Eddie Liang

Eddie Liang is a student at Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy. He helps his friends with Rebecca Proctor's efforts to stem magical erosion by fighting magikin and quietly opposing the Magician's Court. He is a gifted technomancer, and avid soccer player.

Background
From a young age, Eddie was terrified of magic.

''His parents, Han and Ting Liang, had emigrated to the United States when he was a baby from Taiwan. The sociopolitical relations between China and Taiwan are complicated to this day, but let's just say that China has a spot on the Magician's Court, while Taiwan does not. And this causes a lot of problems. Hedges are basically the only magical communities available in Taiwan, and if you've heard some shady rumors of Stateside Hedges, well...Taiwan's are a lot worse. It also didn't help that his grandfather was nearly a blood sacrifice in the February 28 massacre, a story he had heard too many times from a young age, and it left an impression on him.''

''However, Han and Ting had moved to America to chase that quintessential Dream, and they adapted quite nicely. Straddling that median between poor-and-not-really, they had always loved American culture to the point of slight fetishization. One of their favorite movies was the 1988 Zemeckis production Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and so they named Eddie after the main character. For the rest of his life, people will be calling him Edward, and for the rest of his life, Eddie will always correct them.''

''Anyway, back to whole magic business -- Eddie might have been one of the only children who actively suppressed his magic, even though he realized later that he actually was doing magic every time he logged onto his computer. It seemed impossibly easy to him to create websites, to read code, to hack banking accounts (he never TOOK anything, he just liked looking at stranger's transaction histories. It built a character of them in his head) -- anything involving computers. But his first outward display of magic finally came at the age of fifteen, an age where most Magician parents had to accept their child was Abeyant. Much like other Magicians, it was a particularly volatile display, brought to the surface when he saw a senior at his high school shove his girlfriend during an argument on the way to the parking lot. It forced an idling car out of its space and ran over the guy's leg. Eddie felt guilty about it, and it didn't exactly endear him to magic.''

''That's why Eddie threw himself so deeply into technomancy. It wasn't a physical magic, didn't involve other people. It was abstract, contained in a world of its own...and he was VERY, very good at it. His parents -- who, unlike the typical stereotype of the hardass Asian parent, basically let Eddie do whatever he wanted with absolute love and forgiveness, and he surprisingly didn't take advantage of this to get wasted every weekend and break into abandoned buildings to wreak havoc; really, he just liked playing MMOs, Dungeons & Dragons, and soccer -- wouldn't let him go to Schimglere, unfortunately, since they were still old-world and didn't understand technomancy.''

''Instead, he went to Brakebills, a school that was nice all-around but didn't really support his passions. Eddie found a D&D group, and made friends with the notoriously aloof Odette Caplan, and enjoyed his existence the best that he could.''

''One thing that he noticed about himself -- well, HE didn't notice it, someone pointed it out to him one day -- was that he actually was a very attractive man. So attractive, actually, that when he ran around with his shirt off playing soccer on the Sea or the Welters field, people paid attention. But Eddie wasn't like other boys like Anderson Thackery, who noticed and loved it. He filed his handsomeness in the back of his head, and figured it wasn't a very important trait. Sure, he'd lost his virginity at sixteen to a senior who had approached him and not the other way around, but it was never at the forefront of his mind. Eddie preferred to be behind his computer or behind a soccer ball, never bringing himself into the limelight. He related to Odette in that way, and the blatant attitude of Luna Gordon intimidated him in comparison. It reminded him a bit of his little sister, Penny (named, yes, after the quintessential and modernly useless American coin), who drew all of their parents' ire from her confrontational, rude, lazy attitude. Really, she probably acted out because Eddie could get away with anything and yet didn't do anything wrong...almost ever. She didn't know about his subtle rebellion against the Magician's Court, and his connection to the deep web in doing it. Really, Eddie was tougher and bolder than he let on...but he probably won't show that just yet.''

Yet.