Antonio Chandrani-Rivera versus the term "choto lok"/"chhotolok." (First elaboration.)

07/15/25:

This is an elaboration of an older blog post from 2024. As suggested, it goes into my thoughts more. One day after releasing more Blue Horizon media in full, will possibly add to this even more. In the old blog post, I tended to spell it 'choto lok.' (07/18 update: It's the main post from after I created this Neocities that I didn't drop on here. Turns out I dropped the other post I assumed I didn't on here.)

For a very long time, I've had a habit of contrasting Blue Horizon's Antonio Chandrani-Rivera against the term 'chhotolok.' The term in Bangla and in South Asian society has varied context, but overall as I grew up without knowing too much of its history, for Antonio I always saw it as "the outlier," "the one who will have ill rumors," "the easy target," "the one who will cause trouble," and even the simple "trouble" among others. This is regardless of who he actually is. It's embedded in characters' mindsets.

In reality, the term 'chhotolok' as a term goes back to serious roots. I've brought up some of the background by linking others' writing.

Blue Horizon's lore already more-or-less expresses the underlying situation. The Gold folk are the highest caste, and the Red are those who have been placed in the lowest. Antonio Chandrani-Rivera is the Red identical twin to a Gold identical.

Image description:

at the top right it says 'the triplets.' they are chibi-style, aka super deformed. there's an implied silver crown on chibi frowning raj with silver eyes and his undercut with anime white hair on one side of his head, in a gray shirt and reddish pants and purple boots. it says raj by his legs. there's an implied gold crown on a smiling yet sweating fernando with implied closed golden eyes, his beauty mark, and sweat by his smile, with his usual braid behind a golden yellow shirt and implied violet lungi. his name fernando is by his lungi. a lackadaisically smiling antonio has red eyes, is crownless with a little aqua crescent moon clip on his waves-like blue hair. he wears a dark blue panjabi with blood on it and there's blood dripping down his jaw too. his name, antonio, is near his legs.

End image description.

Raj, Fernando and Antonio Chandrani-Rivera above.

A big contrast that will become noticeable is "Antonio Chandrani-Rivera" versus "Fernando Chandrani-Rivera." Antonio is often seen as all of the above, "the outlier," "troublemaker," "unwell," et cetera. Regardless of what he does, there's some underlying current he has to fight against. Fernando in comparison--he isn't seen as "the good one." The people of their world balk at being thought of as the sort who would assume this. Fernando is simply not seen the same way. He's "idle." He's "not aggro." He "manages his life appropriately."

Image description:

On the left in lavender is Antonio who is looking back irritably with a visible red eye, a frown and furrowed brow. He's without a shirt, and holding fuchsia threads doing some sort of cat's cradle, as well as wearing an aquamarine-and-blue lungi. On the right in pink is golden-eyed [implied thru the egg yellow] Fernando who is looking back with a long braid and easy smile, holding a fuchsia rose. He's wearing a form-fitting tanktop and a lavender belt and light violet-looking pants.

End image description.

Antonio and Fernando Chandrani-Rivera above.

Overall I had Antonio deal with the underlying current of being "chhotolok" while Fernando has characteristics of being "bhadralok."

This current becomes electrically charged near adulthood. As can be seen through various Blue Horizon media and supplementary material already, Fernando Chandrani-Rivera has been lost. Antonio extremely immediately becomes "the issue."

There's another obvious contrast to Antonio Chandrani-Rivera. Alejandro [Caldera-]Altaha is someone who will become The Protector of Worlds. A noticeable underpinning to Alejandro's storyline is he is a "man who is given sympathy." An interesting point of his backstory is that he, a fellow Red-eyed identical twin, is part of "the Golden family." The Golden family, the Caldera, is a family that has viciously maintained only Golden progeny. This has been the case until very recently. His backstory will showcase the culmination of "Alejandro." How he is treated by people overall, how he is seen, how he goes forward, how he interacts with the world. Alejandro is "bold." Outside those he is particularly close to, he often comes off like a guy who has no issue using his connections (a future storyline involving him deals with how he's grinning yet pissed someone has mistreated Antonio, and due to his connections, asks the school staff to assure that he can fight the person responsible).

Image description:

one 'panel' of a comic-type sketch where a young teen antonio is smiling banally at alejandro with red eyes, blue hair like waves and a blue-toned shirt (via shirt collar), while young teen alejandro with red eyes and falling dark hair (represented with violet) is sweating with a wondering smile and worried glance (with red shirt collar). antonio's pink speech bubble has the anime cheery emoticon ^_^ and alejandro's sea-green speech bubble has a tight-lipped doubtful expression with a :/ ? emoticon. the BG is lavender.

End image description.

Antonio Chandrani-Rivera and Alejandro Altaha above.

Antonio and Alejandro contrast in many different ways. Antonio, in truth, isn't "good." (I'll say it as a writer, but characters don't need to be liked or likeable. Depends on the person whether they will like Antonio, I believe.)

As seen in the larger summary for The Protector and the Annihilation, the underlying current goes back 10,000 years. Alejandro is "the Lost Protector, Shakir." Antonio is "the civilian Nasir Hadid."

Image description:

There's Antonio Chandrani on the left wearing his family's dark blue Chandrani uniform (with stars, moons and waves on it) covered in blood. His skin is brown in tone and his eyes are fuschia; he's looking toward Alejandro on the other side of the picture with a tilt of his head. Behind him is a dark sea, dark waves, a starry sky, a dark night, and a bright aqua moon. On the right Alejandro stands there looking somewhat morose yet smiling; his long hair is violet in color tone, his skin is light bronze, his tunic is pinkish and has sun and green decoration along the shirt collar and two odd white sun designs on the lower part of it. Behind him is galactic space with the implication of two literal stars behind him that look like Earth's (sheer white).

End image description.

Antonio Chandrani-Rivera and Alejandro Altaha.

There are Western versions of "chhotolok," in my opinion. Not an exact replica, but in terms of how people are seen and treated. How Romani were and are written as 'gypsies' in Western society is an obvious one to me.

There's a lot of metaphors pinned to "Gold" and "Red" in Blue Horizon, and can be seen between the situation that arises for the identical twins Fernando and Antonio Chandrani-Rivera. There's a lot to Blue Horizon's story that isn't transparent yet, which will reveal itself over time. This is generally what I wanted to discuss prior to the proper release of "The Protector and the Annihilation," however, and I may or may not add addendums in the future.

In the previous blog post, I brought up GRRM, who, due to his frequent use of Sanskrit, I personally think translated the term or a term similar to "chhotolok" [literally] into "small folk." In reality, due to the cultural underpinnings of "chhotolok," I don't think it translates exactly into the way he utilizes it for A Song of Ice and Fire, but I don't think he's "wrong," either. I've had some thoughts on series that may or may not utilize the underpinnings of "chhotolok" in their stories.

Edit: I decided not to bring this up until I double-checked it, but "chhotolok" generally means "lowly people" while "bhadralok" generally means "gentlemen."