Greetings, everyone, Nep Heart here doing something different yet again. For anyone reading, this is my own attempt at a character review, more specifically one at the request of @Alchemist of Atlas and a sort of return favor of doing one for me in the previous post. I'm going to keep this (relatively) short and try to put as many thoughts I can about each part of the profile. Also, I'll be focusing entirely on the character herself directly, so, no writing feedback or anything of the sort.
Anyway, let's start.
I'd make comments on how Atlas' women tend to be tall, but given she's Scandinavian, this actually is surprisingly "normalish" height for her ethnic background.
If you're wondering why horoscopic signs are even listed in this profile as well as nearly all of Atlas' character profiles, they're what determine natural born attributes correspondent to the property bestowed by each sign. It's primarily inspired by one of his most favorite fictional series, a long-running one at that, known as Saint Seiya. Ruling elements operate under a similar logic, but rather function more like guidelines on what a character's power could potentially develop as and grant an affinity where harnessing one's birth element makes self-development become significantly more efficient... in a way, ruling elements remind me of magical Origin from the Nasuverse.
By the way, you'll notice her occupations are likely going to be very prevalent in the remainder of the review, so, I'll skip it on this segment for now.
Just so you know, "bright" is a pretty big understatement in context, but otherwise won't be very obvious without actually knowing her achievements. She basically pushes a single country several thousands of years ahead of its time technologically speaking... but you'll find out more of what insanity Joanna is capable of in the segment below. In short, she basically makes the greatest minds of our world look like newborn infants in comparison.
Here, we also have someone who is sarcastic and opinionated, which makes her sound unpleasant at first, but then you learn she practices the Golden Rule; she treats people the way she expects them to treat her. It's obvious that Joanna does not give a damn about imaginary rules that do not benefit her and, frankly, why should she? With all that said, her seemingly negative aspects are more than compensated with one who is loyal, honest and just wants to have fun that make her sound pretty cool to hang out with.
I can actually relate with that and the fact that Joanna's lazy... smarts and talents are such hard work, no wonder I've been delaying some of my own projects!
Overall, science heroes/heroines are some of my favorite character archetypes and Joanna fits it like a glove.
... Aaaaand this is exactly what I had in mind when I say "brilliant" is an understatement. Just a cursory glance over Joanna's devices basically tells you that she's like a Time Lord!... only without the time travel focus, but she definitely took cues from Arthur C. Clarke there in that regard.
On a related note, it's interesting that the theme to all of Joanna's powers and inventions make references to Norse Mythology. Well, Joanna is Scandinavian and that is where the mythos derived from after all. I always appreciate those kind of corresponding thematic references like these, it gives an additional layer of depth for the character.
I think it's safe to say that this is one lady you don't want to cross her bad side because she'll be an absolute menace with all this stuff at her arsenal... everyone in Babylon is lucky that Joanna's on their side.
The earlier paragraphs of Joanna's backstory would have never made you guess that she ultimately became something she once hated if you didn't read about the other stuff on the character prior. Goes to show people can have a big change of heart if you just expose them to the positivity of what they've once perceived as negative. In Joanna's case, it's quite extreme as she actually became the best at what she once couldn't stand.
Seidr, a reference to Norse Mythology as I pointed out prior, is Alchemia's closest approximation to magic with key differences aside from the typical tradition of the concept and Joanna seems to be almost as good in it as she is with her scientific disciplines. This unintentionally brought her in conflict with the resident traditionalist mage who's opposed of Joanna not only being a a non-magical genius who can use magic competently, but doesn't like the idea of marrying the two ideas because she's obviously jealous and doesn't want to become obsolete. Basically, Joanna spits in the face of the admittedly cliché arcane vs science conflict... refer to Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law.
With this character review done, I hope everyone enjoyed the read.
