The fannish five...
Dec. 10th, 2004 12:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fajrdrakoI haven't done this in a long time. From The Fannish 5...
What 5 characters perform their actual jobs well?
All my favourite heroes, characters, and slash protagonists perform their jobs well, because doing so is a common attribute of my favourite characters - I like competence, success, intelligence, honour, all the things that add up to doing a job well, whatever it may be. There are exceptions - Eugene Wrayburn springs to mind, one of the heroes of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, who really couldn't care less about his actual job of being a lawyer. But Dickens himself had no patience with the stupidities of the law and Wrayburn's real calling was as a wry satirist-philosopher.
Moreover, many of my favourite characters don't have actual jobs. Methos may be a student of human nature but his pose as "student" is mostly sham. Gambit is a thief, Julius Caesar was - well, he was a conqueror, and he had half the political jobs that existed in Rome, and it isn't as Pontifex Maximus that he made it into the history books - but if you think of him as a soldier, he made a damn fine job of it. And just look as my current enthusiasm for Bagoas - his 'job' doesn't even have a designation in our modern world - what, Attendant of the Royal Bedchamber? - though I suppose you could pare it down to 'dancer'.
Now I'll stop ducking the question and actually answer it - though I find I'm picking some people in pairs, for obvious reasons:
What 5 characters perform their actual jobs well?
All my favourite heroes, characters, and slash protagonists perform their jobs well, because doing so is a common attribute of my favourite characters - I like competence, success, intelligence, honour, all the things that add up to doing a job well, whatever it may be. There are exceptions - Eugene Wrayburn springs to mind, one of the heroes of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend, who really couldn't care less about his actual job of being a lawyer. But Dickens himself had no patience with the stupidities of the law and Wrayburn's real calling was as a wry satirist-philosopher.
Moreover, many of my favourite characters don't have actual jobs. Methos may be a student of human nature but his pose as "student" is mostly sham. Gambit is a thief, Julius Caesar was - well, he was a conqueror, and he had half the political jobs that existed in Rome, and it isn't as Pontifex Maximus that he made it into the history books - but if you think of him as a soldier, he made a damn fine job of it. And just look as my current enthusiasm for Bagoas - his 'job' doesn't even have a designation in our modern world - what, Attendant of the Royal Bedchamber? - though I suppose you could pare it down to 'dancer'.
Now I'll stop ducking the question and actually answer it - though I find I'm picking some people in pairs, for obvious reasons:
- Horatio Hornblower. Best midshipman/acting lieutenant/Captain in His Majesty's Britannic Navy. Except for Captain Sir Edward Pellew, best captain/commodore/admiral in His Majesty's Britannic Navy, and Horatio's mentor.
- Bodie and Doyle from The Professionals - CI5 agents. Just ask Mr. Cowley, though he wouldn't admit it to their faces. Much.
- Lex Luthor. Built LexCorp (and/or LuthorCorp) into a great business empire despite great odds. Not only that, he invents all sorts of cool stuff. Or he will. Or he should.
- Captain Jack Sparrow, the best pirate of all - or do I mean the worst?
- Francis Crawford of Lymond, the fictional world's finest overachiever, whether it be in drunken promiscuity as a musician, or in becoming the Tzar Ivan's best General and chess-player.
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 01:45 pm (UTC)Niiiice choices.
no subject
Date: 2004-12-10 01:48 pm (UTC)Glad you like my choices!
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Date: 2004-12-10 02:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-11 08:43 am (UTC)