Favorite Fictional Character?
 

Can be from book, movie, comic, whatever. Someone who's life you'd like to live.

I'll go fist:

Simon Templar, AKA The Saint. (not the t.v. movie Saint, but the Leslie Charteris novel version).

The robin hood of modern crime .

Althalus from The Redemption of Althalus by David and Leigh Eddings.

I love the character. I love the concept of the house and the doors. He was a thief and a good one too until his luck ran out.

I have too many I relate to.

Slippery Jim DiGritz - The Stainless Steel Rat series
Pug - Raymond E. Fiest sagas
Drizzt DoUrden - RA Salvatore stories
Polgara - Edding's Belgarion sagas
Vlad Taltos - Steven Brust's series
Raistlin - The Dragonlance sagas
Ford Prefect - The Hitchhiker series
Peter Parker - Spiderman
Bruce Banner - The Hulk

James Bond! duh... Though his life would be painful, but oh so pleasurable as well....

Bender from Futurama

Edmund Dantes from the Count of Monte Cristo...one badass, vengeance driven man.

Alex De Large from A Clockwork Orange

Tender Brandson
Tyler Durton
Raistlin and Caramon From Dragonlance
Drizzit Do'Urden
Artemis Entreri
Jarlaxle (Dark Elf Series)

Skeeve (and Az) from the M.Y.T.H. books by Robert Asprin

That's a tough one..

I'm going to have to say at this current moment it's Repairman Jack.

Anomander Rake from Steven Erikson's series Malazan Book Of The Fallen...
An ascendant...or deity, an arrogance that is overwhelmed by the power he posesses. The complexity of his character is fantastic too, love how Erikson reveals small aspects of him in the new books.

YES!! Glorius! Ditto! (another F. Paul Wilson fan)

George W. Bush?

Actually, Croaker from the Black Company books, or Morrolan from the Taltos books.

Andrew Wiggin, "Ender's Game."

Mr. Wizard......drizzle,drazzle,dradle,drone..time for this one to come home.

Han Solo, Brodie Bruce, and Hannibal Lecter

World's King (TFP)

There can be only one: Jim Rockford.

At the tone, leave your name and message and I'll get back to you.

Micheal Corleone from The Godfather 1 & 2. The writer of the 3rd movie changed him too much

As far as classics I'd have to say James Bond and Micheal Corleone.

The cool fictional character of the here and now I think is Jack Bauer. That guy kick major ass.

I'm gonna stress at the beginning of this that I am talking about the books (there's about ten of them), not the movie.

Not the movie. Not the movie.

The answer is Fletch. Does his own thing, endlessly quick on his feet and creative. Compassionate and does what feels right. Often gets shat upon because he is so much his own person, but he doesn't let it get him down. At all.

Am still upset about the movie. Can't even bring myself to see the second one.

Also a big fan of Jake from Silverado (the Costner role). Childlike, but completely capable when the chips are down. "Jake fell off his horse???"

barry burton - resident evil
jack - fight club
tommy vercetti - GTA3

Homer Simpson!!

but seriously, who doesn't want to be James Bond!

and bookwise, i'd have to say Rand al'Thor from WoT...

I'd say it's a tie between Gerald Tarrant (Cold Fire Trillogy) and Thomas Covenant (The First and Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant).

Tyler Durden - looks like I wanna look, fucks like I wanna fuck, plus I love how he doesn't chase the american dream.

first off, this is hardhardHARD to answer and i cannot pick just one. characters that have hhelped me live are......

Rand alThor - wheel of time. this guy has been to hell and back and still fights for the good of all. you really can't get much of a more be-damned scenario than Rand.

Drizzit Do'Urden - drow from Dragonlance, mainly the Dark Elf Trilogy
he is born in a place as evil as hell... but he's good. he goes through so much, everybody hates him but her perseveres.

Cecil - Final Fantasy 4 this guy goes from a some-what evil black knight to a holy Paladin

Im gonna have to go with the nerdy answers of Goku and Vegeta from DBZ. And to be even more nerdy I will throw in an obscure character from ff7 by the name of Vincent Valentine.
OOO and that irish guy from Braveheart, Stephen is my name!!!

Admiral Thrawn - Star Wars novels
Drizzt Do'Urden
Fitz - Robin Hobb's Farseer novels

I was thinking about this the other day, and I have got to chance my answer to Vito Corleone. It would be wonderful to be a "man of respect" to that degree.

Hiro Protagonist from Neil Stephenson's Snow Crash

LESTAT - the Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles series. Not the movie version, but the real book version.

Holy cow, if there wasn't another guy who was as messed up but so freaking great as Lestat, then I don't know what. He is the one guy I know who can sleep for years, go to heaven, go to hell, switch bodies, and still suck a few necks with gusto.

Marius from the Vampire Chronicles for me, something about his doomed existance entralls me, he's beautiful, he's talented, he's powerful but he is still subject to human emotions, more often than not pain.

Blood and Gold is my favourite novel though many Anne Rice fans will disagree with me.

Batman!

I have to go with Bond...James Bond.

I've been watching him for years....and we have all wished to be him at some point.

Lazarus Long
Jim DiGriz
Retief
John Blackthorne
Edmund Dantes
Remo Williams

that's more or less for starters . . .

Who else? Sherlock Holmes, the worlds first consulting detective; all others stem from him.

Neo from the Matrix. Dodges bullets, knows Kung-Fu, gets the girl, and does it in style. :D

comic character: Spiderman

movie character: Jack Burton (Big Trouble in Little China)

book character: The Grey Mouser or Conan

i love Venom, extremely powerful, a lil insane, doesnt mind killing to make a point, and has all of spidermans powers.

i also love lightsaber battles, so any sith or jedi were great characters, especially Darth Maul, one of the greatest fight scenes ever

Ender from Ender's Game.

Major Nelson from I Dream of Jeanie, although I wouldnt be as big of a dumbass as he was. . .what a waste

"Q" from Star Trek the Next Generation

Paul Mudib

The guy that invented the potion in the movie "Love Potion Number Nine"

Arthur

Highlander

Hmm... I think for me it would have to be one of the following:
Aoshi Shinomori - Anime series "Rurouni Kenshin"
Vegeta - Anime series "Dragon Ball Z"
Hiroaki Protagonist - The novel Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson

Ah shites!! I didnt read the beginning or was thinking about something else. For some reason I thought it was fictional characters we would want to be.

Major Nelson and "q" definately dont rank in my favorites, but I wouldnt mind being one of them.

Tough question.....Ford Prefect....or Zaphod Beeblebrox....hm...

Dick Dart, in Peter Straub's "The Hellfire Club".

He's just the meanest, most disgusting psycho ever seen. Plus he's witty as hell. He just keeps you switching back and forth from wanting him to get skinned alive, to wanting to drink beer with him. And then he goes right back and does something so sick that your stomach turns cold.

William of Baskerville, from Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. He's a Franciscan monk, a former inquisitor, and a better detective than Sherlock Holmes ever was.

"THE HULK" all the way my absolute favorite, what can i say im a comic book junky.

Re: Favorite Fictional Character?
 

I was going to say my current favorite is Miles Vorkosigan, but NOT if you insist on "someone who's life you'd like to live" because I wouldn't. He spends entirely too much time on the sick list, or getting ready to go back on the sick list.

Someone whose life I'd like to live? Maybe Doctor Dolittle or a member of the Long family other than Lazarus. The problem with the Real Heroic Characters is that they get beat on a lot. That's what makes them heroic. It's the old Chinese curse: may you live in interesting times. They're fun to read about, but not to live in. And it follows for the most interesting people, for the same reason.

I don't know about you people, but I think that, even with all my own problems, I wouldn't give up my life for anyone else's. You don't know how another person really is until you are them. For instance, I expect that Bill Gates spends a lot of his time stressing out about what to do next. If I had that kind of money, I wouldn't, but he built that fortune so I doubt he can stop thinking in the sense of continuing that way.

If you don't want to look that deeply at it, maybe Storm or ... (smirk) Mistique. Yeah. Mistique could be a fun person to be, even with all her anger. NOT Spiderman. Even with all his smarts, he acts like a total idiot too often for my liking.

I really like the idea of being one of the Long family other than Lazarus, especially Hilda. Yeah. Hilda's the bomb, though being Zed might be slightly better.

Hmm. "Sam" from Ronin. Tommy Vercetti from Vice City. Drizzt from the Dark Elf series. That covers movie, video game, and book. From comic I'll take The Maxx, because he's completely insane.

Ah, interesting idea. How would you like to be Duncan McCleod of the Clan McCleod?

You want to be a leper??

You want to be an uber-hacker. You're probably the most realistic person here.

Tasslehoff Burrfoot & Flint Fireforge

The hulk,wolverine,spiderman

Three words- Conan. The. Barbarian.:D

Clint Eastwood in his role as "the man with no name" in "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly", "Fistful of Dollars", and "For a Few Dollars More."

Smooth, confident, and a quick bastard with a pistol :)

Resurrecting an old forgotten thread..............

I would want to be Sheriff Andy Taylor, Bob (from either Newhart show), Richie Cunningham, Andy Travis from WKRP, Rob Petry... etc etc... I know it's boring and not exotic, but each of them were well liked by all, comfortable in their own skin and most of all were happy. In 30 minutes everything was solved for them, their friends all cared, and they were pillars of success in every way.........

nice find, pan.


monsieur hulot (my favorite film character, star of 3 of my favorite films ever)
divine (and john candy as divine as peter pan singing "i dont wanna grow up" while sweeping back and forth across a stage attached to a rope)

napoleon dynamite


ignatuis p. reilly (from confederacy of dunces)
mister palomar (from the calvino book)

pierre menard---to wit:

http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/borges-quixote.html

Agreed....especially about Andy Travis from WKRP in Cinnci...I still advocate that this is and was the all time best sitcom EVER!!!!....especially the on-air drunk testing of Venus and Fever episode....

That is very interesting....

I'm gonna add two recurring characters from two authors whose books I've just finished plowing through. My most recent guilty pleasures.

1. Jack Reacher...an ex Army MP...who is downsized out as a Major, and spends his years drifting around the US getting into all kinds of trouble and solving problems. He is a character created by Lee Child, and is the subject of all of Lee's Books.

2. John Corey....is a "partially disabled NYPD cop" and current AntiTerroristTaskForce Federal Agent in NYC....he's an all around smart ass and sharp as a tack detective. He is a Nelson Demille (probably my favorite author) and while not Demille's exclusive hero is his most frequently recurring. I recommend ALL of Demille's books...and all of his heros are excellent.

-bear

If it has to be one, I'd say Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird.

He's a thoughtful, loving father, tolerant and respectful of those different from him, and willing to do what's right because it's right, even in the face of great opposition.

Jane Tennison, Prime Suspect
DI John Rebus and of course a classic, Harry Callahan from the Dirty Harry movies.

Horatio Hornblower from the Hornblower series by C. S. Forester. Because he's pretty similar to me except he gets to sail around on pretty ships and wear shiny uniforms.
Mulan from the Disney movie. Kicks ass and gets the hot guy, what more can a girl want? :)

Elizabeth Bennet.

I adore her...and she got Mr. Darcy.