Character Interview: Julia from Vindicta

     Welcome back to Grace Iolene! I hope you're enjoying reading this blog. I'm sure enjoying writing the posts. Today I'm going to interview one of my characters from one of my stories. The story is called Vindicta, and I'll be interviewing the main character from that story. So without any further ado, here we go!

     (I'll be in italics, and the character will be in normal font.)

     Okay! Let's start off by telling the audience your name. What is your name? And do you have a nickname?

I'm Julia, and no, I don't think I really have a nickname. I guess my father did call me Julie-girl, but that's not really a nickname per se.

Great. I think that counts. Who was your father? Also with that question, how would you describe your childhood?

My father died when I was very young, and my mother was a slave, so my childhood was pretty rough.

I'm so sorry to hear about your father! (Actually, I'm not, because I technically killed him when I wrote the scene, so nevermind.) Moving on though: were you a slave as well?

No. My father was a freeman, and though my mother's master tried to make me a slave, I ended up running to Rome and becoming a gladiator.

A gladiator!? How exotic! Why did you choose that occupation? Especially since you're a woman… I'd imagine it would be pretty hard going up against all those men.

It is not as exotic as you might think. I simply chose it to learn to fight and at least there were meals every day. There's a lot of blood and death, and dirt. I hate being dirty. Once, I cut a man's finger off and there was dirt (technically sand from the arena, but sand is basically dirt) all caked on the wound and it was all I could do not to just go and wash it up.

You weren't at all worried by the fact that the man's finger was laying on the ground?

No. I guess that's a little strange. I've become very hardened to that type of thing. Plus, the finger had actually been eaten by the lion the man had killed earlier, so it wasn't sitting around.

Woah. Okay. That's good on the graphic. I now understand that being a gladiator is not very glamorous. Was it easier being a woman? Did the men not fight as hard when they fought you?

Well, they didn't find as hard, but it wasn't because they were being nice to me. A lot of them underestimated me, which actually made my climb to the top easier. Once you're at the top, the headmaster doesn't really want you fighting in as many.

Why not? Don't they want to see blood and all that? I thought Romans were ruthless killers?

Ruthless killers might be a stretch. A lot of Romans are that, I suppose, but I know a lot of Romans who really don't care for the games. If you don't fight in as many games, you become more of a novelty and people will pay more to see you fight. It's really all about the money in the gladiator business.

Wow. I'm learning a lot. How did you get out of fighting people in the arena?

Well, that's a long story. It all started when Mar-

Wait! Nevermind. That was a bad question. That's what the book is about.

What book?

Ummm. No book. Another question instead. I don't want any more gore in this interview.

Okay.

Now that you're out of the gladiator system, have you started a family?

Oh no. Not yet.

Why not? Do you want to?

I suppose I do want to. I've never really thought about it. For a long time I thought I'd just keep on as a gladiator until I either won my freedom or died.

You never thought about the future?

I did. I thought a lot about the future, but it was mostly about killing the man who killed my father. After I met Paul [Author's insert: not sure if this will end up being Paul, or maybe Luke, or maybe another important Christian whom I make up. We'll see.] though, that has spoiler.

So what are you doing now?

Since I'm technically a bit of an outlaw, I'm lying low at spoiler. I watch spoiler, sometimes help in the fields, sometimes help spoiler with things that relate to the running of the estate. But not much other than that.

Great! Well, that's it for this interview. Thanks for hanging out and answering my questions.

You're very welcome. It was an honor.

     And that's it for today, folks! I hope you enjoyed that. Apologies for cutting out a lot of the things at the end there… I don't want to spoil the book in case I ever publish it or any of you ever read it for whatever reason. :)

     Let me know what you think of Julia in the comments below. Check out my latest post on TAJ (it's my 2017 in pictures!), as well. See you all next week!

~ Anna Iolene

So did you like the interview? Do you have any questions for Julia? Comment them and I'll see if I can grab her to answer them. Do you want more interviews with different characters or is this just kinda bleh? Have a great weekend!