Who are your favorite characters from fantasy & sci-fi stories?

[Fast Learner]

This thread got to page 3 before anyone mentioned the Skipper? What are ya, a bunch of Peeps posting here?

I always preferred his Little Buddy, or The Professor.

Who are you talking about?

 

[Dakkareth]

Sci-Fi:

Laton from Peter F. Hamilton's Night's Dawn books. Completely amoral, ruthless and possessed of a brilliance degrading the best minds of humanity to mere dilettantes. He's the most wanted 'criminal' after driving a thinking, feeling habitat and close to a million immortal thought-constructs insane with a genetical engineered virus before destroying it and its population of several millions as a diversion for his escape. Firmly on the way to immortality and distributed existence within a network of controlled minds, he's possessed by a spirit returning from death (in a scifi setting, no less) and analyzes the threat to humanity posed by the dead, finds a solution, 'vampirizes' the possessing spirit and blows up a few million possessed souls before departing into the afterlife, telling the rest of humanity that there is a solution, but that they have to discover it for themselves. He's only a 'supporting character' appearing for only short time, but he outshines many of the main characters.

Aenea from Dan Simmon's Endymion books. It's not easy being the messiah 'destined' to liberate humanity from the oppressive control of the Core, the multitude of parasitic AIs, that have perverted the church and almost the whole of human society into unwitting processing units, all the while knowing, that she will die a painful death at the hands of the church. But Aenea manages. (Note that I'm only discussing the book, not RL religion)

Incidentally the two represent my favourite Science-Fiction books.

Fantasy:

Ben Adaephon Delat, aka Quick Ben from Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen books. He's only a mortal wizard in a world, where gods and other beings of terrible power play their games on the back of mortals, but he still beats them at their own game. Planning, outwitting and using unfair advantages are what he excels at, and damn is he cool. Quote: "Who are you?" "In the eyes of the gods? Only a mere sandworm ..." (at which point he uses a rare species of worms to unravel necromantic bindings, he couldn't even touch in matters of raw power).

In no specific order:
Anomander Rake, Icarium & Mappo Runt and Whiskeyjack (MBotF), FitzChivalric Farseer & Chade, Vlad Taltos, Munuel (Höhlenwelt).

There are a few others, but my tired mind can't produce the names. It's no coincidence, that MBotF features so prominently, as I'm currently in the process of reading it yet again.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Prefect Galway (The Blackcollar by Timothy Zahn. Not a villain so much as a great adversary.

My favourite book ever.

This thread got to page 3 before anyone mentioned the Skipper?

I really, really enjoy the Honor Harrington novels.

But, in some ways, it's almost in spite of Honor Harrington.

I don't find her that interesting a character She's just too good at everything, y'know?

-Hyp.

 

[Aesmael]

Ooh, Laton. I knew there was someone cool in that series but all I could remember was that awful, awful Quinn Dexter. The Night's Dawn is a good series if you like sci-fi characters and I hereby nominate Alkad Mzu to the list. Can you tell I like my characters competent?

And since Malazan characters seem to be the flavour of the moment, one I don't recall seeing mentioned is Iskaral Pust. There's a few characters in that with interesting speech modes but I think he's my favourite. He thinks he's being diabolical, secretive and manipulative but he's just making a fool of himself. Unless it's an act. And I just realised who he reminds me of: the wizard Zifnab from the Death Gate Cycle. Still my favourite of all wizard characters because he's just more fun, though Gandalf and Quick Ben are up there. And Haplo and the Dog.

Augh! I have to stop visiting this thread.

 

[Pants]

And since Malazan characters seem to be the flavour of the moment, one I don't recall seeing mentioned is Iskaral Pust. There's a few characters in that with interesting speech modes but I think he's my favourite. He thinks he's being diabolical, secretive and manipulative but he's just making a fool of himself. Unless it's an act.

It's an act.
At least, I think so.

 

[FireLance]

From fantasy: The Patrician of Ankh-Morpork and Captain Carrot from various Discworld novels.

From science fiction: R. Daneel Olivaw and Susan Calvin from the robot novels by Isaac Asimov. And Optimus Prime, if that counts as sci-fi.

 

[BASHMAN]

favorites

Fantasy: I am quite fond of Michael Moorcock's Hawkmoon series, my favorite characters being D'Averk, Olladahn, Count Brass, and of course, Dorian Hawkmoon. Baron Meledious is also a boss villain.

Sci-Fi. Two words: Darth Vader. No, make that four words: Boba Fett.

 

[Thotas]

Sorry Fast Learner ... as you may have divined from Hypersmurf's reply, I was referring to Honor Harrington of the RMN. And Hs, it's true, she can do it all, but what I really like about her is that she does Righteous Anger like nobody else. And it's not like her victories come without cost -- which I suppose is one of the reasons you like the books anyway. And rightly so.

Also, some people have mentioned that Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels have too many candidates to mention, besides which they somehow seem to call for a third category. But just to muddy that a bit more, I'd have to nominate Tom Holt's character of Flosshilde from "Expecting Someone Taller" in that department, it's where she seems to belong. For those who haven't read it, let me just say: Best. Supernatural Ability. Evar.

 

[Presto2112]

Fantasy: Mat Cauthon. From the earlier book in the WoT. Not as tragic and brooding as the other two main characters, and seems to actually have a bit of fun.

Sci-Fi: Bean from Ender's Game and his branch of sequels.

 

[Farganger]

Fantasy:

Grey Mouser, the archetypical clever rogue who isn't as clever as he thinks he is. I like all of the other not-so clever rogues that follow in other books, such as Jimmy the Hand.

Nice! I'll go with Jack Vance's Cugel the Clever, who to me is the archetype of this -- the gap between Cugel's self-image and any external evidence of his cleverness being perhaps a bit greater than in your examples.

For SF, I'll stick with the "picaresque" theme and go (moving into cinema) with Snake Plissken.