Favorite Characters

As a consumer of media, I feel rather certain when I say that there’s always that one character who just works better than others. The character that has chemistry with everyone. The character who has the best lines – be they funny, poignant, or realistic. For the casual fan, these characters are their favorites.

When I talk about casual fans, I’m thinking of individuals who read/watch the material and move on. They might talk about it with friends or when making small talk, but they don’t go off on rants about it. They also don’t have social media pages dedicated to their fandoms. Many people are casual fans of the majority of their consumed media; however, they might have one or two shows or books they’re obsessed with – or avid fans.

Avid fans create content because they love the world, characters, or plot of a story so much. This content could be art, fanfiction, or simply rants about how awesome or horrible some aspect of the thing is. These are the people that line up outside of stores for midnight releases. We’re the ones that write reviews.

Anyways, I’m a huge fan of sarcasm. My favorite characters include Spike from BtVS and Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden from Dresden Files. While Spike started as a villain and moved from there to anti-hero then hero, Harry’s a hero through and through. Both snark constantly, and they aren’t too predictable.

No-nonsense BAMF are also close to my heart. Zoë from Firefly/Serenity was my idol growing up. Hermione Granger’s mix of emotional rationality represented my youth, but I wanted to grow up to be Wonder Woman (awesome movie, btw).

Now, the conflict comes when three out of four of those characters wasn’t the main character (MC). Harry Dresden is the point-of-view (POV) character (i.e. MC), but the others vary between primary characters (i.e. Hermione and Zoë) and those who change between primary and secondary characters (i.e. Spike). Technically, Harry Dresden is also a primary character, but his role as the protagonist of his series comes first.

With the WARLOCK OF ROCHESTER series, the POV/MC is Jon Blythe. Primary characters vary from novel to novel with only Jordan, Jon’s magic teacher, staying consistently in the foreground. A cast of secondary characters shift in and out to vary degrees, but the books cycle around the relationship and adventures of these two characters.

Who do you think has the best lines in their book/movie/show? Is there a character holding up a plot all on their own? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

To all those writing, as always:

Good Luck.