Karna

Karna was born to Kunti, who invoked the sun god Surya before her marriage and received a son already wearing kavacha (divine armour) and kundala (celestial earrings) fused to his skin. Fearing disgrace, she set the infant afloat on the Ashwanadi river. He was found and raised by Adhiratha, a charioteer, and his wife Radha — earning him the name Radheya, and a lifetime of being called suta-putra, "son of a charioteer." That single word would follow him into every court, every contest, every battlefield. His skill with the bow rivalled Arjuna's from boyhood, but birth barred him from the training that noble blood bought freely. Rejected by Dronacharya, he went to Parashurama and claimed to be a brahmin to be accepted as a student. He learned the Brahmastra — and earned a curse when the deception was discovered. At the Hastinapura tournament, when the assembly refused a charioteer's son the right to duel Arjuna, Duryodhana crowned him King of Anga on the spot. Karna never forgot it. That crown bought a loyalty no god, no mother, and no truth could buy back.

A mantra granted by the sage Durvasa. A curious, unmarried girl. And a god who could not refuse a summons. Karna's life began as a secret his mother could not afford to keep — a child of the Sun, floated downriver in a basket of reeds, carrying divine armour and a wound that would never close.

Proud, generous to the point of self-destruction, and incapable of breaking a promise. Karna gives away anything he is asked for — including the armour that made him immortal. He is bitter about his birth yet refuses to abandon the man who honoured him, even when he learns that man is on the wrong side of dharma.