Who is the most interesting fictional character you know and why?

[Ian Thomson]

I'm new to this forum so I apologize if my question is out of order but I'm curious to know who you think is the most interesting fictional character you've read about and why.

[Margerma]

Prince Myshkin (from "The Idiot", Dostoevsky). A perfect man, impossible to exist, however Dostoevsky had created him and he is fascinating.

[Poetaster]

It's obvious, but Odysseus. Joyce thought he was the only fully formed human in literature, and I agree.

[Pompey Bum]

It's a great question, Ian. Odysseus and Myshkin are both excellent answers. For me, it's a tie between Sun Wukong, the self-absorbed but fearless monkey demon in Journey to the West, and Jack Falstaff, failed knight, robber, and father figure from Henry IV. But the runners up would make a long list. There would be Tom Jones, Squire Western, Becky Sharp, Natasha Rostova, Pierre Bezukhov, Prince Bolkonsky, Fedya Dolokhov, Rodion Raskolnikov, any of the Brothers Karamazov, dozens minor Dickens characters, and hundreds of interesting but more obscure figures (like the otherwise unimpressive artillery officer in War and Peace who becomes like Zeus wielding thunderbolts during the Battle of Austerliz). And none of that even touches on 20th century literary characters, who would make a long list, too.

[UlyssesE]

Cnaiur urs Skiotha, from R. Scott Bakker's The Prince of Nothing series. He is a savage barbarian warchief of stunning intellect, haunted by his manipulation as a child by an ubermensch-like antagonist, and is prone to bouts of violent madness, as well as moments of introspection and sensitivity. A wonderful character.

[Clopin]

The characters who stand out the most to me are:

Evgeny Bazarov
Faust
Alyosha Karamazov
Rodion Raskolnikov (or Stavrogin, or The Underground Man, or Rogozhin, or pretty much any Dostoyevsky character)
Mordred Pendragon
Lancelot Dulac (honestly I like practically every Arthurian character but I'll only list two)
Peter Walsh
Jane Eyre/Rochester
Andrey Bolkonski (Levin can have a mention too although I'm not as enamoured of him as some)
Satan/Allegorical representations of Satan (such as the White Witch/Jadis in the Chronicles of Narnia, or Woland in The Master and Margarita)
Odysseus

[ladderandbucket]

Ishmael of Moby-Dick. Who is he? What kind of life did he lead after his adventure on the Pequod? He drops a few hints, which give the impression of an extraordinary character, but he also appears to be something of a liar. I wonder if he is not actually insane. Many people complain that Ishmael disappears for 2/3rds of the book, but they couldn't be more wrong. Ishmael is on every single page. Moby-Dick is the story of an obsessive who can't stop thinking about whales.

Also, Iago. Why is he so mean?

[Ian Thomson]

First let me thank each of you for responding and you've come up with some great answers, some characters I'm familiar with, others I will have to get to know in the literary sense. However some of you didn't really answer the "why" part of the question and this is what really interests me. Prince Myshkin, for example, is supposed to be the perfect man, what makes him the perfect man? And why does being perfect make him interesting? I haven't read the book so I am asking out of ignorance, but isn't "the perfect man" an issue of subjectivity?

Regarding Poetcaster's choice for Odysseus, I thought Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, in which Odysseus / Ulysses was a character. Also doesn't the fact that he is a mythological character who has been heralded by many writers over the centuries sort of make him a less fully formed human? Would not the statement; "The closer you are to myth, the further you are from man" apply? If I am wrong please explain why.

I have never read Journey to the West but a fearless self-absorbed monkey demon sounds like fascinating character. Cnaiur also sounds interesting as does Ishmael. But what is it that makes them stand out to you? Do they break stereotypes, or do you find them interesting because you relate to them?

For example; In the Saga of Lady Dom the main character is Aria. Aria is a young lesbian from medieval Islamic Spain who, after having been kidnapped by Vikings, wakes up on a mystical island populated by fantastic creatures such as werewolves, fairies and Minotaurs. The whole time she interacts with these characters she is convinced that she is dreaming so her reaction to the dangers around her is almost tranquil until she slowly begins to believe the dream, as would be the reaction of most people who get drawn into a suspension of disbelief when they are dreaming, watching a movie or reading a good book.

I have absolutely nothing in common with this character so I am not fascinated by the central character for the reason that I want to enoble myself or live vicariously through the protagonist so, my only conclusion as to why I find this character fascinating is that she is the anti-thesis of the kind of characters that are normally depicted in epic adventures such as King Arthur, James Bond, Star Trek, Star Wars or other medieval based archetypes that feature the white male hero as the central character. And, unlike the Wizard of Oz, in which the audience experiences the adventure from Dorothy's point of view. The narrators of the Saga of Lady Dom are the Werewolf Mez and the Minotaur Yayo. So what makes ARIA AL'CANTARA the most interesting character I've read about is :

1. She goes against the cliche stereotype of a hysterical damsel in distress who will open her heart, among other things, to the knight in shining armour who rescues her.

2. The point of view of YAYO and MEZ portray her as something that is foreign. MEZ, the werwolf, even considers making a meal of her while making the claim; "I have met men no wiser then the animals I once hunted." This point of view forces me to re-evaluate the egocentric values of human who seem to cherish some species more than others as well as the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition of attributing souls to humans and not animals.

3. The fact that she believes she is dreaming makes the perilous situations all the more comical.

4. As a woman living in medieval Spain during the rule of the Islamic Caliph of Cordoba, Aria's biggest problem is not the vikings, werewolves, witches or demons she encounters, but the fact that she cannot be with the woman she loves because homosexuality is a capital crime that carries a sentence of being stoned to death.

[Ian Thomson]

delete

[Munshie]

Good question and when I read some of the responses, I felt inadequate. Firstly what constitutes 'literature' and is this highbrow? All the books that were supposedly good for you were forced upon me and my classmates when we attended school. I hated David Copperfield (by Dickens) and some of his other books. The only ones I enjoyed were Oliver Twist and one about Scrooge. Pride & prejudice supposed a classic - did nothing for me. I much preferred King Solomon's Mines. BTW I enjoyed Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet, Julius Cesar and The Tempest.

Even putting aside all that, I still feel the category of fictional character in literature is far too broad. Can fair comparisons be made? Perhaps if various categories of literature were specified whether by a particular author or time period it would be easier to answer. For the same sorts of reasons when I am asked which is my favourite book, I find it impossible to decide unless more criteria are laid down e.g. genre. Sorry to waste your time with my ramblings.

[HCabret]

Good question and when I read some of the responses, I felt inadequate. Firstly what constitutes 'literature' and is this highbrow? All the books that were supposedly good for you were forced upon me and my classmates when we attended school. I hated David Copperfield (by Dickens) and some of his other books. The only ones I enjoyed were Oliver Twist and one about Scrooge. Pride & prejudice supposed a classic - did nothing for me. I much preferred King Solomon's Mines. BTW I enjoyed Shakespeare, particularly Hamlet, Julius Cesar and The Tempest.

Even putting aside all that, I still feel the category of fictional character in literature is far too broad. Can fair comparisons be made? Perhaps if various categories of literature were specified whether by a particular author or time period it would be easier to answer. For the same sorts of reasons when I am asked which is my favourite book, I find it impossible to decide unless more criteria are laid down e.g. genre. Sorry to waste your time with my ramblings.
The only criteria is that the character you choose must be "fictional" and "interesting". You can choose which ever charcater which falls under these two categories which you find to be worthy of a post.

One of the most interesting characters for me is Snoopy. Snoopy has an immense knowledge of the world and is willing to explore every inch of it, even if he is unable to leave his dog house. Also, we both like 19th century russian novels and aviation.

[Pompey Bum]

I have never read Journey to the West but a fearless self-absorbed monkey demon sounds like fascinating character.

Sun Wukong and Jack Falstaff are both over-the-top characters who still manage to be recognizable lampoons of human vanity and vainglory. Both are truly dangerous (be-careful-or-they'll-kill-you-dangerous) in addition to being oddly likable. Neither is cute. The safe version of Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor doesn't work at all. He needs to be irredeemably selfish and cowardly (as he is in the two Henry IV plays) to be human enough to care about. Similarly Sun Wukong is at his funniest and most interesting during the first third of Journey to the West, before his long process of reformation and Enlightenment. His war on Heaven (born of his naive arrogance and hurt feelings) is the funniest thing I have ever read; or it is tied, perhaps, with Falstaff's bungled attempts to rob pilgrims. And Falstaff, of course, breaks your heart in the end. Sun Wukong just stops being interesting.

Is that clearer? :)

[Pompey Bum]

Good question and when I read some of the responses, I felt inadequate. Firstly what constitutes 'literature' and is this highbrow?

The best policy (IMHO) is to read what you love and forget all about the highbrow-lowbrow business. It's as ridiculous and stupid to give someone a hard time for being one as it is the other. Read what you want. Enjoy yourself. That's going to take different forms with different people, right? So don't worry about it. :)

[Pierre Menard]

Some fantastic nominations so far.


For me personally, I was deeply affected by Jim from Conrad's 'Lord Jim'. A character of great depth and ambiguity, and his friendship with Marlow is a major strong point of the novel, (Marlow being another wonderful character).

I also have to mention Melville's 'Moby Dick' which is a masterpiece of characterisation from major to minor characters. I want to single out two though:

- Ahab, which is probably an obvious choice, and so much has already been written about him, but I could never help but have some level of sympathy for him. I think Melville always managed to show that he was a real flesh-and blood, humane character, with a certain level of goodness, but so far gone in other areas and so riddled with guilt and frustration that it took him over completely in the end. Very Biblical, and very Shakespeare.

- My favourite though was always Starbuck. His struggle between action and inaction, and the conflict between his Quaker pacifist beliefs and the desire to mutiny and use force against Ahab to potentially save lives was beautifully handled and explored. He's almost Hamlet like. I also love the chemistry between he and Stubb.

Obviously Shakespeare is a master of characters, and frankly there are too many to name, but I will single out Falstaff as well. Just one of the most purely fun characters to read out loud.

I also really love Suttree from Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name. Of course, in mentioning McCarthy, one can't forget Faulkner, who also created a wide range of memorable characters.

[Eupalinos]

The literary character who has gotten to me the most is Deianeira in Sophocles' The Women of Trachis. Her particular brand of fatalism, the turn of her thoughts, her contradictions, tear me up whenever I think of that play (probably my personal favorite of the Greek canon).

[Emil Miller]

There are many interesting characters that might fit the bill but an obvious choice is Georges Duroy in Maupassant's Bel Ami: the ultimate arriviste, circumventing all obstacles in his rise to the top.

[Darcy88]

I like Jose Arcadio Buendia, the patriarch of the great Buendia clan, from One Hundred Years of Solitude, as perhaps the most interesting characters I've encountered reading fiction. I used to greatly prefer Colonel Aureliano, but now I'm more intrigued by his father. He was a great man of action as well as curiosity. He seemed to want to grasp all that was possible to grasp in the world with both his hands and his intellect. I don't think he would have ever accepted the impossibility of anything. Whatever his imagination could detect he believed must be achievable.

[ennison]

Beat RLS's Prestongrange in "Catriona". A secondary character who becomes much more interesting in a a multi-character novel than the original narrator (A Whigprig)

[BartV90]

From what I've read, I would pick:

T.S. Garp - Garp is just an interesting character with clear quirks, an interesting and eventful life, weird fantasies...
Heathcliff - Pretty self-explanatory. Dark character, varies a lot throughout the novel, and Emily Brontë brilliantly portrayed his obsessive and overwhelming nature.
Jay Gatsby - A character with charisma just by the writing. Interesting backstory, interesting life and quite a lot of mystery until it's revealed at the end.

These three are all very memorable in my opinion.

[UlyssesE]

The best policy (IMHO) is to read what you love and forget all about the highbrow-lowbrow business. It's as ridiculous and stupid to give someone a hard time for being one as it is the other. Read what you want. Enjoy yourself. That's going to take different forms with different people, right? So don't worry about it. :)

Here here!

[prendrelemick]

Regarding Poetcaster's choice for Odysseus, I thought Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, in which Odysseus / Ulysses was a character. Also doesn't the fact that he is a mythological character who has been heralded by many writers over the centuries sort of make him a less fully formed human? Would not the statement; "The closer you are to myth, the further you are from man" apply? If I am wrong please explain why.
.



This is a great question for a thread.

The quote above reminded me that it is the realistic depiction of the characters in Homer's works, particularly in the illiad, that for me makes them so great. They are nearer to "man" than in almost anything else I've read. But I disagree with Joyce, I think Hector is the most interesting and complete man found there. He is brave, a braggart, a hero, a coward, a killer, a gentle man, a warrior, and a fool. He bears the hopes of all the city but knows the city's cause is unjust. It's these contradictions that makes him seem a real person and one you care about.

[Eupalinos]

Leopardi (in the Ziboldone) called the Iliad Hector's tragedy, and Hector the reason we still read that epic. His larger point was that it alone among epics shows the perspective of both the conquerors and the conquered as equally interesting.

The problem with choosing a character out of Homer is that they each bring the others into a coherent balance: Achilles and Hector, Hector and Paris, Achilles and Odysseus, Helen and Andromache, Agamemnon and Nestor, Penelope and Helen... The characters in Homer are each wholes that together make up a unified design as in a picture.

[prendrelemick]

I'd agree with all of the above, and add that strangely Hector is becoming more and more "modern" as the black and white of literary fictional heroes and villains gives way to more complex greyer characters. That moment he turns and flees, to be chased three times round the city by Achilles, marks the full developement of a real character. Had he stood and fought in the first place, he would've been more of a Hero, but less of a human.



Now Nestor, there's a character....

[Scheherazade]

How about Humbert Humbert as a character? I found him fascinating. Also, Balram Halwai from "White Tiger"... and Frederick Clegg from "The Collector".

[Klasik]

Pechorin in "A Hero of Our Time" by Lermontov (died at 26). Inspired by Byron but going way beyond him, Pechorin is the king and godfather of all anti-heroes. He's seductive and repulsive, cold-blooded and volatile, brave and very cruel. Whether it's a beautiful woman or a deadly duel, he quickly gets too bored to care. To get a taste of the kind of character he is, read the poem "Don Juan in Hades" by Baudelaire.

[tonywalt]

Holden Caulfield - very arguably the first teen anti-establishment anti-hero in western literature at a mass level. Would like to see how he turned out.

Also, "George" from the Isherwood's "The Single Man" - dealing with not just the death of his level but mid-life.

[Jackson Richardson]

Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh and Gollum in The Hobbit. They all have something in common which is probably my dark side.

There aren't many female characters here, are there? Not that I'd want to choose a woman just to get pc brownie points.

[waltzinmathilda]

well, JonathanB, I'm currently reading The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil and I have to say that Clarisse is one of the most interesting characters I've come across. Whereas most of the other characters in the novel seem to me to be mere vehicles for the author's philosophical theories and opinions, she has a life of her own and strikes me as very vivid and unconventional. There is a passage in the novel, describing three characters coming home after a walk, in which the author is able to convey the very essence of Clarisse in one brief sentence (forgive my imperfect translation): "the snow melted steaming from the shoes; Clarisse was happy because the room was getting dirty". What a master stroke!

[Eiseabhal]

Generally I find characters that grow and develop across a sequence of novels the most interesting as they are often closely linked to the author's own changing personality and the author is aware of that. Of course I reckon you could see that in any sequence of novels by an author without there being a linking character. It's just more interesting for me to read that kind of thing. Roman fleuve I think the French call it. Simple and entertaining examples would be the Hornblower series or the Aubrey/Maturin series. I reckon Updike's Rabbit would count too. But it's some of the French writers who made the most of that kind of creativity.

[Margerma]

Ian, Prince Myshkin is a unique and perfect man, because he is naive and honest as a child. He says what he thinks, he cannot understand people greediness, ambitions and lies - it is out of his understanding. In result, a society thinks he is an idiot, when on contrary he is the only one Human Being between those people. I would recommend these tv series with amazing actor Evgeniy Mironov. It is very close to the book, high quality production. You can set up English subtitles. Hope you will enjoy it. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VG9WwIkIBD0

[Margerma]

Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, Eeyore in Winnie the Pooh and Gollum in The Hobbit. They all have something in common which is probably my dark side.

There aren't many female characters here, are there? Not that I'd want to choose a woman just to get pc brownie points.
Good point about women... I struggle to find one who really stands out a crowd... Maybe French Lieutenant' Woman?...

[Pompey Bum]

Thank you, Margerma. I have serms parts of this production on Youtube before, but I was always been frustrated that there were no subtitles. You have done us a great favor. :)

The brilliant thing about Myshkin, of course, is that for all his goodness and innocence, he does little but (unintentionally) bring harm to others. It's a truly disturbing vision.

[Margerma]

Thank you, Margerma. I have serms parts of this production on Youtube before, but I was always been frustrated that there were no subtitles. You have done us a great favor. :)

The brilliant thing about Myshkin, of course, is that for all his goodness and innocence, he does little but (unintentionally) bring harm to others. It's a truly disturbing vision.
As I know with writing The Idiot Dostoevsky wanted to create a character of Christ living in the modern (on that moment) society. People are confusing and over complicated, besides they have rival interests. Therefore a person cannot be good for everybody and Myshkin is like a baby who is trying to walk... He cannot find a balance, fells himself and crushes into stuff and people on his way. I know that Dostoevsky started to write his other novel "The Demons" (another highly recommended book) after reading in newspaper a speech of a lawyer who said "Yes, this man had killed 6 people, but who would not kill walking into his shoes?!" Dostoevsky was always fascinated with black and white inside of people, how close they are, how easy to cross the boundaries... That is why Dostoevsky could find words for something what we feel but cannot describe. Anyway, enjoy the series:-)