You Heard the Man

          "They say, best men are moulded out of faults,
           And, for the most, become much more the better
           For being a little bad."
                     
            -- William Shakespeare, "Measure for Measure", Act 5 Scene 1

    Today, I think we'll take it from an expert. 

    All of my favorite characters on the All-Exclusive All-Time list are definitely flawed.  (Peeta's on that list, which almost dashes the continuity there, but I think Snow and a certain venom took care of that.)  Maybe that's just a personal preference of mine, but I think it raises a point.  We all know that no one likes perfect characters, and most normal people don't like purely awful characters either.  Society tends to frown upon that -- but then again, I frown on society, so who knows.

    All of my Favorites have some sort of quirk that makes them interesting -- and not necessarily nice -- and influences the story line.

   A great example of this is Artemis Fowl.  He's not one of my Favorites -- I mean, he's a great character and all, but he's not on The List --, but he's quite flawed, thank you very much.  He can be ruthless, manipulative, completely full of himself.  (The fact that he's the biggest supergenius out there doesn't exactly hurt matters, either.)  He ends up showing gradual growth -- peachy -- but he doesn't completely lose his flaws in the process.

    What about you?  Is there a common thread between all your favorites -- or do you even pick favorites?  (The notion is completely foreign to me, but my mom actually doesn't pick favorites . . . except for Peeta, that is.) 

    And what scale should the characters be on -- way flawed or, in the words of Shakespeare, "a little bad"?

What Makes Characters Special? And the Big 3 of Rules

I can sum up my favorite thing about books in one word:

    Characters.

    It doesn't matter where they take place -- New Pretty Town, Middle Earth, Hogwarts, Panem --, it's always the characters that stand out to me, no matter how cool any setting is.  So I always ponder what makes those characters special.

    And the truth is, I don't really know.  Probably no one does.  There's just too much in a great character to really express -- kind of like you can't sum up a person with words.  You can try, you can get close, but there's some sort of residual essence you just can't translate into print.  Since I think of characters as people, I figure it's that same principle that keeps me from completely taking the characters apart and seeing what's so great.  Circumstances and backgrounds play a pretty big part in them, I'm sure. 

    What I can do, though, is go through and analyze traits of the Greats that contribute to their characters, their personalities.  Of course, since favorite characters and "good" qualities are really subjective -- I know some people who don't even have favorites, which my brain just can't fathom --, we're not all going to agree.  And that's okay.

    For today, though, here are some main rules that I figure everyone can agree with:

    1)  Your characters can't be all good.  Really, they shouldn't come close, either.  Nobody likes a Goody Two-Shoes in real life, and that trait doesn't come across so well in print, either.  (That's probably one of the biggest reasons I can't stand the character Eragon.  Again, personal opinion.)

    2)  On the flipside, your character can't be all bad.  Sure, an evil character might not be as annoying as a perfect character, but s/he'll still be really flat, boring.  Some of the best books have the best villains -- I'd name some, but that sounds like another post to me.  Shades of grey need to be included in all characters, but this is especially neglected in villains. 

    3)  Your characters need to have weaknesses.  Probably kind of obvious, but the above two weren't exactly top-secret, either. 

    Actually, this post is getting sort of long, so I'll leave it at that for now.  Up next?  The character analyses, or whatever you want to call them.

    What about you?  Do you pick favorites -- and if so, what qualities seem to stand out in them?