Carsh is the sort of small man an occupied city produces: shrewd, compromised, and never quite as simple as he first appears.
He works the northern wall of Taor with a survivor’s instinct, reading tempers and opportunities with equal speed. At first glance, he seems like exactly the kind of functionary no one remembers after the scene ends.
What makes him interesting is that he lives in the moral weather of an occupied place. Carsh moves through that uneasy space between cowardice and courage, where self-interest, fear, and usefulness are always negotiating with each other. Through him, compromise feels painfully local, and life lived too near power feels cramped in exactly the right way.