"'Spoiled brat' was the nice term that Irving used to describe the future Hero of Ferelden. I can't imagine what the mean term was"
-On the Heroes of Thedas, by Enchanter Melara Orsis
Levi Malone is a mage from the Kinloch Hold Circle of Magi who would (somehow) become the Hero of Ferelden. A skilled but highly unpopular apprentice, after passing his Harrowing Irving let Duncan recruit the young mage just to get rid of him. Being torn from his comfortable life in the Circle and forced to go on the run and almost singlehandedly stop the Blight forced him to learn some humility, and while he can be rather ruthless, he's ultimately not as much of a jerk as he could have been, especially where his family is involved.
Appearance and Personality
Levi has been described by many as handsome, and indeed, he takes great pride in his appearance. He often made himself look purposefully scruffy so that he'd look more rugged, not like a "stodgy Enchanter". He has black hair, green eyes, and a bit of stubble. His hands and wrists bear a fair amount of scars from where he's used blood magic.
Of course, the more notable thing about Levi is his personality, which many have described as "uniformly unpleasant". Levi has an ego the size of the Orlesian Empire and he's just as stuck-up as that implies, convinced of his own glory and accepting nothing less than the best of everything. In his youth, he was even worse - being given everything he ever wanted and not getting into any sort of serious trouble because he knew he could just complain to his dad made him a spoiled brat and a bully growing up, who looked down on other mages for being "not as good" as he was.
During the Blight, Levi very quickly learned that he could no longer throw his father's name around and that nobody really liked him. Finding out all of this humbled him (at least as much as it could) and he at the very least became more pleasant and more empathetic, even if he still has a lot of arrogance and selfishness going on. And while he didn't really want to be a Warden, he did, in fact, step up to the plate and did his best to help save the world - even if he had a ruthless streak in doing so.
Biography
Early Life
Levi was the eldest child of Marcus and Lyra Malone. Marcus and Lyra were Marcher nobles who had been trying unsuccessfully to have a child for years, so when they gave birth to a healthy baby boy, the two were overjoyed. Young Levi got the best of everything, as befits a child born to nobility.
When Levi was seven, it was revealed that he was a mage. Marcus was hesitant to send him to a Circle, but he also thought trying to hide his son's magic would do more harm than good. In the end, while Marcus willingly gave his son to the Circle, he wasn't going to have him be miserable, so he gave a very generous donation to the Templars of Kinloch Hold on the condition that they made sure that his son was treated well.
And that's pretty much what happened. Levi was in the Circle, but it didn't really change much. He frequently wrote his father, who sent him plenty of gifts from home whenever he could. The Templars mostly left him alone and didn't give him much scrutiny - because Marcus made it very clear that the donations would stop if Levi ever mentioned that he'd been mistreated. He grew into a very intelligent boy and a skilled mage, but he was also spoiled rotten, and it showed in the way he treated his fellow Circle mages.
You see, Levi didn't have friends, he had toadies. One was a weedy boy who was just as unpleasant as Levi was, and the other was a cowardly kiss-ass who had clung onto Levi to get a bit of that sweet, sweet special treatment. It's unclear how much Levi liked these boys, but he seemed to hold something resembling loyalty to them, as he helped cover for them when they got into trouble and seemed to genuinely enjoy their company as long as they kept singing his praises.
You know who didn't enjoy their company? Everyone else. You see, Levi was a good mage, but he was absolutely insufferable about it, bragging about his skill to anyone who would listen, lording his superiority over others, and treating anyone who wasn't as good a mage as him like dirt. And there were only two other apprentices who were as good as him: Jocelyn Amell and her best friend Rhen Surana. Of course, Jocelyn and Rhen were both much nicer, more caring people than he was, and both of them hated Levi's guts and refused to kiss up to him - in fact, Jocelyn was the only person who was willing to stand up to him. Levi respected their skill, but very little else about them, seeing Jocelyn as an annoying upstart and Rhen as a pushover. Still, after a memorable incident where Jocelyn sent a psychic blast at him powerful enough to hurl him across the room, Levi stopped messing with her or her friends. After all, much like he had his father's support, Jocelyn was Irving's favorite apprentice and he had gotten her out of trouble at least a couple times.
Until he had his Harrowing, Levi lived rather comfortably in the Circle. He passed his Harrowing easily a few months after Jocelyn passed hers (and to this day, he's butthurt about how she was Harrowed before he was). Rhen Surana was Harrowed not long after that, and when Levi caught him helping Jowan - a whiny, pathetic excuse for a mage that was largely beneath Levi's notice - escape, he ratted the plan out to Irving purely for his own advancement. This had dire consequences for all involved - Jowan was forced to flee and both Rhen and Lily were sent to Aeonar. Jocelyn Amell, furious about how the whole thing had been handled and grieving the loss of her friends, requested a transfer to a different Circle just so she could get away from Levi, and she left for the Ostwick Circle the very next day, where she would spend the next several years.
Irving blamed Levi for the loss of his favorite students and resented that nothing could really be done about it, since Levi's father still supported the Circle financially. In the end, when the Grey Warden-Commander Duncan came looking for recruits from the Circle, Irving ended up recommending Levi, claiming that he was a good mage who would be an asset to the Wardens. Duncan accepted, and Levi, while reluctant to leave the comfort of the Circle, was recruited into the Order, proud to have been given such an honor.