Python's definition of a character does not match that
of Unicode.  Python's documentation should, at a
minimum, explain how python definition compares to
Unicode's definition of a code unit, code point, glyph,
grapheme cluster, or character.

Unicode's definition of a character can be found here:
http://unicode.org/reports/tr17/

Python seems to use the Code Units option given here:
http://www.unicode.org/faq/char_combmark.html#7