All-time, top 10 favorite literary characters (1 Viewer)

[kupcho1]

Mine, in alphabetical order (because I really can't rank 'em):

Alex DeLarge - A Clockwork Orange (Anthony Burgess)
Tyler Durden - Fight Club (Chuck Palahniuk)
Huckleberry Finn - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
Jackson Lamb - Slough House series (Mick Herron)
Tyrion Lannister - A Song of Fire and Ice series (George R. R. Martin)
Hannibal Lecter - Red Dragon, The Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal and Hannibal Rising (Thomas Harris)
Travis McGee - Travis McGee novels (John D. MacDonald)
Randle Patrick McMurphy - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Ken Kesey)
Mike Pemulis - Infinite Jest (David Foster Wallace)
Ignatius J. Reilly - A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
Half-cocked Jack Shaftoe - The Baroque Cycle (Neal Stephenson)

Whatcha got?

eta books/series & authors

 

[Gally]

I have only heard of 4 of these guys.

 

[ChiefD]

John Cocktosen

 

[Scoresman]

Have to think more for a list, but Mike Ehrmantraut is number 1 for sure.  

 

[rockaction]

The tree that gave. 

 

[kupcho1]

Have to think more for a list, but Mike Ehrmantraut is number 1 for sure.  

There's books?

 

[Scoresman]

There's books?

Well there're scripts that are written, right?  

 

[kupcho1]

Well there're scripts that are written, right?  

 

[Parrothead]

Twilly Spree;  Norman Paperman; Alex Rutledge; Skink; Bilbo Baggins; Gandalf..    

 

[Don Quixote]

Me.

 

[E Street Brat]

I have only heard of 4 of these guys.

Tyler Durden
Huckleberry Finn
Tyrion Lannister
Hannibal Lecter

 

 

[Poke_4_Life]

I'm a simple man, I like the books that I like...

Jack Reacher
Gabriel Allon
Joe Pickett

Mitch Rapp
Amos Decker
Jonathan Grave
Mickey Haller  (and Harry Bosch)
Atlee Pine
Dewey Andreas
Frank McCourt

 

[kupcho1]

Me.

You were certainly in the discussion (edged out narrowly by Mike Pemulis)

 

[eoMMan]

Edward Cullen

Bella Swan

Jacob Wolfenberg

 

[Poke_4_Life]

Me.

Ooh, may need to revise my list.

 

[kupcho1]

Frank McCourt

Isn't he an actual person?

 

[El Floppo]

first that jump to mind:

Dean Moriarty

Siddhartha

 

[Poke_4_Life]

Isn't he an actual person?

He is/was.  (Is he still alive?)  But he was also my favorite character in several literary works.  So...

 

[E Street Brat]

Billy Mumphrey

 

[Gally]

Billy Mumphrey

I love that ####-eyed optimist.....it's that unbridled enthusiasm that really bring you in.

 

[wikkidpissah]

Philip Malowe

Yossarian

Eliot Rosewater

Holly Golightly

Falstaff

Narrator, Invisible Man

Emma Bovary

Augustus McCrae

The Frankenstein Creature

Sherlock Holmes

 

[nirad3]

I don't have a top-10 because I don't think I've read 10 books in the past 25 years combined.

But I will say that Holden Caulfield was the one that came to mind first, and I didn't see him posted here yet.

 

[E Street Brat]

Randall Flagg

Larry Underwood

Trashcan Man.

 

[eoMMan]

Christian Grey

Leisuresuit Larry

Rumpelforeskin 

Jaye Summers

 

[E Street Brat]

I love that ####-eyed optimist.....it's that unbridled enthusiasm that really bring you in.

Such a shame it was that very unbridled enthusiasm that lead to his downfall  

 

[Barry]

Gus   Lonesome Dove

Mara   Empire trilogy

Arya    ASOIF

Rodrigo   Lions of Al Rassan

Ruth   Three Pines mysteries

Ignatius   C. of Dunces

 

[Kal El]

Jesus(non fiction literature counts)

Chuck Yeager(first guy to break the sound barrier, and he’s from West Virginia)

Nebuchadnezzar(he was once one of the most powerful people on the planet, that had to be interesting)

Gimli(LOTR)

Gandalf(LOTR)

Samwise Gamgee(LOTR)

Frodo Baggins(LOTR)

Aslan(Chronicles of Narnia)

Eustace Scrubb(Chronicles of Narnia, he had a pretty epic character development)

Perrin(Wheel of Time)

 

[AAABatteries]

I’ll say it:

Harry Potter - pretty damn good books.

I’d also go with Gandalf, Dumbledore, Tyrion Lannister and Jack Ryan.

 

[Ilov80s]

Great idea and one I hadn’t thought about. 
 

1. Miss Havisham from Great Expectations

2. Mick from The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

3. Behemoth from The Master and Margarita 

4. Mr. Emerson from A Room with a View

5. Phillip Marlow from The Big Sleep, The Long Goodbye, etc.

6. Milo Minderbinder from Catch 22

7. Sally Jay Gorce from The Dud Avocado 

8. Lord Harry Wotten from The Picture of Dorian Gray

9. Pinkie from Brighton Rock

10. Amory Blaine from This Side of Paradise 

 

[Sleestak]

Victor Henry (The Winds of War | Herman Wouk)

Gunga Din (Rudyard Kipling)

Gandalf (Fellowship of the Ring | John Ronald Reuel Tolkien)

Horatio Hornblower (HH Series | CS Forester)

Captain Ahab (Moby **** | Herman Melville)

Hiro Protagonist (Snow Crash | Neil Stephenson

Atticus FInch (To Kill a Mockingbird | Harper Lee)

Reverend Stephen Kumalo (Cry the Beloved Country | Alan Paton)

Buck (The Call of the Wild | John London)

Trashcan Man (The Stand | King)

Shout outs to Sherman McCoy (Bonfire of the Vanities), Henry Fleming (Red Badge of Courage), Winston Smith (1984), Danny (Danny the Champion of the World) and I'm sure so many others.

 

[Keith R]

Without using nonfiction or duplicating authors but not disqualifying short stories...

Michael Corleone - The Godfather (Mario Puzo)
Chili Palmer - Get Shorty (Elmore Leonard)
Santiago - The Old Man and the Sea (Ernest Hemmingway)
**** Holloran - The Shining (Stephen King)
Odysseus - The Odyssey (Homer)
Antonio - The Merchant of Venice (William Shakespeare)
Nick Naylor - Thank You for Smoking (Christopher Buckley)
Henry Jeckyll - The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Tom Ripley - The Talented Mr. Ripley (Patricia Highsmith)
Rudy Baylor - The Rainmaker (John Grisham)

 

[Don Quixote]

My 10 right now:

Don Quixote (obviously)

Jay Gatsby - The Great Gatsby

Atticus Finch - To Kill a Mockingbird

Charles Kinbote - Nabokov’s Pale Fire

Philip Marlowe - Chandler’s The Big Sleep, etc.

Leopold Bloom - Joyce’s Ulysses

Circe - Homer’s The Odyssey and Madeline Miller’s Circe

Odysseus - see above

Sherlock Holmes

Joseph K - Kafka’s The Trial

 

[El Floppo]

3. Behemoth from The Master and Margarita 

ooooh...nice

 

[jimmy b]

Nurse Ratched

 

[Ilov80s]

ooooh...nice

Dostoevsky is immortal!

 

[foxco]

The Judge - Blood Meridian/Cormac McCarthy
Lee Harvy Oswald - Libra/Don Delillo 
Roland Deschain - Gunslinger Series/Stephen King
Pretty much anyone Buskowski
Raoul Duke/Dr. Gonzo - Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas/Hunter S. Thompson

Love a lot of the ones already mentioned. 

 

[Sand]

Gus   Lonesome Dove

Mara   Empire trilogy

Arya    ASOIF

Rodrigo   Lions of Al Rassan

Ruth   Three Pines mysteries

Ignatius   C. of Dunces

1. Augustus McCrae - Lonesome Dove

2. Logen Ninefingers - The First Law

3. Bob - The Bobiverse  (yes, this is cheating, but you should read to find out why)

 

[Han Solo]

Number one for me is Han Solo…a close second, probably Indiana Jones….I may be biased.

 

[Ramsay Hunt Experience]

Bertie Wooster — P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories

George Smiley— LeCarre’s Smiley novels

Arthur Cornish -  Robertson Davies’s What’s Bred in the Bone

Captain Jack Aubrey — Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey/Maturin novels

Lady Brett Ashley— The Sun Also Rises

 

[TheFatKid]

1. Augustus McCrae - Lonesome Dove

2. Logen Ninefingers - The First Law

3. Bob - The Bobiverse  (yes, this is cheating, but you should read to find out why)

Haven’t read 1 yet.

2 and 3 are really fun characters.

 

[Sand]

Haven’t read 1 yet.

I ended up having to read this for a book club.  I can't say enough how incredible of a book this is and how much I recommend it

 

[TheFatKid]

I ended up having to read this for a book club.  I can't say enough how incredible of a book this is and how much I recommend it

It and All The Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy were on my list to read. I compared page length, got lazy and went Pretty Horses. But as soon as finish Horses I’ll move on to Lonesome.

 

[TheFatKid]

Kvothe - the king killer chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss 

Enoch Root aka Enoch the Red - various appearances in Neil Stephenson novels 

Kelsier - Mistborn The Final Empire Brandon Sanderson

 

[joffer]

Holden Caulfield

Billy Pilgrim

Jack Ryan

 

[Chaz McNulty]

Verbal Kint (Keyser Soze)

My Avatar - Inigo Montoya

 

[BoltBacker]

Calvin. No, Hobbes. Really it's both. And the dad.

 

[AAABatteries]

Number one for me is Han Solo…a close second, probably Indiana Jones….I may be biased.

Wouldn’t the Harrison Ford alias say this?  

 

[brun]

Paul Atreides - Dune series
Tom Swift - Tom Swift series
Ernie Lundquist- A Child's Garden of Grass
Huckleberry Finn - Adventures of..
Ebenezer Scrooge - A Christmas Carol
Lennie Small, Of Mice and Men
Nancy Drew - Nancy Drew Mysteries
Hafid - The Greatest Salesman in the World
Paul/Saul - The Bible
The Cheshire Cat - Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Just what came to mind early  in the morning. Might be a totally different list on a different day.

 

[-OZ-]

Toto 

i need to read more fiction.  

 

[Mr. Mojo]

Odysseus (The Odyssey)  (I see I'm not alone on this one  )

Johnny Smith (The Dead Zone)

Noah Ackerman (The Young Lions)

Vito Corleone (The Godfather)

Hassan (The Kite Runner)

Athos, Portos, Aramis and D'Artagnan (The Three Musketeers)

Constantin Demiris (The Other Side of Midnight - pretty lame book but loved this character)

Atticus Finch (To Kill A Mockingbird)

Tyrion Lannister (various)