Which fictional character do you most admire?

[Eviora]

 

A while back, there was a topic about which fictional character best represents you. I like that sort of thread, so I thought I'd make one about which fictional character you most look up to. The rules are simple. You can choose any character from any medium of fiction. Just not characters who are or were real life people. Feel free to explain or not explain your choice as you please. Oh, and be sure to tag your spoilers.

 

---

 

For me, this matter should be simple. I've already spoken about it on these forums a little, so I doubt it will come as a surprise. That said, ALL HAIL LELOU-

 

Spoiler

 

Huh? What's wrong Lelouch? Don't you want-?

 

Spoiler

 

ALL HAIL HARUHI SUZUMIYA, BRIGADE CHIEF OF THE SOS BRIGADE!

 

Yes. Out of all the characters there are in fiction, I admire the selfish, eccentric, hyperactive and occasionally borderline sociopathic Haruhi Suzumiya more than any other. And I imagine it's not so hard to see why. No matter how others view her, despite being universally labeled as crazy, Haruhi chases her dreams. Dreams that most people would brand as impossible. She doesn't just want the world to be a more interesting place than it seems to be at a glance; she demands it, and somehow, she has a way of getting what she wants. I can only wish I could match her fearless determination to make the world around her fun - and to be so thoroughly herself in the process. She finds ways to keep her life not just interesting, but mind-blowing, virtually every day of her life. She's not afraid to try things she's never done before. She's the polar opposite of the dull, suppressed husks this world tries so hard to mold her to be. And that is why I look up to her more than anyone other character in fiction.

Edited December 25, 2016 by Eviora

[Lilleen]

Hmmm ... ah, yes, I think this one.

 

Spoiler

 

Ah, Silent Hill 3, my favorite game from this series. And by far, my favorite protagonist is Heather Mason (or Cheryl, but I prefer referring to her as Heather as to not confuse her with another character by the same name). Not only because she's the only female protagonist in the main series of games, but because she goes through such big amount of changes throughout the game. She begins as this snarky, sterotypical teenager and by the end, it more mature and easier to sympathize with. She's a flawed character that is very relatable. 

 

Another thing I appreciate about Heather is how she's not a victim of being sexulized for her gender. Sure, she wears a miniskirt, but there's never once a shot that was uncomfortable nor trying to sexualize her. She's a teenage girl and is respected as one by the game creators.

[Shamitako]

Am I allowed to be narcissistic and use Blink? No? Darn

 

Then let's go with [Censored]. Oh dear, where did that come from? Hmm, this could be an issue

 

Perhaps then Suehiro Anna from Hourou Musuko. She's, kind of, brave and smart and human. She's always honest, sometimes to a fault, and even though she's a bit prickly she really does care. Also this happened (Anna is the black haired one):

[Joker]

There are a lot of character's I've come to admire over the years. So I'll just go ahead and mention the most recent character.

 

Noctis Lucis Caelum

 

Long story short is Noctis went through a LOT of shit in a short span of time and in the end he sacrificed his very own life in order to extinguish daemons forever and bring true peace to his nation. It might be one of the most overused cliches, but self sacrifices are still very admirable especially when they are on the scale of Noctis's.

 

Mine contains spoilers for Final Fantasy XV, so if you don't want to ruin the ending to that game do not open up the spoiler above.

 

 

[Creatinsanivity]

Definitely Swamp Thing.

 

Alec Holland was caught in an explosion, he caught fire and ran into water. He died there. The parliament of trees still chose him as their guardian of the Earth and a pile of plants thinking they were Alec Holland rose from the muddy depths, thus bringing the Swamp Thing to life.

 

He is a reluctant hero, always worried about keeping balance. As his plant side fights the side still clinging to the humanity it never had, he constantly has to make choices that might endanger human lives. The power he weilds is enormous but he does not use it lightly.

 

I also like the horror elements always implemented in his storylines, an endless river of undead and also humane horrors. Still he keeps his sanity, which is admirable.

[ZEL]

Probably gonna sound a little silly, but for me it's gotta be Minerva McGonagall from the Harry Potter series.
 

Spoiler

 

As far as fictional characters are concerned, I've always treated her as something of a role model.
She's an exceptionally intelligent and knowledgeable person who has put much effort and practise into perfecting the skills she's known for. She's smart, disciplined and goal-oriented.

I've always admired her for being such a stern, yet fair and sensible teacher. She'll give anyone the chance to speak up and she'll listen, but she doesn't take shit from anyone.

Her appearances in the books (and movies) were refreshing because she really is such a good example of a reliable and capable teacher. She's not nice and she doesn't try to make herself popular with the students, but she knows her stuff and she'll do her best to help everyone succeed. And she does often show a compassionate side and give advice to those who need it; it's obvious that she does keep an eye on and care about the education of her pupils. (Telling Neville to stop trying to live up to his grandmother's expectations and instead follow his own passions, anyone?)

Honestly, I'll be happy if I can ever be half the teacher she is.

Not to mention, the woman's an absolute badass who can stand her ground in battle, never once wavers in her loyalties, becomes someone the heroes can rely on throughout every single book, and thoroughly earned the respect she gets.
It's also pretty cute how eccentric she can be on occasion. And sassy. I fucking loved every single scene between her and Umbridge, simply for the sheer sass. "I should have made my meaning plainer. He has achieved high marks in all Defense Against the Dark Arts tests set by a competent teacher."
And I must automatically appreciate anyone whose reaction to finding their school invaded by Dark wizards is to attack them with the help of a horde of galloping desks. CHARGE!
 

...I'm also pretty sure I've never seen a better portrayal of a book character in a movie than Maggie Smith's role as McGonagall.

 

 

 

[mar_mar]

Well..The character I admire the most throughout the years..Is Lightning from ffxiii series, she's so stoic, brave, independent, beautiful and tries to literally save everyone, she's selfless. The close second character I admire most is Tifa from another final fantasy series..specifically ffvii. She takes no shit from anyone, independent, beautiful, a bit oversexualized but that's okay, she's a total badass and she has this love thingy for Cloud, though it was just hinted in the games. Um..Maybe I love being independent and that's represented in the characters I admire.

[Guest]

Kenzo Tenma because this guy is fucking selfless and really swell. He's honestly pretty inspiring to me.

Edited December 22, 2016 by Telos

[Eviora]

Thanks for the replies, everyone~

 

@ZEL I have always loved that quote. =p

[Palpatine]

Hmm
Well the 2 characters i could most asociate throught my life were Marik Ishtar and Deidara (from Naruto) 
Marik -for a lot of personal reasons and i can strongly relate to his abusive childhood and the way he 'coped' with all of it

As for admiration
Kreia (Star Wars KOTOR)
Revan ( KOTOR)
Palpatine/Sidious (i'm mean ofc :P)
Madara Uchiha

Madara and Kreia are here for similar reasons as they both had, in my oppinion, plausable goals and solutions to their world's problems and the way they went up about it was badass

Palpatine aka Darth Sidious - i mean come on you just GOTTA admire the dedication of that guy. Rose to such a position in his life  rich heir-politician-sith lord-senator-emperor and had the biggest impact on the universe of SW. Going in depth would take too long but people who are into the deeper segments of the SW universe know what i'm talking about   

[Felicity]

Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden. Conjure by the name at your own risk.

Dresden has been my role model since I was 12. He is far and away as human a character as I've ever seen portrayed. He is not perfect, he is often terrified out of his mind, petty, he's subjected to both ordinary and extraordinary temptations all the time. What makes me admire him is his tenacity in sticking to his principles. This guy is an incredibly powerful wizard who could by all rights become a god about halfway into the series and abuse his powers as he likes. He doesn't though and he exemplifies the reasons why responsibility and care for the consequences of your actions are important. He tried to do right by others as much as he can, even if he doesn't do a good job of it.

 

Did I mention he also has a serious list of feats that would make ordinary action heroes shrivel in shame?

[Alistair]

I'm not sure if it's actually the one character I admire the most, but he came to my mind spontaneously so I guess it might be a good indication of how much I value him.

...it's Asgore Dreemurr from Undertale.

Spoiler

Asgore is one of the least immediately likeable characters in the game. He makes his appearance extremely late, and on a neutral run he's here pretty much only to kill you and take your soul. He's presented as a kinda goofy king, who plays nice with everyone but doesn't hesitate to try and murder a kid, should it allow him to reach his goal of liberating his people from their underground prison. Nonetheless, as you play through multiple routes you get to learn a lot about him, and how terribly misunderstood he is.

 

Asgore used to rule above the monsters alongside his wife, Toriel, who admittedly was the brains behind the throne. Due to tragic events I will not disclose for the sake of saving space, he declared war against humans in a feat of rage, which disgusted Toriel. She chose to leave him and go in exile. Asgore, a very mediocre ruler, was left with the responsibility of running a kingdom that had fallen into complete despair. He himself had just suffered a family tragedy (again, not going into details) and felt deprived of everything he held dear. Yet Asgore tried to do his best to comfort his people. He gave them a purpose with his self-professed war against humanity, gave them the goal of finding a way to escape the underground and reclaim the surface of the earth. Meanwhile, he assumed the role of a casual, easy to access and always happy-go-lucky king so his subordinates wouldn't feel down themselves, even though he was already broken inside.

 

His war against humanity and attempts to free his people led him to commit terrible crimes. He captured and executed innocent humans, encouraged his royal scientist on her way to horrible experiments. And he hated himself for it, more and more as time went by, but he never stopped because he couldn't betray the trust of his people. He had locked himself into this situation. For centuries, he has been torn between his will to do what was needed, and his own guilt. He made terrible choices but never dropped the act of the happy and goofy king, just to comfort everyone else.

 

And finally, the main character, the last human he needed to kill in order for the liberation to happen, arrives and beats him. All his hopes, his duty, everything he fought for, shattered in an instant. That would have been enough to drive anyone completely insane. And what happened instead? Asgore accepted his fate. He knew he had committed the unforgivenable, and he bowed to the human, urging them to finish him off and save their hide. Asgore didn't even try to save himself. He placed his faith in his enemy, sacrificing himself in the process.

 

This utterly tragic character lived through centuries of suffering and always placed the happiness of others before his own. He did do wrong, and even in his endeavour of freeing his kind he made idiotic choices because of his own cowardice, but ultimately he always aimed to do the right thing. No matter the consequences for him, and knowing his conscience would haunt him forever. Despite being often weak and full of flaws, the strength of character and sheer abnegation he displayed during his life are simply uncanny, and I admire him for this.

 

[Ojama Yellow]

 

[Maelstrom]

On 12/22/2016 at 2:15 PM, Quinn said:

There are a lot of character's I've come to admire over the years. So I'll just go ahead and mention the most recent character.

 

 

  Hide contents

 

 

Noctis Lucis Caelum

 

Long story short is Noctis went through a LOT of shit in a short span of time and in the end he sacrificed his very own life in order to extinguish daemons forever and bring true peace to his nation. It might be one of the most overused cliches, but self sacrifices are still very admirable especially when they are on the scale of Noctis's.
 

 

 

 

Mine contains spoilers for Final Fantasy XV, so if you don't want to ruin the ending to that game do not open up the spoiler above.

 

 

 

That reminds me of my recent partial play-through of Duodecim Dissidua: Final Fantasy.

I liked Kain because he was fully willing to (and does) sacrifice himself so that the others can finally reach victory in the next cycle of fighting.

I liked Jecht because he was rough but mature on a level with Kain when it came to wisdom and dealing with the group. He sacrificed himself for the love pf and belief in the potential of his son.

I liked Cloud because we was able to turn from doing what he was told and fight to save those he wanted to protect. He is defeated in his bold bid to take on Chaos directly on his own, but his thoughts to save Tifa revived him for the next fight on the side of light.

I liked Golbez because his love for his brother led him to betray the other antagonists to see the war end in the favor of light, with no thought for himself. His words of guidance are what finally tip the lopsided scale in favor of the heroes winning. Like Kain, he has the added weight of remembering the past (where the most of the protagonists don't) and the desire to atone for past mistakes (that weren't really their own fault, from what I've read of their individual game story lines).

 

It also makes me think of FitzChivalry from The Farseer Trilogy (and the Tawney Man Trilogy, and The Fitz and Fool Trilogy...) because he sacrifices so much in his own life to struggle and fight for his royal family (despite being a lowly, expendable bastard himself) so that the entire kingdom isn't dragged down into ruin. (Seriously, Quinn, I think you'd really like this series if you liked Noctis for those reasons) He makes his share of mistakes and then some (he really makes me mad sometimes with his decisions and attitudes) and suffers the consequences of his actions, even if they aren't mistakes.  Whether you're ranting at him or with him, it's definitely worth the experience. I always feel like I've come away with something more with each re-reading of every book in the series.

 

Quote

medium of fiction. Just about characters who are or were real life people.

 

 

Wait, what? Fiction means fake. And Lelouch and Haruhi aren't even based off real people (that I know of). I'm confused.

 

But I definitely agree that 'represent' and 'admire' are definitely important distinctions worth noting. Certainly, in keeping with the title, no one has mentioned any non-fictional characters.

[Eviora]

@Maelstrom Thanks for catching my mistake. Edited accordingly.

[Frozenwolf94]

The character I admire the most would be Izuku Midoriya, aka Deku from My Hero Academia. Now most people didn't like Deku's personality in the show, being a cowering wimp as some people might put it and not like his character at first but he became my favorite character in the show because how relatable his story was. I love how he is so determine to obtain his dream of becoming a hero at the start of the show even though he didn't have any powers. And another thing is I just love how he stood up against his childhood bully, Katsuki, and as someone who was bullied up until the end of my freshman year of high school I was so rooting for Deku in that fight against Katsuki and so far is hands down one of my favorite fight in the show.

[LucidRain]

Solaire of Astora, Dark Souls.

 

A fan favourite because of his memorable quotes and personality, he became my favourite because of his endless bravery for pursuit. He gave up his Humanity and cursed himself to be an Undead, just so that he may pursue his ultimate goal of finding his own sun. He is surrounded perpetually by the ones who wish to kill him, yet he accepts them as they are accordingly. He eventually outruns the Player throughout the entirety of the game up until the Demon Ruins, and with weapons and armour that have absolutely no special qualities at all. He pursued his dreams with his own might, and a mortal he may be, he did not stop searching for his own sun.

 

And that's something not many people can do.

[NatJones]

Mines a little different from the norm, I don't know how many of you have seen the film "The Bone Collector" with the one and only Denzel Washington in it. or read the book it is based off.

 

But for me, there is two. One - Lincoln Rhyme. The main man. A quad who, against all odds, still manages to get his man. And Amelia Sachs. Again from the same book/film.

 

If any of you get a chance, have a read/watch