Gertrude
October 5, 2007, filed under: Characters, by Lex
As I begin penciling part two of Blood-Bound Oath, I figured I’d do a character update and introduce you to Gertrude, Beowulf and Grendel’s mother and the main focus of the second part. In the epic poem, Grendel’s mother is never named, she is simply referred to as “the sea-hag”; she is quite powerful and vengeful and is the 2nd test for Beowulf. There isn’t much known about her though (John Gardener mentions her in Grendel, but not beyond an unsettling portrayal of a mad-decaying-sea-witch). However, for Kid Beowulf, the mother is a key character and she is in fact the discarded daughter of King Hrothgar. The 2nd part opens roughly 16 years after her birth with Gertrude living a lonely and confused existence at the mere, safeguarded by her other father, The Dragon. 
As is the case with most teenagers, Gertrude is becoming more defiant day after day, wanting to learn more about her father Hrothgar; why he abandoned her and why he won’t claim her. So infinite is her distress that The Dragon, heart-broken that his daughter is unhappy, grants her the ability to shape-shift into a human (through the properties of his super-natural blood), which Gertrude believes is the only way she will lure Edgetho (Beowulf and Grendel’s father) into loving her. The trick is the transformation only lasts the length of gestation of a child, once she gives birth, she’ll forever remain looking like a “sea-hag.”
Gertrude is a great character to write. As I wrote the script to part two I found her making choices I was surprised by, but that totally made sense. As part three rolls around, Gertrude becomes the link between the past (The Dragon and Hrothgar) and the future (Beowulf and Grendel). From what little I’ve seen of the upcoming BEOWULF movie, it looks as if the Mother (played by Angelina Jolie) plays a larger role than she did in the poem. I’m interested to see where they take the sea-hag, there is certainly something about her that kindles the imagination.
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Great drawings Lex. I like the color scheme. She sure has come a long way since your first book.
Maybe see an evolution of the character could be cool.
Comment by Brian — October 6, 2007 @