Oh Bronx….
His name came from the movie: The Medicine Man. Sean Connery plays a doctor in the Amazon who is joined by another American Doctor. Our Scotsman decides that he will not call her by her first name. He wanted to give her a tribal name, a nickname. She came from the Bronx, New York…thus her nickname was Bronx.
When I was first writing the story, I had another name for the Underworld. I had called it Styx (after the River Styx in Greek Mythology). For a sense of symmetry, I wanted to give my Death Volocio a name that would fit….essentially a name with an ‘x’ in it: Bronx.
Ta Da!
Obviously, the Underworld is still the Underworld, but Bronx is still Bronx. His physical appearance has always stayed the same: pale skin, dark hair and dark eyes. The reason for it? I figured that anyone whose power was death would be dead-like, as in lacking color of any kind. Thus the pale skin but dark hair and eyes….like someone who walked out of a black and white movie.
A few years ago, I went with some friends to see “Prince Caspian.” I didn’t think much of it at the time…but near the end of the movie it dawned on me: the actor playing Caspian looked EXACTLY how I imagined Bronx to be.
I had to look up this actors…who was he?
Ben Barnes
oooooooo yum…..
I know he may be very different than your idea of what Bronx looked like. I think Ben is pretty enough 😉 If my book ever becomes a movie (preferably a tv show) I would want him or a younger looking version of him playing the role.
I came up with his power around the time (note that I was about 14-years-old when I created this character) I had another wild obsession: Sailor Moon. Along with Sailor Moon – I loved to read fan-fiction. Mostly on Sailor Jupiter (whose power was lightning…sound familiar?). I found a fan-fic that someone wrote about a new Sailor Scout: Sailor Styx. It was a Sailor Scout who controlled death and was a love interest to my Lita. Make your own judgement on the story but it inspired me to create a love interest for Rei who controlled death.
On this recent draft, I decided that I wanted Bronx to have angst…however, I wanted to give him a reason to be fucked up. Thus I gave him a craaaaazy background. The story of his birth (the whole mother having an affair with her father-in-law) was inspired by a family member while the mother abandoning him at such a young age was from the parent of a friend. Then I decided to insult to injury by having him thrown in a mental hospital. Put all that together and you have one fucked up character. Take that Edward Cullen! Now whenever Bronx broods…there is a reason behind it…in fact, you can be amazed that he is still a somewhat functioning creature in society.
Anyway, that’s all I have for Bronx for now. But I wanted to give a little insight into his creation.
until next time,
MLT