[
  {
    "id": "addie",
    "name": "Addie Bundren",
    "role": "Mother / absent center",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/addie.webp",
    "color": "#d7c5a1",
    "summary": "Her dying wish gives the journey its shape, while her own section exposes the anger and distance beneath the family's public duty.",
    "motifs": [
      "coffin",
      "schoolroom",
      "words",
      "revenge"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "anse",
    "name": "Anse Bundren",
    "role": "Father / keeper of the promise",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/anse.webp",
    "color": "#9d7f55",
    "summary": "Stooped, stubborn, and rhetorically helpless, Anse turns Addie's wish into an absolute obligation while pursuing needs of his own.",
    "motifs": [
      "road",
      "teeth",
      "promise",
      "debt"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "cash",
    "name": "Cash Bundren",
    "role": "Carpenter / measured witness",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/cash.webp",
    "color": "#b18a55",
    "summary": "Cash expresses care through craft, lists, balance, and practical judgment. His broken leg makes the journey's violence literal.",
    "motifs": [
      "saw",
      "bevel",
      "balance",
      "cement"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "darl",
    "name": "Darl Bundren",
    "role": "Watcher / fractured narrator",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/darl.webp",
    "color": "#66727a",
    "summary": "Darl sees what others conceal, narrates beyond ordinary limits, and finally attempts to end the journey by burning the coffin.",
    "motifs": [
      "eyes",
      "distance",
      "fire",
      "laughter"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "jewel",
    "name": "Jewel Bundren",
    "role": "Horseman / body in action",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/jewel.webp",
    "color": "#7d3f2c",
    "summary": "Jewel speaks through labor and violence. He repeatedly saves Addie's coffin, even after his horse is traded away to keep the wagon moving.",
    "motifs": [
      "horse",
      "river",
      "fire",
      "rescue"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "dewey-dell",
    "name": "Dewey Dell Bundren",
    "role": "Daughter / hidden journey",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/dewey-dell.webp",
    "color": "#7d6d59",
    "summary": "Dewey Dell travels toward Jefferson carrying a private crisis that the family's burial mission repeatedly overshadows.",
    "motifs": [
      "fan",
      "pregnancy",
      "town",
      "secrecy"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "vardaman",
    "name": "Vardaman Bundren",
    "role": "Child / associative witness",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/vardaman.webp",
    "color": "#6a746a",
    "summary": "Vardaman processes death through fish, holes, sound, and repeated images. His logic makes grief visible without making it orderly.",
    "motifs": [
      "fish",
      "auger holes",
      "train",
      "buzzards"
    ]
  },
  {
    "id": "cora-tull",
    "name": "Cora Tull",
    "role": "Neighbor / moral interpreter",
    "image": "assets/images/characters/cora-tull.webp",
    "color": "#856c50",
    "summary": "Cora narrates the Bundrens through religious certainty, sympathy, judgment, and persistent misreading.",
    "motifs": [
      "cakes",
      "prayer",
      "judgment",
      "neighbor"
    ]
  }
]