fajrdrako | The pattern in the chaos of infinite possibilities

Browsing

viridian5's LJ, I came across her very interesting question: "Directly inspired by a comment Fyrdrakken made to one of my LiveJournal posts, I'm asking you what your ur-fandom crush, your perfect crush character, is." She then goes on to describe hers.

So: what characteristics do my BSOs have in common?

They tend to be strong, self-confident, and assertive to the point of arrogance. They are often in positions of leadership and authority - or conversely, outlaws who have opted out from the authority of others but who have taken authority on themselves. They tend to be independent and, if part of a team, are considered misfits there. Sometimes mysterious, they are often isolated loners - perhaps isolated by command position, perhaps by situation or experience. Usually they are extremely dangerous in one way or another, and sometimes self-destrucive.

They are extremely intelligent and quick-witted, good at snap decisions. They keep their feelings to themselves, usually, but are troubled even if they don't show it. This can spread as far as neuroses and personality disorders. They have great courage and are usually in the forefront of action, and protective of others. Though normally aloof they can be nurturing in the right circumstances. They appear morally ambivalent and may pretend to a different set of morals than they actually have; they are, in fact, moral to an extreme degree but it is not conventional morality they have adopted.

They tend to be complex psychologically, probably conflicted on at least one level

Physically they are tall, lean, dark-haired (or bald), and have a large nose. They have a dangerous smile, but on rare occasions can show also a beautiful smile that is totally sincere.

Now, I don't know if there is any one character who fits all these characteristics, but most of my crushes fit most of them. Examples of characters I adore, and where they are from:

Aragorn (The Lord of the Rings)
Bodie (The Professionals)
Francis Crawford of Lymond (The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett - the only blond in the bunch, unless I add Spike - a contender, though he is a character from a show I don't even watch.)
Nick Fury (Sgt. Fury and his Howlin' Commandos)
Galen (Crusade)
Gambit (a.k.a. Remy LeBeau) (X-Men and other Marvel comics)
Lex Luthor (Smallville)
Magneto (X-Men and other Marvel comics)
Methos (Highlander)
Fox Mulder (X-Files)
Sir Edward Pellew (Horatio Hornblower)
Jean-Luc Picard (Star Trek: The Next Generation - and I think he is furthest of all of these from my usual crush pattern; the anomaly being that he is such a social conformist compared to the rest.)
Mal Reynolds (Firefly)
Xas (The Vintner's Luck by Elizabeth Knox)

Note that this is a list of male ur-crushes in my history. For women, I would have an entirely different set of criteria for a crush. What would it be? That will take more thinking.