Omnipedia: Dorian Hwan
(Hwan Yong-Jin – 煥용진 or 환용진)
Hearth
Real Name
Dorian Hwan / Hwan Yong-Jin (桓용진, 煥용진 or 환용진)
Height
5’11”
Weight
146 lbs.
Profession
Physician (Internal Medicine/General Practitioner, Parahuman Specialty)
Nature
Arcane-Type Parahuman
Alignment
Superhero
Tiers
3-4 depending on the era, later none
Affiliations
Pentad of Guardians
The Excelsiors
Justice Wing
Mainsail Family Practice of Empire / Viejo Bosque Medical University Parahuman Family Practice
Status
Active (In Nadir Era)
Dorian Hwan is a medical doctor and powerful healing mage, as well as being the superhero called Hearth. Hwan was a biology major at SUNY-Empire before attending Medical School at the (then) Mount Sinai School of Medicine during the Emergence Era. While a medical student, Hwan ended up rushing into Empire City's King Kurtzberg Tower at the start of the Skyquake. Though he was able to help evacuate civilians, he was caught in the backlash and placed in a temporary fractal timeline where he was an apprentice and mage studying at the Nightblossom Reef Academy of Healing Witchcraft and Medical Arts, where he mastered healing techniques and magic, before emerging from the fractal timeline and joining with his friends in the Pentad of Guardians.
Powers and Skills
Origin Story
When Dorian and his friends evacuated the King Kurtzberg Building during the Skyquake, they were caught in one of the experiment’s aftershocks, which caused reality and the timeline to ‘fractalize,’ forming five temporary alternate histories, with each of the friends being caught in a different history. Dorian was caught in a ‘world that never was’ where magic, not technology, was the foundation of society. Dorian found himself a lifelong student at the Nightblossom Reef Academy of Healing Witchcraft and Medical Arts, where he had been left as a child. Working for years to master the arcane arts of knitting wounds, curing the sick, and protecting the innocent through wards and other protective magic, Dorian quickly rose to the top of his class, until he was ready to take his final oaths and dedicate himself to the Order and its beneficent calling. During this time, Dorian had no memory of his original life in Realspace.
Before he could take that step, however, Dorian remembered his friends and emerged from the fractal universe. He became the Red Pentad Point of the Pentad of Guardians, representing destruction – for ironically in healing the terminally ill and injured, Hearth destroyed the original violent intent that had left his patients in such a state. He and the rest of the Pentad were inherently aware that in some way they were destined to save the entire world, with Hearth serving the Pentad as the Heart and the Healer.
History
Trivia
- Dorian, though he has a very dry wit, is known both for his sense of humor and his sometimes extensive and elaborate pranks. While they are never malicious, they are sometimes startlingly comprehensive.
- Dorian is one of the most handsome masculine heroes. Even as he got older, his hair simply turned light grey at the temples, which only served to enhance his features.
- In a similar vein, Dorian’s hair is essentially always perfect.
- Dorian’s family writes their surname using the standard hanja 桓 (soapberry tree), or with the hangul character 환. As an adult, Dorian opted to use 煥 instead — “blaze,” though that’s generally only used for “Hwan” as a given name.
- Hearth is proud of his role as a Korean American superhero. There certainly aren’t a lot with his longstanding visibility and reputation out there. In early Emergence, though, that visibility was harder to come by and thwarted by subtlety. Hearth would play to the camera by sprinkling Korean words into his speech and correspondence. However, Dorian‘s strength is medical science, not language arts, and he never mastered any language other than English with any accuracy, let alone fluency. More than once, he’s been caught out by native Korean speakers. And a few Duolingo hobbyists. And machine translation.
- Somewhat related: just… please don’t ask him about FleetSt.5 again, Amplifier. He doesn’t follow their work. It doesn’t matter about their North American tour plans, Amplifier. Just… just stop.
- When someone makes a note of it, derisively or otherwise, Dorian generally acknowledges his colour scheme leans heavily on pink. He feels that it flatters him quite well. He sometimes claims that it’s ‘pale scarlet’ instead, but that’s generally another example of Dorian sending someone up a bit.
- When materials for the Rose of Versailles manga were discovered years after the Apocalypse Agenda, some asked whether Dorian preferred it to the anime. As it turns out? His favourite version is the Jacques Demy film adaptation, Lady Oscar, which came out while he was at university. Absolutely his favourite. Few understood why.
- Unfortunately for a public hero, Hearth is profoundly uncomfortable in front of the camera. He compensates through exaggerated poses, a common defense mechanism. Sometimes, though, he… overcompensates, which is why the unofficial Pentad subreddit eventually spun off /s/hearthsmirkkatas. (/s/topazsmilekatas took off even faster.)
- Dorian’s active dating life has quieted over the years. When asked about this by Topaz, he has admitted he’s long past the point where he’s looking for a bit of fun and mutual pleasure, though he’s not certain he would even know how to find a serious relationship.
- Dorian hates coleslaw with a passion.
Authors’ Notes
- Dorian is one of two partial counterparts (along with Doctor Michael Gregg) of Eric Burns-White’s “Masked Bruce” character from Superguy.
- Dorian is also part of an intentional subversion of the traditional ‘five-team,’ especially as seen in certain eras of anime. For a long time, a team would have a leader, a hothead, a funny strong guy, a kid or smart guy, and ‘the girl,’ who existed to be female, have emotions, be unreasonable, and force the guys to not suck quite so much. It’s not a coincidence that the Pentad of Guardians is made up of a female leader, a female hothead, a female funny strong person, a female smart person, and ‘the boy.’
References and Stories
- RTW Presents Meet The Pentad of Guardians!
- Justice Wing Excelsiors: Reaching Higher
- Justice Wing Excelsiors: Reorientation
- Forebears
- Justice Wing In Nadir: Transposition
(Minor typo in the In Nadir history, “breaks” instead of “brakes”.)
Fixed. And then some.