Top Ten Characters Who Stayed With Me Long After I Closed Their Books
Not an easy one this week as the prompt was very broad - Top Ten Characters Who... And the rest was left up to each of us to make up. I have seen some great ones already today, notably Top Ten Characters Who Were Well Portrayed on the Screen, but I decided to go with the ten characters who were so memorable that they still rattle around in my mind long after I have finished reading about them.
Fitz and the Fool
Two glorious characters, Fitz especially has a wonderful voice that resonated with me long after I had closed the last page of Fool's Fate. But as anyone who has read Robin Hobb's fantastic series can tell you, Fitz cannot exist without his Fool. Their relationship is by turns tender, troubling, exhilarating and confusing. The two of them together will always be amongst my favourite characters.
NOTE: I am almost half way through Fool's Assassin at the moment and it is so good to hear Fitz's voice again!
One of my - if not my all-time - favourite series, I love all of the characters in J.K Rowling's universe, even the villainous ones. Harry, Hermione, Dumbledore, Hagrid, Voldemort, Draco, even Snape, they all came to life in those pages and do so again every time I pick up the books. They will always live in my mind, and did so long after I closed the cover on Deathly Hallows.
Harry Dresden
The only wizard in the phone book, Harry Dresden is cool, sarcastic, powerful and a total bad-ass. But that isn't why he stays with me every time I close one of his books. It is because no matter what he goes through (and man, he has been through a lot!) he always gets back up and keeps on fighting.
Roland
There are so many Stephen King characters who resonate with me, but Roland has such a hold on all of King's œuvre, that he really stands out. The tragic circular nature of his quest only heightens that and he definitely still whispered in my ear long after I finished the last Dark Tower book.
Phedre
From the moment she begins to tell her tale, Phedre has such a unique, compassionate, strong voice that it is impossible not to fall in love with her. Following her through two trilogies cemented her place in my list of amazing characters and her voice is still there, somewhere, in the back of my mind.
Lisbeth Salander
A unique character, strong and tragic at the same time, Lisbeth has such an amazing arc through the three books. Although she shares the billing with Blomkvist, the trilogy is definitely her story through and through, and her way of seeing the world and reacting to it stayed with me for a long time.
Edmond Dantes
A man who rises from the deepest depths of despair to turn himself into a vengeful count, but who retains enough humanity to show compassion and find love at the last, Edmond Dantes is a great character. I discovered him in the pages of the Count of Monte Cristo and return to him often as I can.
Star of a vast series of novels, Honor has grown from a callow captain to one of the most powerful women in the Manticoran Star Kingdom. She has wits, she is brave and loyal to a fault, she is a woman who has known love and loss and has never allowed any of it to make her bitter. I look forward to every new book with her in it.
Like Honor, Gabriel is a man who has known great loss, and who has managed to not only stand up and carry on doing what he needs to do, but also has been able to embrace a new love and a new family. The soul of an artist combined with the mind of a killer, he is incomparable in his field.
And we end as we began, with two characters so memorable together that they are inseparable. The heroes of the first and third Cemetery of Lost Books novels, Daniel and Fermin are similar to Fitz and the Fool in that they are great friends who both have secrets that they keep hidden from the other. Daniel's voice in The Shadow of the stayed with me for a long time, and it was great to be gifted with Fermin's voice in the sequel. Both of them are extremely human characters, witty, cultivated and saddled with sorrow and darkness. Two great characters to add to the collection.
Those are mine, what are some of the characters you still hear whispering to you in the night?
