Your Favorite Characters, AKA All About You
Welcome to Deep Thoughts Tuesdays. Well, deep-ish thoughts.
On a whim, I ordered a journal called The 52 Lists Project, the idea being that you make a list each week following whatever prompt the book gives you. The second list is “List your favorite characters from books, movies, etc.”
I’m having a hard time with that.
The first two on my list were Amanda Campion and Susan StoHelit, but after that, they were all male until I got to Rose Tyler.
Granted I’ve just started, but my book list is Amanda Campion, Susan Sto Helit, Vimes, Carrot, Moist Von Lipwig, Adorabelle Dearheart, and Lucy Eylesbarrow. I should be able to do more than that, especially since five of them are Pratchet people, but I’m really having to think hard. There are a lot of characters I want to read about but wouldn’t call my favorite characters. That is, I like their stories but I’m not mad about them. Sherlock Holmes, for example. I liked his stories, but he was kind of a nothing until Benedict Cumberbatch and Jonny Lee Miller got hold of him, and even then . . . not my favorite characters.
It’s easier for film, but again, mostly male: Jason Bourne, Jack Burton, Nicholas Angel, Sam Tyler, The Doctor (9, 10, 11), Rose Tyler, Madalena and Gareth . . . huh. All but two of those are British, and all of my book characters were British. I may be in the wrong country.
The POINT of all of this is to “find a common personality trait between your favorite characters.” [Okay, that makes me crazy: “between” is between two choices; if there’s more than two you have to use “among.” Jeez.] “What is one character trait you admire in your favorite characters that you can work towards this week?”
My week is full, so forget that last part, but the first part is an interesting question. What is it that draws us to our favorite characters? What is it in these characters that goes beyond “entertaining” and makes the characters themselves the thing we go back for, more than the story?
I love Amanda Campion because she never met a problem she couldn’t attack. I love her because she was unstoppable at sixteen and because she grew up to be an aeronautical engineer in the 1940s. I love her because she was always unpredictable, surprising Albert from the time they met when she was a teenager to the time when they’d been married for years. I’ve admired Amanda since I was a teenager. (My daughter’s middle name is Amanda, in part because of Amanda Campion and in part because it’s Latin for “must be loved.”)
I love Susan Sto Helit because she’s a take-no-crap, fully engaged teacher/nanny/hero. I think I really fell in love with her when one of her charges told her there was a monster in the basement, and all the adults in the room said, “Oh, isn’t that cute?” and Susan picked up the poker and went down to the basement and beat the crap out of the monster and dragged it out the door, and the moppet said, “Thank you, Susan,” and went back to bed. Or when she saved Christmas and the world, that was a good one. And when she fell in love in with Time and Time loved her back and make stars fall in her teaching closet because who wouldn’t love Susan?
And Lucy Eyelesbarrow (the book, not the movie) who walks into a house of death and secrets and clears them all out, including the mausoleum in the back that’s hiding a fresh dead body among the family corpses. Plus she’s a splendid cook and treats children as though they’re fully functioning human beings.
Okay, I’m starting to see a pattern here. These are women who get things done, who charge past the people who are pointing out that can’t/shouldn’t do something. These are women who are not out of fucks to give, they are women who never had any fucks to give, women who define themselves and let the world that disagrees sort itself out because they have better things to do. And they’re big on fair play and not interested in hierarchies, status, or class. They are clear-eyed and focused and independent and free.
You know, maybe the reason there aren’t many women on my list is because there aren’t many female characters like that. Hmmmm. Somebody should do something about that.
So what about you? Who are your favorite three characters on the page and/or on the screen and why, and what does that tell you about you?
[GALAVANT NOTE: Speaking of favorite characters, Madalena and Gareth, best romance or best romance EVER? Okay, the addition of zombies to the fairy tale is inspired, but the best bit is still Gareth addressing the troops because he can’t say things directly to Madalena. So sweet. I hope these two crazy (literarlly) kids make it. Although Madalena selling her soul to the devil could make that dicey, I suppose. Oh, my god, I love this show.]
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