Favorite Literary Character Tournament -- Dumbledore wins!!

D?Artagnan.

 

Shocking, Loyal

Okay, guess no one likes these two D'Artagnan.

 

History Region vs Non-Fiction Region


Drizzt Do?Urden
vs
Gandalf

 

Gandalf

 

Drizzt Do'Urden. Having just read the LotR trilo and having read almost everything Drizzy has been in, I can say with ease that IMHO Drizzt is by far a better developed character.

 

Gandalf

 

Drizzt Do?Urden.

 

Drizzt may have had more time for development (primarily character in more novels than most people can count as compared to one of several principal characters in a single trilogy), but Gandalf is the far better character.

So, Gandalf.

Also, grr @ missing the vote for Sam Gamgee

 

Honestly, I was underwhelmed at Tolkien's ability to develop a character. He was great a painting a landscape and giving a broad viewed story...but in actually developing personalities and characters....not so much.

The one exception to that IMHO was how he portrayed Samwise. That character had motivations, deep emotion, in depth thoughts behind actions or situations. Most of his other characters had almost none of that.

Gimli, who out of the entire trilogy had only 2 real instances of development....his feelings toward Galadriel and after seeing the crystal caves for the first time

Legolas, really nothing to tell me who Legolas was. Elf lord? Sure. Beyond that I really ended the series not knowing who the heck Legolas was.

Gandalf. Huge missed opportunity. Tolkien writes about Gandalf and Saruman in a way that assumes that we know the history of their race and order, which we really wouldn't without having read other materials of his.

Aragorn. Yet another missed opportunity IMHO. For being such a central character to the story Tolkien really dind't do much to flesh out the man who would be king. The history of the Númenóreans is barely touched upon and really not explained (again he assumes that you will be familiar with his other writings), and he all but ignores the relationship between him and Arwen until the very end...where he glosses over a marriage and half explains their future (doesn't even name their two daughters). Since half of the trilogy was supposed to be about the "return of the king", it would have been nice to explain some of that instead of really ignoring anything to do with it....instead we got an abrupt ending that left me wanting more.

All in all, I ended the series a bit disappointed. Tolkien is so over-hyped that his LotR trilogy paled in comparison to the anticipation I had in my mind before reading them. Love the movies however, I feel that Peter Jackson actually did a better job of developing the characters than did Tolkien.

 

Drizzt

 

I actually agree with Despised - I was kinda underwhelmed at the books. I realize I'm one of the few The movies did more for me (though granted, I saw them first).

Also, Despised . . . why are you not in SFFBC? We'd love you there



Edit - oh man, I have to vote Hard choice.

Edit 2 - forget it. Gandalf Schmandalf, I prefer reading about Drizzt.

 

Classics Region vs Mystery Region


Robin Hood
vs
Albus Dumbledore

 

Hood

 

Dumbledore.

 

Robin Hood, of course.

 

Dumbledore

I am not sure, but I will add it to my favs and start checking in. Surely there has to be something in there I would find interesting.

 

Awesome!! There's plenty of stuff - LOTR, Drizzt . . . Wheel of time, if you read that . . . comics . . . me, I'm in there . . .

 

Dumbledore

 

Dumbledore

 

Classics Region vs Mystery Region - results!!


Robin Hood: 2
vs
Albus Dumbledore: 4 - winner!

 

Chick Lit Region vs Biography Region


Frodo Baggins
vs
Achilles

 

Oooh, this one's tough. I think I'm going to have to go with Frodo, though.

 

Frodo

 

Achilles, definitely.

 

Yup, Achilles.