On Characters And Potatoes

"Sam Droll, The Wobbly-Eared Troll"

Meet Sam. The guy's a troll – a nice one, not the other kind. He's a character that I worked with years ago, probably when I should have been doing something else. It would be ironic if I was supposed to have been cleaning out a closet because that's what I was doing when I came across him in an old sketch book. He's aged well, but trolls tend to do that.

He's not perfect but that adds to his personality. And having a personality was important for Sam. Otherwise, he would have had a dull existence and ended up being a character without character. And then he'd run the risk of being mistaken for a potato. (Not to infer that potatoes don't have character; I've had dinner with more than a few very nice potatoes in my time and they were very nice. But potatoes are completely different from trolls and obviously, if all was right with the world, the two would never, ever be confused.)

How trolls display their personality is very much like people – in their expressions. And it's worth it to ask them if it's okay to play around a bit. Most won't mind and will let you know if you do something that makes them uncomfortable. Fashion also contributes to character but there are some things they won't allow you to dress them in. Sam here balked at underwear on his head. It was just a thought and after reflecting on it, I agreed.

Even trolls are entitled to their dignity, after all.

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The word "character", by the way, comes from an ancient Greek word "charaktêr"; a word for a mark made on a coin. Over time character became recognized as how we're different from one another. You have to hand it to our old Greek friends. They did a lot of work back then on stuff which is a good thing because if they hadn't, we'd probably have to stop what we're doing and figure it out today. And we've got a lot on our plates already, what with all the characters around...