Tropes Media Browse Indexes Forums Videos Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Tools
Cut List New Edits Edit Reasons Launches Images List Crowner Activity Un-typed Pages Recent Page Type Changes Changelog
Tips
Creating New Redirects Cross Wicking Tips for Editing Text Formatting Rules Glossary Edit Reasons Handling Spoilers Word Cruft Administrivia FAQ
Tropes HQ
About Us Contact Us Advertise DMCA Notice Privacy Policy Report Bug
Go Ad-Free Changelog
  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Highlight Links
 

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Characters / Errant Story

Go To

    open/close all folders 

    Meji Hinadori 

A seventeen year old half-elf mage, though she ages more slowly than a normal human would making her look more in the area of twelve. While she starts out irresponsible, selfish, power-hungry, and a bit sadistic she slowly matures over the course of the story, to the point where she actually feels somewhat compelled to help fix the mistakes she has made.

  • All Periods Are PMS: used in-story as she's just getting to know Jon.
    Jon: Ah... 'Do not interrupt the rest of female mages, for they are cramping and quick to cause explosions'?
    Meji: Hmph. Typical. A girl casts one perfectly justified Fireball and the guys all say Oh, it must be PMS.
  • Badass Boast: One that doubles as a Kirk Summation:
    Meji: There are exactly 763 elves still alive inside this mountain. Some are scared, some are injured, some are buried under the wreckage and will soon die without aid. But 763 are alive. At least for the moment. I can tell because I can feel their heartbeats... every single one... and yours too. I want you to remember that... and remember that I am not the half elf that attacked you today. I'm not Ian because if you do something to make me or any half elf angry... I won't show up here to kick up some dust and make a mess like he would. You will simply stop... fall down dead as I end those heartbeats. And that will be that! Now that we have established that... I suggest you stop bothering me and go save the elves trapped in there while there's still time.
  • Character Development: See that Badass Boast above? That was in response to an elf who had just told her that he and his would hunt her to the ends of the earth if she didn't give up her godly powers. Imagine this Meji showing that kind of restraint.
  • Cutting the Knot: When Ian gains the powers of Anilis, he allies with the Ensigerum and raises a zombie army to attack the Elven city in revenge for their genocide of half-elves. After the dust has settled, Meji makes it clear that he was using his powers in the most inefficient way possible. She tells the remaining elves that if they piss her off, she will simply stop all their hearts instantly.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Jon and Sarine are the main characters, although Meji is still very important.
  • Disappeared Dad: Meji's father, the elven ambassador to Tsuiraku, only visits the city about once every two decades. On his previous trip he fathered Meji and he remains unseen until he returns 17 years later. He turns out to be a bit of a dick.
  • Godhood Seeker: Funny story, actually. this was the plan Meji had for her final project to graduate from her magic academy. And she actually did it...and still ended up failing the class.
  • Mugging the Monster: She looks like a harmless twelve-year-old girl. This has resulted in a number of people assuming she is a harmless twelve-year-old, including a group of street thugs, some Veracian guards, and an assassin and would-be hostage taker.
  • Older Than They Look: She's 17 but looks 12 because she's a half-elf. This leads to all kinds of angsting and insecurities.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: She is a powerful mage despite appearing to be 12.
  • Sextra Credit: Her attempt to pass her course under Professor Yukiri this way, all the way back at chapter one, is rebuffed, which is why she has to set off on her quest.
  • Vain Sorceress:
    • Meji's mom. Unusually, played sympathetically later in the story; Meji's mother is desperately trying to retain her beauty mostly so she can still be desirable to the dashing, immortal elf lord who serves as ambassador to her city every seventeen years. He turns out to be a complete dick who is perfectly fine with the idea of killing his own daughter as a way of maintaining his reputation and apparently was rather vicious in brushing off Meji's mom when they met again after she had carried the torch for seventeen years.
    • Meji mentions that there's a bit of a Double Standard involved here. Then Ellis points out that she might qualify herself, given her reasons for studying polymorph magic.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: With Ellis.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: sort of. She never knew her father, and wants to see him at least once to know why he left her. Given that he considers her an abomination as a Half-Elf, this isn't the best idea.
  • Yaoi Fangirl with a little Comedic Sociopathy: http://errantstory.com/2003-02-21

    Ellis 
Meji's familiar and proof that Cats Are Mean, Ellis is a loud, obnoxious, winged cat who is (unfortunately) also Made of Iron.
  • Cats Are Mean: Pretty much comes with the familiar territory, but if there's any doubt, watch him try to blow Jon away with his own gun.
  • Cat Boy: Originally, he's just a cat (albeit one with wings, power of speech, etc.), but he becomes one 2/3 of the way through the story as a result of Meji's Senilis-caused outburst of magical weirdness.
  • Cessation of Existence: When Ian gets his hands on him in the climactic battle.
  • Deadpan Snarker: See Snarky Non-Human Sidekick for the lampshading of the snark part. As for the deadpan part, he hangs an in-story lampshade for this very trope on Sarine with a fine example of his capabilities.
    Sarine: So the same people who train the law enforcement also train the criminals ... what a remarkably efficient system.
    Ellis: When you say these things, do even you sometimes have trouble telling whether you're being sarcastic or not?
  • Made of Iron: Survives, among other things, fireballs, lightning bolts, and being used as a flail.
  • Snarky Non-Human Sidekick: Again, comes with the territory of being a talking familiar. Lampshaded by a Tsuirakuan battlemage who observes that "All the talking familiars were just a really bad idea, but from what I heard, that entire series in particular had personality problems out the ass."

    Jon Amraphel 

A Hitman with a Heart, he starts out trying to maintain an image as a stoic assassin, but that quickly fades as he shows his true colors. The resident Badass Normal, among a cast of magic users he is the only one without a spark of magical talent in him yet is able to defeat most enemies with a combination of creativity, luck, and sharpshooting. Though on the surface he can appear to be rude, crude, and a bit dim, he can be quite clever at times and is something of a Deadpan Snarker, especially around Sarine. He also never hesitates to tell any of the several thousand year old elves exactly what he thinks of them.

    Ian Samael 

A forty year old half-elf mage looking for a way to heal his ailing sister. He starts out as an all around nice guy (if a bit Wangsty) who constantly worries over the very real possibility of the elves finding and killing him and his loved ones.

  • Death Seeker: made worse by the fact that he possesses god-like powers, is Made of Iron, and has a Healing Factor. So far his attempts to get himself killed have only ended up killing hundreds of innocent people.
  • Drunk with Power: after absorbing the power of the goddess Anilis.
  • Evil Feels Good: When he attacks the elven city, Ian realizes that he enjoys killing people. Though he's a little disturbed by that at first, he quickly gets past that and embraces his genocidal tendencies.
  • Face–Heel Turn: after failing to resurrect his dead sister, he embarks on a campaign of genocide.
  • Glowing Eyes of Doom: when channeling the power of the goddess Anilis.
  • God-Eating: Ian absorbs the goddess Anilis, one of the two elven creator gods.
  • Half-Human Hybrid: A half-elf like Meji.
  • Healing Factor: Ian seems to gain one after absorbing the powers of Anilis.
  • I Cannot Self-Terminate: primarily because he's simply too cowardly. He tries Suicide by Cop, only to end up killing hundreds of innocent people in the process. And it doesn't work.
  • Ignored Epiphany: "Oh, dear Lord, I actually have zombie minions. Yep, I guess I really am evil."
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Ian, after he tries and fails to bring his sister back from the dead, ends up blaming the elves for all of the world's problems and embarks on a campaign of extermination. After that he pretty much commits genocide wherever he goes.
  • Meaningful Name: "Samael" (literally, "Poison of God") is generally identified as the Angel of Death, and in Judaism is the real name of Satan. Some branches of demonology claim him as one of the fallen angels that followed Lucifer. Even if he's pretty nice in his introduction, it's pretty clear that he's going to be bad news.
  • Moral Event Horizon: destroying Emerylon and killing hundreds of innocent people because he was too cowardly to take his own life. Considered an in universe example, as well.
  • Mugged for Disguise: Ian sucker-punches a priest and steals his robes so that he can get into a restricted library. He later mugs another man for his travel ticket. He even lampshades this:
    Ian: ... and I'm mugging another old man... I really need to stop making a habit of this. At least it's not a priest this time.
  • No True Scotsman: "A '''real''' half elf grows up in constant fear!"
  • Older Than They Look: like all half-elves.
  • Pay Evil unto Evil: Ian's goal. He believes he's justified in trying to kill every elf in the world because some of them tried (and are still trying) to kill all the half-elves. Like most things, the moral quandaries inherent in the situation are lost on him.
  • Person of Mass Destruction: once he gets his hands on the powers of the elven creator goddess Anilis.
  • Physical God: After absorbing Anilis, it seems his only limits are that of his physical body in terms of being able to channel that much power. Nobody has any idea what he might not be capable of.
  • Sociopathic Hero: until he absorbs the goddess Anilis and loses the 'hero' part.
  • Suicide by Cop: Ian's reason for destroying Emerylon. The fact that he failed, and instead ended up killing hundreds of innocent people for nothing was the first part of his Face–Heel Turn. His final attempt at this, however, succeeded. His attempt at exterminating the elves forced a response from Meji, likely the only being on earth capable of stopping him.
  • Villainous Breakdown: during his final fight with Meji, after she interrupts his slaughter of the Elves. "I was just trying to help!"
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: He wants to make sure that the half-elves of the world won't have to live in fear of elven aggression. Unfortunately, his method of making this happen involves killing off all of the elves. Of course, he loses the "well intentioned" bit when it's revealed that he blew up the city of Emerylon and killed hundreds if not thousands of innocent people in an attempt to provoke the defending Veracians into killing him because he wanted to die and was too much of a coward to kill himself. And on top of that it didn't work, he killed all the Veracians who tried to stop him, including their artificial god, destroying the city in the process.

    Sarine Elle 

A three thousand year old elven ranger who fought in the Errant War that heralded the end of the elven empire, she walks the earth killing any errants (half-elves who have gone insane) left over from the war. She has a lot of emotional baggage but rarely shows it and was, in fact, rather emotionless for most of her early appearances. Being forced into new and bizarre situations for the first time in a thousand years has defrosted her a bit, though. She's revealed herself to be something of a Deadpan Snarker, particularly when around Jon.

  • Action Girl: Has been a soldier or a ranger for thousands of years, with all the combat experience that implies. She was able to fight Anita, perhaps the comic's most skilled martial artist, to a standstill.
  • Badass Longcoat: after her midseries change in wardrobe.
  • Byronic Hero: Very attractive physically? Check. Very intelligent, perceptive, sophisticated, educated, cunning and adaptable, but also self-centered? Check. Emotionally sensitive, which may translate into being emotionally conflicted, bipolar, or moody? Check. Intensely self-critical and introspective and may be described as dark and brooding? Check. Cynical, world-weary, and jaded, often due to a mysterious Dark and Troubled Past? Check. Extremely passionate, with strong personal beliefs which are usually in conflict with the values of the status quo? Check. She lives and breathes this trope.
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Sarine, who has opened up and shown her inner Deadpan Snarker more and more over the course of the story, especially around Jon.
  • Duel to the Death: She has a sad one against her longtime friend Sarna at the dwarven ruins near the end of the story.
  • If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Sarine delivered such a speech to former Ambassador Rarune regarding Rarune's half-elf daughter Meji.
    Sarine: If something happens to her, whether or not it was your fault, I'll come back and kill you.
  • Innocent Fanservice Girl: Played with. Jon interrupts Sarine while she's taking a bath, but although she doesn't get freaked out or try to cover herself, she's obviously annoyed and finds the interruption rude. So basically, fanservice yes, innocent no. Also subverted later: "Having no cultural nudity taboo doesn't work that way."
  • In the Hood: Sarine wears one to conceal her telltale elven ears, though one of her fellow elves points out that it's not particularly subtle.
  • Jedi Mind Trick: Sarine makes extensive use of this, including deleting a portion of Jon's memory when, out of emotional distress, she sleeps with him, and controlling a bandit they find in the woods in Farrel.
  • Judge, Jury, and Executioner: Unusually, for a Peregin (ranger) where half elves are concerned; most Peregins don't worry about guilt or innocence where half elves are concerned, but simply kill them.
  • Letting Her Hair Down: Sarine's mid series outfit change, giving up her armor (which had been rather useless up to that point) in favor of something lighter (and more flattering). It coincides with her starting to defy her elven superiors and open up a bit more to the other main characters.
  • Mayfly–December Romance: She was once married to a human. She marries Jon after the story is over, and outlives him too.
  • Only Sane Man: She seems to be the only reasonable elf we meet, and often acts as the voice of reason with her companions.
  • Really 700 Years Old: More like 3000.
  • Tragic Stillbirth: First hinted at in the prologue, and eventually confirmed in a Flashback Nightmare (and later still, a talk with Jon), the one she suffered long before story time becomes one of the most important plot drivers due to her relationship with Meji.
  • Unequal Pairing: Sarine was once a Viradior married to an Ensigerum warrior-monk, who originally were human guards trained by the Viradior to fight as champions for the elves.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: With Jon. Apparently, she really doesn't want it resolved, since the one time they actually have sex, she wipes his memory of it. Based on the epilogue, which not only shows the daughter they had together, but also mentions how they settled down, they not only resolved it after the events of the story, but repeatedly did so.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: with Jon, to an extent. Also with Sarna for the past two millennia, if their final, fatal dialogue is any indication.

    Sara Amraphel 

Jon's estranged sister and a relatively new addition to the group, she was a warrior-monk trained in The Spartan Way to ridiculous extremes. Between her intense physical training and magical abilities she can move faster than the human eye can track, dodge bullets, and is generally the group's physical powerhouse. She rarely speaks, more often than not communicating through looks and ellipses. She speaks a little elvish, though her training as a warrior-monk has left her with atrocious people skills.

  • Dark Action Girl: before her Heel–Face Turn
  • Defrosting Ice Queen: Like Sarine, Sara has warmed a little bit, though she's been a bit slower and more awkward about it.
  • Disappeared Dad: Sara and Jon's father was killed many years before the main story takes place.
  • Distracted by the Sexy: A Tsuiraku battle-mage named Jiro ends up distracted by Sara of all people. Apparently, she made quite the impression on Jiro. Enough so that he actually asked after her later. Like Bani, the rest of us wonder what kind of freaky ninja sex technique she used on him.
  • Double Weapon: Sara and Anita both make use of a double bladed Dolon style Durus Flamma, though other Ensigerum monks such as Warrel and Paul utilize a more practical Lancea (spear) form while still others such as Sarine's late husband used the more compact Spatha version. Sarine, during a fight with Sara, Lampshades this, stating that it is a poor weapon that was designed mainly for show and combines the weaknesses of a short sword and a spear into one crappy package. Despite this, Sara and Anita are skilled enough to overcome this handicap in most cases.
  • Emotionless Girl: a homicidal 'raised as a soldier' version.
  • Full-Contact Magic: Ensigerum warrior-monks makes extensive use of this, when they aren't just beating the living crap out of people normally that is.
  • Groin Attack: One of the most painful subversions in all of webcomicdom. She looks like she's going to administer one to the clueless Chris, as part of his Training from Hell ... but after male readers spend two whole days feeling his pain until the next strip runs, it turns out that she administers a more conventional, but still humiliating, smackdown while leaving his gonads intact. (Small consolation.)
  • Heel–Face Turn: Maybe, depending on whether one considers her willingness to accept an order to kill her own brother as marking her as a heel. She certainly undergoes some kind of moral turn after her fight with Sarine, anyway.
  • Jobber: In one chapter. Mentioned by name here.
  • Meditating Under a Waterfall: Part of her training, and lampshaded amusingly; she remembers it as less distracting than listening to the "damn endless chatter" that Sarine and Jon lay down in Praenubilus Astu.
  • Off with His Head!: to an elf named Rainae.
  • Pintsized Powerhouse: she is a deadly warrior-monk despite still being relatively young.
  • The Stoic: though she started to talk more as the comic entered its concluding chapters.
  • The Worf Effect: lampshaded, with a Shout-Out to TV Tropes, here.
  • Training Montage: Used to present her backstory as she's building up to her graduation mission — of assassinating Jon.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Well, "hero" isn't exactly the best description of Jon, but Sara lays into him about how he abandoned their family after their mother found out he was a hitman. Jon does offer some justification, but admits to his guilt over it.

    Anita 

Head of the Ensigerum, an order of monks and assassins (think Ninja with the ability to manipulate time) that live in a Hidden Elf Village (ironic in view of their "relations" with the elves) in the mountains of Veracia. She was promoted to the position after an Epic Fail on the part of an Ensigerum monk assigned to prevent a Gewehr hit, and as a result, is on a crusade not just to wipe out the Gewehr in Veracia, but every bit as important, to humiliate them first.

  • Armor-Piercing Response: A most incongruous one, as she deflates the Anilis-supercharged, and thoroughly mad, Ian, as he's threatening to do her terminal magical harm.
    Anita: Okay ... let's try this another way. Settle down and we'll get you a pair of pants. How's that sound?
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: And how, starting with the sparring session where she's first introduced.
  • The Chessmaster: For much of the story, although at the very end she decides to get her hands dirty and morph into the Manipulative Bastard subclass.
  • Double Weapon: See above under Sara; she's the great virtuoso of the Dolon, and according to Sara, one of the best fighters the order has ever had.
  • Duel to the Death: In the grand finale, to absolutely no one's surprise who has followed the whole comic. Unexpectedly, however, it's with Sarine (who lampshades it), not her former underling Sara, although Sara does administer the Finishing Move when things are looking tense.
  • Iron Lady: She's the head of the deadliest human fighting force on the planet, and tough as nails.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Her primary shtick as a leader; see above under Armor-Piercing Response for an example. However, she's plenty hands-on by the end of the story.
  • Older Than They Look: As she herself informs Ian.
  • Radial Ass Kicking: Only for show, although she could clearly do it for real. She's introduced administering one of these in a sparring session with less adept members of the Ensigerum — one of whom happens to be Sara Amraphel.
  • Reasonable Authority Figure: An instructive subversion: just because one is reasonable and in a position of authority doesn't keep one from being evil, reasonable and in a position of authority.
  • Smug Snake: Despite being the most individually powerful character prior to Ian's and Meji's respective ascensions, she spends most of the story sitting around talking about how superior she is and bullying people much weaker than herself, including carrying out a pointless vendetta against a group of mundane assassins for the crime of being Badass Normal enough to have beaten the vastly more powerful Ensigerum once. She claims to be planning to lead the Ensigerum to their long-deserved greatness, but in the end her best plan for doing so turns out to be teaming up with an insane pseudo-deity, in spite of her Only Sane Man second-in-command repeatedly telling her that that can't possibly end well. And to top it off, it turns out that the Ensigerum's seemingly unopposable time magic is still vulnerable to a number of countermeasures when used against someone who knows about its existence - it's almost like the early Ensigerum leader's had some sort of reason for deciding that the order should keep a low profile and not try to throw its weight around too much, hmmmmmmm, Anita?

    Bani Igaaru 

Meji's best friend from school, she graduated a year earlier and joined the "battlemages" (Tsuirakuan military). She meets up with Meji, Jon and Sarine while standing guard duty at a Tsuirakuan warp gate, and at first is just a foil for developing some of Meji's Backstory. However, toward the end of the comic, she becomes an important secondary character when Sarine tries to mobilize the Tsuirakuans against Ian and Anita. She and Sara, her near-contemporary in age but near-opposite in temperament, have all sorts of fun in the "Errant Commentary" fillers between comic chapters.

  • Black Dude Dies First: Lampshaded amusingly in the Errant Commentary.
  • Death Ray: The Yuuki staff she carries probably qualifies, which predictably causes Meji to be attracted to it.
  • Got Volunteered: She joined the battlemages willingly enough, but she definitely did not volunteer to head into the elven city for the climactic battle; her friendship with Meji got her "volunteered" for that.
  • Mauve Shirt: Deconstructed, sort of. For most of the comic she is a background character. Toward the end, she joins the party consisting of Sarine, Meji, Jon and Sara, and she looks like she's on the way to becoming an Ensemble Dark Horse, but then she attracts the notice of a Frontline General and gets pressed into service in what looks to be a classic Red Shirt role. Fortunately, she survives it.
  • Missing Mom: Her father appears in the story, but her mother died several years before it starts, a fact that causes an interesting reaction in Sarine.

    Ichiro Hinadori 

Meji's grandfather, a member of the ruling council of Tsuiraku, most powerful (human) country in the Errant World. For most of the story, he's seen only intermittently, serving mainly as a behind-the-scenes threat compelling Meji to finish school. As the story approaches its climax, however, he gets quite a bit of air time, and undergoes extensive Character Development, as Sarine tries desperately to get Tsuiraku to help stop Ian.

  • Berserk Button: He's strict and expects a lot from his granddaughter, but do not disrespect her in his presence. Speaking of which:
  • Cool Old Guy: When an elf ambassador makes the mistake of referring to Meji as "It," he almost starts a war over it.
  • Forced Sleep: Part of his magical arsenal, but it backfires when he tries to use it on Meji for her own good. Turns out she's able to completely ignore it due to being Senilisized, and she can use it on him a great deal more effectively. Well, he needed a nap by then anyway.

    Misa 

A young (at least by elven standards, at a mere 1400+ years old) elf, introduced via an Attack Hello on her friend Sarine, a blunder that almost gets her killed. She does survive to become part of the secondary cast whenever the primary characters find themselves in the elven city of Praenubilus Astu.

  • Despair Event Horizon: Crossed when a mock fight against her idol Sara turns into a Curb-Stomp Battle, with her as the stompee.
  • Everyone's Baby Sister: Very much against her will: she desperately wants to go out and have adventures like her idol Sarine, but because she's the youngest of all the elves and is considered to be of near-miraculous origins, the elves won't let her, even during their final, species-threatening battle. Finally averted, however, when at a key stage of the battle, Sarine herself starts treating her like a grown-up.
  • Fangirl: Of Sara, improbably enough.
  • Girl Friday: To Sarine on the latter's trips to Praenubilus Astu.
  • I Just Want to Be Badass: with a passion; see under This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself. She desperately wants to go outside the elven world and be a practicing badass like Sarine, but the other elves won't let her.
  • Statuesque Stunner: All elves have this going to some extent, being considerably taller than humans, but she wears it well, being both 6'4" and decidedly hot.
  • The Baby of the Bunch: Of her entire race, actually. She doesn't look happy when Sarine mentions this to her fellow adventurers.
  • This Is Something He's Got to Do Himself: Averted, to her immense frustration. She really wants to get out into the world and have adventures like Sarine does, but because she's the youngest of her entire race, the other elves won't let her.

Previous

Index

Next

  • Show Spoilers
  • Night Vision
  • Sticky Header
  • Wide Load

Important Links

Ask The Tropers Trope Finder Media Finder Trope Launch Pad Tech Wishlist Reviews Go Ad Free!
Crucial Browsing
Resources
Top