Darla Filsbury

Darla Filsbury

Darla is one of the main characters in ORCHESTRA, representing extreme ideology.

Character Arc

Darla's story is one of someone whose ideology leads them to extremism, before gradually realising that they are fighting for a twisted form of their beliefs and leave for a better cause. At the start of the first book she is a stoic individual who is introduced to the organisation after a confidant learns that her belief system closely aligns with it. She is not nearly as extreme as a lot of the other people in the organisation, and is nowhere near as fond of violence and killing either. Instead, she is a much friendlier person who finds the venomous attitudes of other people in the organisation to be very off-putting, especially Lorcan. Nonetheless, she stays with them because she agrees with the overall goal, and a lot of her story in the first book is about revealing and exploring that; who she is and why she is here. Because of her lesser inclination to killing, she is assigned as a defender so that she stays loyal, while Douglas slowly try to sway her towards it.
In the second book, ORCHESTRA's influence and manipulation slowly start to affect her and tempt her more towards extremism. Assigned to hunt down the vampires, she finds their aims to be hugely against what she believes in, and this is further compounded when the links to Overmorrow Forest are revealed. These revelations combined with the organisation's propaganda convinces her to be less averse to fighting and killing humanity's enemies, and in doing so make her more agreeable to the organisation's extreme nature. She is still the nicest person around and insists on being a good person, but her moral purity gets steadily worn away. The book explores her thoughts on human society and admiration of human achievement, and so why exactly she finds the actions of the vampires so threatening. In doing so it begins to explore the whys of her beliefs, setting up for it to be fully explored in the third book.
In the third book she becomes very active when the extra-dimensional aliens invade. This is a true major threat to the human race, and ORCHESTRA has no problem convincing her and many others to help fight. She takes a very active role, and the true extent of her faith in humanity is shown. The book explores the real details of what she believes and why, and so why she is determined to push back the invaders as much as she can. Darla's ideological struggle, combined with the actions of the invading aliens, throws a lot of moral ambiguity on the organisation. ORCHESTRA seem to be doing a good thing in fighting the aliens, and Darla's beliefs show that, for most at least, it is for a truly selfless purpose. The conflict shows the good and worthy side of humanism through Darla, and throughout the conflict she a person determined to save civilians and stop the actions of the invaders. However, as a person her moral degradation continues from the previous book. While still a good person at heart, the conflict desensitises her and makes her less warm to people. She is less open to people as she focuses more on the conflict, her obsession with defeating the invaders overriding her other relationships. By the end she has changed and is a much more distant person.
In the fourth book Darla somewhat takes a step back. The traumatic events of the previous book have ground her down and made her much less active and more weary. What's more, all the fighting and death has made her more cynical about what she's doing in the organisation. The strong faith she had in the organisation's efforts has faded, and the book explores a little as to why. In the relative times of peace for the organisation, she doesn't have much to do and is fine with that. She is not interested in the internal power struggles of the organisation, though is somewhat concerned by Lorcan's ambition and what it might mean for the organisation, and would just prefer to work to sustain the peace. However, when the new casters arise she is once again willing to help fight against them. The book hints at her ideological worry about what the new casters are and what their resurgence represents, but is mostly explored in the next book. Nevertheless, when the new casters arise she is spurred back into action, and her friends hope that this will restore her ideological zeal. What they cannot realise is that the opposite will happen.
In the fifth book Darla is the focus. The new casters are rising in power and she steps up to fight against them. Unlike many other confidants in ORCHESTRA who fight simply because they are magic users, her fight is ideological once again. She knows what the old Enneagram Alliance were like, steeped in superstition and distrust of science, and does not want that to rise again. The book explores her worry about humanity sliding back into that way of thinking, and goes into more detail about her conviction in science and knowledge. However, being in ORCHESTRA's bubble means that she has no idea that the new casters have actually moved beyond their old flaws and are not about that anymore. In some ways they are humanist as well, only less violent and extreme than ORCHESTRA, so Darla is actually fighting against what she believes without realising. A major change comes in the form of Harvus, who shares a lot of beliefs with Darla and is instrumental in making the magical community more rational. In a turning point, the two meet up and Harvus, a masterful speaker, talks to her about what the new casters are really like. He explains how the two of them are not so different, that ORCHESTRA are now the old order holding humanity back, and in doing so severely undermines her faith in the organisation. By the end of the book she is hesitant to fight the new magic users anymore, and is deep in thought about where her loyalties truly lie.
In the final book, her change of mind continues. She tries repeatedly to pierce through the bubble of propaganda that ORCHESTRA places around its members and find out more about the New Enneagram Alliance. The more she learns, the more she finds she sympathises and agrees with them, that they also value knowledge and progress and also want the best for humanity. At the same time, ORCHESTRA is decaying internally, resorting to even further extremism and violence, now encouraging less independent thought and blind loyalty to make up for its internal weaknesses. Finally, in a critical moment, Darla betrays ORCHESTRA. She has realised that the New Enneagram Alliance fights for what she truly believes in, while ORCHESTRA fights for an ever more twisted form of those beliefs, manipulating her for them and driving her towards extremism. She betrays the organisation in a crucial battle, causing them to lose it badly. In a domino effect, this ends up half-destroying the organisation in Europe. Darla leaves with the Alliance, free of ORCHESTRA's hate and having found a new and better cause.

Mental characteristics

Employment

Darla is a Defender Operative for ORCHESTRA. Throughout the story she rises through the ranks from Recruit to Lead.

Morality & Philosophy

Darla is firmly a humanist. She believes greatly in the power and potential of the human race, and has a lot of admiration for the achievements, discoveries, wonders etc. that we have made. As such, she has a strong desire to protect and advance these things, wanting to do anything she can to protect humanity from any threats that might exist. Her beliefs cross over into human supremacy, and she is also keen to preserve humanity's place as rulers of the world. These beliefs are easily appropriated by ORCHESTRA, and this is why she has a strong loyalty to them even if she may not like a lot of its members, as she sees them as the best thing to protect humanity and their attempts to put down the supernatural as good for humanity's future.
She also has a great love for anything to do with rationalism. A big rationalist herself, she has great distaste for any superstitions or irrational thinking. This leads her to greatly admire science and ORCHESTRA's achievements in understanding magic scientifically, even if she may not understand most of it herself. It also leads her to have a strong aversion to the magical community, as they were often traditionalist and distrustful of science, so she sees their decline as a good thing. She believes that rationalism is the best path for humanity, and fears what superstition might do to society. As such, she is fearful of the resurgence of magic and tries to fight it. But later she discovers that the magical community has reshaped itself to be even more rationalist and humanist than ORCHESTRA is, which gets her to change her loyalties and see them as the future of humanity instead.

Personality Characteristics

Motivation

Darla's motivation is always driven by her personal ideology, which causes her to act more independently than others. She chooses to side with ORCHESTRA at the beginning and throughout many of their conflicts because she believes they are the best group to protect humanity and ensure humanity remains dominant. At the same time, she continues to fight against the magical world because she sees it as a danger to society and human progress, in that knowledge of its existence would undermine science and current understanding, and parts of it seriously threaten normalcy. This conviction keeps her on their side in the first three books, aided by some ORCHESTRA propaganda warping her view of the world somewhat, but in the fourth book she becomes more cynical about the cause. 
Later on when fighting the reformed magical world, her faith in ORCHESTRA continues to wane. She still holds her ideals dear to her, but she becomes unsure that they are the right people to be fighting for, especially as the organisation begins to devolve into the same stagnancy that plagued the former magical world. She discovers more and more that the new casters are just as dynamic and humanist as ORCHESTRA used to be, and not at all as mired in superstition as they once were, but in fact prize knowledge and understanding once again. Eventually, she decides that the New Enneagram Alliance are actually the people who truly fight for what she believes in, and betrays ORCHESTRA to join the Alliance, holding her personal ideals above her loyalty to any one group.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Darla is an ally and friend to Axel, Lilith, Lorcan, and Seth, and often works with them on operations. She is mentored with them by Douglas Whittaker.

Species

Human

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Defender Operative

Gender

Female

Aligned Organization

O.R.C.A.

Known Languages

English