Origin of a Snark Knight

So one of the main characters in my book happens to be The Snark Knight. He's cynical, a Knight In Bitter Armour and intially, he's kind of an asshole and is a bit bigotted against some people. Eventually he undergoes Defrosting Ice Queen a bit. The problem I have now is figuring out exactly what made him turn out this way. Yes, I know some people have perfectly fine lives growing up and happen to become very cynical, but in a fictional situation it deserves some degree of explanation. I have some ideas in very early development and I'd appreciate some feedback.

• He was an orphan and was raised in this setting's equivalent of a co-ed nunnery or similar religious vocation place-thing. He eventually got tired of his questions of "why does evil/pain/death exist?" being replied with simply "It's part of the gods' plan" He became jaded with religion as well as the world, as well and being somewhat anti-theistic as well.

That's all I really have at this point. I'd really appreciate it if anyone could provide any ideas. But here's some things to keep in mind about the character.

• He's bisexual, but he isn't discriminated against for it in this setting. For this reason I REALLY want to avoid the Abusive Childhood trope, ESPECIALLY anything involving sexual abuse, because the whole "sexual abuse caused him/her to become 'enter sexuality here that isn't heterosexual'" is way too over used and is full of Unfortunate Implications

I'd think that being brought up in an environment where questions are brushed off with weak-kneed non-answers would be quite sufficient to give a jaded outlook.

Good idea for his sexuality to a) have no negative ramifications in his world and b) have no "origin" in sexual or physical abuse.

I'd be inclined to play up the fact that his childhood was, on the whole, fairly happy and trauma-free (aside from being orphaned) and, while his snarky cynicism could be blamed on his impatience with silly answers to good questions and his perception of a lack of critical thinking capacity in the adults he knew, his sexuality is just part of who he is.

Actually, the religious folks he was raised by were perfectly fine with his sexuality. He just developed the perception that all religious people were foolish, thanks to less than satisfying explanations to his questions, but he gets better over the course of the story. (as in tries not to generalize them as much) By the end, he still is snarky and sacastic, but he's much less of a Jerkass towards people.

Yeah, that's what I meant, have no negative connotations at all to his sexuality - it's "normal" so far as they are concerned and it's not "because of something".

If you pitch the religious order as holding themselves up as the height of education/knowledge/sophistication, then he could grow up with the idea "people who claim to be educated/knowledgeable are full of shit" and other cynical outlooks.

A youth spent hearing "we are the most prestigious intellectuals around" in one breath and "oh, that's because god wills it" in the next is likely to give anyone a natural suspicion of so-called "clever" people and a feeling of superiority over them.

The fun bit would be portraying the bisexuality as the non-issue it is as it'd be most effective if you make it a total non-issue to anyone, including the POV - whom I presume is your protagonist. Therefore you can't explicitly state "it's never been an issue" because someone raised in a place where it's accepted would have no reason to suspect anyone would have an issue with it.

Unless you had the protag encounter someone for whom it is an issue and be utterly shocked that they should think that way - which would be a rather clumsy means.

Much more fun to just subtly convey the relaxed attitude to it through people's reactions throughout the story - complete acceptance of his partners, perhaps the only surprise being "Oh, I thought you and Bill were an item. What happened? ... Oh, that's a pity, he was nice."

But yeah, his sexuality isn't really made a big deal of in-universe by anyone. And also, 'religious folks' in this setting are shown as varying from 'genuinely good person' to 'Well-Intentioned Extremist' to 'Knight Templar' and one of his big problems in the begining is that he doesn't distinguish between 'good people who happen to be vocal about their religion' and 'ignorant wackjobs' Eventually he manages to get better regarding that, due to developing friendships with some 'religious folks' (I'm posibly thinking that one of them happens to become his Love Interest)

Then it looks like you've got it pretty much pegged. It sounds like a good, believable character with potential for development in a realistic world where nothing is as black and white as he might personally believe at first.

It's the sort of book I'd probably enjoy and I especially like the idea that variances in sexuality are treated as normal.

I'm very glad to hear that :) I thought it'd be an interesting and not very often used area to explore. Positive representation is a cool thing, plus it also averts the whole "all religious people are homophobic' sterotype that's used and perpetuated WAY too much.