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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 4847653" data-attributes="member: 463">A self-insertion character is actually very common in fiction, and not necessarily bad.  Frodo appears to be Tolkien's self-insertion character, but not a wish-fulfilment character.  Conan is a wish-fulfilment character, but IMO REH pulls it off, because REH-Conan is not invincible and even spends much of his adventures running away from the monsters.  Marvel's version of Conan ("No man is his equal!") can become annoying, though.  For me, Edgar Rice Burrough's heroes like Tarzan & John Carter of Mars are good example of ones who just cross the line.  Pastiche characters like Tarl Cabot of Gor veer way over the line.  For me El is up there with Tarl, although being a genial free-love hippy rather than B-D fetishist is somewhat less horrible I guess.</blockquote>