Character Clues
Character Analysis
Actions
In Alanna, actions gives us good insight into who someone is. Take Alanna, who's lightning-fast to respond when a snake frightens Coram's horse:
Coram yelled and fought to hold on as his mount bucked frantically, terrified by the snake. Alanna never stopped to think. She threw herself from Chubby's saddle and grabbed for Coram's reins with both hands. (1.95)
Alanna effectively saves Coram's life (or at least saves him from a broken limb) by thinking quickly and acting. We can tell already that she's going to be a great knight, and Coram can too: this little incident is one of the reasons why Coram lets himself be talked into keeping quiet about Alanna's little secret when they reach the palace.
On the flip side, we can tell from Ralon's mean-spirited actions that he is an unkind person, since one of the first times he gets a chance he beats up the much smaller and younger "Alan," and gets a real kick out of this. Yeah, we are not Ralon fans.
Direct Characterization
Sometimes you have to call a spade a spade, or in this case, call Alanna a stubborn kid, as Coram does repeatedly. But she gets called brave a lot, too. When Stefan sees Alanna refuse to take orders from Ralon, he thinks to himself: "Th' lad's got guts…Not much sense, but guts" (3.17). Fortunately for Alanna, her guts stay inside her where they belong, despite Ralon's best attempts to beat the daylights out of her.
Names
Did you notice that "Ralon" rhymes with "Talon"? (No worries if you didn't; that's what we're here for.) In any case, it's just one more way of making him seem like an unappealing and possibly predatory dude. His family name, "Malven," also doesn't sound very nice. The prefix "mal-" usually connotes bad things, like "malevolent" or "malignant." And we have to say, Ralon of Malven is bad news.
Of the Ysandir we see named, all their names begin with the letters "Yl": Ylon, Ylira, and Ylanda. How many people do you know with names that begin with "Yl"? Right. These names make them seem alien and possibly dangerous—which turns out to be quite true.
Speech and Dialogue
The way people talk in Tortall offers a big clue to their social class or their level of intelligence—but not necessarily both at once. For instance, we know that Coram comes from a humble background (his last name Smythesson is further proof—he's literally the son of a smith). Then Coram opens his mouth and stuff like "I didn't think yer Lordship'd remember. That was twenty years ago, and me but a lad myself" (2.5) comes out. He's not educated, but he's not necessarily stupid either.
In contrast, we know that Sir Myles is a very intelligent fellow. He makes fun of himself for using "obscure language" after one of the pages asks him to translate this utterance: "Duke Gareth has given me to understand that we are somewhat deficient in our coverage of the Bazhir Wars and that he hopes to find us more knowledgeable when next he stops to visit" (2.113). Yeah… that's getting a tad convoluted. With speech patterns like that, we bet Sir Myles has a pretty smart and complex brain sitting inside his head.
And then there's George. When Alanna meets George in the lower city, he introduces himself, using some city slang and knocking the "g"s off his words, like in "I was wonderin' if you'd fallen into a well" (2.179). But when Alanna listens, she realizes that "he spoke carefully. To Alanna it seemed that he thought about every word before saying it" (2.179). When we get to know George a little better, we realize that he must be pretty clever in order to rule all the thieves in the city. We conclude—along with Alanna—that there's more to George than meets the eye, and the paradox of his language use is evidence for this.