I generally tend to shy away from Repost Memes (those lists and other such things that get posted in Facebook notes and on Blogs telling people to personalize them and repost, tagging friends, et etc.), but I found this doing research for an Econ paper, and it sounded fun so I thought I'd give it a try. The idea was to think of fiction characters - of any kind, from any work of fiction - and write down the first 15 that come to mind. Then one would expound upon the characters, explaining why you like them or whatever. I took a bit more care choosing 15 of either my favorite characters or characters who influenced my writing/reading preferences. Take note - this list was formed and this blog started about halfway through December, so if I were to rewrite it now, it might be a bit different. See how many characters you recognize:
Himura Kenshin (Rurouni Kenshin; manga)
--The protagonist of the 'wandering swordsman' Japanese period piece, Kenshin was once the most deadly swordsman in the war that takes place several years before the story starts. He disappeared after taking a vow not to kill again.
Ironically enough, Kenshin is not my favorite character from his respective story; however, I felt it was his character that I learned the most from. I think I was eight when my brother somewhat accidentally introduced me to Rurouni Kenshin, which has been my favorite manga since then.
The graphic novels pretend to be a simple battle-manga, with lots of sword fights and a two-dimensional 'killing is bad' moral (not to say that the moral isn't a good one, but even at eight I had seen deeper fiction). However, towards the end we finally get to fill in Kenshin's full backstory (which, up until then, had been simply 'murderer turned peace-maker trying to help people'), and we finally understand everything that happened to him to change him and turn him into the man he is by the beginning of the story.
Looking back, it seems no deeper than any of the other stories I surround myself with nowadays, but at nine years old when I first saw the movie that covered the character's backstory, I was heartbroken. It was the most tragic narrative I had ever witnessed before, and shaped my taste in fiction since. Even now, I find myself comparing characters to Kenshin, and people who rate below don't often get onto my 'favorites' list, and the reason I surround myself with deep, meaningful stories is because I was exposed to one of the best at such a young age.
Lyra Belacqua (His Dark Materials; Book series)
--The protagonist of The Golden Compass and sequels, Lyra is the niece of a scientist who finds herself in the middle of a struggle which she is destined to solve, though she knows little of the truth.
Lyra, herself, isn't really a favorite character - she's a liar, has little direction, and manages to succeed almost entirely through others' work - but it is again her story that I took most to heart. The Golden Compass hit the pop culture fan a few years back when production on the movie was announced. The catholic church and other religions made a public outcry against this, stating that the story was sacrilegious and written by an atheist - which is was and is. However, in my opinion, the degree of blasphemy is perfectly tempered as to be ignorable no matter what you believe (Honestly, if Harry Potter or other obvious fantasy tales are OK, then His Dark Materials is OK too, especially since Pullman makes no effort to mask his opinions, thereby making it easier for the audience to disagree.)
His Dark Materials was the first story I ever read (or otherwise absorbed) that used the Many-Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics - that is, it utilized a parallel world Multiverse. I've been fascinated with the idea ever since, and I really liked the way HDM pulled it off. It also introduced me to the idea of animal familiars, and the plot device of slowly expanding the plot over time. I love stories where we just assume a certain degree of trouble, and over time we realize there was more going on the whole time. Each book in the trilogy starts with an assumed goal, and during the story we learn more about what's really going on until we have a larger problem to take care of, and I love that.
As anyone can tell, I don't agree with all of the ideas put forth by this trilogy, but I can't deny the brilliant writing and imaginative multiverse. Amazing story, and while I wasn't her biggest fan, Lyra was the character who took the reader through it all.
Rose Tyler (Doctor Who; Television series)
--The first companion of the Doctor in the revived (2005) series. The role of Companion has passed down through different female characters since the shows inception, to be the human character for the audience to identify with.
Out of the four female companions so far in the revived series or Doctor Who, I have to say Rose Tyler would be my favorite, with Donna Noble a close second. Sure, it's totally unfair - Rose is the first companion, she got two whole seasons (And two more seasons where they keep talking about her), and she eventually becomes a love interest, which of course boosts her status. And I will also admit that, at first, I really didn't like her. When we meet Rose, she's dating a kid named Mickey, whom she pretty much abandons when the Doctor asks her to join him. Her seeming lack of regard for Mickey's feelings made me a bit... unhappy with her.
During the course of her two seasons, however, Rose redeems herself. She's smart, and helps out in the Doctor's world-saving, proving herself not to be the frivolous girl we thought she was. As a human, she also helps to soften the Doctor's alien character, making him more accessible to the audience.
I'll be the first to admit, however, that the major reason she's my favorite is because of the romantic plotline (tho' I'm sure there are those who disliked it). I love how Doctor Who handled it, and, while it isn't the first time I've seen romance handled this way, it managed to tell a good romance in an discreet, sideplot style. No one ever came out and said anything obvious (well, until the season 2 finale, when Rose leaves), but a perceptive audience could tell pretty early on what was growing. Rose's return in season 4, unbeknownst to the Doctor, would not have been nearly as epic if he hadn't spent the entire third season pining away after her. For all the awesomeness that she brought into the show, Rose gets my 'favorite female companion' label.
Rory Williams (Doctor Who; Television Series)
--Introduced at the beginning of season 5, Rory is at first the boyfriend of Amy Pond, the season's female companion, and her fiance for the majority of the season. He travels with the Doctor a few times that season, becoming one of the few male companions of the Doctor.
If Rose is my favorite female companion, Rory is my favorite companion in general - even though he isn't an 'official' companion until season 6, which starts in a few months. I love Rory! He's so awesome! Jack, the first male companion of the revived series, who only stayed on for a couple episodes before inheriting his own spinoff series, was pretty great too, but Rory, in my opinion, is the best.
Amy is the official companion of the fifth season, and while I don't particularly dislike her, I'm not her biggest fan, either. Her Scottish accent is a redeeming factor (after watching Doctor Who, I end up thinking with a British accent. *shudder* Nothing wrong with British accents, I just don't want to have them invading my brain), but she's girly and frivolous and tried to kiss the Doctor, which is not acceptable so soon after the Rose plotline gets solved end of season 4. So when the Doctor skips over to pick Rory up, in an effort to remind her that she's already engaged to someone, I feel this is a stroke of genius.
Rory makes Amy bearable. He's so in love with her, for whatever reason, and though she forgets it for a while, she loves him too. The lengths that he goes to prove his love (specifically in the season finale) almost redeem Amy. Rory's also one of our few relatable male characters, and though he can seem a bit annoying at times (though not as annoying as Amy can be), it's usually because he, unlike the devoted audience, doesn't love the Doctor. Rory doesn't immediately trust the Doctor like everyone else seems to, or go along with everything he says and does, and I personally found this exteremly refreshing.
I can't understand why anyone who's seen season 5 wouldn't love him, and I'm so happy they're taking him on as an official companion for the next season.
River Song (Doctor Who; Television series)
--Currently, an unknown character. Her timeline passes through the Doctor's, but not in the right order, so the first time we meet her she knows everything about him, and he nothing about her.
It's a good sign for this show that there are three characters from it on my '15 characters' list, huh? Either that, or I've been watching too much lately (Actually, at the time I made this list, I had been watching it a lot, soo...)
I love River. Not sure if I could label her my favorite character of the show, especially since we know hardly anything about her, but I think she's great. The quick blurb pretty much explained it all - She shows up, having seen the Doctor in the future, knowing what will happen to him and even his real name, while we don't even know who she is.
The reason I love River is pretty similar to the reason I love Rory - she doesn't follow the Doctor around like a devoted cultist. She knows more about what's going on, and uses that to tease him whenever she shows up. The Doctor almost seems to dislike her, and definitely doesn't like it when she pops up and drags him along reluctantly on some adventure (which is ironic, since he's usually doing the dragging, and increases my love and respect for River).
River's pretty much awesome, in my mind. She's also a thief and a trickster, and apparently a murderer too, though we haven't met her during that timeline yet. We'll learn more about this next season, when her exact relationship with the Doctor is revealed (they've hinted that they might be married, but I highly doubt this), and who she killed and why. But for now, I'm definitely on her fan list.
River Tam (Firefly; Television series)
--The younger sister of the Serenity crew's doctor Simon Tam, River is a genius from the central planets who went to an Alliance school and is now, for all intents and purposes, crazy insane.
From River Song, it was just a small step to the other River clamoring for attention in my memory banks. As a little sister myself, I tend to associate myself with the younger sisters in fiction, but even without that relation River would be one of my favorites - because she's crazy. And a hilarious.
Firefly, in case you didn't know, is a science-fiction western by Joss Wheden (Buffy). It centers around the crew of this Firefly-class transport ship, Serenity, made up of space-cowboy-pirates, and as ridiculous as that may all sound, it's amazing, and deserved way more that one season.
The galactic government, known as The Alliance, functions as the antagonist, much like Star Wars' Empire. River Tam and her brother lived in an Alliance-rich section of space, or the Central Planets, so the crew of Serenity don't take kindly to them at first, being, y'know, vagabonds. But everyone eventually plays nice and we get to have River floating around the ship, muttering seeming nonsense and being, quite often, hilarious, and moving, and serious. She seems to know things at times that she can't have possibly found out about, and delivers poignent, surprising lines with hilarious timing.
Jayne Cobb (Firefly; Television series)
--The action fighter of the crew, Jayne owns a lot of guns, is overall the most hilarious character, and... a guy, despite having a name that sounds like a girl's.
As much as I love River, I might choose Jayne as my favorite character of the bunch. Though his name sounds silly at first, and actually ends up sounding pretty tough and manly by the end of the show, especially when you're associating it with... Jayne.
As ferocious and strong as Jayne tries to appear, however, only a few of lines don't make you laugh. He's a hilarious character, especially since he isn't trying to be. He's sincere the whole time, even when his mother sends him an orange and red knit hat with a pompom in the mail. He's also a bit of a wild card, being a hired mercenary, because we don't really know where his loyalties lie.
He's even more awesome, however, after the episode Jaynestown, in which we learn of Jayne's past dealings, attempting to steal from a rich landowner and accidentally dumping all the money of the poor surfs. The events of that episode are actually pretty sad, as Jayne struggles with the townspeople thinking him a local hero while he knows he had meant to keep the money for himself.
And there's pretty much nothing bad I can think about Jayne. Whenever he's on screen, he's amazing. Definitely my favorite character.
Guybrush Threepwood (The Secret of Monkey Island; Video Game series)
--The young protagonist in this comedy series, Guybrush wants to be a pirate, and no matter what ridiculous adventures he has to partake of on the way, he'll get there.
The Secret of Monkey Island is one of the most amazing, under-appreciated video game series of all time. Of all time! It's a comedy, so practically everything you do is silly and makes little or no sense, and you never actually find out what the secret of Monkey Island is. Pretty much every plot change is a parody or play on something, and the story, which is thankfully present (more than I can say for other video games of its time), is ridiculous and lol-worthy. As much as modern audiences would appreciate the humor, few would be able to get into it because of the old school graphics and game-play engine. Special Edition graphical updates have been released recently for the first two games, but the names aren't notable enough for a significant amount of people to learn about them.
This is terribly unfortunate, so I make sure to include Guybrush Threepwood on my favorites list, because he is, indeed, a favorite of mine. He relies mostly on comedy, but he has some serious moments as well, mostly in the second game when we learn his backstory, and the third when the romantic plotline is expanded. His character remains innocently wussy and pitiful, but optimistic and redeeming.
His name's also pretty funny - it comes from the vector program they used to create his sprite, which saved files as '.brush'. They didn't have a name for the character when they created the sprite, so they saved it as 'Guy.brush' and eventually the name stuck (the last name was chosen by an office vote of silly-sounding two-syllable names).
There's pretty much nothing bad about Guybrush, so he makes it easily onto my favorites list.
Link (The Legend of Zelda; video game series)
--As the protagonist of pretty much every Zelda title since the beginning, Link is reincarnated throughout history to save Hyrule or surrounding lands from whatever dangers may befall.
The story of the Zelda games may seem a bit simple to some - Link, the Hero, must save Zelda, Hyrule's princess, from an evil force, generally Ganondorf, while being aided by mysterious and magical beings, most notably the goddesses who created Hyrule and left behind the Triforce of power, which the evil force desires to control. It's basically your simple save-the-princess fairy tale with some details embellished, complete with magic and swords and a setting that isn't quite medieval but close enough.
It's because the story is so simple, however, that it feels so powerful to me. Link is always a young child, ranging from maybe ten years old to seventeen, at the very most, and the plot deals heavily in his growing up, becoming stronger and wiser as he must learn how to defeat the hordes of evil minions who desire to destroy Hyrule. The evil force is always so much stronger than Link himself is, Ganon himself becoming a terrible beast when consumed with power, and on more than one occasion Link actually fails before he is able to regain power and finally strike Ganon down.
The first game, which was viewed as being extremely difficult in America due to its large overworld map with little or no direction, was also hailed for the stress it placed on free-form exploration. It helped change the video game culture, and luckily never lost its simple, important storyline. Definitely my favorite video game series of all time, because even being humorous (though not so much as Monkey Island), it managed to be dramatic and occasionally very emotional.
Tobias (Animorphs; Novel series)
--One of the five major protagonists, Tobias becomes trapped in his red-tailed hawk morph early on in the series and continues to help his friends while struggling with his self-identity problems.
I think at some point I made it my responsibility to consider the weirder, less important characters in a given character set as my favorite character. Obviously this stems from the pre-teen feelings that I was the weird, less important one, so I identified with them, but I've also always loved stories and people that strived to be different than the norm. When I finally sat down the read Animorphs (During one summer break, for about two weeks I read all day, working through sometimes three books in my brother's large box a day), I instantly decided Tobias was my favorite of the bunch.
I guess there's nothing particularly special about Tobias, except that he's stuck in his animal form. His character really grows a lot through the 50+ book series, struggling between his human side and his hawk side, and when he finally regains the ability to transform, trying to explain to the others why he wont permanently become human.
So while his character didn't really change my life in any dramatic fashion, he forced me to consciously realize my preference for strange or abnormal characters and plot lines. I now tend to root for the underdog in any protagonist set (though I know I'm not being terribly original), and while it isn't really fair to say that Tobias was the one who got me into Therian fiction, he definitly did a better job at piquing my interest than the others in his team.
L (Death Note; Manga/Anime)
--A genius police detective hired to solve the mass-deaths of criminals around the world, L, whose real name is kept secret, is also the rival and antagonist to his paranormal story's psychotic, genius murderer protagonist.
I love L, and Death Note, the story he comes from. It's told through the eyes of a high school senior/college freshman, who finds a notebook that gives him the ability to kill anyone whose name and face he knows, and he becomes a murderous vigilante, killing convicted or even suspected criminals. While he's definitely the protagonist, and L the antagonist, it's left up to the reader to decide who's the 'good guy' or 'bad guy'. It's an awesome story with tons of added twists and mind games along the way as the murderer tries to find out L's true name so he can kill him and L tries to prove who exactly the killer is.
It wasn't very difficult for me to decide that L was in fact the good guy, and the protagonist the evil one, twisted by power until he becomes psychotic killer. But even if the protagonist could be considered the 'good guy', there's no denying how awesome L is. Minor spoilers ahead.
When we finally meet L, he's pretty pathetic looking, young and skinny with permanent bed-hair, who's always hunched over and only eats sugary things. I instantly liked him, because he's so weird and unexpected for a genius detective. With such a serious and dramatic plot, L's character, while adding to the problems our protagonist has to face, also provides comic relief, something that's really needed. The story itself is just awesome, but it wouldn't have been as awesome if L had been some boring black-leather wannabe hero.
What I really love his just how genius smart the character is. Of course, with writers who know everything about their own story, it can be a bit gimicky to have characters who easily figure it out as well, but the writer here seemed to keep L's sharpness reasonable, giving him a Sherlock Holmes level of perception and understanding that wasn't just guesswork, or unreasonable leaps of intuition, but logical cause-and-effect fact checking.
Zack Addy (Bones; Television Series)
--Assistant to the titular forensic anthologist, whiz-kid Zack starts off the series as a Grad Student, gets his Doctorate, and finally ends up in the 'looney-bin', all before turning 30.
He's only a major character for the first few seasons (the reason he leaves, though, is a major spoiler), but he's my favorite cast member. Zack's character is one of those genius types with horrible social skills, and lacks a lot of empathy, which just seems to open him up for a lot of hilarious dialogue and growing experiences along the way for this show.
Zack starts off the series with floppy hair and a clinical way of talking that mirrors his mentor. In fact, for most of the first two seasons he seems like the younger, student, male equivilant of the show's protagonist, though he retains his clinical and logical attitude even as she starts to grow warmer. He finally gets his doctorate halfway through the second season, when he's officially hired on as part of the team (instead of an assistant). Major spoilers ahead.
The reason he leaved the show at the end of season three is because we discover that his character, in fact, had been working as an assistant to a secret cannabalistic cult, stealing and tampering with evidence because the cult tricks him into believing, for very logical reasons, that what they are doing is for the 'greater good'. By the time we discovered this in the last episode, I reluctantly admit that I was already crying - Zack was definitly my favorite character, but, getting to know him for three seasons, I understood exactly why he would fall for something like this. The very trait that made him an enjoyable character, his clinical bluntness and lack of emotional inhibitors, was what led to his tragic downfall.
Now, Zack's in a psych ward serving time with an insanity plea. The writers and characters were skillfull in using Zack's folly to convince our main protagonist to develop her emotions better, and as of yet we haven't gotten a full time replacement character (Instead, they pulled in five additional characters and are now swapping between them each episode), which means at some future date we might just get our bright young genius back!
The Joker (The Dark Knight; Christopher Nolan Film)
--The most famous of Batman's villains since the character was created, Heath Ledger's portrayal of The Joker defined him as being psychopathic, schizophrenic, and obsessed with chaos and anarchy.
The Joker's an interesting character in Superhero lore (Or Comic Book Hero, since Batman can't really be considered a superhero). Superheros in general are pretty interesting, because their stories keep changing over time as different writers pick the characters up and are allowed to change the canon to fit their needs. The Joker, in particular, was first introduced as a villain in 1940, where he was a homocidal maniac obssessed with mind games.
Later in that decade, they tried to revamp the character because parents were becoming worried that comics books were too violent. The new Joker became a prankster, comitting crimes for the fun of it but rarely hurting people outright. It should be no surprise, then, that in twenty years his character almost disappeared from the comic series altogether.
I agree that over violent characters aren't the characters we want kids getting to know, but the point of The Joker isn't to have a horrible character for the fun of it. That's why I really like Christopher Nolan and Heath Ledger's Joker from the 2008 film; yes, he's extremly violent, disgusting, and painful to watch, but The Joker, as he was originally designed, was meant to have zero empathy. He upsets social order through crime, kills with no regard, and doesn't care what people think or what happens to him or anyone, not because he's a poor soul with a sad backstory but because he's a genuine psychopath. In a fictional culture where all villains are unfortunate villains, forced into their roles, The Joker is refreshing in his sincerity and bluntness.
Alpha (Dollhouse; Television Series)
--Originally a psychopath slasher named Karl who was taken by Rossum Corporation to become one of the first 'dolls', Alpha shows signs of self-awareness even in his 'doll' state, and an obsession for the protagonist Echo. He is accidentally imprinted with all of his previous identities, giving him a super-multiple personality schizophrenia, with all the memories, skills, and habits of his previous imprints.
I love Alpha's character for multiple reasons. For one, I'm a sucker for a good bad guy - so many are so contrived and stereotypical, when we get one who has a mind of his own we have to do whatever we can to preserve them. Two, like The Joker, Alpha in genuinely crazy. The Dollhouse wipes identities and replaces them for a living, but something went wrong with Alpha and he ends up with multiple, full identities in his head, each one clamouring for dominance. Everything he does is the result of having more than one murderer, psychopath, and skitzophrenic inside his mind at all times. But the main reason I really like Alpha, and this is a major spoiler, is because he ends up helping our heros fight the true villan during the second season - the Dollhouse itself.
Dollhouse, as a show, is a bit of a moral quandary that Joss Whedon is presenting to us - except for Alpha himself, who was a convicted criminal with no other options, all of the 'dolls' in the dollhouse are volunteers willing to have their identities erased and replaced. Each episode highlights the fact that the dollhouse is not a brothel, and that most of the work they do is to help others, not abuse their volunteers. In the second season, however, the evils of the Rossum Corporation are finally brought to full light, and there's no denying who's in the right and who's in the wrong.
Without Alpha's help in the second season, the world would have been overcome quickly. Alpha, realizing that the show's protagonist Echo doesn't agree with his logic, disappears again, finally returning with a new, softer dominent personality. He helps the protagonist team hide from Rossum and uses his plethora of unnatural abilities to aid in the fight. Alpha's a bit of a tragic hero, instrumental in the fight even though Echo, whom he's genuinely in love with, is in love with someone else, but he's not as tragic as my true Dollhouse favorite character Topher, who goes crazy and ends of sacrificing his life to save everyone else at the very end. Still, Alpha's character is important because of the transformation he undertakes in the course of the two-season run.
Wander (Shadow of the Colossus; Video Game)
--Only referred to as Wander because his name is never known, the protagonist of this minimalist epic appears in the empty country with no backstory, a horse carrying a dead girl's body, and a sword he doesn't know how to use, with which he must defeat sixteen colossi before he can bring the girl back to life.
Anyone who's been paying close attention knows that I've been touting Shadow of the Colossus for a while now (And it'll probably still show up in future blogs). Every single bit about this game I find amazing, and awesome in the truest sense of the word. There are only five characters in this entire game (if you don't count a bunch of nameless soldiers who show up at the end), and the world that you're given to travel freely is vast and expansive, and empty save a few birds and lizards, and sixteen enormous, colossal beasts that stand in your way of bringing the girl Mono back to life.
We only know that the girl's name is Mono because Wander refers to her as such, and we only know that his horse's name is Agro because Wander calls her by that name. Every single detail of the story is related to us via short dialogue between Wander and the faceless, genderless entity named Dormin, who promises to restore Mono's soul to her body if Wander can destroy the 16 colossi blocking his power. Anything they don't explicitly tell each other, we have to figure out on our own. I really admire this kind of storytelling, because, when done right, it leaves out all the frivolous detail and allows us to focus on the essential meaning of the story.
Wander, we soon discover, has stolen a powerful sword from a Lord Emon (Though who exactly that is, we don't know) and traveled to the Forbidden Land where Dormin rules. We don't know exactly who Mono is to our protagonist, but he rushes into battle with only the slightest hesitation, against skyscraping monsters, and must climb onto them, whether they try to crush him or fling him off or dive under water or soar high in the air, so he can take them down with what must look to the beasts like half a toothpick.
It is all the trouble that Wander goes to in order to bring Mono back to life that makes this game so powerful. He could die at any time, or give up, resign himself to fate, turn himself in, but he doesn't. With only himself and his horse to help him, he takes on the powers far greater, in skill and in size, than himself, and pulls them down.
I don't want to give any spoilers away for this particular story and character, but I will say that the ending is both tragic and successful, happy and sad. The whole way through the game, I felt I knew what ultimately must be coming, and that thought kept me somber. Partway through, when we realize Mono's skin is regaining color, while Wander's complexion was growing paler, and his garb darker, I thought I knew what to expect at the end; and everything that happened in the last half hour of the game started to bring me to tears. What finally got me crying, however, was not sadness but unexpected joy.
No comments:
Post a Comment