Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Best literary character

96 replies

cupcaske123 · 13/08/2024 19:06

I was having this debate with someone the other day, who is the best literary character?

Dracula, Mrs Haversham, Elizabeth Bennett, Frankenstein's monster...

Who do you think?

OP posts:
timoteigirl · 15/08/2024 13:54

@FranticFrankie Holly |Sykes -oh yes.

gayhistorynerd · 15/08/2024 12:59

I find I'm caught between three options:

Sherlock Holmes, for solving plots I can't even imagine having the ideas to write.

Holden Caulfield, for being so realistically and awfully teenage. I hate him, and I love that.

Lestat de Lioncourt, for sheer charisma and moral complexity.

Igmum · 15/08/2024 12:46

Silas Marner

Sidney Carton

Anyone troubled who comes good in the end and whose name begins with S really

Andante57 · 15/08/2024 12:22

MapleTreeValley · Today 03:16
Linda and Davey from The Pursuit of Love are both fabulous characters

Definitely. Though I always thought Alfred was a prig, and Northey in Don't Tell Alfred was incredibly annoying - a goody-goody and a sneak. Did Nancy Mitford mean her to be so annoying?

Andante57 · 15/08/2024 12:19

My choice is Charlotte Mullen from Somerville and Ross's The Real Charlotte (late-Victorian masterpiece which should be better known outside of Ireland than it is) -- a brilliantly, comically awful, yet relatable, villain.

@Impasse yes! The Real Charlotte is an absolute masterpiece. There was a tv series made of it a few years ago but Charlotte was shown as (physically) an attractive woman which made a nonsense of it.
All the characters are so well drawn and the end in which Francie battles with her conscience is outstanding writing.
I always wonder what happened next? Snobbish Charlotte behaved appallingly to those she considered her inferiors. If she was still alive when the Troubles broke out 30 years later they may have got their revenge…….

Deadringer · 15/08/2024 12:14

Oh yes lots of my favourites already mentioned, but I would like to add Count Alexander Rostov from A gentleman in Moscow please.

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 15/08/2024 12:09

ilovepixie · 14/08/2024 23:08

Wasn't miss trunchball evil?

Show quote history

Yes, definitely. That’s why I tell my class every year that she’s my role model.

Toddlerteaplease · 15/08/2024 11:54

Sherlock Holmes!

MerelyPlaying · 15/08/2024 11:39

StoatofDisarray · 13/08/2024 21:17

Stephen Maturin and Jack Aubrey!

Definitely in my top five.

Thomas Cromwell as portrayed by Hilary Mantel.

Lord Peter Wimsey.

Harriet from the Olivia Manning ‘Fortunes of War’ books.

several characters from Elizabeth Jane Howard’s Cazalet Chronicles.

i’m sure it’s no coincidence that these are all books I reread during lockdown.

FranticFrankie · 15/08/2024 11:38

Lady Bracknell
Holly Sykes -a true heroine
Lizzie Bennett
Marion from Woman in White
Freda Klein and her long walks
Jackson Brodie
Dora Wexford

Original poster
cupcaske123 · 15/08/2024 11:29

DrRiverSong · 15/08/2024 11:27

Granny Weatherwax (well any of Pratchett’s characters to be fair, but she’s my favourite)

Winston Smith - George Orwell, 1984. A bleakness and sadness that lives with me and always will.

I do have a soft spot for cut me own throat Dibbler and especially love the backstabbing wizards.

OP posts:
DrRiverSong · 15/08/2024 11:27

Granny Weatherwax (well any of Pratchett’s characters to be fair, but she’s my favourite)

Winston Smith - George Orwell, 1984. A bleakness and sadness that lives with me and always will.

Ilikegreenshoes · 15/08/2024 11:24

So many absolutely brilliant characters already mentioned, but none from Georgette Heyer yet. She has some of my all time favourites. Sophy from The Grand Sophy is my top pick, though I know some people really don't like her. Gil, Ferdy and George from Friday's Child, Freddy from Cotillion, Neville Fletcher from A Blunt Instrument, Randall from Behold, Here's Poison, Abby and Miles from Black Sheep... I could go on and on.

RedHelenB · 15/08/2024 07:27

Hareton in Wuthering Heights.

labtest57 · 15/08/2024 06:31

Anne Shirley

VashtaNerada · 15/08/2024 04:47

Madame Bovary is depressingly realistic. And Anna Karenina.
Mr Collins, Lady Catherine de Bough, Miss Bates (Emma) and John Thorpe (Northanger Abbey) are all great comic characters.
David Copperfield (and Demon Copperhead for that matter) feel very rounded.
Iago is a fantastic villain.
There are so many!

Turophilic · 15/08/2024 03:30

I am thinking “best” in this context is most like a person - 3 dimensional, flaws and absurdities as well as good qualities and being someone you cared about.

Dorothea Brooke has to be a contender, I loved her. Middlemarch was a corker.

I agree with Cromwell in Wolf Hall too - a huge and powerful character, with flaws and conceits to match his many exceptional qualities.

Austen’s got three - Elizabeth, Emma and Anne. Emma’s annoying but very real.

weekfour · 15/08/2024 03:28

Obviously Mantel's Cromwell.

Oh Crumb.

MapleTreeValley · 15/08/2024 03:16

Linda and Davey from The Pursuit of Love are both fabulous characters.

Kainene from Half of a Yellow Sun.

LargeSquareRock · 15/08/2024 02:57

Nobody ever picks this but it’s Jem in To Kill a Mockingbird. The book is a homage to Jem’s coming of age and becoming a man.

Read the rabid dog chapter and the Atticus guarding the prison chapter then try and tell me I’m wrong.

ihaveanaughtydog · 15/08/2024 02:31

Marion Halcombe in A Woman in White.

Appledoughnut · 15/08/2024 01:51

Sam Vimes.

ilovepixie · 14/08/2024 23:08

Matildatoldsuchdreadfullies · 13/08/2024 21:00

Miss Trunchbull. My teaching hero.

I once had a child write in a card.

To Mrs X

Thank you for teaching me this year. You are just like Miss Trunchbill.

Nicest card ever Grin

Wasn't miss trunchball evil?

VaddaABeetch · 14/08/2024 19:30

Beckie Sharpe Vanity FaiR
Lady Bracknell the importance of being Earnest

highlandcoo · 14/08/2024 19:15

I know it's not an original choice, but it's hard to see past Elizabeth Bennett; she's so sharp and witty. I agree that Mr Collins is a brilliant character too.

Bessy in The Observations by Jane Harris is very amusing and a great narrative voice.

Mr Pooter and Lupin in Diary of a Nobody are just classic. So funny.

I cared about all four main characters in A Fine Balance but Ishwar is so thoroughly decent he would have to be my favourite. Same goes for Quayle in The Shipping News

Chris Guthrie in Sunset Song is also a beautifully realised character. The whole book is poetic really.

I seem to go for either funny or decent .. no nasty characters there!