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Topic:
Describe Your Favorite Literary Character: Paul Atreides
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Arfour_Peeseventeen
Registered:
Jun '02
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Date Posted:
7/7/02 3:03pm
Subject:
Describe Your Favorite Literary Character: Paul Atreides
- Date Edited:
8/28 8:52pm (6 edits total)
Edited By:
Zaz
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Describe your favorite literary character and why you admire/like this particular character. (Try to use blockquote to distinguish descriptions from comments).
Use the form below:
CHARACTER:
BOOK and AUTHOR:
DESCRIPTION:
REASON:
Here's mines.... 
CHARACTER: Guy Montag
BOOK and AUTHOR: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
DESCRIPTION:He's a fireman who does not put out fires, but sets them. His job is to burn books to support the fast-pace attention-defeciet society that feels that books are oppressive and useless at the "present" day and age. Montag believed in the system and enjoys his job until he starts seeing flaws in the system. Montag then fights the systems and breaks free of it, hoping to one day to destroy the system.
REASON: I find Montag to be very similiar to Tom Cruise's character in Minority Report. They both begin as a worker for a flawed system that is oppressive, but are too blind to see it that way. They serve the system until flaws start to show up. They both then "see the light" and try to destroy the system they were once serving. Montag is admirable in the fact that he was able to see and understand what he was destroying when he burns books. When he understand that, he risked his life by hiding and reading books he was suppose to burn. Of course, Montag becomes a murderer in the book, and that may seem a detrator to Montag's admirability, but I find that it proves how much Montag is strongly agains the system -- he was willing to kill to return the old State that allowed free-ideas and the existence of books.
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Mastadge
Title:
Manager Emeritus
Registered:
Jun '99
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Date Posted:
7/7/02 3:58pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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CHARACTER: Tyrion Lannister
BOOK and AUTHOR: A Song of Ice and Fire and George R. R. Martin
DESCRIPTION: He's a dwarf who keeps actually trying to do the decent thing, and keeps getting the short end of the stick. And he's funny, and has the beginnings of wisdom about him.
REASON: Because he's one of the most interesting characters to read.
-----signature-----
"This will be our reply to violence:
To make music more intensely,
More beautifully,
More devotedly than ever before."
- Leonard Bernstein
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Emperor_Billy_Bob
Registered:
Aug '00
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Date Posted:
7/7/02 5:24pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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CHARACTER: Jens Larssen
BOOK and AUTHOR: The Worldwar Series by Harry Turtledove
DESCRIPTION: A Scandinavian immigrant to the United States who is involved in the development of the first Nuclear Bombs for the United States. It is at this time, 1941, that Lizardlike aliens invade Earth, breaking up World War II. Early in the invasion, Jens is sent on a mission to retrieve Nuclear material stolen from the Aliens. It is a rather long trip, and during it his Army bosses prevent him from sending a letter to his wife to reassure her he is okay. During this time, Barbara his wife, thinking he is dead, falls in love with and marries another man. When he returns, Jens is shocked to realize that his wife no longer loves him. Angry and disillusioned, Jens leaves the Nuclear research facility in Colorado on a trip to Washigton state. On the way, he has sex with a small town waitress and gets VD. He has more story but this is as far as I have gotten into the series.
REASON: While being a rather piteous character, I identify with Jens and the fact that when it rains it pours. The world screws him over and he is determined to make
it pay. Very emotional and well done storyline.
-----signature-----
"I'd hit it." - Lord Vivec in regards to Adolf Hitler
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Healer Apprentice Lina
Registered:
Jun '00
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Date Posted:
7/8/02 12:17pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
- Date Edited:
7/8/02 12:19pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Healer Apprentice Lina
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CHARACTER: Richard Bonamy
BOOK and AUTHOR: Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
DESCRIPTION: The book is mainly about how other characters preceive and interact w/the title character, Jacob Flanders. Bonamy is Jacob's closest friend who keeps in touch with him until the very end. Bonamy is a repressed sort of character who believes he takes most things at face value and that's the best way to proceed in this world. Cynical by nature and blunt.
REASON: Bonamy is the most poignant character in Jacob's Room . While he operates under the guise that he can be detached from his feelings, he actually is capable of great emotion. Even he doesn't understand the depths of his friendship for Jacob because it doesn't fit in the ordered way he looks at the world. His loyalty and unwavering affection for Jacob confuses him since even he recognizes that Jacob is not overtly special or interesting. And yet, he is Bonamy's most treasured friend. His character is tragic because even in the end, he cannot come to terms w/his emotions. They just hit him like a tidal wave and it despairs him a great deal.
-----signature-----
"I am Hermes. I become tamed by devouring my own wings."
--Hellsing
Visit my book review blog:
http://thereaderfriendly.blogspot.com
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Jedi_Joon
Registered:
Nov '01
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Date Posted:
7/8/02 12:32pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
- Date Edited:
7/8/02 12:33pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Jedi_Joon
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Maybe not my FAVORITE (it's hard to pick) but one of the top ten...
CHARACTER: Septimus Hodge
BOOK and AUTHOR: Arcadia , a play by Tom Stoppard.
DESCRIPTION: The play takes place in two different time frames. One is back during the 1800's where Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron's, works as a tutor for a young Lady Thomasina at a large estate. The other time frame is the present where two scholars battle it out to try and decipher just what happened in the past w/Lord Byron and a fire that burnt down the large estate from the 1800's. Some of the things involved are great mathematical theories, duels, poets, and love affairs.
REASON: Septimus Hodge is a wonderful character. Intelligent, humorous, and patient, he makes a great tutor. But he is not without faults and got himself involved in things that greatly complicate his life. When the true outcome of the past events are revealed, its obvious that Hodge has had to deal with quite a bit and his fate has a slight Obi-Wan-esque feeling to it.
-----signature-----
"He'd never plucked up the courage to try Albert's porridge, which led a private life of its own in the depths of its saucepan and ate spoons."
--Mort
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KaineDamo
Registered:
Mar '02
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Date Posted:
7/8/02 1:41pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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CHARACTER: Peter Parker
BOOK and AUTHOR: The Amazing Spider-Man, Stan Lee
DESCRIPTION: The Amazing Spider-Man, and other titles throughout the years, details the life and adventures of Peter Parker, and his alter-ego Spider-Man. At a young age Peter gained extraordinary spider like powers, and learned through personal tragedy that with great power, must come great responsibility.
REASON: I grew up looking up to Spider-Man, first through the cartoons, and then getting into the comic books. Of all the super-heroes, Spider-Man is the most believable, the one i can relate to more than any other character i've read about, and the most human. When good writers get their hands on the title they prove that the essence of the character is not Spider-Man, but the man behind the mask Peter Parker. Unlike many heroes, he tries to mix a perrsonal life thats arguably more eventfull than his super-villain filled adventurer life. Despite all his amazing abilities, he still gets hurt, he still has to struggle to pay the bills, he still has to worry about his dear old Aunt Aunt and his love life, and hes still human. Unlike Superman, most of the general public hate Spider-Man, yet no matter how much like dirt people treat him, he still strives with his every ounce of strength to save them. Sometimes he even rescues his enemies from death, despite the fact that just a minute before they tried to murder him.
-----signature-----
"With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility" - Stan Lee Big Bro 3: Not voting for Kaine is a vote against Bush. DON'T VOTE KAINE!! Equality in fanfiction, sign the petition - http://boards.theforce.net/user.asp?usr=779058
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Arfour_Peeseventeen
Registered:
Jun '02
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Date Posted:
7/8/02 4:36pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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This is quite interesting. We have a wide range of characters here from a bunch of different genres.
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SCOTSSITHLORD
Registered:
May '02
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Date Posted:
7/8/02 5:06pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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Character: Tom Pasmore
Book{s} and Author: Mystery and The Throat by Peter Straub
Description: Tom Pasmore is an amateur detective who appears as a child and teenager, in Mystery and as an adult in The Throat. In Mystery he unravels the mystery behind a string of murders, and at the same time, uncovers a dark chapter from his own family's history.
In The Throat we meet Pasmore as an adult, aiding his friend Tim Underhill, in his search for a serial killer called Blue rose.
Reasons: Pasmore is urbane, laid back, a lateral thinker, and incredibly intelligent. He comes across as a mixture between Sherlock Holmes and a zen buddhist.
-----signature-----
Do you charge us with wanting to stop the exploitation of children by their parents?
To this crime we plead guilty.
Marx/Engels - The Communist Manifesto
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Gandalf the Grey
Registered:
May '00
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Date Posted:
7/8/02 5:28pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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CHARACTER: Tyrion Lannister
BOOK and AUTHOR: A Song of Ice and Fire and George R. R. Martin
DESCRIPTION: He’s a dwarf. Not a dwarf as in a Tolkien dwarf or Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, he’s a dwarf as in one who suffers from birth defects. He starts out as ugly as he is short, and his looks have gotten worse as the series has progressed. However, by way of compensation, he’s one of the smartest characters around.
REASON: Like all of Martin’s characters, he tends muddle through life. At his core, he’s a decent person, living in a world where decent people have a tendency to die quickly. So he wraps his principles up in bitterness and sarcasm, and he plays the Game of Thrones as viciously as anyone. But he’s capable of surprising acts of generosity, especially to those who are weak and downtrodden.
Despite his good intentions, despite the high principles he tries to maintain, he is almost universally hated and/or ridiculed. Every lover that he has ever had has betrayed him, his wife never realized just how kind and gentle he was, too wrapped up in her own problems, his sister would cheerfully kill him with her bare hands, his father despises him, and those warriors that do follow him only do so for the money he pays them. About the only people he could reasonably call friend are his older brother and Jon Snow.
Reading Tyrion’s chapters, you get the feeling that Martin really has it out for this guy. If something bad can happen to him, it does. But he never surrenders. He keeps trying, trying to find power, trying to find justice, trying to find love.
He’s very intelligent, and he is wittier than he is intelligent. He doesn’t always make the right decision, but it tends to be one that appears to be intelligent and well reasoned out. Tyrion Lannister is possibly the most three-dimensional literary character that I have ever read about.
-----signature-----
I play far, far too much World of Warcraft.
L70s on Staghelm: Hopefire (Paladin), Silverbow (Hunter), Shadowhope (Rogue), Silverfire (Mage)
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PeterTutham27
Registered:
Aug '01
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Date Posted:
7/8/02 8:29pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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CHARACTER: Huck Finn
BOOK and AUTHOR: Huck Finn by Mark Twain
DESCRIPTION: Orphan who is out for himself in the world. He takes everything with a grain of salt. Down to earth, he has a simple morality and lifestyle and soaks up life, especially life on the river.
REASON: He is moral, even when others tell him that he is not. He is independent, but easy-going. He doesn't let others decide his life for him. The epitome of freedom!
-----signature-----
"That's more disturbing than impressive..." - One of my Friends
"Querido de las nubes."- My sweety 
Who died and made you the Chosen One?
ShadowWan to Shadow Master ArnaKyle
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Healer Apprentice Lina
Registered:
Jun '00
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Date Posted:
7/9/02 5:52pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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Here's another favorite of mine. Just recently added to my personal list!
CHARACTER: Sam Clay
BOOK and AUTHOR: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.
DESCRIPTION: During the rise of the Nazi power in Europe, a young Josef Kavalier, an amateur escape artist and a student of art, escapes from Prague to New York, leaving behind his immediate family who hopes he will have a better life in America. In New York, he finds his aunt and meets his cousin, Sam Clay. Catching on to the rising popularity of comic books, Kavalier and Clay create The Escapist, a superhero who cannot be held by any chains or ropes. Kavalier draws the comic while Clay writes the story. Over a period of a decade, Kavalier and Clay rise to fame, experience love, hope, tragedy, separation and everything else life throws at them.
REASON: This character relationship in this book is structured like that of a classic comic book. Kavalier is the obvious tortured, yearning hero who wishes to do some good in the world. Sam Clay is his sidekick who is always there to support and help Kavalier at whatever cost to himself.
While Kavalier has his share of overt, massive tragedies, Sam Clay suffers quietly but with equal pain. Unlike Kavalier, however, he bares it and shoulders all of his burdens instead of escaping away. Chabon writes Clay incredibly well with great subtlety and a strange, quiet dignity and poignancy. In this respect, the book soon moves away from making Clay a simple side kick but a character who would probably deserve his own novel.
-----signature-----
"I am Hermes. I become tamed by devouring my own wings."
--Hellsing
Visit my book review blog:
http://thereaderfriendly.blogspot.com
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VadersLaMent
Registered:
Apr '02
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Date Posted:
7/9/02 7:13pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
- Date Edited:
7/9/02 7:19pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
VadersLaMent
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Character: Louis Wu.
Book and Author:Ringworld series, Tales of Known Space by Larry Niven.
Description: Louis Wu is a 200 year old "Tourist". Many Niven characters are a sort of tourist. Louis is kept alive(as are many humans) by a substance known as boosterspice which halts the aging process for 50 years, you then have the option to take more or not. Louis lives life to the fullest, has a bit of an addictive personality, and at the time we meet him in Ringworld he is getting a little bored. At one point he tells someone how each career he has had lasts about 20 years before he moves on to something else. He is an explorer and a survivor.
Honorable mentions:Conan as written by the orginal author Robert Howard. Ford Prefect from the Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy. Ramses the Dammned from Anne Rice. And yes Darth Vader. Sorry, I know the thread was for one fav, I couldn't help myself.
Edited for spelling, I'm starting to think I am dislexic.
-----signature-----
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic--Arthur C. Clarke
Any sufficiently advanced extraterrestrial intelligence is indistinguishable from God--Michael Shermer
I am officially Awesome.
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Caine
Registered:
Mar '02
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Date Posted:
7/9/02 8:11pm
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
- Date Edited:
7/9/02 8:12pm (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Caine
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It's hard not to connect with Tyrion Lannister, but I really wish GRRM wouldn't shove Tyrion down our throats almost every other chapter.
Tyrion Lannister is really George R.R. Martin in A Song of Ice and Fire. When asked outright which of his characters he most resembles, GRRM responded, "Tyrion Lannister." I had to take a moment and laugh to myself when I read this interview because I think we could all see it coming a mile away.
GRRM really crafts Tyrion's chapters with personal care, heart and humor. Tyrion's chapters also outnumbers any of the other characters in sheer page count by far.
Anyway, in the spirit of Star Wars...
CHARACTER: Jacen Solo
BOOK: The New Jedi Order
DESCRIPTION:
Jacen is Han & Leia's eldest son in the Expanded Universe and is 16 years old at the beginning of the series (currently, he's 19 or so). He has a twin, Jaina Solo, and a younger brother, Anakin Solo.
You will find many readers of the NJO who have serious problems with Jacen's character. Common complaints: too arrogant, too pacifist, too sissy, too philosophical and too whiny among others.
REASONS WHY I LIKE HIM:
Simple: I find his compassion, his empathy, his mercy and his ability to kick butt when the situation calls for it despite it all most admirable. This kid tends to think before acting, a little too much others might contend.
Unlike anyone else, Jacen truly struggles with some interesting Jedi issues during times of war and chaos, a time when they really need to be examined. Jacen may come across arrogantly in his quest for the "truth" but the motivation stems from a genuine concern for the welfare of others.
-----signature-----
"For what I do, weapons are irrelevant." -Jacen, from MWS' TRAITOR
The Jacen Solo Fan Club:
http://boards.theforce.net/message.asp?topic=4379448
~~~
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Emperor_Billy_Bob
Registered:
Aug '00
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Date Posted:
7/11/02 8:21am
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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up man up. Good Thread
-----signature-----
"I'd hit it." - Lord Vivec in regards to Adolf Hitler
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Pigalek
Registered:
May '01
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Date Posted:
10/12/02 12:36am
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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CHARACTER: Finn the Cat
BOOK and AUTHOR: The Forbidden Land by Kate Forsyth
DESCRIPTION: Finn is a Banprissonia (the equivilant a duchess I think) she was brought up on the streets as a theif and was only reunited with her family at about the age of twelve. She befriends an elven Cat who are untamable and kitten sized  and is a damn good climber. She also assissted with overthrowing Maya the ensorllcerer (I don't remember how to spell it) And was a part of the league of the healing hand who helped in the overthrow
REASON: Finn is funny. She's also very very common and doesn't let good manners stand in the way of letting people know what she thinks even her own Righ (King). She's outrageous sometimes and rebellious but is also very loving and caring. With great courage and sense of adventure. Once she sets her mind to a task no matter how impossible it seems she'll get it done.
Plus she's the only character left from the 'league of the healing hand' who calls the Righ crazy and gets away with it
She's spiffy
-----signature-----
Michael Valentine De Jonge 1/9/89-25/3/04
"Thats odd. I should be in there, shouldn't I? If I'm asleep" Helena
"You're asleep?" Valentine
"I mean as propositions go, it's completely, utterly, unarguably, quintessentially hopless" - Mirrormask
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Livi-Wan
Registered:
Sep '02
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Date Posted:
10/13/02 8:44am
Subject:
RE: Describe Your ~Favorite Literary Character~
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CHARACTER:Mort (or Mortimer or Boy).
BOOK and AUTHOR:Mort by Terry Pratchett.
DESCRIPTION:Reannual grapes farmer's son, became Death's apprentice and almost lost his life. People kept ignoring him and not calling him Mort but Boy. After he was finished being Death's appreintice he became Duke of Sto Helit.
REASON:He's funny, and gets baffled by the strange things he sees. Also, people tend to ignore me too. As a natrual extrovert I find it very annoying.
-----signature-----
Sithy, Livi, DVC- Clogs in the machine since 2005
Winner of Best RP-er, Autumn 2005
Mad Aunt Millicent- 007 family
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