Favorite and most memorable characters

The title says it all... any character from any book.

For me, under most memorable... well, aside from the many, many memorable characters in LOTR, that is (especially Gollum)... I can still think of a lot. Hercule Poirot comes to mind, as do Philip Marlowe, Dirk Pitt and the Scarecrow from the Oz books, as well as a whole lot of others... but they're all well-remembered because they're in multiple books in a continuous series. As for characters that were only in one work? I'd say Sam Spade, Scarlett O'Hara, Ebenezer Scrooge (who's worked his way into modern lingo, pretty much)... my, so many!

And I certainly can't decide on a single favorite character from any book. I think it would probably be Mayweed from Horwood's Duncton Chronicles (the second and third books). Anyone who's read those books would know exactly what I mean. But there's a lot of others I like - Gollum, HAL from Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey...

Do you guys have as hard of a time trying to answer questions like these as I do?

Yeah, I have that problem myself. Hmm....
Well, not counting the number of characters that I like from LotR, I like R. Daneel Olivaw and Elijah Baley from Asimov's robot novels. Also I like Burma Jones, Irene Reilly and Lana Lee from A Confederacy of Dunces(for the most part not model people, but funny :lol: ). And I like Merlin from Mary Stewart's books.
On a lighter note, there is a cat named Hermione in several short stories by Ardath Mayhar that is just great

Not going into LOTR there are too many great characters in that book.

But favorite characters definetly Scarlett O Hara, but Also Rhett Butler.

I love characters In George Bernard Shaw's Plays. I love Profesor Henry Higgins, and Elisa Dolittle, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, Joan of Arc.

I love Tom Sawyer
I love the Animals in "The Cricket from Time's Square"
Wang Lung and O-Lan husband and wifde in the Good Earth

From To Kill a Mockingbird Boo Ridley (sp?), Atticus, and of course Scout.


Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet
The Witches in Macbeth
Helena in MidSummer's Night Dream

Karana from the Island of the Blue Dolphins
Cyrano de Begerac

Oh and I love all the Greek/Roman Gods and Godessess.


And yes I find these questions very difficult to answer. Especially difficult to stop answering

Maybe I'm saying this cuz I just finished the book recently, but Napoleon from Animal Farm was a great character and gave me a lot to think about.

definitely mercutio in r&j.

hmmm....dracula from dracula. odyseus from odyssey (i hate him but i can't forget him). scarlett o' hara. elizabeth bennet from pride and prejudice. javert and valjean from les miserables. sioned, tobin, and rohan from melanie rawn's dragon books. jimmy the hand (woo hoo!!) from feist's stuff. anne shirley from anne of green gables.

lord of the dance from lord of the dance.

okay maybe not the last one.

Some great characters I can think of are Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment, Helen Huntingdon in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Ishmael in Moby Dick, Jim Hawkins in Treasure Island and, of course, every character in LOTR.

MMM.... though one...

But my favorite character is e.
It seems it can go anywhere... So ubiquitous (except in the word "ubiquitous"!)

Raskolnikov from crime and Punisment, Prince Mishkin from The Idiot, Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, Antigona... and a lot more

Andrea Stavros and Dusty Miller from "The Guns of Navarone" and "Force Ten From Navarone"; Spenser and Hawk from the Robert B. Parker novels; Perry Mason and Della Street from the Erle Stanley Gardner original novels; and Jack Stapleton from several Robin Cook thrillers.
I'll probably come up with more in a day or two.

after some further thought, I think that I will have to add Fiver and Bigwig from Watership Down to my list. Most memorable.

And from another book by Richard Adams, the title character in Traveller.

I can't believe myself.

I forgot Marvin the Paranoid Android!

Now I feel rather a chump! You are right, how could we forget Marvin the pathologically depressed android! Good point, IP

Of course, I always rather liked Ford Prefect too.

"Force Ten From Navarone"---I loved that movie when I was a kid.

Have you read the book? The movie was an absolutely HORRIBLE adaptation. 'The Guns of Navarone' (early 60's, starring Gregory Peck and Anthony Quinn) was also a mediocre adaptation of the book, but it was a pretty good movie on it's own merits. The 'Force 10' movie, on the other hand, I thought was just plain BAD.
I heartily recommend the two novels, and anything else by the late Alistair MacLean (with the exception of 'Bear Island', which wasn't very good). He was a GREAT storyteller, much underappreciated, at least in the US (I hope he was more popular in his native Great Britain).

I didn't say it was good. I just said that I loved it.....as a kid. I also loved Battlestar Galactica and the A-Team too. What does that tell you?

lol
good point

Hmmmmm.....
Sabriel and Moggett from Sabriel
Quequeg from Moby Dick
Sam, Gollum, Aragorn, et. al.
Death and Captain Carrot from the Discworld books (if that sounded strange, don't ask, just read the books )
Vanyel from the Valdemar series
Ron from the Harry Potter books

and, of course, Marvin the manically depressed robot :P

in no particular order...
- Death from Sandman
- Ramandu, Edmund, Puddleglum, & Caspian X from Narnia
- Luthien from Sil
- Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo, & Sam from LotR
- Christopher from Lives of Christopher Chant & others
- Kahlan from Sword of Truth
- Cordelia, Kent & Lear from King Lear
- Ben Sisko & Nerys from DS9 (ok, so they're not from lit...)
- just about everyone from Book of Practical Cats
- J Alfred Prufrock (or would that be part of T.S. himself?)

and answering these questions i shard because i usually go overboard on the people/books i mention!

aryne *

in no particular order...
- Death from Sandman
- Ramandu, Edmund, Puddleglum, & Caspian X from Narnia
- Luthien from Sil
- Aragorn, Gandalf, Frodo, & Sam from LotR
- Christopher from Lives of Christopher Chant & others
- Kahlan from Sword of Truth
- Cordelia, Kent & Lear from King Lear
- Ben Sisko & Nerys from DS9 (ok, so they're not from lit...)
- just about everyone from Book of Practical Cats
- J Alfred Prufrock (or would that be part of T.S. himself?)
- Esperanza Cordera from House on Mango Street - she's nothing like me, but she IS me. and i know that doesn't make sense when written.

and answering these questions i shard because i usually go overboard on the people/books i mention!

aryne *

I have to add Erik and Christine from the novel Phantom of the Opera. They were the first characters I truly loved in a book.

Alistair MacLean is a good writer. I used to read a lot of his books when I was younger. Perhaps I should reread some of them soon. He has some interesting characters in them too.