Selene Charbon - Name and Appearance
- CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR...Books One, Two, Three, and Five
My lead foursome originally consisted of Lucy, Amber, Henry, and…Selene Charbon. Big Bear shoved his way into the novels, upending my carefully laid plans, but I’m not sad about that. Big Bear’s entry into the books might have been unplanned, but I now find that hard to believe—he’s an integral part of The Mythic Series.
But in that initial blueprint for the series, Lucy was to be flanked by those two very different contemporaries. You can see this scheme threaded through the names of the three girls. Amber Kim’s name radiates light, Lucia Knight’s balances light with dark, and Selene Charbon’s is shrouded in darkness.
Dark Lady
Selene is a lunar goddess from ancient Greek myth. I did consider her Roman equivalent—Luna—but Lucy’s name is also four-letters that begins with an L and I was looking for diversity among the girls to easily tell them apart. Also in the hunt were Artemis and Diana—goddesses of the actual hunt and Moon—and Athena. But none truly challenged “Selene”. It is not just visually different from “Lucy” and “Amber”, it sounds different. Slinky. A little mysterious. To me it’s also a “posh” sounding name which helped in setting the scene. Selene does come from a monied background.
Charbon is a French name, the word meaning “carbon” or “coal”. Again, there were other inky-themed surnames, a host of them! Some were obvious, like Black, Blake, Burns, and some common that had (to me at least) surprising dark meanings, such as Sullivan which means “dark eyed”.
But I liked the way “Charbon” literally meant dark and yet, because it isn’t English, disguised that fact. Like “Selene” it also felt snooty. The two names paired well together. And the connection with France gave me a logical reason for Selene to be fluent in le française, so that she could converse with Big Bear (Cat-list is the Aedean inspiration for French!).
Regally Blonde
Selene is blonde and conventionally pretty, described as “one of those long-haired skinny blonde girls who looked and dressed like every other long-haired, skinny blonde girl”. I purposefully kept her appearance generic because she is a walking, talking trope—the cruel, callous girl who rules high school—and I wanted readers imagining the face of whatever mean girl from real life or fiction.
However, the central tension of dark vs light in the names of the three “lead” girls is also reflected in their hair colour. Selene’s name is fully of shadows but she’s blonde. Amber’s name, on the other hand, is dark-haired yet her name is radiant
