My Favorite Book/Movie Characters (and why they're awesome)

Normally my Thursday posts just discuss whatever the heck happens to be on my mind as far as writing, but today my brain contained only thoughts of how I'm going to edit this duology, accompanied by a semicolon and an emoticon. And as a semicolon and an emoticon are very little to write a blog post about, my sister and I put our heads together and decided that I should write the post about my favorite book and movie characters.

Today we're just discussing ten of them. Maybe another time when I don't have a topic I'll do another ten. That would be awesome.

So let's talk about ten of my favorite characters and why they're amazing.



Valkyrie (Skulduggery Pleasant)

I could talk about Skulduggery Pleasant all day. If you haven't read this series you must find them and read them immediately. It's about a living skeleton and all his allies with their magical powers and there's a lot of battling evil overlords and coming up with witty comebacks. It's basically my favorite book series ever.

Valkyrie is Skulduggery's sidekick/best friend/protege/student/P.I.C., and they get along fabulously. She's sarcastic, sassy, feeling, and just all-around kickbutt freakin' awesome. Over the course of the series, she slowly grows from twelve into a proper grownup, and you get to watch her grow as a person, too. She goes through emotional turmoil, family issues, relationship issues, has to go through multiple rounds of grief, and eventually has to figure out if this whole second-life thing really is for her. She's amazing.

Skull (Lockwood and Co.)
Another series that you absolutely must read. It's only four books, you'll be fine. It's about people who hunt ghosts, and all the characters are great. My pick from this series was almost Lockwood himself, but I opted for Skull because. . . Skull.

Skull is, as you may or may not imagine, is a skull in a silver glass jar who is the emotional anchor for a bad-tempered, Type Three ghost. He also is fabulously sarcastic, as well as psychotic, slightly murderous, and hilarious. Since he's a ghost, only some of the characters can hear him, so it's really funny when someone has a reaction to what Skull just said and everyone else is going 'What did he say????'

Jim Lake Jr. (Trollhunters)

Look at this precious child struggling to use his sword

Trollhunters is a DreamWorks show on Netflix. It pulled my heart out, chewed it into little pieces, then stomped on it. You should watch it.

Jim Lake is the sweetest, saddest, most perfect little piece of humanity that has ever existed. He's a skinny little high school student. He loves to cook (like, not just scrambled eggs. Think gourmet) and basically runs the house while his single mom is at work at the hospital. On top of that, he is also a knight (okay, technically Trollhunter) for a race of trolls that live in caves under his town. He is just the sweetest, and this smol human must be protected, ok??

Jim (Treasure Planet)
Now we've got two Jims in a row, but whatever. Treasure Planet is one of my favorite Disney movies like ever, and Jim is one of my favorite Disney characters like ever. He also only has his mom to look out for him, but like a lot of lonely teenagers when they're begging for help, he constantly has to make trouble for himself and his family. He gets that it upsets his mother, but he doesn't know how else to cope. And the best part is, John Silver takes his part as mentor very seriously and starts molding him into the best version of himself, pulling him out of his black pit and offering him some reassurance and stability in his life. It's so sweet. I think Jim is one of the best movie portrayals of overcoming depression I've ever seen.

Scarlett (Caraval)
Caraval is about a pair of sisters who get invited to this super cool magic festival on a magic island and all the chaos that ensues. It's super awesome. Their father is manipulative as well as verbally, mentally, and physically abusive, and as the older sister, Scarlett feels it is her job to take the brunt of everything. Her father's abuse of the two of them makes her fearful, reticent(if I'm using that word right), and measured in everything she does, as opposed to her sister, who is brash and wild. Scarlett's time on the island and everything she goes through there helps her break out of her shell and learn to take things into her own hands.

Scarlett's character is so different from me, normally I wouldn't have understood her very well, but I must commend the author for doing such a good job. I found her very relatable and I loved her.

Spiderman

I don't even have to say where he's from or explain who he is. He's a fan favorite, and I'm not even going to get started on the Miles Morales Spiderman movie. But let me just bring up a couple of things I always noticed and admired in the original Spiderman.

1. Spiderman doesn't complain. He goes through a lot between his uncle dying and then everything that follows. He's hated and loved by an equal number of people, he's in headlines as a menace rather than a hero. He gets beat up constantly and has to hide it from the ones he loves. He feels the deep-seated need to keep the city safe, and he still has to keep things together at home. But he doesn't complain. And what's more(this is point no. 2), he has enough going on at home and work. He doesn't have to do the superhero thing. But he doesn't quit. He keeps going through everything. And I respect that.

Denise (Agony House)
Agony House is a ghost book, and it was very good. Would highly recommend.

I wanna say Denise is a middle schooler(?), and she just moved to a new town, where her Mom is planning on fixing up an old, broken down house. It's a very poor, mostly black town, and all the people there worry they've only come to gentrify everything, have them kicked out of their homes, and then leave. But that's not the case. I didn't really understand Denise very well until she started talking about how she wanted to be a lawyer and why she wanted to do that. Then she really resonated with me. And her practical approach to everything, how quickly she took up arms with the other kids of the town, I liked that.

Heckleck (Tin Star)
Finally a post where I get to talk about HECKLECK!!!!!!!!!!!

Tin Star is a book about all these dead broke people trying to survive on this trashy ship called the Tin Star as it flies. I think it's a colony ship or something, I don't remember, and I wouldn't highly recommend reading it since it went massively downhill in the second half, but if there was one thing I loved about the book, it was Heckleck.

Heckleck is a buglike alien side character who likes everything to be even. He knows whether someone owes him something or whether he owes them something, and he knows exactly what level of a favor it would take to make the balance tip even again, whether it's in his favor or someone else's. His introductory scene is where he saves the main character, Tula, from almost certain death, even though he didn't have to, which really says something about him. He's not really a good character or a bad character, but he likes Tula, and even though he dies about a third of the way into the book and gets turned into fertilizer, I liked him a lot. He was fascinating.

Spock (Star Trek)

Speaking of fascinating, I'm about to have a really controversial movie opinion here, so are! You! Ready!

Here it is: I like Spock a thousand times better than Captain Kirk. And I always have. In the movies, in the original show, in everything, Spock is my favorite character. While Kirk is an endless flirt and a person of general reckless behavior, Spock is intellectual, logical, and therefore fabulous!! I have cosplayed as him before, I can do 'live long and prosper' on both hands, I own a Science Officer pin, I've got the works. Spock is the best.

Donna Noble (Doctor Who)

My favorite character from Doctor Who is obviously the Doctor, but I just wanna take a step back for a moment and talk about Donna Noble. First, the character arc. Donna starts off as basically an angry teenager in a thirty-year-old red-haired woman's body. She really wasn't the greatest. But the Doctor, despite being in a bad place himself at the time, is what brought her around. She realized that they couldn't both be ticked off and irrational all the time, so she was the one that changed. And by the time she got to the end, she was the sweetest, best person. (also, she was like the only person who had the self-restraint not to have a crush on 10. Respect there.)

Second of all, I firmly believe she fixed the Doctor. His previous regeneration had come straight out of a war, and even his 10th regeneration hadn't quite gotten over that. And (spoilers ahead) the loss of Rose made it so much worse. When Donna first came into the picture, he was in a very bad place. Having Martha in between helped a little, but I really do think it was Donna that fixed him. She made him see the good in what little he still had and helped him find new things to bring him some happiness. She was such a good influence on 10, and for that she will always have my respect and affection.




All righty, that was my ten fictional characters for today! I'll see you on Monday for a post about romantic cliches!


What do you think of my picks? Who is your favorite fictional character ever? Let me know in the comments!
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