Greatest Character Showdown! (Nominations CLOSED)

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121. Dr. Anton Phibes

Anton Phibes, famous organist and a doctor of Music and Theology, thought to have been killed in a car crash, was in fact only horribly disfigured. Phibes is convinced that his lovely wife, Victoria, who died during a surgical operation, was a victim of incapable doctors. Several years after the operation, Phibes begins to put his vendetta into effect, killing the doctors that operated on his wife. Inspector Trout from Scotland Yard suspects Phibes, but it is difficult to prove when he is believed dead, not helped by the incompetence of the force. Trout eventually discovers that Phibes has been taking his inspiration from the Bible, specifically the the ten plagues of Egypt, which is part of the psychic force that drives him. Helped by his mute assistant Vulnavia, Phibes kills seven doctors and the head nurse, one by one and more brutally each time, using the first eight plagues as themes. Phibes reserves the worst punishment for the head of the team of doctors, Dr. Vesalius. He kidnaps the doctor's son and places him on a table on which a container full of acid is waiting to disfigure the boy's face. A small key implanted near the boy's heart will free him. Versalius will need all his skill to operate and free his son. As Vesalius arrives, he learns he has only six minutes to operate on his son and to save him from the acid. The operation succeeds and the acid instead strikes Vulnavia (either killing her or otherwise incapacitating her). Convinced he has completed his vendetta, Phibes lies beside the embalmed corpse of his wife and, as his blood drains out, with the police and Inspector Trout closing in, the chamber under his house in Muldean Square sinks into darkness. As the stone sarcophagus sinks, we hear Phibes singing Somewhere over the Rainbow, one of the most bizarre endings ever given to a horror film.

 

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122. Honor Harrington

Honor Stephanie Harrington is a fictional character, the eponymous heroine of a series of science fiction books set in the "Honorverse", written by David Weber and published by Baen Books.

An officer in a star fleet known as the Royal Manticoran Navy, Harrington bears a striking professional resemblance to both the real life Admiral Lord Nelson, Captain Thomas Cochrane, and the fictional (composite) character Horatio Hornblower. Like Nelson, she loses an eye and an arm in combat; her initials are the same as Hornblower's, and like all three officers, she has a genius for tactical command throughout the series and becomes a living legend by using those skills in several major engagements—battles for which the press dubs her The Salamander— for always seeming to be "where the fire is hottest". By the tenth main-line novel (Ashes of Victory) Honor has emerged as a strategist of note as well, and has been promoted to Admiral in both the Manticoran and Grayson space navies.

 

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123. Captain Nemo

Captain Nemo is a fictional character featured in Jules Verne's novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and The Mysterious Island (1874). "Nemo" is Latin for "no-one". This name is aptly chosen. Nemo is a mysterious figure, about whom all we know is that he identifies with the oppressed, and that he has apparently lost his wife and children. He is a scientific genius who roams the depths of the sea in his submarine, the Nautilus. In Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea he states that the laws of the world on the surface do not apply to him any longer, and that he has fled to the sea to escape the barbarism of the human race, with its wars and oppression. He claims to have no interest in the affairs of the world above, but occasionally intervenes to aid the oppressed, giving salvaged treasure to Cypriots resisting a Turkish invasion, or by sinking warships. Nemo goes out of his way to accommodate Professor Arronax and his companions, and also, during a diving expedition, he risks his life to save a pearl diver from a shark attack. Nemo tries to project a stern, controlled confidence, but he is driven by a thirst for vengeance, and wracked by remorse over the deaths of his crewmembers and even by the deaths of enemy sailors. In the Mysterious Island, a still mysterious but gentler Nemo secretly helps the castaways of the island and in the end warns them that the island will perish in a volcanic eruption. Nemo dies of old age just before the eruption and is buried in his ship that is then sunk.

 

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124. Doctor Evil

The details of my life are quite inconsequential.... Very well, where do I begin? My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15-year-old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize; he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament... My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon... luge lessons... In the spring, we'd make meat helmets... When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds — pretty standard, really. At the age of 12, I received my first scribe. At the age of 14, a Zoroastrian named Wilma ritualistically shaved my testicles — there really is nothing like a shorn scrotum — it's quite breathtaking... I suggest you try it.

 

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125. Snake Plissken

Snake Plissken is a former U.S. Army Lieutenant. He was a war hero serving under Special Unit Black Light, with two Purple Hearts, and the youngest soldier to be decorated by the U.S. President for bravery during campaigns in Leningrad and Siberia in World War III.

Some time later, he turned to a life of crime, probably due to the perceived betrayal of the United States government during the "Leningrad Ruse". Snake took up with partners Harold Hellman (later known as "Brain") and Fresno Bob. In Kansas City around 1993, Hellman apparently let Plissken and Fresno Bob get cornered by police (when they meet later in Escape from NY, Brain says, "You were late."), at which time Fresno Bob was apparently killed by the United States Police Force.

Possibly as a result of the Kansas City incident, it was widely believed in the criminal community that Plissken was dead. This is a recurring joke in Escape from New York - "I heard you were dead." In Escape from L.A. the recurring joke is changed to 'I thought you'd be taller.'

 

[johnsemlak]

Two characters, Tarzan and James Bond, have just been nominated a second time. Thus, #120 and #124, should be taken out and we're at number #123--next entry should be 124.

 

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Sorry about that! I will post replacements.

 

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126. Gollum

Gollum is a fictional character from J. R. R. Tolkien's universe of Middle-earth. Originally known as Sméagol, he was later named Gollum after the disgusting gurgling noise he made in his throat. He is estimated to have been born in the year 2430 of the Third Age. He died on March 25, 3019. His life was extended far beyond its natural limits by the effects of possessing the One Ring. At the time of his death, Gollum was about 589 years old, a remarkable age for a creature who was once a Hobbit, but had been deformed and twisted in both body and mind by the corruption of the Ring. His one desire was to possess the Ring which had enslaved him, and he pursued it for seventy-six years after he lost it.

 

[johnsemlak]

127 The Gray Mouser

The Gray Mouser is one of two heroes who are the main characters in the Lankhmar novels by Fritz Lieber. His companion, Fafhrd, is the other. Both are famed swordsman in the land. The Mouser fights with a pair of weapons: a light sword called Scalpel, and a dagger called Cat's Claw.

The Mouser, originally known as Mouse, was an orphan, possibly born somewhere in the lands south of Lankhmar, perhaps Tovilyis.

He was apprenticed to Glavas Rho, a wizard who died at the hands of the men of Duke Janarrl. The Mouser was able to use his magic training, black magic, to avenge is master's death.

 

[ThirdWizard]

128. John Crichton (Farscape)

From Wikipedia

John Robert Crichton, Jr. (played by Ben Browder) is a fictional character from the science fiction television series Farscape. He is an IASA astronaut who in the opening few minutes of the pilot episode is catapulted across the galaxy, thus setting the scene for the show as a whole. As the only regularly appearing human on the show he is the main focus and (arguably) the main character.