Poor Harald

Harald Ruffsnape, nicknamed The Merciless, is the village bully in The Dragonscale Blade. Most of the time, you hope he's going to get his come-uppance.  But is there a part of you that feels sorry for him?  The story doesn't go into his past life before he confronts the hero, Vinny Balfour, but there are a few things you should know about him.  When he was born, his mother took one look at him and ran off with a passing tinker.  His father would have run off to, but for the bad leg he had at the the time, plus the fact that most of the time, he was dead drunk.  When he was sober, he would beat Harald within an inch of his life just for breaking an egg or spilling a drop of goat's milk.  Harald soon learnt how to look after himself.  By the time he was about fifteen (no one ever kept track of his age) his father was a tired old man of 33.  Quite a good age in 1243.  Then there was the porridge incident described in the book and that was it.  Harald was on his own and left to his own devices... which weren't too clever.