Not Quite The Hero: Bruce

This month I’m starting another blog series about the “secondary hero.” The guy who isn’t quite the hero of the story, but he’s always lurking in a corner. And sometimes it’s those quiet ones who matter, so it makes sense to start with Bruce. City of the Invaders is built on interactions that are hidden—people are not revealing how they feel about things. It makes sense for the EC to put on plays and for the Invaders to come see them, because these two groups of people are constantly acting in real life.

Bruce is pretty popular. He also appears in the shorter story “The Trouble with Taranui,” and as he’s called there, “the cool boy,” he’s the EC’s Justin Bieber. Bruce is born for the stage and usually played the lead role until the director decided to cast uninterested—and uninteresting—newcomer Frank. His laid-back personality makes it easy for him to handle endless rehearsals and all kinds of attention and he’s a good sport. He doesn’t at all mind taking a break by doing the side role of a boring king with flat speeches—after all, Bruce has a good voice and can make almost anything sound acceptable.

Bruce is like vanilla ice cream, but there’s a reason he was pushed into the forefront—he isn’t all he looks like. The EC and Invaders have fairly good manners though, even when they’re shooting each other, and don’t reveal some of the strong, invisible feelings that dominate their lives.
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And there will be more updates.