What’s your favorite Backstory?

I dunno… that’s a hard question. Maybe Bruno from Avi’s City of Orphans. I really felt for him. No, maybe Errol from Patrick W. Carr’s A Cast of Stones. That was really good. Yeah, I’d say him. 🙂

@not-so-secret-secret-assassin Fullmetal Alchemist is so good! I was just thinking about it this morning, haha…

@kathleenramm Something similar to that; In Silver Spoon, by the same author as FMA, the main character Hachiken Yuugo has a pretty compelling backstory. At the start of the series we see that he’s come to farming school as an escape, and we can see how gradually over the course of the story how his experiences change him for the better, instead of focusing all on grades and competing with others, as well as fear of failure and rejection. This is also like not a good summary of the actual work. The actual manga is so much better than what I just said here.

Also, while I’m on the topic of manga, I think that the backstory for Monster’s mc Kenzo Tenma is one of the most striking and plot-relevant backstories I’ve seen. Dr. Tenma saves the life of a boy who turns out to be a monster, and now he must go and fix his mistake, and also grapple with the choice that he made. Beautifully done.

20th Century Boys (by the same author as Monster) also has extremely well-done backstories for all of its characters, and we can see how they tie in throughout everyone’s character arcs. Especially for the main character and the main villain. I love how throughout the story the present is always tied to the past. The mc, Kenji, has to deal with the devastating consequences of a story that he made up as a child. And might I say, the villain backstory is one of the best done I have seen so far in fiction. It is not meant for us to sympathize with him, but rather to understand him. I feel too often that villain backstories always go too far off the sad end and almost try to justify the villain’s actions. But this here is done extremely well.

Anyways, I could probably keep ranting, but those are my offerings.

@kathleenramm

I know I totally sound like a broken record every time I answer these weekly questions. So don’t worry about it. XD But today is gonna be the first time in a long while I won’t sound like a broken record… because I’ve got a backstory that isn’t from TKAM or Les Mis! Rare, am I right? 😂

I’m gonna say Saffron from the Casson Family series by Hilary McKay. (An absolutely delightful series from my summer reading list that I’m going to review on my blog in July, I enjoyed it that much.)

Saffron was born in Italy to Eve Casson’s twin sister Linda, and when Linda died, Eve and her husband Bill adopted their niece. Saffron grows up with Eve and Bill’s three children and doesn’t know about the adoption until she is much older. In the first book of the series (Saffy’s Angel), she discovers that she is their niece and travels to Italy to discover her former life. She gets closure for a while, but in the third book of the series (Permanent Rose), she realizes that she doesn’t know who her biological father is. Linda never told anyone, not even Eve, about Saffron’s father, and Eve never asked. Saffron begins a search for her father. Toward the end of the book, in a shocking and emotional twist, we find out that Saffron’s father is actually Bill. Bill’s girlfriend dumps him as a result, but is clearly sympathetic toward his children; Saffron is very upset for a while but gets through the trial with her best friend’s help; Eve surprisingly gets over the revelation quite rapidly and harbors no ill feeling toward her sister; and the rest of the family is understandably blindsided but recovers.

That storyline is a huge reason why I have a deep appreciation for this book series. I love how it gently teaches that there are many different kinds of families (a truth one of the characters actually points out in the second book). I feel that this is a very important truth more people need to realize, and a truth I myself had trouble grasping for a long time.

@kathleenramm

Well, the main characters are pretty morally gray, so it’s really interesting to see how they got to that point and the trauma they went through that eventually shaped their goals and decisions. It also makes the characters highly sympathetic and you feel like you have a connection with them. The author makes you feel really conflicted because you know some of the things they do aren’t exactly right but you understand the characters so well because of their backstories. It also brings up a lot of questions and thoughts in my mind about that kind of stuff. I hope that makes sense!