What's your favorite Mythological/Fantasy creature or person?

[RhysG]

Pandora. I suppose I like the whole 'origin of troubles' thing.

 

[Sleepy Voiced]

Odysseus. I have written several papers on him in undergrad and grad school. Fascinating.
I also find Odin to be a very rich character. As far as monsters, hmm, tough one. I like the roc and genies from the Arabian Nights. And anything that is a "spawn of Typhon" is generally pretty cool and bizarre.

 

[Teflon Billy]

Thor baby!

I'll quote Brunching Shuttlecocks here...

...The original Thor defined macho centuries before muscle cars and chaps even existed. We're dealing with a being who owned magical goats which he slaughtered and ate every night. The next day they came back to life, he'd have them pull his divine cart for a while, then he'd eat 'em again! This is an entity who lost only one drinking contest is his entire existence, and then only because as it turned out he was drinking the entire sea and didn't realize it. Not big on perception skills, but he sure could hold his liquor and/or seawater...

And his opposite, his brother Loki...

...Having earned a B.A. in literature from a California university, I've attended more lectures on The Trickster Figure in Myth than I care to recall.

You've got Coyote, Eshu, The Great Gazoo, the list goes on and on. And then you've got Loki. "Trickster figure" doesn't even begin to cover it. You think trickster, you think practical jokes, shoplifting, maybe some tagging. You don't tend to think of leading the legions of hell in battle against the gods at the end of the universe, but that's exactly what Loki's got jotted down in his celestial Palm Pilot. Also he's fathering illegitimate monsters with a giantess in his off hours. Heavy...

Those are the winners

 

[Odhanan]

Odysseus
Siegfried
Setanta/Cuchulain
Chiron
All the Viking pantheon, with a big first place for Odin for reasons explained by other posters above. This is one of the most complex mythological figures I know of.
Gawain
Parsifal

And many others.

 

[Odhanan]

For mythological creatures:
Dragon
Sphynx
Harpy
Minotaur
Griffon
Chimera
Manticore
Fomor

... and so many others!

 

[mythusmage]

Dragons, kobolds, Wotan*, and Bugs Bunny.

You want a malicious bastard with a nasty sense of humor? Try Wotan. Wotan is the kind of guy who will build up a mortal to near deital status, then drop him naked and helpless into a cesspool just for a giggle. Read Neil Gaiman's American Gods for his take on Wotan, and a much darker version of Loki than found in most popular works on Norse mythology.

Of course, if you want a really nasty bastard, take a look at the Odin of Sweden. A whole forest was given over to recreating his act of self sacrifice. Zeus was merely arrogant, the Odin of Sweden was actively malign.

 

[LogicsFate]

Athena/Achilles for peeps

and

Most Dragons and Flumphs for creatures

 

[francisca]

Gilgamesh
Beowulf
Grendel
Hercules
Thor


Can't go wrong with any of those and associated tales.

 

[Thotas]

I like Tim Holt's description of Wotan as the kind of guy who gets a cat off of a roof by burning the building down.

And Odin ... flat-out scary. In poetry around the world, including Scandanavia, there are poetic references to "the eight legged horse", and it's the one you ride when four people carry you, one at each corner of the box. His sacred animals, the wolf and the raven, are those that show up when the battle is over. Every soldier that dies in battle, either side, is a sacrifice to Odin's pets.

 

[shilsen]

First two which came to mind for me:

Cuchulainn
Krishna

And just about every second character from the Mahabharata.