< The Red Tent
The Red Tent/Characters
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Dinah
- Badass: When she wants to be
- But Not Too Foreign: Quickly adopts the ways of Egypt, and even takes on an Egyptianized version of her name.
- Covert Pervert
- Despair Event Horizon: Losing her husband
- Determined Widow
- Dreaming of Things to Come
- Fourth Date Marriage
- Hormone-Addled Teenager
- Love At First Sight
- The Medic: Is trained by her aunt in the art of midwifery
- The Protagonist
- The Quiet One: Arguably, particularly after she loses her husband
- Spoiled Sweet
- Token Girl: The only daughter born to her family. (Apparently later, she would have had a little sister, but her mother miscarried.)
Prince Shalem
- A Man Is Not a Virgin: Was taken to the priestess upon reaching puberty for some Sex as Rite-of-Passage, and had slept with a couple of prostitutes before he met Dinah
- Bishounen
- Parental Marriage Veto: Jacob doesn't want to part with his only daughter, and his sons fear for their wealth and status, adding fuel to the fire
- Prince Charming
- Fourth Date Marriage
- Love At First Sight
- Love Interest
- Nice Guy
- The Murder After: Falls victim to this
Inna
- Cool Old Lady
- The Medic: The village's skilled midwife
- Self-Made Woman
- Team Mom
- You Can't Go Home Again: Inna, despite her best efforts, lost a (very young) woman and her child during delivery, and the girl's husband accused Inna of being an evil witch and threatened to take Inna to the village elders, the leader of whom has a beef with her for turning down his son as a suitor. So she decides to join up with her apprentice Rachel instead and live as part of Jacob's tribe.
Jacob
- Driven to Madness: Or so it seems
- Face Heel Turn: Starts off nice, but then starts listening to Simon and Levi and gaining wealth and status, and becomes corrupt and greedy
- Friend to All Living Things: Is particularly good with dogs
- Happily Married
- Love At First Sight: With Rachel
- Love Triangle: Loves Leah, but loves Rachel more
- My God, What Have I Done?
- Nice Guy: Initially
- Not So Different: From Esau
- Overprotective Dad: Has a hard time seeing that Dinah is no longer a little girl when Prince Shalem's father comes over to negotiate a bride price for her
- Parents as People: Focuses more on his sons than his daughter
- Polyamory
- Trickster Archetype
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Although not directly involved with Shalem's murder, he indirectly sets it into motion by misinterpreting a sarcastic remark from Joseph.
Leah
- Covert Pervert
- Excuse Me While I Multitask
- Hollywood Homely: Described as rather plain compared to Rachel, plus years of bearing children and nursing take a toll on her
- Hot Amazon: Jacob thinks so
- Housewife: Although all the women do some share of the domestic duties, Leah takes care of the bulk of them.
- Ill Girl: Wakes up one morning paralyzed, perhaps as the result of too many pregnancies and births
- Informed Flaw: Has mismatched eyes, one dark blue and one light green
- Jewish Mother: Sometimes
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Conceives very easily, while her younger sister fails to conceive and often miscarries when she does
- Love Triangle: With her sister
- Mercy Killing: Begs her servant girls to poison her when she is ill and suffering in her old age
- Parents as People: Sometimes loses patience with Dinah
- Supreme Chef
- Team Mom
- Tsundere: Type B
- The Unfavorite: Sort of. Jacob loves Rachel more, but it is clear that he loves Leah too, albeit on a somewhat different level.
Rachel
- Babies Make Everything Better
- The Beautiful Elite
- Character Development
- The Chick
- Death by Childbirth
- Hot Mom
- Law of Inverse Fertility: Has trouble conceiving, and often loses the baby
- Love Triangle: With her sister
- The Medic: Studies midwifery under Inna
- The Prima Donna
- Tsundere: Generally type B
Zilpah
- Ambiguously Gay: If she's not Asexual, that is
- Cloudcuckoolander: Very superstitious
- Death by Childbirth: Very narrowly averted
- Despair Event Horizon: When Jacob destroys the last of the Teraphim
- Does Not Like Men
- Driven to Madness
- Ill Girl: Becomes physically ill, as well as mentally ill at the end of her life
- Kuudere
- Loners Are Freaks
- Miko: Has assumed this role for her family
- Rapunzel Hair
- Trickster Archetype
- Tsundere: Somewhat of Type A
Bilhah
- Black Best Friend: To Rachel
- But Not Too Black
- The Empath
- Generation Xerox: Leaves after being beaten by her husband, just like her own mom did (and is thought to have been Driven to Suicide)
- Incest Is Relative: Begins a relationship with her (fully-grown) nephew, Reuben, and gets badly beaten for it
- Missing Mom
- Nice Girl
- Loners Are Freaks
- Shrinking Violet
- Star-Crossed Lovers: With Reuben
- Supreme Chef
- The Quiet One
- The Unfavorite: Because she's somewhat of a loner, and because her hair wasn't easy for Adah to style
- Yamato Nadeshiko
Laban
- Anything That Moves: Yes, even the sheep
- The Alcoholic
- Cloudcuckoolander: Is very supertitious and has some strange rituals
- Complete Monster: He was a Jerkass in the Biblical canon, but here he has no morals whatsoever
- Domestic Abuse: Beats the ever-living crap out of his wife and gambles her away
- Heir Club for Men: He's unhappy that he only had daughters through Adah and a couple of concubines. He does finally get sons, though through Ruti (but they very much follow the trope Loser Son of Loser Dad)
- I Lied
- Lazy Husband
- Old Man Marrying a Child: His second wife is barely older than his daughters, and he is well into his old age
- Parental Incest: Molested Leah and Zilpah in the past, until Adah beat the crap out of him for it
Adah
- A Death in the Limelight
- Ill Girl: In her old age
- Mama Bear
- Team Mom
- Tsundere: Type B
Ruti
- Butt Monkey
- Canon Immigrant: Ruti is not a Biblical character, but lives alongside them.
- Domestic Abuse: Laban beats her, and her sons Kemuel and Beor don't treat her much better.
- Driven to Suicide: Slits her wrists when she just can't take it anymore
- Good Girls Avoid Abortion: Averted. Ruti doesn't want to give Laban any more sons, so she aborts with help from an herbal concoction by Rachel
- Lost Him in a Card Game: Is gambled away as a slave by Laban And rescued by Leah and Jacob
- Old Man Marrying a Child: Is married to Laban, despite him being very old
- Shrinking Violet
- The Woobie
Rebecca
- Broken Bird
- Cool Old Lady
- Happily Married: To Isaac. And his marriage to her is notable because they were monogamous, in a time and place where Polyamory was not only acceptable, but normal for men
- Jerkass
- Jewish Mother
- Obnoxious In-Laws: Doesn't particularly like Jacobs wives, but really does not like Esau's Canaanite wives (mainly because they do not celebrate the New Moon or do the Ritual of Opening)
- Mama Bear
- Parental Marriage Veto: No one is good enough for her sons
- Vain Priestess
Esau
- Carpet of Virility
- Dark-Skinned Redhead
- Dysfunctional Family: Adah is jealous of (and abuses) Basemath (who is more favored by Esau but considerably less fertile than Adath), and his wives and his mother don't really get along
- Expy of Jacob
- Nice Guy
- Not So Different from Jacob
- Polyamory: Has Adath (his first wife), Basemath (his second and favorite wife), and Oholibama (until she died in childbirth), and is expecting a child with one of his Hot Amazon slave girls
- Rated "M" for Manly
- Self-Made Man: He may not be The Chosen One, but he still is wealthy and successful enough to make his brother (and nephews) somewhat envious
Tabea
- Children Are Innocent: Averted; she has seen a lot of the adult drama in her family
- Expy: Of Dinah
- Generation Xerox: Is the spitting image of Basemath
- Miko: Wants to be this, rather than be used as a Baby Factory and risk Death by Childbirth
- Only Friend: For a time, to Dinah
- Put on a Bus: Is sent off into the desert along with Adath after Rebecca finds out that her mother and aunts did not do the Ritual of Opening for her
- Token Girl: The only one of Basemath's daughters that survived; the others were all miscarriages or died in infancy
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Is never seen again after her aunt carts her off kicking and screaming
Werenro
- Broken Bird: The rape left her not only physically scarred and mutilated, but very bitter and numb
- Chekhov's Gunman
- Crossing the Desert
- Dark-Skinned Redhead
- Happiness in Slavery: Initially.
- Miko: The only one of the Deborahs that goes by her real name
- Rape as Drama: Is gang-raped and mutilated, and found later by a young shepherd boy
- Woman in White
Re-Nefer
- Arranged Marriage
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Seems nice, but then takes Dinah's son away from her
- Broken Bird
- The Chessmaster: Set up the meeting between Dinah and Shalem
- He Who Must Not Be Named: Regards her husband and son as this after they are killed, out of grief
- I Want Grandkids
- Passive-Aggressive Kombat
- Rich Bitch
Bar-Shalem/Re-Mose
- Bishounen
- Child Prodigy
- Driven to Suicide: After he finds out the truth about his origins and that his life thus far has been Based on a Great Big Lie
- I Have Many Names: Dinah names him Bar-Shalem ("Son of Shalem") while she is pregnant, but Re-Nefer changes his name so that she will not have to think about her son's death
- Nice Guy
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gives one to Joseph
- Someone to Remember Him By
Benia
Meryt
- Black Best Friend: To Dinah
- But Not Too Foreign: Is half Egyptian, half Nubian
- Cool Old Lady
- Determined Widow
- Heterosexual Life Partners: With Dinah
- Intergenerational Friendship
- The Medic
Joseph
- Anti-Hero
- Bishounen
- Dreaming of Things to Come
- Even the Guys Want Him
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold
- Really Gets Around: Is not the Chaste Hero that The Bible made him out to be; he slept with Potiphar and his wife!
- The Scrappy: In-universe, as he is regarded as just as much an Unwitting Instigator of Doom as his father
- We Used to Be Friends: With Dinah, as they were very close in age and nursed together
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