PLAYER INFO
Name: Emily
Preferred pronoun: She/hers
Preferred means of contact: e-mail, Tumblr
Any other characters currently in-game? nop

CHARACTER INFO
Name: Luther Levy
Gender: Male
Age: Mid-twenties
Source: Family Man, by Dylan Meconis
Canon Point: Some time after Ariana departs to meet the Family, and slightly before his most recent appearance in the comic, where he asks Rector Nolte about the history of the Family and Familienwald. So somewhere here.

CANON
History: So! Some of this requires context and I've provided the necessary links. It's the Enlightenment. Specifically it's 1768, and we're in Germany.

Luther's mother is a Pietist and his father is Jewish, and a tradesman. That right there tells you a lot about how unusual his family is for the time and place! We know little of Luther's past before the story except that 1) he knows how to repair clocks, like his father and 2) he went to university.

Point 2 is where our story begins. Luther is at this time a graduate student in Gottingen. He's interested in the work of Spinoza, who is like him atheist by belief, Christian by upbringing, and Jewish by birth. He is dissuaded from pursuing a thesis on Spinoza but refuses to drop the subject. He loses his sponsor/patron. At his thesis defense, he is questioned on his beliefs and the committee refuses his doctoral degree. Luther cannot now complete his degree, and without it there's very little his academic career matters for. He lives at home with his mother, father, and youngest sister, and plans to take a position as a tutor-- until the day he meets Lucien St. Yves. Lucien is a roaming scholar and purchaser of books, associated with Gottingen (so he knows who Luther is) and also the University of Familienwald (a remote campus near the Balkans).

Lucien offers Luther a lecturing position with Familienwald. He accepts! It's here he meets his mentor figure, Rector Nolte (the man for whom he will deliver lectures). He also meets Ariana Nolte, the Rector's daughter and de facto head librarian of the university. He impresses the Rector. He intrigues Ariana. Fast forward some months and he and Ariana are carrying on a relationship in secret.

There's some stuff with wolves in there too, and sacrifice. Family Man is a very character-driven comic and not much in the way of action has happened, except for some really stunning theological lectures and mysterious happenings with wolves.

Personality: Luther's an easygoing guy. He's friendly, affable, handsome, and intelligent. As a scholar he's naturally curious. He also has some Problems and they're easily summed up:

His name is Luther Levy.

Okay I guess you need context for this! First off, Levy immediately marks him as Jewish. This is the mid-to-late eighteenth century. The principal editor and contributor to the Encyclopedie, Diderot, writes this of the Jews in 1765 (three years before the comic): they are "an ignorant and superstitious nation." But his name is also Luther-- after Martin Luther, a central figure in the Protestant Reformation and author of "The Jews and their Lies."

Luther Levy's mother is Pietist bourgeoisie and his father is a Jewish tradesman. He has been raised in a unique mixing of Christian traditions: compassionate, evangelical, mystic and intensely personal and pious. It would involve a great deal of study, rhetoric, and living an exemplary Christian life. Members of the Levy family are shown to be especially prudent about their place in the world. Luther mentions his mother having urged him to study "The Jews and their Lies" specifically so he would be able to rebut it.

Just because Luther isn't a practicing Jew doesn't mean he's not going to have problems. He's careful of his place in society, knowing he will have to excel to be seen as anything but Jewish! Jewish! Jewish! He is purposefully witty, charming, and gracious, knowing many vocations and residences might be barred to him because of his birth. Luther MUST be hyper-conscious of his race and social status. Perhaps because of prior refusals, he's developed an ego he keeps in check only for fear of reprisal. He's shown to be very theatrical. He begins his first lecture by announcing "I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD"-- that is, he directly assumes the role of Jesus in the Gospel of John.

He's an inveterate flirt. While I suspect Luther has many of the same ideas of women as his contemporaries, he clearly thinks a great deal of the women in his life. He encourages his little sister Liesl, who composes poems, and he is enchanted with Ariana Nolte. (Ariana occupies an unofficial position in the university that would never, ever be granted to a woman. Luther is astonished to find she has created a new system for organization of the collection, essentially the first card catalog. He knows she knows more than him and that she's clever and resourceful. It's the catalyst for his pursuing her.)

(He also makes a lot of really bad theology jokes in front of her and then berates himself for it but that's another matter.)


OH NO... SHES HOT... SHE KNOWS SO MUCH STUFF... OH NO

Luther is also stubborn. He doesn't compromise easily, and he rarely makes apologies for his convictions. As he completed his thesis, he was repeatedly advised to change his subject from Spinoza to Augustine. (Some more context: Spinoza is, like Luther, an atheist of Christian upbringing and Jewish background.) At the defense of his thesis before a doctoral committee, he was asked only three questions: are you Jewish? (By birth, yes.) Are you an atheist? (He doesn't define himself that way.)

Are you a Christian?

Luther still says no.


you fucked up. now you fucked up. nOW YOU HAVE FUCKED UP

Even afterward, he explains he never liked or enjoyed Spinoza. He just agrees with the conclusions. He's not under duress. Answering yes means he gets his degree. Answering yes means he is guaranteed a job somewhere, even though he's Jewish and from a family in trade. But the man sticks to his word, and he will never turn on his convictions. Sometimes Luther's frustration takes over, as I imagine it would. As he exits his defense he flips over a table. When he's staying at home with his parents, he's adamant about not attending Mass.

Mostly I think of Luther on his own terms. On one page of the comic he describes himself as an "atheist Christian Jew--" which is to say, he is an intellectual and a skeptic, he has passion and dedication and the mother of all Protestant work ethics, and he's ever mindful of his uneasy place in the world.

INTO THE HEDGE
Seeming: Darkling servant
Role: Luther is a gatherer of information. He procures books and acts as a library clerk.
Description: Luther is a somewhat exaggerated version of his appearance in the comic. Canonically, the size of his nose is hinted to be part of his self-perception as a Jewish man; in Changed, that's just how it looks. His skin is sepia-toned. He resents his seeming, perceiving it as a cruel caricature, though he cannot fully recall what it meant to be Jewish in his time and place.
Reasoning: It ties into his constant self-appraisal and consciousness of his place in society. He also looks somewhat bookish or papery, a nod to his role as a scholar.

MEMORIES
First Memory: Flipping over a table as he turns his back on the Gottingen doctoral committee.

Another Five: Walking by a lake with his friend Lucien, the night before Lucien departs Familienwald-- specifically, asking Lucien why he was offered his job.

Kissing Ariana Nolte at the foot of the stairs the night he visits her father's mansion.

Standing before a room of young men and announcing, quite seriously, I AM THE GOOD SHEPHERD.

Fighting with his brother about attending Mass, while hundreds of clocks go off.

Putting a copy of Ovid's Metamorphoses on the returns shelf outside Ariana's sacristy, and waiting for hours for her to notice. (Their signal to meet.)

-- It's worth noting that while these are all specific plot examples, the conversations that happen during them will give Luther some idea of his general cultural context. (For example, the "atheist Christian Jew" remark happens in his short talk with Lucien.)

SAMPLES
THIS IS ONGOING