Who's Your Favorite Book Character?

[Moni97]

Hey Moni here! I've seen a lot of threads about TV shows/movies, politics and celebrities but what about the fictional world? I'm a little bit of a book worm personally and have many characters near and dear to my heart. And I thought it would be fun to see who everybody else's favorite characters are!

My favorite book character is:

Tyrion Lannister. The half nosed, clever, cheeky little imp. While not the main protagonist of ASOIAF, Tyrion is by far one of the most beloved characters and by far the funniest. He is not only highly intelligent and witty but also has a way of looking at the world is a raw and matter of fact manner. He knows he'll never compete with anyone physically but he has sharpened his mind, making him a formidable opponent in the game.

So excited to see who your favorite characters are!

 

[Juan]

Hi Moni! It's hard to pick a book character as there are so many good reads...

The first ones that come to mind as unique, maybe, but there would be tons more:

- The members of the platoon in "The Naked and The Dead"
- Hank Chinaski
- The woman in "The Woman from Sarajevo"
- Civil servants at Gogol's novels
- Tamara Pavlovna at "The Glass Garden", by Tatiana Tibuleac

 

[Moni97]

Hi Moni! It's hard to pick a book character as there are so many good reads...

The first ones that come to mind as unique, maybe, but there would be tons more:

- The members of the platoon in "The Naked and The Dead"
- Hank Chinaski
- The woman in "The Woman from Sarajevo"
- Civil servants at Gogol's novels
- Tamara Pavlovna at "The Glass Garden", by Tatiana Tibuleac

Hi @Juan! Thanks for joining I completely understand, I had to really think about who I wanted to start off with. But ultimately Tyrion won out, probably because I admire the resilience of his character.

I'm going to be honest though, I've never read those books before. I'm a more fantasy/horror kind of gal.

 

[ZFire]

This is kinda hard for me to choose because I have so many favorites lol. Off the top of my head, Lady Macbeth in William Shakespeare's Macbeth. I always liked how complex she was as a character. The power dynamic between her and Macbeth is also interesting. She's ambitious, vigorous, ruthless, and loyal to Macbeth till the end.

 

[Leila]

Great idea, @Moni97, setting up this thread. It reminds me that I should go out and get some new books instead of rereading my favourites one more "last time"

And yes, @Juan, you're so very right there're sooooo many brilliant books out there with just as many incredible characters that it is very hard to pick just one..

I've always been a friend of quirky and / or unusual characters and two of my all-time favourites are:

Liza Cody's Birdie Walker (Gimme More) and
Jack London's Wolf Larsen (The Sea Wolf)

There are plenty of other characters I could list as well, of course, but since it's because of these two characters that I've read both books more times than I feel comfortable admitting that I just had to nominate them here.

 

[Lurius]

As a very literary person with a bachelor in creative writing, literature was my life until I got tinnitus.

So I've read a lot of books, although I ironically prefer encyclopedias to fiction. It's hard for me to just pick a single character, so I've chosen the ones that I think have inspired me the most in terms of my own fiction and world building.

• Captain Nemo from 20,000 leagues under the sea
• The Chesire Cat from Alice in Wonderland
• Dorian Gray from the book of the same name
• Kvothe, the Protagonist in Patrick Rothfuss' fantasy series
• The nameless protagonist in most of Franz Kafka's works
• The nameless protagonist in the Tell-tale heart by Edgar Allan Poe
• Eowyn and Merry from Lord of the Rings
• Dr. Victor Frankenstein from Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
• The Whale from Moby Dick (I just love it when animals retaliate against humans)
• Rick Deckhard from Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? By Phillip Dick

Honorable mentions: Don Quixote and Tywinn Lannister.

I know that was a lot, but I've read a ton of books. I'm quite picky and it takes a bit to impress me. I usually favor the British stuff from the 1800's, but some post-apocalyptic science fiction stuff can sometimes keep me interested.

If I was going to name my favorite fictional character of all time, regardless of medium, that would easily be Rust Cole from True Detective season 1. Mostly because I've never seen a character who is so much like myself, he was extremely well written and portrayed by Matthew McConaughey. Spider Jerusalem from the Transmetropolitian graphic novel is also high on that list.

 

[Leila]

If I was going to name my favorite fictional character of all time, regardless of medium, that would easily be

Saga Norén who is portrayed by the amazingly talented Sofia Helin in the Danish/Swedish TV series Bron/Broen (The Bridge). It's not to that extreme but I've been surprised how much of myself I've recognised in this particular character.

 

[Lurius]

Saga Norén who is portrayed by the amazingly talented Sofia Helin in the Danish/Swedish TV series Bron/Broen (The Bridge). It's not to that extreme but I've been surprised how much of myself I've recognised in this particular character.

That's funny, because she has autism and so do I. I think she's more like a caricature of an autistic person than a realistic portrayal of one, as they kinda exaggerated her quite a lot but I've also seen far worse than her. The actress is also quite skilled, so it's a pass from me, although I wasn't able to take it too seriously.

 

[Leila]

they kinda exaggerated her quite a lot

That's what I meant when I said not to that extreme

 

[Elmer B Fuddled]

Winnie the Pooh - A. A. Milne

Gotta love honey.
Don't walk behind me
Don't walk in front of me
Walk beside me and be my friend

Quote by Winnie the Pooh

 

[Moni97]

I love everyone's answers! I think the books we read and characters we connect/related to say a lot about who we are. @Leila, @Lurius, @Juan, @ZFire, thank you guys so much for responding I feel rather limited in literature after reading your responses lol. I feel I must step it up.

That being said: Anyone have any books they could suggest to me?

Also thank you @Elmer B Fuddled! Cute, sweet and to the point lol.

 

[Moni97]

Another character I love is Minnie Jackson from The Help. I think it's not only her humor that attracts me to her but the fact that her story reminds me of so many women in my family (especially my mom and grandmas) and their journey to finding inner strength.

 

[Damocles]

The Bourbon Kid

 

[ZFire]

View attachment 53175

The Bourbon Kid

I have to say, you're the Ordained Minister for anything related to horror. You know your stuff.

One of your recent posts (lasers) reminded me of another favorite character of mine. Alex DeLarge from A Clockwork Orange.

The Stanley Kubrick movie is also excellent. Hanging out in the Korova Milk Bar, drinking either milk-plus, milk plus vellocet or synthemesc or drencrom. It helps sharpen you up and make you ready for a bit of the old ULTRA-VIOLENCE.

 

[Fightthearmy]

Gérard de Villefort in The Count of Monte Cristo. He's basically the alt protagonist of the story, like in the Korean movie based on it, Oldboy where the roles are reversed. Although his son Andrea is a pretty funny imp, too.

Wilkins Micawber in David Copperfield. Pretty much a trope (still moreso than the "I'll eat my head" guy in Oliver Twist) but it never gets tiresome.

Barnabas in The Castle. Kafka didn't give much weight to the physiognomy of his secondary characters before this novel, and surprisingly here is a very bizarre 'creature' who is even more naive than his main characters.

Madame Merle in The Portrait of a Lady. Every smirk, sneer and tick of hers is recorded so convincingly by Henry James that the reader can basically tell what she looks like.

Natasha Rostova in War and Peace. Although she doesn't factor into any of the serpentiform war tableaux, she's by far the most fleshed out of all of Tolstoy's characters.

The duke and the dauphin in Huckleberry Finn. Can't remember which one is more ridiculous, and they even would have gotten away with the fraud, were it not for Huck being more rascalous than them.

Phaedra, Racine's title character. Though it's a play, not a book. How can someone be this ruthless, desperate and at the same time tender?