), and Holy Roman Emperor Otto the Great. So...yeah. It's looking a tad bit wild at the moment. Anyway. I mentioned that Champere does mellow out somewhat as the storyline goes on, though never completely. Despite his inaction re: the attack on Headquarters, the situation does wear on him; after an obviously aggrieved Papillon fills him in on the outcome, he doesn't bother to turn around and look him in the eye, and reiterates his decision, but then quietly adds, "I'm sorry for your loss," indicating that he knows about Papillon's and Drake's discreet relationship. He's fully committed to not intervening for whatever reason, he believes in all his heart that he's doing the necessary thing, yet he does feel guilt over the outcome. He's driven by impulses he can't explain yet believes he must follow for the greater good...a sign common to both mental illness and religion, which look like they're gearing up to be big themes in Champere's story. When Drake is finally liberated and Camo returns, Champere acts out of character in personally letting them know he's grateful that they're back. Drake is simply too worn out by his experience to harbor any anger; that's Camo's reaction. He feels intense spite over Champere's refusal to warn them, and doesn't accept his comments graciously. There's some difficulty convincing Camo to work with him to get everything wrapped up. I'm not entirely sure what happens to Champere toward the end; given the turn the plot is taking, I assume he survives the war, and almost certainly plays a previously undisclosed role in Ultima Thule. If he's indeed still alive and it's not just a matter of him leaving info behind, then this means a likely collision with/culmination of events that were set in motion way back on the Western Front of WWI. Champere isn't COMPLETELY crazy. He just has a strange way of viewing and interpreting the things he's experiencing. And that's where I guess I have to leave things for now; no point hashing it out yet when it's still so embryonic and highly subject to change. I'm not even sure if Champere survives the storyline or not, though he almost certainly plays a role in the outcome (i. e., the fall of Jäger's proposed Fourth Reich and the destruction of the Alpine Fortress). It's a conclusion that encompasses two wars and almost thirty years, so I imagine it'll need quite a bit of ironing out to see the light of day. [Champere 2023 [Friday, December 22, 2023, 3:00:23 AM]] |