100 Characters Of British Literature, In Order Of Bangability

[fajrdrako]

On one of my Dunnett e-mail lists, we've been discussing this list: 111 Male Characters Of British Literature, In Order Of Bangability. I don't know who Carrie Fyfe is, and there seems to be a tongue-in-cheek factor here - her own tongue in her own cheek, that is. And it begs the question, "What is literature?" I am assuming that writing for television or movies doesn't count for her list, though I would and will, by preference, include it.

But I read the first four items and thought: Yes! Mr. Rochester, Aragorn, and Eugene Wrayburn are three of my top four choices, and I thought I was the only person with a total pash for Eugene Wrayburn. Mr. Darcy - heh. Not so much. I've learned to tolerate him with time, but the rest of the world (and Elizabeth Bennett) can have him. My number one choice would be, of course, Francis Crawford of Lymond.

Which Don Juan is she talking about? The poem by Byron? Okay, I can see that.

Some of my least favourite characters are there, too: Heathcliffe and Flashman, who are abominable. And Uriah Heep? Captain Hook? King Lear? Aslan? WTF? Okay, I suppose the point is that Uriah Heep is towards the end of the list and therefore unattractive, but that means she's running out of choices rather fast.

She has the Duke of Avon and Sydney Carton, so I'm okay again. She seems to find Tolkien's characters sexier than I do: she puts in Hobbits, dwarves, and Tom Bombadil, to which I can only say, tastes vary. Or maybe it's that they're far on the wrong side of the "want/don't want" divide?

I'd like to see the same list done with American characters, too.

I'm going to cheat, because thinking of 111 male characters from books is... well, it's difficult even for me. I find myself thinking of characters by American, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, South African, or Irish authors; or in translation; or of female characters; or of characters from TV and movies. So be it. I'm sticking to British sources but I'm going to include character both male and female, from TV, movies, comics, plays, and books. Otherwise I'll have to fall back on having undesirable characters at the end of the list, and I don't want to do that:

1. Francis Crawford of Lymond (The Game of Kings et seq.)
   
2. Aragorn son of Arathorn (The Lord of the Rings)
   
3. Mr. Rochester (Jane Eyre)
   
4. Eugene Wrayburn (Our Mutual Friend)
   
5. Captain Jack Harkness (Torchwood)
   
6. Kate Somerville (The Game of Kings)
   
7. Hamlet (Hamlet)
   
8. Martha Jones (Doctor Who)
   
9. Sydney Carton (A Tale of Two Cities
   
10. Justin Alistair, the Duke of Avon (These Old Shades)
    
11. Sir Percy Blakeney (The Scarlet Pimpernel)
    
12. Oliver Mellors (Lady Chatterley's Lover)
    
13. Sam Vimes (Night Watch)
    
14. Gwen Cooper (Torchwood)
    
15. Cliff Bradshaw (Cabaret)
    
16. Lord Damerel (Venetia)
    
17. Severus Snape (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone et seq.)
    
18. Sam Weller (Pickwick Papers)
    
19. Bodie (The Professionals)
    
20. Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing)
    
21. Julius Caesar (Caesar and Cleopatra)
    
22. Captain John Hart (Torchwood)
    
23. Ross Poldark (Ross Poldark)
    
24. Captain Frederick Wentworth (Persuasion)
    
25. Sebastian Flyte (Brideshead Revisited)
    
26. Prince Hal (Henry IV, part 1 et seq.)
    
27. Emma Peel (Avengers)
    
28. Oberon (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
    
29. The Ninth Doctor (Doctor Who)
    
30. James Bond (Casino Royale et seq.)
    
31. Groa (King Hereafter)
    
32. Kester Woodseaves (Precious Bane)
    
33. David Strorm (The Chrysalids)
    
34. Danny Hislop (The Ringed Castle)
    
35. Inspector Tennison (Inspector Tennison)
    
36. Eowyn (The Lord of the Rings)
    
37. Satan {Paradise Lost)
    
38. Richard Sharpe (Sharpe's Rifles, etc.)
    
39. Dominic Alistair (The Devil's Cub)
    
40. Eomer (The Lord of the Rings)
    
41. The Tenth Doctor (Doctor Who)
    
42. Faramir (The Lord of the Rings)
    
43. Doyle (The Professionals)
    
44. Léonie (These Old Shades)
    
45. Gene Hawkins (Blood Sport)
    
46. Grainger (Grainger and the Hooded Swan)
    
47. Toshiko Sato (Torchwood)
    
48. Chauvelin (The Scarlet Pimpernel - influenced by Martin Shaw, here)
    
49. Fingon (The Silmarillion)
    
50. Lord Vetinari (Sourcery et seq.)
    
51. Domitius Ahenobarbus (Antony and Cleopatra)
    
52. Pete Wisdom (Excalibur)
    
53. Ivo Barrasford, Marquis of Rotherham (Bath Tangle)
    
54. Olivier de Bretagne (The Virgin in the Ice)
    
55. Joan of Arc (Saint Joan)
    
56. Cyrion (Cyrion - okay, it's another Lymond doppelganger, but it's a good one)
    
57. The Learned Gentleman Upstairs (The Story of the Amulet)
    
58. Mark Camford (The Moonspinners)
    
59. Ulysses (Ulysses, the Tennyson version)
    
60. Venetia (Venetia)
    
61. Don Juan (Byron's Don Juan)
    
62. Dysart (Equus)
    
63. Thorfinn (King Hereafter)
    
64. Piers Verderan (Emily and the Dark Angel)
    
65. Marcus Didius Falco (The Silver Pigs et seq.)
    
66. John Constantine (Books of Magic, Hellblazer)
    
67. Antony (Julius Caesar)
    
68. Felix Castor (The Devil You Know)
    
69. Philippa Somerville (The Ringed Castle)
    
70. Lord Peter Wimsey (Strong Poison et seq.)
    
71. Perdita MacLeod (Polo)
    
72. Sid Halley (Odds Against)
    
73. Adam Blacklock (The Disorderly Knights)
    
74. Eliza Doolittle (Pygmalion)
    
75. Jem Merlyn (Jamaica Inn)
    
76. Chrestomanci (The Lives of Christopher Chant et seq.)
    
77. The Highwayman (The Highwayman)
    
78. Maxim de Winter (Rebecca)
    
79. Rolf (Madselin)
    
80. Sylvester, Duke of Salford (Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle)
    
81. Lizzie Hexham (Our Mutual Friend - despite the fact
    
82. Bard (The Hobbit)
    
83. Tom Jones (Tom Jones)
    
84. Helena Justina (The Silver Pigs)
    
85. Lucifer (Lucifer)
    
86. Johnson Johnson (Dolly and the Singing Bird)
    
87. Rupert Campbell-Black (Riders)
    
88. Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra)
    
89. Adam (Torchwood)
    
90. Merlin (The Crystal Cave)
    
91. Niccolo Sannazzaro(So Wild the Heart)
    
92. Neil Griffin (Bonecrack)
    
93. Connan TreMellyn (Mistress of Mellyn)
    
94. Jenny (Doctor Who)
    
95. ALex Tanner (The Glass Ceiling)
    
96. Auberon (The Sandman)
    
97. Mr Miles Caverleigh (Black Sheep)
    
98. Christopher Marlowe (A Dead Man in Deptford)
    
99. Richard "Dick" Dudgeon (The Devil's Disciple)
    
100. Lady Christina de Souza (Doctor Who)
     

Hmm, not quite 111 - but I don't want to get into the dregs, as Carrie Frye did. Maybe I'll come back with more later. I would put in the hero of So Wild the Heart by Geoffrey Trease, if only I could remember his name.