Post by Luke Anthony Torrington on Aug 29, 2008 14:17:10 GMT -5
[ Full Character Name: ] Lukas Anthony Torrington
[ Character Gender: ] Male
[ Country of Citizenship: ] England/South Africa
[ House: ] Hufflepuff
[ Year: ] 5th
[ Physical Character Description: ]
Height
Luke is roughly five foot six and might not be likely to grow more than two more inches, though one can never tell with the Torrington clan. Being stuck at this height is seemingly a “family curse” as there is a rough relationship in his family line with Goblins. (Great-Great-Great-Great-Uncle Erik happened to be married to a Goblin woman…and whatever reason he seemed to come up with, justification and understanding of said relationship has always been a major family issue).
Physique
It isn’t exactly appropriate to call Luke’s build broad, though his shoulders certainly are, but slim would be utterly incorrect also. Muggles would take him for a swimmer by his build – broad atop and slim below. With regard to his other physical aspects, Luke has a pair of the most stunning eyes. They are a beautiful brown and one can (and often will) get lost in them. He also has rather large feet which get in the way on occasion. He could be considered (or thought to be) a klutz when he trips over them. It is, after all, tough to have big feet and a short body (at least for now).
[ Personality Character Description: ](Who is your character? What makes them tick?)
Who am I?
Luke is gentle by nature, but his surroundings have made him hard outside. His family’s history has never been an easy thing to swallow. For all the things that he can’t stand about his family and their dealings with the South African Apartheid, Luke has weathered a very difficult storm to ground himself in the things he truly believes. What complicates his story further is that he differs from other boys in “other” ways. One would never be able to tell this because he is so tough on the outside; his shell is thick, not impenetrable.
What peeves me?
Lukus hates seeing injustice done upon anyone. Why one particular group of persons feels the need to name themselves as authority over another, Luke does not understand but he does not tolerate it when such authority is practised upon others. Too much of this sort of cruelty has been experienced in Luke’s life. The minor peeves Luke has are in tidiness. A cluttered person usually rubs Luke off the wrong way, especially the type that find enjoyment in spreading themselves all over the place. It’s a moral issue too. Luke always had much more than he needed in his life, but when he saw such aggressive poverty enforced by his people, he took to heart the fact that he had, and never used, things which his “brothers” and “sisters” never would have even dreamed into existence. It, therefore, disgusts Luke when people around him ostensibly spread their wealth wherever they feel like it. Chatter annoys him also. He always has lived in the principle that one ought not say anything if they didn’t have something to say. Words were often wasted around the Torrington Plantation in Soweto.
[ History: ]
Before Luke
The Torringtons were originally from Southern England where their parents had spent most of their lives as children. The close proximity to London, whilst still in the country, had been a convenience afforded them. Mr Torrington was a Muggle Banker during the school year, and during the summer holidays the family seemed to disappear from the world entirely. They, in fact, DID. German cousins of Mrs Torrington owned large plots of land in Sunny South Africa, and a comfortable little cottage (about the size of the West Wing of America’s White House) had been built for the English Torringtons. From the earliest years of the Apartheid (which did not affect the wizard world until its most violent era beginning in the 1980s), the Torringtons holidayed in South Africa, taking in the ancient wisdom of the Zulus and other regional tribes. However, the politics of their skin became an issue.
1980 – 1998
The worst years of the Muggle conflict known as the Apartheid came to the Wizard World in 1980. During the summer of 1980, a witch was captured while practising magic with her ancestral tribe near Soweto. She was found nineteen years later during the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings, but by that time her corpse was barely recognisable (nearly completely decomposed). Because of this disappearance, the Ministry in South Africa closed all transportation from the country so as not to allow the worst of the Boers to stumble into England. Of course, Lord Voldemort was making his rounds at the same time, and with both South Africa and Lord Voldemort imposing large death tolls on the Ministry, the Torringtons found themselves unable to leave their cottage. For the next twenty years, from 1980 to the turn of the millennium, the Torringtons found their lives uprooted. Unable to avoid the flow of politics, they remained in South Africa as Boers (or as Whites) and picked up the language of the Afrikaaners. Their skin was dangerous though. Without exercising what many South African Afrikaaners and Boers considered their right to authority over the native Africans, the Torringtons would have been in a position viewed as treason to their people. Only these weren’t their people. These people were different. Still, they played safe and adopted the cruel lifestyle of the Boers, simply turning a blind eye to the atrocities they were upholding.
1996 – 2000
In 1996, Luke became the third Torrington child to be born in South Africa. Before him had been James (1993) and Phyllis (1994). Both became vigorous playmates to their “baby” brother. The only life Luke ever knew was that within the safe confines of his plantation home. He encountered several native Africans in his four years in South Africa, though he never saw the same African twice, save for his nanny Afua. Through Afua, Phyllis, James and Luke all learned the same stories that the native African babies learned as they were nursed. Within the four walls of the cottage, everyone was safe. Outside, however, things were wildly different. At the young age he was, Luke was being consistently prepared for a leave-taking, but this he knew nothing about. South Africa was his home, as far as he knew. Around him, preparations were being made. The house was being, slowly, packed into trunks and other sorts of moving materials. All around him, the talk was of the Ministry lifting the ban on transportation between South Africa and England. With the second rise of Voldemort (which was hardly an issue in South Africa anyway) the proposed lifting of 1994 was delayed. Incidentally, things got worse for the South Africans anyway. Luke never was exposed wholly to the atrocities around him save for one incident, but both his siblings were quite aware of what was happening and why. Such exertions of authority based upon the colour of ones skin seemed, at least to James, fate’s way of balancing power in the world: black would always be a symbol of evil, white always a symbol of good. For this, James was quickly swept into the arms of his Uncles and Cousins who shared his confused anger in spite of the skin colours. Luke came across one such act of anger; his brother was poised over a ‘servant’ boy who had lost his footing while carrying precious water to the horses, a whip in his hand – he, Goliath like. Since then, though Luke never understood truly what it meant, injustice has factored into things which are intolerable to Luke.
Out of South Africa: 2000
All things must end, so when the transportation ban ended in 2000, the Torringtons were among the many thousands of families flocking to the Ministry in Johannesburg, to be given their passage home. England was a much changed country also. Houses which had been vacated – at times even entire towns left out of time – were being filled once more and pretty soon, the threads of life left in the 80s were being rewoven. But for Luke it was like an exile. Growing up with rain instead of sun, with green fields and large houses instead of yellow-green plains and shanty-towns was a big step out of himself. He had to readjust to life in England. He was, by this time, nearly five and could only remember being a minority white among a majority black. In England, this was woefully reversed. But at such a young age, learning and adaptation come quite easily, and before long Luke was as much an Englishman as he had been a Boer. The discovery of his three other siblings (all older and more grounded in English society) threw him through another loop, but gradually they were forgotten as strangers and remembered as being with him his whole life, even in Africa. And, of course, the Torringtons took their time before returning to their cottage in South Africa. It was a span of more than half a decade before they set foot in the country again.
All That You Can’t Leave Behind: Summer Holiday 2007
He was 11, or seven years older, when Luke found himself settling down in what had been the old nursery in their cottage in South Africa. Summer holidays in 2007 brought the Torringtons back/home to the cottage, though this time all six children were present. Life as it had been seven years prior was not as it was now. It had been noisy then; now it was unsettlingly quiet. Afua was still living there, but her face looked wizened and old. Her eyes were always sad. It seemed life had been taken from her. She helped, once more, to define Luke’s life when he visited her during the holiday. She led him to a barn on their property and instructed him to enter it. She did not do so herself, but Luke didn’t understand why until her saw what was held within. A chamber lit by an electric light hanging overhead, electric wires (which Luke had become aware of simply because of the way in which the cottage had to be operated in) hanging from the ceiling connected by tubes of rubber to the sockets in the legs and arm-rests of a chair. The chair also had large spikes on the seat and back, and there was a pasty, dried, crimson colouring the chair. What looked like black tar was in patches on the arms and legs of the chair. The meaning was quite clear to Luke when he looked to the corner of the room and saw that whip his brother had used on the servant.
‘We en’t the only ones, Kwado.’ Afua had said, and Luke understood on a much different level than she.
Hogwarts Years
A quiet boy, Luke always felt on the outside of everything. Disconnection plagued him. Every day felt a struggle between keeping it together and falling apart. Sometimes secrets interfered with the respectable behaviour of students, as far as Luke observed them. So the first three years passed without any real significance. Studies were, clearly, an importance to Luke, but some times things happened that he had no explanation for, and books never seem adequate friends to talk to about such things. Waking up in a pool of sweat, for example. Feeling frustrated but really - joyous? - at the same time. Seeing someone, more particularly some boy, and getting immediately shy. All these things had changed Luke so that one day, he looked in a mirror and saw someone he didn't know. In his fourth year, however, the isolation grew worse. Did he belong in such a place as Hogwarts? Fortunately, the year ended on a high note, with the unlikely friendship of a young boy from Gryffindor, by the name of Christian Nagle. Where the friendship was destined to go, Luke didn't know, but he had a very keen idea of where he wanted it to end. It seemed the time had come to cast off the invisibility cloak that tormented one side of him. Time to step out into the light.
[ Pros and Cons : ] ( This is where you should put all of your characters finer points and all of their flaws. What makes them, them. AT LEAST three of each. Do not list, tell us in paragraph form, preferably with a full paragraph on all six.)
Vices
Luke has temper and it flares at inconsistent times. He isn’t impetuous, per se, but there will be moments when he sees something and decides he doesn’t like it, and because he may be unable to do anything about it, he will get angry and anything and everything because it has prevented him from doing what he believes is right. The can obviously be traced back to his experiences abroad and their stark contrast to experiences of a similar but subtle nature at ‘home’.
Like many pubescent males, Luke compacts his strong feelings and opinions about things. When an outlet – a suitable one – presents itself to him, he uses it to fume, but at times when such an outlet is not present, Luke allows the opinions and emotions to build inside. It effects his magic as well as his persona, and his drive – at times – to avenge are often in blind rage. When he builds up all these emotions, how can he identify one singular platform on which to play the avenger?
Part of his dislike of wealth comes from his absorption of it. Being wealthy himself, Luke understands what society is held by the rich and how each of them hold that internal desire for their colleagues’ possessions. That is the society he lives in, but it isn’t necessarily the world. For this, an inbred skill and tendency for want or jealousy has he. Even though it contrasts with his other morals, Luke can’t escape this.
Virtues
Luke has a gift for speach. Though during his furious moments he tends to be less articulate than the common illiterate, Luke has a sharp vernacular and sometimes his words have the ability to really make a person think about what he says and how it may concern them in a bigger sense. He doesn't mince words - he says them or he leaves them.
Luke also desires to be as truthful a person he can be, if for no other reason than because telling the truth is easier than lying because (as Mark Twain once said), there's too much to remember when you lie. Not only in his storytelling but also in his actions, Luke tries to be as true to himself, ergo also to the company he is with, as he can be. In some regards, this is an awkward trait he possesses, and he is keenly aware that such practises are dangerous in the wrong company - especially when things, which are truth but are deemed as secrets, fail to stay secret as a result.
Music has been one of the things that has allowed Luke to unapologetically feel, and ever since he returned to England, he has been tutored in singing. Though a trait, primarily, the gift of song has helped him to understand others whom the general populae fall short in recognition of. And, vice versa, he is able to use songs to help others better understand him and that which he understands. Whether or not he has a magnificent voice - a true judgement call - is completely up to the beholder.
[Role Playing Example:]
... but in the end, the truth was (undeniably) the truth, no matter how hard it was to swallow. It would not do well for him to dwell on the things he could not prevent, but it was nearly impossible to prevent him from dwelling on them nonetheless. No song, no rhetoric could provide a band-aid to the wound he bore by knowing it. Knowledge. Afua had once said that it was, by most Muggles, considered the birth of evil. 'To have eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden was to have invited the possibility of evil to enter oneself.' Whatever this garden was, Luke didn't know. Whatever this fruit was, he was certain he had not eaten of it.
'How does one know they are eating this fruit?' He had mistakenly taken the metaphor literally, which the nanny had understood, processed and forgiven before saying, 'If it is given to you by the serpent, you will not know immediately. It is only once you have already eaten that you know, and it is too late then.' It was beyond him, but he was not beyond understanding one layer of what she said, and thus for the remainder of the evening, Luke went around in the dying garden of his mother's labours searching for the serpent, his heel ready to crush the deceiver.
[ Character Gender: ] Male
[ Country of Citizenship: ] England/South Africa
[ House: ] Hufflepuff
[ Year: ] 5th
[ Physical Character Description: ]
Height
Luke is roughly five foot six and might not be likely to grow more than two more inches, though one can never tell with the Torrington clan. Being stuck at this height is seemingly a “family curse” as there is a rough relationship in his family line with Goblins. (Great-Great-Great-Great-Uncle Erik happened to be married to a Goblin woman…and whatever reason he seemed to come up with, justification and understanding of said relationship has always been a major family issue).
Physique
It isn’t exactly appropriate to call Luke’s build broad, though his shoulders certainly are, but slim would be utterly incorrect also. Muggles would take him for a swimmer by his build – broad atop and slim below. With regard to his other physical aspects, Luke has a pair of the most stunning eyes. They are a beautiful brown and one can (and often will) get lost in them. He also has rather large feet which get in the way on occasion. He could be considered (or thought to be) a klutz when he trips over them. It is, after all, tough to have big feet and a short body (at least for now).
[ Personality Character Description: ](Who is your character? What makes them tick?)
Who am I?
Luke is gentle by nature, but his surroundings have made him hard outside. His family’s history has never been an easy thing to swallow. For all the things that he can’t stand about his family and their dealings with the South African Apartheid, Luke has weathered a very difficult storm to ground himself in the things he truly believes. What complicates his story further is that he differs from other boys in “other” ways. One would never be able to tell this because he is so tough on the outside; his shell is thick, not impenetrable.
What peeves me?
Lukus hates seeing injustice done upon anyone. Why one particular group of persons feels the need to name themselves as authority over another, Luke does not understand but he does not tolerate it when such authority is practised upon others. Too much of this sort of cruelty has been experienced in Luke’s life. The minor peeves Luke has are in tidiness. A cluttered person usually rubs Luke off the wrong way, especially the type that find enjoyment in spreading themselves all over the place. It’s a moral issue too. Luke always had much more than he needed in his life, but when he saw such aggressive poverty enforced by his people, he took to heart the fact that he had, and never used, things which his “brothers” and “sisters” never would have even dreamed into existence. It, therefore, disgusts Luke when people around him ostensibly spread their wealth wherever they feel like it. Chatter annoys him also. He always has lived in the principle that one ought not say anything if they didn’t have something to say. Words were often wasted around the Torrington Plantation in Soweto.
[ History: ]
Before Luke
The Torringtons were originally from Southern England where their parents had spent most of their lives as children. The close proximity to London, whilst still in the country, had been a convenience afforded them. Mr Torrington was a Muggle Banker during the school year, and during the summer holidays the family seemed to disappear from the world entirely. They, in fact, DID. German cousins of Mrs Torrington owned large plots of land in Sunny South Africa, and a comfortable little cottage (about the size of the West Wing of America’s White House) had been built for the English Torringtons. From the earliest years of the Apartheid (which did not affect the wizard world until its most violent era beginning in the 1980s), the Torringtons holidayed in South Africa, taking in the ancient wisdom of the Zulus and other regional tribes. However, the politics of their skin became an issue.
1980 – 1998
The worst years of the Muggle conflict known as the Apartheid came to the Wizard World in 1980. During the summer of 1980, a witch was captured while practising magic with her ancestral tribe near Soweto. She was found nineteen years later during the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings, but by that time her corpse was barely recognisable (nearly completely decomposed). Because of this disappearance, the Ministry in South Africa closed all transportation from the country so as not to allow the worst of the Boers to stumble into England. Of course, Lord Voldemort was making his rounds at the same time, and with both South Africa and Lord Voldemort imposing large death tolls on the Ministry, the Torringtons found themselves unable to leave their cottage. For the next twenty years, from 1980 to the turn of the millennium, the Torringtons found their lives uprooted. Unable to avoid the flow of politics, they remained in South Africa as Boers (or as Whites) and picked up the language of the Afrikaaners. Their skin was dangerous though. Without exercising what many South African Afrikaaners and Boers considered their right to authority over the native Africans, the Torringtons would have been in a position viewed as treason to their people. Only these weren’t their people. These people were different. Still, they played safe and adopted the cruel lifestyle of the Boers, simply turning a blind eye to the atrocities they were upholding.
1996 – 2000
In 1996, Luke became the third Torrington child to be born in South Africa. Before him had been James (1993) and Phyllis (1994). Both became vigorous playmates to their “baby” brother. The only life Luke ever knew was that within the safe confines of his plantation home. He encountered several native Africans in his four years in South Africa, though he never saw the same African twice, save for his nanny Afua. Through Afua, Phyllis, James and Luke all learned the same stories that the native African babies learned as they were nursed. Within the four walls of the cottage, everyone was safe. Outside, however, things were wildly different. At the young age he was, Luke was being consistently prepared for a leave-taking, but this he knew nothing about. South Africa was his home, as far as he knew. Around him, preparations were being made. The house was being, slowly, packed into trunks and other sorts of moving materials. All around him, the talk was of the Ministry lifting the ban on transportation between South Africa and England. With the second rise of Voldemort (which was hardly an issue in South Africa anyway) the proposed lifting of 1994 was delayed. Incidentally, things got worse for the South Africans anyway. Luke never was exposed wholly to the atrocities around him save for one incident, but both his siblings were quite aware of what was happening and why. Such exertions of authority based upon the colour of ones skin seemed, at least to James, fate’s way of balancing power in the world: black would always be a symbol of evil, white always a symbol of good. For this, James was quickly swept into the arms of his Uncles and Cousins who shared his confused anger in spite of the skin colours. Luke came across one such act of anger; his brother was poised over a ‘servant’ boy who had lost his footing while carrying precious water to the horses, a whip in his hand – he, Goliath like. Since then, though Luke never understood truly what it meant, injustice has factored into things which are intolerable to Luke.
Out of South Africa: 2000
All things must end, so when the transportation ban ended in 2000, the Torringtons were among the many thousands of families flocking to the Ministry in Johannesburg, to be given their passage home. England was a much changed country also. Houses which had been vacated – at times even entire towns left out of time – were being filled once more and pretty soon, the threads of life left in the 80s were being rewoven. But for Luke it was like an exile. Growing up with rain instead of sun, with green fields and large houses instead of yellow-green plains and shanty-towns was a big step out of himself. He had to readjust to life in England. He was, by this time, nearly five and could only remember being a minority white among a majority black. In England, this was woefully reversed. But at such a young age, learning and adaptation come quite easily, and before long Luke was as much an Englishman as he had been a Boer. The discovery of his three other siblings (all older and more grounded in English society) threw him through another loop, but gradually they were forgotten as strangers and remembered as being with him his whole life, even in Africa. And, of course, the Torringtons took their time before returning to their cottage in South Africa. It was a span of more than half a decade before they set foot in the country again.
All That You Can’t Leave Behind: Summer Holiday 2007
He was 11, or seven years older, when Luke found himself settling down in what had been the old nursery in their cottage in South Africa. Summer holidays in 2007 brought the Torringtons back/home to the cottage, though this time all six children were present. Life as it had been seven years prior was not as it was now. It had been noisy then; now it was unsettlingly quiet. Afua was still living there, but her face looked wizened and old. Her eyes were always sad. It seemed life had been taken from her. She helped, once more, to define Luke’s life when he visited her during the holiday. She led him to a barn on their property and instructed him to enter it. She did not do so herself, but Luke didn’t understand why until her saw what was held within. A chamber lit by an electric light hanging overhead, electric wires (which Luke had become aware of simply because of the way in which the cottage had to be operated in) hanging from the ceiling connected by tubes of rubber to the sockets in the legs and arm-rests of a chair. The chair also had large spikes on the seat and back, and there was a pasty, dried, crimson colouring the chair. What looked like black tar was in patches on the arms and legs of the chair. The meaning was quite clear to Luke when he looked to the corner of the room and saw that whip his brother had used on the servant.
‘We en’t the only ones, Kwado.’ Afua had said, and Luke understood on a much different level than she.
Hogwarts Years
A quiet boy, Luke always felt on the outside of everything. Disconnection plagued him. Every day felt a struggle between keeping it together and falling apart. Sometimes secrets interfered with the respectable behaviour of students, as far as Luke observed them. So the first three years passed without any real significance. Studies were, clearly, an importance to Luke, but some times things happened that he had no explanation for, and books never seem adequate friends to talk to about such things. Waking up in a pool of sweat, for example. Feeling frustrated but really - joyous? - at the same time. Seeing someone, more particularly some boy, and getting immediately shy. All these things had changed Luke so that one day, he looked in a mirror and saw someone he didn't know. In his fourth year, however, the isolation grew worse. Did he belong in such a place as Hogwarts? Fortunately, the year ended on a high note, with the unlikely friendship of a young boy from Gryffindor, by the name of Christian Nagle. Where the friendship was destined to go, Luke didn't know, but he had a very keen idea of where he wanted it to end. It seemed the time had come to cast off the invisibility cloak that tormented one side of him. Time to step out into the light.
[ Pros and Cons : ] ( This is where you should put all of your characters finer points and all of their flaws. What makes them, them. AT LEAST three of each. Do not list, tell us in paragraph form, preferably with a full paragraph on all six.)
Vices
Luke has temper and it flares at inconsistent times. He isn’t impetuous, per se, but there will be moments when he sees something and decides he doesn’t like it, and because he may be unable to do anything about it, he will get angry and anything and everything because it has prevented him from doing what he believes is right. The can obviously be traced back to his experiences abroad and their stark contrast to experiences of a similar but subtle nature at ‘home’.
Like many pubescent males, Luke compacts his strong feelings and opinions about things. When an outlet – a suitable one – presents itself to him, he uses it to fume, but at times when such an outlet is not present, Luke allows the opinions and emotions to build inside. It effects his magic as well as his persona, and his drive – at times – to avenge are often in blind rage. When he builds up all these emotions, how can he identify one singular platform on which to play the avenger?
Part of his dislike of wealth comes from his absorption of it. Being wealthy himself, Luke understands what society is held by the rich and how each of them hold that internal desire for their colleagues’ possessions. That is the society he lives in, but it isn’t necessarily the world. For this, an inbred skill and tendency for want or jealousy has he. Even though it contrasts with his other morals, Luke can’t escape this.
Virtues
Luke has a gift for speach. Though during his furious moments he tends to be less articulate than the common illiterate, Luke has a sharp vernacular and sometimes his words have the ability to really make a person think about what he says and how it may concern them in a bigger sense. He doesn't mince words - he says them or he leaves them.
Luke also desires to be as truthful a person he can be, if for no other reason than because telling the truth is easier than lying because (as Mark Twain once said), there's too much to remember when you lie. Not only in his storytelling but also in his actions, Luke tries to be as true to himself, ergo also to the company he is with, as he can be. In some regards, this is an awkward trait he possesses, and he is keenly aware that such practises are dangerous in the wrong company - especially when things, which are truth but are deemed as secrets, fail to stay secret as a result.
Music has been one of the things that has allowed Luke to unapologetically feel, and ever since he returned to England, he has been tutored in singing. Though a trait, primarily, the gift of song has helped him to understand others whom the general populae fall short in recognition of. And, vice versa, he is able to use songs to help others better understand him and that which he understands. Whether or not he has a magnificent voice - a true judgement call - is completely up to the beholder.
[Role Playing Example:]
... but in the end, the truth was (undeniably) the truth, no matter how hard it was to swallow. It would not do well for him to dwell on the things he could not prevent, but it was nearly impossible to prevent him from dwelling on them nonetheless. No song, no rhetoric could provide a band-aid to the wound he bore by knowing it. Knowledge. Afua had once said that it was, by most Muggles, considered the birth of evil. 'To have eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge in the Garden was to have invited the possibility of evil to enter oneself.' Whatever this garden was, Luke didn't know. Whatever this fruit was, he was certain he had not eaten of it.
'How does one know they are eating this fruit?' He had mistakenly taken the metaphor literally, which the nanny had understood, processed and forgiven before saying, 'If it is given to you by the serpent, you will not know immediately. It is only once you have already eaten that you know, and it is too late then.' It was beyond him, but he was not beyond understanding one layer of what she said, and thus for the remainder of the evening, Luke went around in the dying garden of his mother's labours searching for the serpent, his heel ready to crush the deceiver.