Tori Angeli (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tori_angeli) wrote2010-06-08 03:06 pm
tori_angeli) wrote2010-06-08 03:06 pm
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Character Gushing, part I
I decided to write some stuff about a few characters I just love beyond all reason. They're from varying media and varying fandoms. Not all of them are even necessarily my favorites in their respective books, movies, TV series, or whatever else. They're characters I find to be utterly timeless, complex, and beautifully fleshed-out. I'm intending no bias toward a particular medium, so there will be characters from webcomics, video games, and what else have you. I figure I'll post these ravings as I write them. If you want to find new characters to fall in love with, you can read these as I post them. So here are the first three.
Samuel Vimes - The Discworld series - Terry Pratchett
I am in the process of buying and reading every Discworld book that features this guy. He absolutely astonished me when I first read Guards! Guards! I suppose a big reason for this was the fact that I expected Carrot to end up as the book’s protagonist. According to Terry Pratchett, so did the author. But then there was Vimes: alcoholic, despairing, and beyond world-weary, a man committed to justice and lost in a city he could not bring justice to. The moment he defended Lady Sybil in a nightgown and fluffy slippers, slinging a terrified swamp dragon like a bazooka, for all appearances the greatest hero of his day, I fell hopelessly in love.
See, Vimes is Lawful Good. Ankh-Morpork, on the other hand, is a city that runs like clockwork on apathy and organized crime. There’s very little use for the Watch at first. If a member of the Thieves’ Guild kills someone, it’s the job of the Assassins’ Guild to handle him. Vimes is stuck in a city where he can’t enforce the law. At least, that’s the case until a dragon shows up and we watch him go from being a depressed alcoholic to the mind-blowingly badass captain of the city’s rent-a-guards.
Vimes is smart. He knows where he is in the city by the way the cobblestones feel under his cardboard soles. As glaringly cynical as he is, he won’t let a crime slip by because he identifies with the victim. He is an excellent detective, even though he’d rather not have any part in detective work. All crimes should be transparent. When a dragon takes the city over, he goes all determinator on it because if anyone is going to set fire to this city, it’s going to be him. But on a dirty, buried level of his soul, he cares about Ankh-Morpork, and will not see it in ruins. It’s why Lord Vetinari trusts him. They’re sort of like-minded men—and that’s a compliment on both ends.
I haven’t finished the books featuring Vimes, but I can’t wait to. I’m currently reading Feet of Clay, and I’m constantly astonished by how good a comedy author’s characters are. Vimes is such a great character that he is an absolute legend among Pratchett readers. He’s still not immune to the occasional bout of depression, but he starts to treat his weakness for alcohol like any other temptation to do wrong—he won’t compromise a thing he believes in. Not for a good reason, even, or it will become easy to compromise it for a bad one. What a guy.
Edgar Roni Figaro - Final Fantasy VI - Squaresoft
I’m going to make the outrageous-sounding claim that some of Final Fantasy’s deepest thinkers are its annoying perverts. Zidane and Irvine, in addition to being respectively altruistic and philosophical, were the moral and spiritual centers of their groups. Edgar has a completely different sort of intellect, and it was an intellect that I noticed on my first play-through. The fact that the fanbase overlooks how awesome he is in favor of focusing on the fact that he’s a (somehow) failed ladies’ man puzzles me.
The more I think about it, the more firmly I believe that Edgar can best be categorized as what TVTropes.org calls a “guile hero.” If he were the protagonist of the game, we would have more opportunity to see examples of this. The two times we meet him in the game (World of Balance and World of Ruin), he immediately displays how good he is at being a king. In a twist that is truly stunning in retrospect, he outsmarts Kefka within the first three hours of the game by being a quick thinker and an advance planner. He later covertly infiltrates and takes over (BY ELECTION) a group of thieves, who he manipulates to lead him to his sunken castle via a secret passage only they know about. He uses his talent for engineering to protect his kingdom, which clearly prospers under his reign. Heck, at the age of seventeen he was already working politics in his favor, allying with the empire that assassinated his father while secretly joining and supporting the resistance against it.
Even at a young age, he seemed to know what he was doing. Upon the death of his father, his emotional and somewhat flaky twin brother decided to ditch his life of royalty. He tried to urge Edgar to come with him, but Edgar reminded him that both heirs couldn’t just disappear. He suggested they settle it with a coin toss, and the winning brother would be free to go. Being generous and probably wise enough to know Sabin is in no shape to be king, Edgar rigged the coin toss and remained to take the crown. Talk about a heartbreaking backstory, losing both father and brother in the same night, but Edgar has only grown stronger for it.
Edgar was clearly tempted by Sabin’s talk of freedom. I very much have the impression that, if he hadn’t become king at such a young age, he might have gone to a university to study engineering, which is clearly a passion of his. Ten years later, we see him in high spirits, confident, courageous, and channeling his political power to make the world a better place. Yes, he hits on Terra once, but after she appears uninterested, he treats her with utmost respect and sensitivity, genuinely concerned about her well-being and refusing to pressure her to do something she does not want to do (namely, join the Returners). He’s a perfect gentleman, both to her and to Celes, who he gently warns against romantic attachment to the emotionally burdened Locke. So um. Exactly why is he a failed ladies’ man, I wonder?
Elu Thingol - The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien
I love a smart but tragic monarch, and I love a good redemption story. This guy has both these qualities in spades. I remember my brothers telling me the story of Beren and Luthien when I was a kid, and back then, I didn’t have a great opinion of Thingol. When I was in high school, I picked up The Silmarillion and was captivated by the complex king who became my favorite elf of all time.
I think the first time I loved this guy was early on, in the story relating how he met his wife, Melian. That’s a kicker: Melian is a demi-goddess. Well, sort of. She might be more comparable to an angel. She’s the same sort of creature as Gandalf, only she takes elven form instead of human. When they first met, he followed a Mysterious Voice in the Woods while traveling. When their gazes locked, they were frozen in time. The world turned around them, and Thingol’s people searched for him for years before the spell ended and the new couple returned, now king and queen.
Man.
Thingol’s kingdom was the most prosperous, peaceful elven kingdom in Middle-Earth history. It was immune to war, being protected by Melian. Thingol was hospitable to the kinsmen of the Sindar, until discovering that they waged war upon other elves. At that point, he banishes them all (except Galadriel, who was smooching with his nephew Celeborn by then) and forbids their language to be spoken in his realm. It sounds a tad extreme, but this is exactly how extremely Elves view the Kinslayings. They’re the most horrific events in Elven history.
But there’s not much you can say to support Thingol’s initial tolerance, and that’s what I love. He, unlike a lot of First Age monarchs, really changes over the course of his reign. He’s fully human, and while he is wise, he is capable of glaring mistakes. The whole story of Beren and Luthien is one. Thingol hated Men (the race, not the sex) and actually laughed out loud when his beloved-beyond-anything daughter, Luthien, told him she loved a Man. He thought she was joking. Then, he thought she was entertaining a silly, fleeting fancy, and sent Beren off to what he was sure would be his death. Beren had to return with one of the three Silmarils in his hand. Considering that it was Sauron’s boss who had all three, it seemed like an impossible task. Long story short, it would have been, if Luthien hadn’t helped Beren.
So Thingol was pretty surprised when Beren showed up again, showing him a bloody stump where his hand used to be, and said, “Even now, a Silmaril is in my hand.” Read: it’s just that my hand got chomped off by a huge-ass wolf.
After that, Thingol treated Beren very differently. Beren became not only worthy of his daughter, but sort of a son-figure to him. They hunted together one day, at which point Beren sacrificed himself to save the king. When Luthien died of shock and grief upon Beren’s death, Thingol grieved for them both.
They got better, but still.
This change was so marked in Thingol that when a human woman came to him with her small son, begging him to keep her child safe, Thingol did one better—he adopted the brat as a second son and had him treated like a prince the entire time he was growing up. It’s not Thingol’s fault the kid turned out to be a trouble magnet whose life ended in infamy and shame.
Thingol’s death was very tragic for me, and almost anticlimactic to how his life had been spent. I understand that Tolkien felt he never came up with a satisfactory death for this character, and I can understand the difficulty. How do you put an end to a character both wise and foolish, lofty and fallible, sympathetic and beautiful and haughty and regal?
Samuel Vimes - The Discworld series - Terry Pratchett
I am in the process of buying and reading every Discworld book that features this guy. He absolutely astonished me when I first read Guards! Guards! I suppose a big reason for this was the fact that I expected Carrot to end up as the book’s protagonist. According to Terry Pratchett, so did the author. But then there was Vimes: alcoholic, despairing, and beyond world-weary, a man committed to justice and lost in a city he could not bring justice to. The moment he defended Lady Sybil in a nightgown and fluffy slippers, slinging a terrified swamp dragon like a bazooka, for all appearances the greatest hero of his day, I fell hopelessly in love.
See, Vimes is Lawful Good. Ankh-Morpork, on the other hand, is a city that runs like clockwork on apathy and organized crime. There’s very little use for the Watch at first. If a member of the Thieves’ Guild kills someone, it’s the job of the Assassins’ Guild to handle him. Vimes is stuck in a city where he can’t enforce the law. At least, that’s the case until a dragon shows up and we watch him go from being a depressed alcoholic to the mind-blowingly badass captain of the city’s rent-a-guards.
Vimes is smart. He knows where he is in the city by the way the cobblestones feel under his cardboard soles. As glaringly cynical as he is, he won’t let a crime slip by because he identifies with the victim. He is an excellent detective, even though he’d rather not have any part in detective work. All crimes should be transparent. When a dragon takes the city over, he goes all determinator on it because if anyone is going to set fire to this city, it’s going to be him. But on a dirty, buried level of his soul, he cares about Ankh-Morpork, and will not see it in ruins. It’s why Lord Vetinari trusts him. They’re sort of like-minded men—and that’s a compliment on both ends.
I haven’t finished the books featuring Vimes, but I can’t wait to. I’m currently reading Feet of Clay, and I’m constantly astonished by how good a comedy author’s characters are. Vimes is such a great character that he is an absolute legend among Pratchett readers. He’s still not immune to the occasional bout of depression, but he starts to treat his weakness for alcohol like any other temptation to do wrong—he won’t compromise a thing he believes in. Not for a good reason, even, or it will become easy to compromise it for a bad one. What a guy.
Edgar Roni Figaro - Final Fantasy VI - Squaresoft
I’m going to make the outrageous-sounding claim that some of Final Fantasy’s deepest thinkers are its annoying perverts. Zidane and Irvine, in addition to being respectively altruistic and philosophical, were the moral and spiritual centers of their groups. Edgar has a completely different sort of intellect, and it was an intellect that I noticed on my first play-through. The fact that the fanbase overlooks how awesome he is in favor of focusing on the fact that he’s a (somehow) failed ladies’ man puzzles me.
The more I think about it, the more firmly I believe that Edgar can best be categorized as what TVTropes.org calls a “guile hero.” If he were the protagonist of the game, we would have more opportunity to see examples of this. The two times we meet him in the game (World of Balance and World of Ruin), he immediately displays how good he is at being a king. In a twist that is truly stunning in retrospect, he outsmarts Kefka within the first three hours of the game by being a quick thinker and an advance planner. He later covertly infiltrates and takes over (BY ELECTION) a group of thieves, who he manipulates to lead him to his sunken castle via a secret passage only they know about. He uses his talent for engineering to protect his kingdom, which clearly prospers under his reign. Heck, at the age of seventeen he was already working politics in his favor, allying with the empire that assassinated his father while secretly joining and supporting the resistance against it.
Even at a young age, he seemed to know what he was doing. Upon the death of his father, his emotional and somewhat flaky twin brother decided to ditch his life of royalty. He tried to urge Edgar to come with him, but Edgar reminded him that both heirs couldn’t just disappear. He suggested they settle it with a coin toss, and the winning brother would be free to go. Being generous and probably wise enough to know Sabin is in no shape to be king, Edgar rigged the coin toss and remained to take the crown. Talk about a heartbreaking backstory, losing both father and brother in the same night, but Edgar has only grown stronger for it.
Edgar was clearly tempted by Sabin’s talk of freedom. I very much have the impression that, if he hadn’t become king at such a young age, he might have gone to a university to study engineering, which is clearly a passion of his. Ten years later, we see him in high spirits, confident, courageous, and channeling his political power to make the world a better place. Yes, he hits on Terra once, but after she appears uninterested, he treats her with utmost respect and sensitivity, genuinely concerned about her well-being and refusing to pressure her to do something she does not want to do (namely, join the Returners). He’s a perfect gentleman, both to her and to Celes, who he gently warns against romantic attachment to the emotionally burdened Locke. So um. Exactly why is he a failed ladies’ man, I wonder?
Elu Thingol - The Silmarillion - J.R.R. Tolkien
I love a smart but tragic monarch, and I love a good redemption story. This guy has both these qualities in spades. I remember my brothers telling me the story of Beren and Luthien when I was a kid, and back then, I didn’t have a great opinion of Thingol. When I was in high school, I picked up The Silmarillion and was captivated by the complex king who became my favorite elf of all time.
I think the first time I loved this guy was early on, in the story relating how he met his wife, Melian. That’s a kicker: Melian is a demi-goddess. Well, sort of. She might be more comparable to an angel. She’s the same sort of creature as Gandalf, only she takes elven form instead of human. When they first met, he followed a Mysterious Voice in the Woods while traveling. When their gazes locked, they were frozen in time. The world turned around them, and Thingol’s people searched for him for years before the spell ended and the new couple returned, now king and queen.
Man.
Thingol’s kingdom was the most prosperous, peaceful elven kingdom in Middle-Earth history. It was immune to war, being protected by Melian. Thingol was hospitable to the kinsmen of the Sindar, until discovering that they waged war upon other elves. At that point, he banishes them all (except Galadriel, who was smooching with his nephew Celeborn by then) and forbids their language to be spoken in his realm. It sounds a tad extreme, but this is exactly how extremely Elves view the Kinslayings. They’re the most horrific events in Elven history.
But there’s not much you can say to support Thingol’s initial tolerance, and that’s what I love. He, unlike a lot of First Age monarchs, really changes over the course of his reign. He’s fully human, and while he is wise, he is capable of glaring mistakes. The whole story of Beren and Luthien is one. Thingol hated Men (the race, not the sex) and actually laughed out loud when his beloved-beyond-anything daughter, Luthien, told him she loved a Man. He thought she was joking. Then, he thought she was entertaining a silly, fleeting fancy, and sent Beren off to what he was sure would be his death. Beren had to return with one of the three Silmarils in his hand. Considering that it was Sauron’s boss who had all three, it seemed like an impossible task. Long story short, it would have been, if Luthien hadn’t helped Beren.
So Thingol was pretty surprised when Beren showed up again, showing him a bloody stump where his hand used to be, and said, “Even now, a Silmaril is in my hand.” Read: it’s just that my hand got chomped off by a huge-ass wolf.
After that, Thingol treated Beren very differently. Beren became not only worthy of his daughter, but sort of a son-figure to him. They hunted together one day, at which point Beren sacrificed himself to save the king. When Luthien died of shock and grief upon Beren’s death, Thingol grieved for them both.
They got better, but still.
This change was so marked in Thingol that when a human woman came to him with her small son, begging him to keep her child safe, Thingol did one better—he adopted the brat as a second son and had him treated like a prince the entire time he was growing up. It’s not Thingol’s fault the kid turned out to be a trouble magnet whose life ended in infamy and shame.
Thingol’s death was very tragic for me, and almost anticlimactic to how his life had been spent. I understand that Tolkien felt he never came up with a satisfactory death for this character, and I can understand the difficulty. How do you put an end to a character both wise and foolish, lofty and fallible, sympathetic and beautiful and haughty and regal?
no subject
Thud is by and far my favourite Vimes book ever, but I also particularly adore The Fifth Elephant and Guards Guards. ♥