Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast
Results 1 to 15 of 17

Thread: characters good, bad, and ugly.

  1. #1
    King of Plastic Spoons imthefoolonthehill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Lost in my own incoherence
    Posts
    2,378

    characters good, bad, and ugly.

    I really like screwed up characters (Jack Burden Holden Caufeild, all the people from One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest etc etc...

    I absolutely hate characters who are a little too normal... or too good. I hate Odysseus, Macduff, superman, etc etc..

    Do any characters come to mind who seem a bit too perfect for your taste?

    Do any characters come to mind who are gloriously screwed up?

    List em.
    Told by a fool, signifying nothing.

  2. #2

    Re: characters good, bad, and ugly.

    Odysseus never seemed normal to me. He was too cunning.

  3. #3
    P. Bateman, is rather insane. Blicero (and crew), from Gravity's Rainbow, are pretty gone.

  4. #4
    Blicero's crew, you hit that one on the nose.

  5. #5
    Also, Humbert, was twisted, but compassion will get you in the end.

  6. #6
    Blicero's crew, ah that's priceless.

  7. #7
    String Dancer Shea's Avatar
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Florida, USA
    Posts
    1,931
    Don Quixote, my favorite insane guy.

    Pretty much all of Poe's dead beautiful women were irritatingly perfect.
    Hwæt! We Gar-Dena in geardagum,/Þeodcuninga þrum gefrunon,/hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!
    Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,/ monegum mægþum, meodosetla ofteah,/ egsode eorlas, syððan ærest wearð/ feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,/ weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah,/ oðþæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra/ofer hronrade hyran scolde,/gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs god cyning!

  8. #8
    King of Plastic Spoons imthefoolonthehill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Lost in my own incoherence
    Posts
    2,378
    Abdo: I didn't say Odysseus was normal...

    Characters who were too normal or good Odysseus is too superhuman... he has miniscule flaws and is the ultimate good guy.... I hate him.
    Told by a fool, signifying nothing.

  9. #9
    I always liked Septimus Warren Smith ("Mrs. Dalloway"). I thought he was a good example of the simultaneous terror and exaltation of madness (I'm only guessing at "terror and exaltation", having never been officially diagnosed myself). Speaking of glorious maniacs, Dr. Gull in Alan Moore's "From Hell" is quite a figure. They killed the movie by taking out the view of his interior landscape.

    As for irritatingly normal characters, well, I tend not to remember them.
    You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough.

  10. #10
    Registered User Aesopone's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2003
    Location
    Shaolin
    Posts
    39
    Nora from "A Dolls House" now that woman was screwed up. its a play but oh well.:o
    "Durito says there lies a difference between the Zapatistas and the rest of human beings:where everyone sees an apple, the Zapatista sees a seed, goes and prepares the land, sows the seed and cares for it."
    Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos
    From a dawn in the 21st century

  11. #11
    King of Plastic Spoons imthefoolonthehill's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2003
    Location
    Lost in my own incoherence
    Posts
    2,378
    she didn't seem all that emotionally disfigured to me....

    The play is alright... but the movie with "hanoi" Jane fonda was TERRIBLE
    Told by a fool, signifying nothing.

  12. #12
    I`d name Natasha Rostova - too perfect...

    *sick and tired*

  13. #13
    Registered User
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Location
    Pennsylvania
    Posts
    187
    The guy from Dostoyevski's notes from the underground.
    Can you get more messed up? "I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man." What better first line could he have come up with?!
    If of thy mortal goods thou art bereft, and of thy slender store two loaves alone to thee are left, sell one, and with the dole buy hyacinths to feed thy soul.

  14. #14
    Ever Benevolent and Wise
    Join Date
    Mar 2003
    Posts
    953
    Yeah, and just think, Fyodor himself had a terrible spiritually demorialising life. His father was an alcoholic army surgeon, who, upon brutalising his serfs one too many times, strangled him by pouring too much vodka down his throat. What a way to go.

    Then, Fyodor spent years in prisons, faced a firing squad, which was called off at last moment, only to be sent to Siberia. Amazing what this man wrote out of his misfortunes. Only when he `settled' and married Anna Snitkina did he stabilise emotionally enough to write Crime and Punishment et al.



    Originally posted by piquant
    The guy from Dostoyevski's notes from the underground.
    Can you get more messed up? "I am a sick man...I am a spiteful man." What better first line could he have come up with?!

  15. #15
    I'd rather be crazy, than a meretricious f*ck like Tolstoy.

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •