Hello everyone. Tom's here. The creator of Gaia. This week I want to discuss with you another character that's near and dear to my heart. Among the supporting cast of Gaia. One of Tori's best and closest friends. Mary Thompson!
Mary Thompson is also a sixteen year old high school student attending Wyandotte High School with the rest of her friends. She has no siblings and two loving parents and was brought up with strong moral values that she takes seriously. In a lot of ways she's the conscious of the group. Always making sure the right decision is being made.
What makes her different from the rest of the group is that she has very different core values from her friends. While Tori, Shinta, June, Lily, and Nex are mostly atheist and liberal, Mary was brought up as a Christian conservative and is very religious. She attends church with the rest of her family every Sunday and reads the bible regularly. Mary was of course named after the virgin Mary and is proud to carry that name through her teenage years. Mary has dreams of one day getting married and having children and raising up a strong and good Christian home.
Now one of the things I wanted to show in my writing is that despite the contrast in core values among my characters they can still be friends. While they argue over ethics every now and again the six don't let that interfere with their friendship. Mary is very non judgmental and isn't prejudiced. While she'll lightly nudge her friends to give church a try she doesn't force her religion down other people's throats and only shares her religion when the topic calls for it.
Mary gets along with most people she meets and is one of the nicer people you'll ever talk to unless she feels threatened. Lily likes to tease her about her religion and the differences among her friends' core values, but accepts that Mary has her own beliefs and respects that. Mary would love for all of her friends to be Christian and join her in church services, but accepts that people have to come into the faith themselves or not at all. So while she prays regularly for such a day to occur she leaves it up to God and doesn't worry about it.
Mary is the first real skeptic in the story about the discovery of the Medusa head. Thinking it all just a hoax. Of course she has to think that because the idea of the Greek gods being real gods goes against her core values. In her mind Lord Yahweh is the one true god of the universe and nothing came before him. So how could there be the likes of Zeus and Hera and Ares? It doesn't make sense to her. So she's certain that the Greek gods and even Medusa can't be real because it's a direct contradiction of what she has learned in the bible.
One of the struggles I wish to show with Mary is trying to live a good Christian life in a world that is slowly leaving that kind of lifestyle behind. Mary doesn't assume to have all the answers when it comes to her faith. She studies the bible and prays on finding the answers so she can be a light for the world. Her main goal is to be more like Jesus Christ and live a good honest life in his graces. While she struggles with some of the more violent and anti-homosexual scriptures, since many of her friends are either gay or bi, she tries to follow the direction of Jesus. Loving everyone despite their flaws and leaving it to God to judge them when the day comes. A lot of my own religious and spiritual beliefs have been placed inside of Mary. And I think once I invest more time for her character to grow people will see what makes her so unique.
And that's a day I'm looking forward to.
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