CHARACTER
Powerlessby Lauren Roberts

King Edric

King Edric

Quick Facts

  • Role: Absolute monarch of Ilya; primary antagonist of Powerless; architect of the Great Purging
  • Power: Brawny Elite; imposing physical presence used as political theater
  • First Appearance: Early court scenes before the Trials, already a mythic figure of fear and order
  • Family: Father to Kitt Azer and Kai Azer; husband to the queen
  • Signature Ideology: Fanatical Elite supremacy; creator of a caste system justified by pseudoscience
  • Themes: Embodies Power and Oppression
  • Notable Traits: Green eyes and blond hair he shares with Kitt; a cold, controlled demeanor that cracks only for the queen

Who They Are

King Edric is tyranny made intimate. A ruthless strategist and devout believer in Elite purity, he forged Ilya’s society through the Great Purging, banishing and executing Ordinaries under the false claim they were diseased and weakening Elite powers. His reign fuses physical might with political manipulation: he wields his Brawny strength in public and his sons in private, shaping Kai into a weapon and Kitt into a successor. The chilling contradiction at his core—capable of genuine marital affection while systemically brutalizing his people—renders him not a caricature of evil, but a fully functioning architect of oppression whose cruelty is a choice, not a compulsion.

Personality & Traits

Edric’s personality is the machinery behind the state. He treats human lives as levers—applied or removed to keep the hierarchy intact—then calls that calculus “order.” His rare tenderness doesn’t soften the regime; it exposes how deliberately he withholds empathy from everyone else.

  • Ruthless pragmatist
    • Evidence: The Great Purging reframes genocide as a public-health measure; in Chapter 5 he orders Kai to “eradicate” an Ordinary family, treating mass violence as routine governance.
    • Why it matters: He normalizes atrocity as policy, teaching his court that morality is an obstacle to sovereignty.
  • Master manipulator
    • Evidence: He pits his sons against each other by training Kai through brutality while grooming Kitt through diplomacy; at the Chapter 12 dinner he discloses knowing Paedyn’s father to destabilize her in public without lifting a finger.
    • Why it matters: Edric rules not only bodies but narratives, controlling what people believe about themselves.
  • Calculating and paranoid
    • Evidence: He maintains informants and moves decisively when threatened—cornering Paedyn in Chapter 36 to warn her off his sons.
    • Why it matters: His paranoia fuels state violence; surveillance and fear become governance tools.
  • Obsessed with legacy
    • Evidence: He shields Kitt from bloodshed yet demands ideological fidelity, insisting the empire stay “extraordinary” under his lineage.
    • Why it matters: He uses family as policy—domestic dynamics are engineered to perpetuate the regime.
  • Selective tenderness (hypocrisy)
    • Evidence: He reserves genuine smiles for the queen while branding dissenters and condemning Ordinaries.
    • Why it matters: His capacity for love proves he chooses cruelty; oppression is a deliberate moral failure, not emotional incapacity.

Character Journey

Edric is a static antagonist whose unchanging convictions drive the plot toward rupture. He begins as an unassailable sovereign, mythologized by the Purging’s terror. As the Trials unfold, encounters with Kai expose the regimen of pain that forged the Enforcer, while his public poise gives way to private intimidation—especially with Paedyn. The façade of absolute control fractures when the Resistance captures him during the final Trial, revealing that his empire’s fear apparatus can be turned against its maker. In Chapter 65, he stages one last assertion of supremacy—branding Paedyn with an “O,” weaponizing both stigma and trauma—before she kills him. Edric never repents; his end underscores that entrenched systems rarely reform from within. They crack only when those harmed by them seize power.

Key Relationships

  • Kai Azer

    • Edric treats Kai as a project, not a child—an instrument honed through pain. His credo, that “if you cannot endure suffering, you are unfit to dole it out,” becomes Kai’s moral crucible, forcing him to navigate Duty vs. Morality. The result is a fearful, approval-seeking bond that leaves Kai powerful on the battlefield and powerless in his father’s presence.

  • Kitt Azer

    • With Kitt, Edric plays the long game: protect, instruct, and ideologically align. He shelters Kitt from brutality to preserve the heir’s image and utility, even as the shared green eyes and blond hair visually stamp Kitt as “continuity.” The coddling creates friction—Kitt senses the hollowness beneath the pageantry—planting seeds for divergence from his father’s legacy.

  • Paedyn Gray

    • Edric reads Paedyn as contagion: a “Slummer” capable of infecting both public sentiment and his sons’ loyalties. He wields knowledge of Adam Gray to intimidate her, then escalates to corporal domination in their final confrontation. Her killing him completes a cycle of Revenge and Justice that flips the state’s branding iron back onto the brander.

Defining Moments

Edric’s milestones chart a playbook of authoritarian control—mythmaking, targeted violence, psychological warfare—and the slow erosion of his impunity.

  • The Purging Decree (decades before the story)
    • What happens: He declares Ordinaries diseased and orders banishment and executions.
    • Why it matters: Establishes a society built on a lie; genocide is laundered as hygiene to sanctify Elite supremacy.
  • Mission for Kai (Chapter 5)
    • What happens: He sends Kai to eradicate an Ordinary family.
    • Why it matters: Converts fatherhood into militarization; Kai’s identity is forged in state-sanctioned blood.
  • Dinner with the Contestants (Chapter 12)
    • What happens: He coolly mentions knowing Paedyn’s father.
    • Why it matters: Public humiliation as political weapon; he destabilizes opponents without overt force.
  • Hallway Confrontation (Chapter 36)
    • What happens: He corners Paedyn and warns her away from his sons.
    • Why it matters: Reveals paranoia and the regime’s fear of unscripted relationships that cross class lines.
  • Capture by the Resistance (Final Trial)
    • What happens: Edric is seized during the climactic spectacle.
    • Why it matters: The illusion of omnipotence breaks; resistance proves the state can bleed.
  • Death and Branding (Chapter 65)
    • What happens: He brands Paedyn with an “O,” taunts her about Adam Gray’s death—confessing Kai acted on his orders—before she kills him.
    • Why it matters: The personal and political fuse; the symbol of oppression is destroyed by the person it marked.

Essential Quotes

“A dimwitted Enforcer is a defeated empire.”

  • Edric equates intelligence with imperial survival, justifying his meticulous, often cruel shaping of Kai. The line frames education as weaponization, not enlightenment—knowledge in service of domination.

Ridding my kingdom of Ordinaries is a sacrifice that must be made for the good of the people. But they are too damn selfish to see that.

  • He reframes mass violence as civic virtue, branding dissent as selfishness. The rhetoric reveals how authoritarian logic flips harm into help, demanding gratitude for cruelty.

It’s survival of the fittest, and the fittest are the Elites.

  • Edric invokes pseudo-Darwinian logic to legitimize hierarchy, claiming nature itself endorses his rule. By naturalizing power, he tries to place his ideology beyond moral debate.

“Stabbed through the chest. Like father like daughter.”

  • In his final taunt to Paedyn, Edric tries to bind her to his narrative of cyclical violence, even as he confesses his role in her father’s death. The line weaponizes grief—until Paedyn turns that blade back on him.