Tan Hadron, sometimes referred to as Hadron of Hastor, is the son of Had Urtur and a prince of Gathol. He is a proud fighting man of the kingdom of Helium, from the city of Hastor. He is the main protagonist of A Fighting Man of Mars, and a supporting character in Llana of Gathol.
History[]
Barsoom[]
A Fighting Man of Mars[]
Tan Hadron is a Padwar in the army of Helium. He falls in love with Sanoma Tora, daughter of Tor Hatan, an Umak commander. Despite being the son of a princess of Gathol, Tan Hadron is not rich, so Sanoma spurns his declaration of love.
When Sanoma is captured by soldiers of Jeddak Tul Axtar of Jahar, Hadron is accused of having a hand in her abduction but is cleared by the testimony of the slave Kal Tavan. Hadron immediately goes in search of Sanoma. Along the way he meets Tavia, a woman who dresses like a man. She suggests they to go to her native city of Tjanath, the enemy of Jahar, assuming incorrectly as it turns out that they will find help there. Instead they get a hostile reception from the Jeddak. Hadron is accused of being a spy of Jahar and sent to the pits, where he meets Nur An. Together they are sentenced to "The Death", which consists of being lowered in a cage down into a seemingly bottomless shaft. The shaft however leads to an underground river, through which the two man reach the Valley Hohr. Here they become prisoners of Ghron and witness his cruelty, but they manage to escape from him with an improvised hot air balloon. The balloon brings them to the hideout of Phor Tak, the mad scientist who invented all the disintegration weapons and the ships that can withstand these weapons for Tul Axtar. He now wants to conquer all of Barsoom for himself. He agrees to let Hadron and Nur an in on his secret weapon if they will help him. He gives Hadron a ship coated in a special paint, that makes it invisible.
With this ship, Hadron goes back to Tjanath and frees Tavia and a girl named Phao. He uses more of the invisibility paint to make himself an invisibility cloak. The three of them set a course for Jahar to free Sanoma. He finds her and also manages to capture Tul Axtar himself, taking him hostage to make sure the guards will let them leave Jahar. Sanoma however double crosses her rescuer and frees Tul Axtar, who then takes controll of the invisible ship and maroons Hadron and Tavia in he land of U-Go, filled with cannibals. The two manage to survive several days, but eventually find themselves cornered atop a high mountain. Through sheer luck, they find that their invisible ship is also there (Tul Axtar had forgotten to properly secure it when reaching Jahar, and the wind blew it back to U-Go). Escaping the cannibals, Hadron and Tavia go to Jahar, where the fleet of Helium has already arrived. Hadron helps the Helium forces secure some of the ships of Jahar, which are immune to the destintegration rays. Jahar soon surrenders. Tul Axtar tries to flee but is killed by Hadron. He then returns to Phor Tak's lair, where he kills the mad scientist and destroys all of his inventions. He rejects Sanoma and marries Tavia, who turns out to be a real princess, daughter of Kal Tavan, once Jeddak of Tjanath.
Llana of Gathol[]
Tan Hadron is now serving in the army of Hin Abtol, which is laying siege to Gathol. He ended up with Hin Abtol's army when he was shot down by them while looking for the missing Llana and John Carter. When John Carter shows up with the plan of acquiring a ship (the Dusar) and a crew that is willing to betray Hin Abtol so that he can free Llana, Tan Hadron volunteers to be his lieutenant. However, it soon becomes clear that none of the crew (which consists mostly of assassins and panthans), except Tan Hadron, Fo-nar, and Gor-don, is willing to assist Carter to reach the North Pole city of Hin Abtol, since they fear he will freeze them again. After a mutiny, Carter and Gor-don are marooned at the North Pole while Tan Hadron and Fo-Nar are forced by the crew to navigate the Dusar elsewhere. The Dusar is never mentioned again in the rest of the book, so Tan Hadron's fate afterwards is unknown.
Personality[]
Though a clever warrior and far from lacking in tactical cunning as well as a certain mechanical flair, Tan Hadron is emotionally un-self aware. Mistaking his infatuation with Sanoma Tora for true love is understandable, but his failure to recognize the true nature of his feelings for Tavia - even after clutching her to his heart and begging her to swear never to leave him as he cannot live without her - while hilarious to the reader, must be highly trying to the young lady in the case.