Thread:Double Slap/@comment-3391671-20180123050816/@comment-3391671-20180125073515

Speculations these were, but with one of them, you had hit the mark of what kind of direction I wanted to take with Nevon. Not exactly the same, but to me it's much more clear than what I had.

As described before, I wanted Nevon, in reaction to his failure, to take responsibility of what has been done and in some way take himself to the battlefield. Instead of leaving it to proxy who stands between him and the results, he believes now that he needs to be more proactive. This is also seen in the reason why he left Zaun, where he chose not to be proactive and instead "escape" to an environment that offers his desired results in a more feasible environment, whether or not Zaun was beyond help by his meds/mech or not.

Nevon starts out as a somewhat passive man for this reason. He's certainly active in attaining proper medical skins in Zaun compared to another, but was naive in thinking that was enough to make a difference in Zaun. Instead of supposedly putting more effort, thus possibly putting himself in danger by making enemies with other scientists who don't approve his humane ways, he ducked out of the underground city. There are hints that he may also have been selfish with his medical practices, as it may have been more about him feeling good about helping people than actually seeing them get better; certainly, he saw proper progress, but he didn't realize till the Noxus incident what blind assistance to "a good cause" could produce. Thus, on top of the disappointment of efforts going into vain, Nevon took a step back in self-reflection. Certainly, all of this was not done immediately, and possibly done over the time between finding out his investor (and Noxus) was misusing his products and him taking time in his old Zaunite lab.

Thereafter, what I had envisioned for Nevon was that he wasn't aggressive-aggressive, neither is he supposed to embody an entirely optimistic and stubborn man who seems to be ultimately impervious to negativity. You could say I've seen that either too much as a trope, or believe others can venture those ideas in my place. Instead, I want to take the first approach you described: humility. He finally understood that he had been dreaming too much that his medicine and tech would lead to evident good, and as you describe, this was his folly. But, while I do want him to tone down his expectations to a more practical/realistic level, I would like him to still have a hint of idealism, as he now has (or assumes that he has) a better grasp of what can/should be done.

Having him become anxious is something I didn't consider, possibly because that is not where I'm comfortable when building up a character or am I confident that I can make a character with such traits without some of my inner biases where anxious (or gloomy) isn't as flexible at times, making protagonists feel like squawk. There is that closed-minded backing where such a trait is attributed to "being a wimp," but you could also say that is not how I originally envisioned him to be in becoming a "combat medic." At worst, I wanted him to be very jaded, since going further would make me think that he wouldn't trust others any more or be more isolated, thus contradicting his support role.