Cameron Thorpe

Cameron Thorpe

Cameron is one of the main characters in ORCHESTRA, representing insecurity.

Character Arc

Cameron's story is of someone insecure and toxic who learns to be a better person through learning from failures and overcoming adversity in a military organisation, but becomes institutionalised and lapses back into their old ways once the adversity subsides. In the first book, Cameron is an insecure person, particularly about his own strength and how people perceive him, so is susceptible to trying to show off and let people goad him into doing things. He is also very much a toxic masculine character who is also insecure about his skill with girls, so is often quite frontal and inappropriate towards them. He is effectively lured into the organisation after a confidant takes a shine to his abilities and desire to prove his strength. He is easily talked into fighting for them after being promised he will be doing a great and gallant thing. After learning of the magical world he takes on a bravado and fearless attitude to fighting it, but inside he is deeply afraid of it. Joining the other characters, he quickly becomes known as somewhat unlikable, especially among his female colleagues like Darla (who he dislikes back), and hard to work with as he always wants to be top dog and have the most glory, though he gets on well with Lorcan. While he is presented as a bullish and toxic character, his story in the first book is exploring why that is, and uncovering who he really is beneath the character he puts on.
In the second book, Cameron begins to learn to be less toxic towards those around him. Assigned to hunt the vampires in the city, the problems he had working in a group are exacerbated, and his relations with his female colleagues get worse and worse. What's more, he is unsuited for the more delicate operations as he lacks the subtlety required. This comes to a head when the cunning vampires recognise his insecurities and almost end up killing him by goading him into foregoing his teammates and over-extending himself. His overseers deem his inability to work properly with a group to be a liability and he is reassigned to Overmorrow Forest with Axel. There, he has the chance to reflect on his failures, helped along by the ORCHESTRA propaganda to which he is quite susceptible. He begins to recognise how his flaws have damaged him, his career, and his relationships. Encouraged by the humanist ideals of respect for all fellow humans the organisation pushes on him, he begins to re-evaluate who he is and resolves to become a better person.
In the third book, Cameron learns to overcome his innate fear of what he is fighting, but takes it too far. Already having a hidden fear of the magical world, when the extra-dimensional aliens invade he has trouble hiding it. Nonetheless, still wanting to prove to people he is braver than he is, he agrees to help fight. Over the course of the conflict, Cameron changes quite a lot. His improvement of character continues as he fights around Darla and others more often who have humanist attitudes, which rub off on him as he is willing to listen this time, and he becomes an easier person to work with and grows to like Darla. In another way, OCHESTRA takes on a more military structure while fighting the aliens and he is quite ok with this. In fact, he gradually becomes institutionalised as the idea of being told what to do more often and not having to prove himself appeals to him. The constant exposure to the things he fears gradually cures him of it, and he becomes more genuinely brave. In fact, because of his remaining insecurity about his strength, he ends up taking it a bit too far and develops a hero-complex. He gets so used to the glory of defending the human race that he develops a kind of addiction to it, constantly wanting to be a hero as an extension of his insecurity about his own abilities.
In the fourth book, which focuses on him, Cameron's character starts to degrade. After the end of the invasion he is at a loose end personally. He got used to the military structure during the invasion, so now that he is back to being more freelance and not having a major enemy to fight he has trouble coping, being unsure what to do with himself and having difficulty interacting with people and dealing with the fact he can't be a hero to people anymore. All his character growth was brought on by external threats and the fight to overcome them, as well as being around other confidants like Darla who tried to help him improve. But now that ORCHESTRA has no major enemies and he is more distant with people interacts, he starts to slide back into his old ways and he goes back to being toxic. When the new casters rise and are a new threat, his desire to be an alpha male leader resurfaces, and he jumps at the chance to be a hero again. While he is still a braver person than he once was, his relearnt toxicity and his hero-complex means he has trouble working in a team once again. He wants to be a hero and a leader once more but is trying too hard, as deep down he is still insecure about what people think of him.
In the fifth book, Cameron's deeper insecurities and fears begin to resurface. The new conflict with the casters being much more difficult than before has frustrated him, as the new nature of enemy means he has found it more difficult to show off as being a hero. The new conflict has many similarities to when he was fighting the vampires in the second book, but since then he has forgotten a lot of the lessons he learnt and he ends up making a lot of the same mistakes. The difference now is his ideal of himself as an alpha male and leader, and this new attitude means he refuses to admit these mistakes. What's more, the fact that their new enemies are humans combined with his frustration of fighting them ends up undermining the humanist attitudes he had learnt from the organisation and Darla. This makes him a steadily more toxic person, like he was before, and he becomes a harder and harder person to work with once again, which only furthers his frustration at being unable to be a hero. The conflict also reveals that despite all his emboldenment in the third book, the New Enneagram Alliance being a brand new approach to magic scares him deep down once again, exposing that, to a degree, he still harbours fear of what he doesn't understand.
In the final book, Cameron's character unravels and his resurgent flaws are his downfall. Having fallen back into his old ways and unlearnt a lot of the lessons previous conflicts had taught him, Cameron has become an unpleasant character again. His desire to be a hero and an alpha male leader has caused his toxic masculinity to reappear, and he is difficult to work with yet again. But he is unwilling to learn from his lessons anymore, and frustrated by the lack of success in the conflict and people criticising him increasingly, he begins to distance himself from other people. He tries to be a one-man army who can find glory on his own, but this works out badly for him. In the final battle of the book when Darla betrays ORCHESTRA and they lose, Cameron is so angry at this loss and Darla's betrayal (having come to reverse his opinions on her) that he makes the same critical mistake he did in the second book and tries to strike out at her on his own. In doing so, he overestimates and overextends himself, and ends up being killed.

Mental characteristics

Employment

Cameron is a Ranger Operative for ORCHESTRA. Throughout the story he rises through the ranks from Recruit to Lead.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Cameron's motivation throughout the books is largely self-centred and concerned with what people think of him. At the beginning, his insecurity means that he is always willing to do anything to cover up his weaknesses and make people think better of him. ORCHESTRA easily exploits this to get him to work for them, and he fights for them largely to make people think he is braver than he is and cover up his deep fear of the magical world. Throughout the second and third books he begins to rectify his flaws, becoming less afraid and more understanding of the humanist motivations for fighting for ORCHESTRA. 
However, he is never able to fully solve his insecurity, and the exposure to success in fighting in the third book causes him to develop a hero complex. This gives him an intense desire to be regarded as a brave hero and alpha male, which is still self-centredly fuelled by insecurity about his flaws but in a different form. This persists throughout the remaining books, where his desire for personal glory and institutionalisation from being in a military ends up driving him back to his old habits and unlearning his lessons. This leads to a vicious cycle of him toxically trying to be a leader and a hero, which makes people dislike and criticise him, which only causes him to entrench himself more and trying even harder. Ultimately, his resurgent flaws end up being his undoing, as his desire to be a hero and not need others leads him to overestimate himself and he is killed in the final book.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Cameron is an ally and friend to Axel, Lorcan and Darla, and often works with them on operations. He is also the boyfriend of Lilith in the first book and works closely with her, but they have an abusive relationship and they break up in the second book. He is mentored with them and watched over by Douglas Whittaker.

Species

Human

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Ranger Operative

Gender

Male

Aligned Organization

O.R.C.A.

Known Languages

English