Allison Symes's Blog - Posts Tagged "identifying-with-characters"
The Greatest Characters
The greatest characters in any story are for me the ones where I’ve got to find out what happens to them.
Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings is an obvious one for me here, as was Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (especially after the sacrifice scene).
But characters who back up the main leads grip me too. I have a very soft spot for Sam (and Frodo would have failed in his mission without him). I also have a soft spot for Lucy in the Narnia Chronicles.
Any great character, for me, is one where I can identify with them in some way. They’re not perfect. Good. Neither am I.
They have virtues I aspire to and flaws I’m glad I don’t have as well as some I know I do! But they come across as fully created beings I want to find out more about even if they’re not human.
Great characters for me include Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Sam Vimes and Granny Weatherwax throughout Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (though he makes my skin crawl with his miserly ways at the start of the story).
Great characters can also be redeemed as Scrooge shows and the theme of redemption is a powerful one.
So who would you nominate as your greatest characters?
Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings is an obvious one for me here, as was Aslan in The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe (especially after the sacrifice scene).
But characters who back up the main leads grip me too. I have a very soft spot for Sam (and Frodo would have failed in his mission without him). I also have a soft spot for Lucy in the Narnia Chronicles.
Any great character, for me, is one where I can identify with them in some way. They’re not perfect. Good. Neither am I.
They have virtues I aspire to and flaws I’m glad I don’t have as well as some I know I do! But they come across as fully created beings I want to find out more about even if they’re not human.
Great characters for me include Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, Sam Vimes and Granny Weatherwax throughout Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series, and Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol (though he makes my skin crawl with his miserly ways at the start of the story).
Great characters can also be redeemed as Scrooge shows and the theme of redemption is a powerful one.
So who would you nominate as your greatest characters?
Identifying with Characters
Do you identify with characters? I always have had a soft spot for Hans Christen Andersen’s The Ugly Duckling (and have always loathed bullying of any kind so that feeds in to my sympathy for the character here).
I also like justice to be seen to be done so I am always rooting for the detective in crime fiction unless they are the baddie.
What you value will feed into the kind of characters you root for and I have an especial soft spot for the underdog.
I’m on the lookout for seemingly undervalued characters in a story because I am watching for them to turn out to have a major role to play in that story later on - and most of the time I’d be right to do so.
The characters I dislike the most are ones almost inevitably where I don’t share their values (and most of the time rightly so there too!).
I’ve still got to be able to understand why they take the view they do though I don’t have to agree with it. That helps me create my own characters - the ones I like and love - and yes I have created characters I really can’t stand!
The challenge there is to get into their heads sufficiently well enough to see why they are the way they are.
I also like justice to be seen to be done so I am always rooting for the detective in crime fiction unless they are the baddie.
What you value will feed into the kind of characters you root for and I have an especial soft spot for the underdog.
I’m on the lookout for seemingly undervalued characters in a story because I am watching for them to turn out to have a major role to play in that story later on - and most of the time I’d be right to do so.
The characters I dislike the most are ones almost inevitably where I don’t share their values (and most of the time rightly so there too!).
I’ve still got to be able to understand why they take the view they do though I don’t have to agree with it. That helps me create my own characters - the ones I like and love - and yes I have created characters I really can’t stand!
The challenge there is to get into their heads sufficiently well enough to see why they are the way they are.
