Personality Quirks: I is for Iconodule

Are you a writer looking for some interesting personality traits and quirks to create characters? Or maybe you’re a logophile, someone who loves words, and wants to collect more of them. Either way, you’ve come to the right place.

You’re looking at today’s word, iconodule, and thinking, “Hmm. I know a word like that. I wonder if they’re related words?”

Yes, Sherlock, you are absolutely correct in your deduction. Iconoclast is an opposite of today’s word, iconodule.

As you know, iconoclasts attack deeply held beliefs and/or institutions. Sometimes they destroy images, icons, used in religious worship services. Sometimes the iconoclast doesn’t like any images used for religious purposes and other times, heesh is against the particular religion and wants to destroy precious items.

The iconodule, on the other hand, supports venerating religious icons.

Iconodule comes to us through Latin from Greek from eikōn ‘likeness’ + doulos ‘slave’.

So what might a character who is an iconodule look like in your book?

Of course, given the definition, your character could well be a religious fanatic. Perhaps heesh is stealing icons, valuable and otherwise, because of a perceived or real threat to the existence of said icons. There might be a bunker beneath shis home where the icons are displayed and venerated. People might be dying because the iconodule suspects them of wanting to get the icons or of discovering the trove and informing authorities. How does your iconodule appear to the general public? Obsessive or just a bit weird? How could your sleuth figure out the motivation for the thefts?

Another way to go is a religious figure who is more obsessed with the icon than what the icon stands for. Perhaps the Abbott or Abbess might discipline the iconodule over and over for neglecting duties in order to idolize (in the bad sense) a particular icon. The obsession with the one icon might lead the iconodule to take some drastic steps. What if the iconodule were dismissed from the order? What would that mean for shis passion? Who might try to intervene? Who would support the dismissal? When does passion become fanaticism?

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An iconodule is a real thing and writers can use it for character development from @RomanceRighter http://bit.ly/2oqbKzP