Attwell Doyle

A topic under Characters.

Attwell, Doyle, Chief Builder, and father of Eila Doyle.

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From the World Building Docs - July 24th

ATWELL DOYLE

Atwell Doyle is Waldron Gate’s most celebrated Builder. Everyone assumes that he will eventually take over for Rabbit Brampton. Prime Minister Morrison is constantly fawning over him. This is because Prime Minister Morrison is a totally evil fuck, and he’s going to have Atwell make some sort of evil steampunk contraption in a future book.

He is Eila’s eternal cheerleader, and the reason she gained early acceptance into The Ministry of Manifestation. He is also the reason why Eila was capable of meeting the challenge. There may or may not be something special about Atwell’s bloodline.

Atwell is a great thinker. He can sometimes go for long stretches without saying a word, but once his bubble pops he crackles with articulation. He is suspicious of Brampton, the Ministry’s scientist, but isn’t exactly sure why (because Brampton’s a good guy, and Atwell doesn’t understand what that is).

Atwell’s eyes are a dazzling grayish blue, a color that seems to turn from a perfect circle to smoke while he is building, an unexplained quirk that happens to only the Ministry’s best builders.

Atwell’s smiles suggest that he knows many secrets, and as Head Builder he absolutely does. He has quite a few established habits, like growing a beard if he’s trying to puzzle something out, and one time went for seven weeks and a day without an answer, and was shocked to see how much white he had in his beard.

He has no idea where they come from, but Atwell often thinks of songs from nowhere, fully articulated with music and lyrics, he can hear them completely in his head, and sings to himself when alone. He never sings these songs around anyone else, because even though he can’t explain why it somehow feels wrong (he’s feeling guilty, because deep inside he knows they are stolen).

Like Eila, Atwell showed an early and staggering ability to Build. His family had been Builders for generations, moving up from a family of respectable multi-generational Sculptor at the Ministry of Agrotexture (farming and landscaping). Over many generations they had moved from fashioning elaborate ways of growing crops, to the most gorgeous landscaping in Waldron’s Gate — Atwell’s great, great grandfather Hemple Doyle was once in charge of the gardens in front of the Prime Minister’s manor.

Hemple’s son, Poe, was a natural Builder. He took his place in the Ministry at age 15, and moved the Doyle Name to the rose covered section of Waldron’s Gate with the rest of the Builders after marrying Atwell’s great grandmother, Lady Rowena Hynes.

There the Doyles stayed as moderate builders until Atwell turned 15 and won the Ministry’s coveted Colt Award away from Samuel Hoorigan, the favorite, and a 15th generation Builder.

Atwell doesn’t believe in The Crown, the god who lives up in the sky that many people (mostly the lower classes, and definitely the further you get from the capital) believe in. Those who don’t believe in The Crown usually fail to have faith because they argue that if there was a Crown, he’d do away with the Fog. Atwell doesn’t believe because he thinks it’s illogical.

But he does believe in something. He’s seen stuff at the edges of reality, while Building. Stuff he doesn’t understand. Stuff he can’t explain, and would never admit, not even if Rabbit Brampton stared in his eyes and demanded that he did.

Atwell is the sort of man who would ponder life’s larger questions, but he’s not given the tools to do so. Without dreams that part of himself always stays bottled, and yet he’s expelling his own dreams to articulate desires that never belonged to him. This creates a quiet yet manic torture inside him. He knows he’ll miss Building when he’s no longer doing it, but is eager for the day when he takes Brampton’s place.

Atwell isn’t the political sort, and all the events at the Prime Minister’s Manor make him bristle, but becoming someone important in Waldron Gate means that he’ll be able to take care of his family forever, like the very best families in Aterran history, and nothing is more important to Atwell than that.

Atwell has an absolute sense of right and wrong, but he doesn’t have any perspective to know what is what. This will create an interesting dynamic in the series, as Atwell will be put at odds with Eila. The Doyle’s have had relative few children. Atwell has one brother and one sister, also a builder.