Karen Chance Fans discussion
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Pick your top five characters IN ORDER!
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ooh what a fun game!1. Dory. She is everything I love in a heroine. Everything I always wanted to see in a kickass female character and never got in a complete package until Dory. Her Attitude with a capital A gives me life, and she never takes shit from anyone, even people she has feelings for (coughcough LC). Doesn't let herself be pushed around, beaten into submission, nope, not this girl. She is the original girl power hero of my dreams!! I could go on for days about what a fantastic, well-rounded, badass, complex character she is but I might bore you all to death!
2. Cassie. How could I not love our other leading lady? Her quirky and frequent sense of humour and a certain flair for explaining things in an entertaining way means I just never get bored reading in her voice. She's also incredibly human, more so than the standard heroines in UF/PNR (and you know I don't mean her species, right?), which just makes her wonderfully refreshing and so easily relatable. She has likeable qualities and REAL flaws that make her oddly even more endearing to me. Her spunky attitude and the way she never gives up just keeps me rooting for her again and again. Go Cassie! *gets out pompoms*
3. Pritkin. Ah. The dirty sexy war mage. Do I really need to explain this one :)? I've lavished praises on his many good and bad qualities many times in other threads, I'm sure if I said anything now you will have heard it all before :D
4. Caleb. He's grown so much as a character in so few books! It's coming to the point where I'll cheer every time he 'comes on screen' in the book. I love seeing how he is slowly developing some kind of camaraderie with Cassie, watching their back and forth when they're in the middle of some shit XD! It's so amusing watching him come to terms with the overload of new info Cassie and Pritkin have dumped on him in the past few months, and it's also sweet to have someone in the books who is a mutual friend of both C & P. It's been especially fun seeing Caleb react to the blatant in-your-face-ness that is the tension between C & P, having him act almost as the reader's mouthpiece as he watches those two idiots in love dance around each other. I'm looking forward to a few 'get a room!s' from him in the future. Caleb is such a wonderful, solid, dependable character and I dearly hope we see lots more of him to come.
5. Mircea. Oooh I wrestled with myself for this one. I wasn't sure whether I wanted Marco or Marlowe in the final spot but I think it had to go to Mircea. I may not be attracted to him in the slightest (apart from a really weird, brief stint in Masks) but he still fascinates me. Possibly the most flawed character in the series he is still immensely likeable... when he's behaving himself. I still can't stand reading him when he's with Cassie (as opposed to with Dory); he's like a completely different person - totally smarmy, possessive, controlling, arrogant, and, seems to me, always thinking with his trouser snake around Cassie! But then in the Dory series you get to see him as a father and oh... I love him as a father figure. You see the total reverse of the Mircea coin, the caring, loving father who lost his wife centuries ago and still can't seem to let her go. Of course you still get all his other qualities... the arrogance, the conniving political mind, the deadly vampire... but that's what makes him complex and interesting!
Honourable mentions!
Marco - I love this big bear, I really do. He's not just a bodyguard to me, he's kind of Cassie's friend now.
Marlowe - Sneaky sneaky
Rosier - Tricky evil bastard who loves his son but doesn't know how to show it right. Another complex father figure. I have a type!
Casanova - I laugh every time he's on the page. Poor guy! All he wants to do is run his hotel and Cassie demolishes it at every turn XD His healthy sense of self-preservation and newfound drinking habit are guaranteed to make me laugh. More of this next book I hope!
Assssssshat :D - What Lanni said. Also there's something in the tension between him and Dory. I want to explore that.
Lannister,You are so cruel! Only 5? What happened to the 20 plus?
I will make an attempt...
1) Dory - I just love her - she's fierce yet delicate, funny, loyal, and thinks outside of the box. Dory's managed to climb to the number two spot on my favorite urban fantasy heroines list. For the record my top fave are: Mercy, Dory, Kate, October, and Rachel. Dory's series has only had three books so far but she's managed to climb ahead of some true heavyweights of the genre.
2) Radu - Radu says it best: "I'm charming." Behind his distracted, drama-queen exterior lies the team mom of the Basarab clan. Radu is determined to repair the family relationships - notice how he refused to let Dory leave Benny's funeral before speaking to Mircea and his attempts to ensure LC's happiness. Also, like a true mama bear - watch out when you threaten his family. Who rescued LC from Jonathan? Who threw Marlowe - Marlowe! - through a window when he tried to prevent Radu from reaching a wounded Mircea? That would be our Radu! Bonus points for being the most emotionally healthy member of the Basarab clan. I also love that he is the true damsel in distress of the Dory series. Moving on before I write a whole book on the awesomeness of Radu...
3) Mircea - I love his role as a family man. Dory, Radu, Elena, and even Horatiu are his world and he will fiercely protect them. We've only received glimpses of his life with Elena but you can feel the love he had for her. You don't keep drawing pictures of someone centuries later unless they had a tremendous impact on you. Mircea went to extremes to preserve Radu's sanity - altering the timeline! - is another testament to his fierce devotion to his family. Dory and Mircea have one of the most complicated child-parent relationships in urban fantasy - sometimes I want to bang their heads together and lock them into a room to talk it out - but in the flashbacks we see his love for his daughter. Not to mention he was willing to go up against the Consul to protect Dory.
4) LC - I love how this stuffy, arrogant badass met his match in Dory. Let's be honest, Dory completely rocked his world and tilted it sideways! Falling in love with a dhamphir? Unthinkable! LC's fierce protectiveness of his loved ones stands out to me: mess with Radu or Dory and you won't live to regret it. Bonus points for LC and Dory having one of the funniest, most passionate relationships in the genre. I admire a man who won't let anything - society's expectations, the woman's own insecurites, etc - prevent him from being with the woman he loves.
The top four were easy but now it's getting hard...I will go with...
5) Ray - The lovable loser who is braver than he thinks. He's the perfect sidekick for Dory with his intelligence and connections. Like Dory, Ray thinks outside the box. Sorry...Ray wants me to remind everyone that he is Batman, not a sidekick, and Radu wants to state for the record that he is Q due to his scientific genius. Dory needs to form a crime-fighting league with Ray and Radu as her sidekicks. Sorry, Ray!
Honorable mentions -
Claire - She's a harridan but Dory needs all the fierce supporters she can get plus I laugh every time she ejects Marlowe from the house. I bet Marlowe never thought he'd meet his match in an overly stressed mom.
Stinky - How can you not love a baby hybrid who is fiercely protective of his mommy and has a tendency to get drunk?
Cademon - He's a sexy, charming fey lord! I also enjoy the sheer delight he gets out of provoking LC.
More honorable mentions...Antony, Haidar, Aesbrund, Scarface, Olga, Horatiu, Mircea's posse in the Masks Novella....I could keep going on and on...
This is harder than it looks! Hmmm...Pritkin- the tortured hero, the masculine strength... The silly hair and crabby attitude... **sigh** What's most attractive about him, is that he respects Cassie more than anyone else in the world, and frankly that's beautiful.
Cassie- there's absolutely no one like our Cassie. There's not one heroine I can think of who spends 80% of her time hungry naked scared and running the way Cassie does.
Rosier- this is as much an anticipatory mention then anything else, but not one scene with rosier in it is boring. I love trying to make up my mind over how he sees Pritkin, and I absolutely can't wait to see him and Cassie get to know one another in RtW.
Dory- she's kick ass. She kicks ass. If you've got an ass she'll kick it. But at the same time, she cares for stinky like her own child, and all she's ever wanted is a family (deep down lol). There's no one like Cassie, but I think we're all a little bit like dory.
Ray- I love a guy who can make me roar with laughter.
Radu and Casanova were contenders for no.5 because all three of these guys seem like people I'd love to be besties with.
I know you didn't ask but FYI, characters who I hate?
Claire- This woman is insufferable.
Simply list from No. 1 (being the top favourite) down to No. 5 and explain in a few words why you chose each one. You can also mention a few runners up after your top five, but only a few!
I think it'd be fun to document our favourites right now, and after each new release you can go back and see if you've changed your mind. (I'll probably have changed my mind by next week, but no matter, it's all about what you think today.)
So, I'll start off.
1. Mircea
I don't lust after him or anything like that, but he's very complicated and something of an enigma and that's what I like about him. He's not a bad buy, but I'm not entirely convinced he's a really good guy either. He's Mr. Contradiction and that's makes him great to read.
2. Marlowe
Be still my beating heart! I think Marlowe's a naughty boy and I can be a very naughty girl ... I shall say no more! ;)
3. Dory
I love Dory. I like her no bullshit/fuck you attitude. It sort of reminds me of me! But more seriously, Dory is a little damaged I think by all the rejection she's dealt with, and she doesn't take the good stuff for granted. I feel sympathy for her sometimes, whilst also admiring her ability to take care of herself.
4. Radu
I know Radu's mostly there for comic relief but he's way more than just a buffoon in a yellow robe. He's been vulnerable and hurt, and I think at the core, he wants to do the right thing and has no desire to impose his will on anyone. The fact that he's such a drama queen is only the icing on the cake LOL!
5. Cassie
I guess I can't go without mentioning Cassie! I like that she's so very fallible and never completely in control (you know, just like the rest of us). It gives her a 'best friend' feel, rather than the 'super woman' vibe that soooo many UF women have. I like that Cassie freely admits she practically needs oxygen after a workout, and that she craves sleep and cake. It's so easy to relate.
Honourable mentions:
Rosier - another deliciously ambiguous character.
Pritkin - oops, I forgot about him. Don't kill me, Prissies!
Asshat - Well I like his sexy psychopath vibe, OK!
Well, I typed rather more than I meant to (so what's new!!) but no matter. Give me your top five favs people!