A hidden shadow behind a beloved face shaped Samuli Kinnunen
Samuli Kinnunen might be the biggest enigma in my dark paranormal fantasy, Catenarian Chronicles. And readers of Deceived and Cursed Mage deserve an explanation.
If you read Deceived Mage, you’ll know who Samuli Kinnunen is and what he’s like. But when you read Cursed Mage, Book I in the Catenarian Chronicles that takes place two years after Deceived Mage, which is a prequel related to the series, you’ll also know Samuli.
But regardless if you read one, the other, or both, you’re going to say one of two things. Either, “I think I know him,” or, “I thought I knew him.” And no, Samuli doesn’t act a certain way in one book before acting in a completely different way in another because I made one gigantic plot error.
Nah. Samuli’s like that by design. Because what if I told you that one real-life inspiration behind Samuli acts in polar opposites? Would you believe me? Or, do you know someone who had a talent for wearing masks so well you almost forgot they were masks?
A person who moved through not one but two circles of friends and admirers the way a silver-tongued bard moves through taverns, collecting praise like coins. Someone who seemed, from the outside, to be an untouchable pillar of goodwill, the kind of figure people nod to and say, “He’s one of the good ones.”
But behind closed doors, the story didn’t match the myth
That contradiction, the way a glowing reputation can hide a shadow long enough that people stop questioning the darkness, found its way into Samuli Kinnunen. Not literally or biographically, but spiritually. That tension, the unsettling hum beneath the floorboards; that’s the ghost of where the inspiration came from.
That’s the inspiration behind Samuli Kinnunen. It’s vaguer than vague, and to many, this article won’t make sense, but it’s the best I can do at this point. I just wanted to let you know that Samuli’s persona was informed by someone who’s widely liked, more widely liked than they even realize, but quietly harmful, and, with primary-source proof, abusive in the worst ways.
They’re far from the hero their admirers imagined.
Meet Samuli Kinnunen in Deceived or Cursed Mage
Samuli’s roots trace back to someone who can stand at the center of a room filled with admirers, framed by symbols of respectability, yet treat the people behind their closed doors like props and fodder. Just as Samuli himself can do the same.
I know this article is different from what I’ve written in the past, but it’s also one I must toe the line with vagueness. If you’re a regular reader, chances are, you were expecting a lore drop piece for Arcane Elemental Academy, and I had one on the docket. But this one needed to come out while it was fresh in my mind.
Anyway, if you want to meet Samuli and really grasp what kind of person he is, then check out Deceived Mage or Cursed Mage. You’ll meet him in both and, as I implied, you’ll catch a different kind of Samuli Kinnunen in each book.
