Top 10 favorie literary characters (part 2)

7 At number seven is Grimalkin from The Last Apprentice series (or Wardstone Chronicles) by Joseph Delaney. The word grimalkin is an archaic word that means old or evil-looking female cat which is a perfect name for this malevolent witch assassin. In the book she was actually sent in to kill the main character until she allied with him to kill the Fiend  (the Devil). So now she is one of the "good guys" which is awesome because she is such a badass. She carries around a large pair of Scissors to cut off her enemies thumb bones, which is awesome. But she has never done that in the series instead she uses throwing knives and a long blade. But still that is just awesome still because I admire her for being such a strong female character because we don’t have many of those around that are like her. 

6 This one was one of my favorites during my middle school to early high school years, Alex Rider is a teenage British spy of the series Alex Rider by Anthony Horowitz. His spy career started when his uncle was assassinated by Russian spy Yassen Gregorovich and the M16 promoted him ever since. Ok what is cooler than a teenage spy I bet many of you fantasize about that at some point in your lives. Alex Rider is the best teenage spy ever, his pretty much the teenage James Bond. its pretty obvious why his one my top 10 list because what he is and does is awesome. 

5 Next is someone of the Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling and I'm very sure you know this one. But do you know who I like best off all in the series and it's not Harry Potter. Instead I actually like Professor Dumbledore. Although I did have a doubts about him during the 5th book because he was so standoffish to Harry then. But the reason why I like him is that he is incredibly brilliant but at the same time idiotic.  Because eve though he was such a powerful wizard in the later books who realize that he still makes mistakes and is flawed like the rest of us. Also I was so fascinated by his childhood and really want to know more in detail of how it was. Because he is such an interesting character and there should be more about him we should know. 

4  This character is a recurring character that almost never narrates his story or maybe that is the same for any brilliant detective character so we it would have a more dramatic effect when they uncover the criminal. The character I am talking about is Hercule Poirot (now how many of you thought it would be Sherlock Holmes). This character was created by Agatha Christie and is my favorite character from her creation. The reasons are unclear why but I like the fact he is so clever and knows that he is smart and never bows down to anybody and admit failure. He is also unconventional and you would never know what he is going to next in the story. All this is are the reasons why he is my favorite adult literary detective.  

Top 10 favorite literary characters (part 1)

Since I talked about protagonist in my last two blogs, I decided to make a list of my personal favorite literary characters. I thought this list would be fun to make. But actually it took me several days to work out my top 10 characters because I already had so many characters that I liked. So I decided to include characters that are the most recent or most memorial to me. Also to add, is that this list isnt just the main character but also included other supporting characters. 

10 The first one the list is Jay Gatsby (or James Gatz) from the Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald. I actually did an entire blog talking about what a great character he was so I wont go to great details on him. But I would like to comment on the fact that this character deserved a better then what happened to him in the end. Because he was such a great men with a powerful will to be able to accomplish such an almost impossible dream but he almost did. 

9 This is the most recent characters that I came to love, Kylie Galen. I also did a blog about her book series Shadow Falls by C.C Hunter. So I also won't go into too much details. But I would say that I didn’t like her at first because I thought she was such a melodramatic brat. But now I'm so much further in the series I have seen how much she has grown and accepted the fact that she isn't human and having the courage to find more about herself and accepting of it. 

8 My number is actually a character that I was so in love with during my late elementary days up to middle school days, Vladimir Tod. In the series The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod by Heather Brewer, this main character is just your average emo kid who happens to be half human and half vampire who lives in the human society in secret. There is also the fact that his existence is completely illegal and almost completely impossible. I loved this character cause he was just really funny and kind of awkward and also he was a bit of a dork nothing like how vampires are usually portrayed these days. But then again his only a halfling. I was so obsessed with this series that when I finished one of the books I nearly cried when I found out the next one was coming the next year and I had to wait so long for it. Although I just found there is a companion series to this one that I will in the near future check it out. 

 

Hero or Anti-Hero

In my last blog I talked about what makes a protagonist great. I even touched upon the different protagonist like the hero and the antihero.  Even though they are both the main character the have distinctive difference but also still share their similarities.  I mean there still the central character and many times try to resolve a conflict they are facing. There are more similar traits that they share on my last blog. But the most important thing is what makes them different. Well I found this site called Writer Write and they had this list compiled by Anthony Ehlers 

A HERO:	AN ANTI-HERO:
1 is an idealist	is a realist
2.  is the conformist, peace keeper	is the rebel
3. stands up to bad guys, faces great odds	stands up to authority, no matter if it is well-intentioned
4. faces conflict bravely, head-on	will try get around conflict, try sneaky strategy
5. is motivated by pure intentions (light)	is often driven by basic urges (dark) – but may turn to a higher calling near the end of story
6. has conventional moral values	has his own idiosyncratic moral compass
7.is always on the right side of the law	is often the criminal, thief or manipulates the law (‘the end justifies the means’)
8. wants to overcome his flaws and find his true purpose and destiny	is driven by self-interest or self-preservation
9. learns a lesson and is changed	is unchanged
10. can be complex but is usually never ambivalent	can be mysterious, unfathomable and unpredictable

I only put down 10 of the difference that I agree upon and if you want to see the entire list see the link above. But anyway I agree that those are the most basic distinctive difference between a hero and an antihero . If you cant tell by those traits above another way to tell the difference is comparing the character to either Superman and Batman and if they have more things in common with one of them then chances are that they are in the same category as those superheroes ( If you don’t know Superman is the hero and Batman is an Antihero.)   

The reason you would need to know the difference between these two is because you would know your character better and know how the story would progress based on the main character's persona. By knowing this  you have a better chance on what your character would do. The only question that needs to be answered is what do you prefer the hero or the anti-hero? And can you guess which one that I like based on the books I blog about? 

 

What makes a Protagonist

What characteristics makes a character great, especially the protagonist of a story? What makes a protagonist a protagonist? What is it about this characters that makes them great? Is the main character always the best or popular character in a story? I was very curious about this so I went online to find some facts to solve my questions. First I decided to look for what exactly a protagonist is and what the oxford dictionary says is that "the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text." Basically the central person of a moving plot. But it didn’t answer my question about what makes them a protagonist. Is it just the story focuses on them more or is there an outline that states what a protagonist is. 

So I went online and I often found that many sources have some commonality with each other. On a site called Fiction University I found some great things about what makes a protagonist great. A protagonist must have a problem that they need to solve, an ability to act and reasons, has something to lose or gain, might have the capacity to change, has an interesting quality, flaw and or a secret. Lastly and perhaps the most important aspect is that there is someone or something that is interfering with them and without a conflict in a story the entire plot would just fall apart. This wasn’t the only site that great advice other suggested many things until I realize that all those traits have something in common. They were qualities of a hero. But not all protagonist is a hero sometimes they can be an antihero or be a flat out villain in the story. But if they all have the traits described in the Fiction University site then there is a guarantee that the character will be successful as the protagonist in a story. 

I also learned  that sometimes a story will have a character as a  protagonist, instead  they end up being killed of unexpectedly. This is called a false protagonist often used to make the plot more exciting  by fooling the audience's preconceptions, by making  a character whom the audience assumes is the protagonist but is later revealed not to be. There usually introduced in the begging in is rid off later in the story often killed off. This technique is often used in thriller and suspense and most of the time an example it was  used in the movie, Psycho. 

Either way my question about what makes a character the protagonist  has been answered but why that character was chosen as the main character has yet been answered. But my guess is that they stand out in some way like they have a special skill or have a special heritage of some kind. So what I think a protagonist is that character that has something special about them that they use to solve what ever problem is in their way. Because don’t all stories are like that somehow?

Sarek

Ok I'm going to  blog about Sarek by A.C Crispin. This is one of my favorite star trek novels along with Dark Mirror, Star Trek; the novelization and any one of them that has Q centered around the story. But any way if you don’t understand a thing I am saying then I warn you that the only way you can understand if you were a trekker, trekkie or have some idea of what star trek is. And since I am a huge Trek Fan I am finally going to do a blog about Star Trek! and if you have a problem with that then sorry but I had to do a blog about this book considering the fact that I have read this book so many times that I should be sick of it.

In this book, Sarek has to go off and negotiate an important treaty for the Federation like he usually does. But instead his Wife Amanda Grayson was back on Vulcan dying and might not survive long enough for his return. But that isn't the only problem going on, there is the mysteries species that Keep their faces hidden and have mysteries ties to Romulans and Vulcan. That is pretty much the basic plot there but that part of the book isn't even my favorite part of the book. The parts that I keep rereading is both Sarek and Amanda's flashbacks. I really the one when Sarek proposed to Amanda and the time got lost in the desert. But everything else in the book is really good it even featured the entire Enterprise crew and Kirk's nephew. So you know that this book is going to be fantastic and if you’re a Star Trek fan you would definitely love this especially if you have a thing for Vulcans or Spock in general.

The Daughters of the Moon

You know I just realized that I did a post on The Sisters of Isis by Lynne Ewing but I never did one on The Daughters on the moon. But I did mentioned it in The Sisters of the moon blog. I think I mentioned that unlike the other series is that this one is finished and that I am further ahead in it but did not finish the series yet. My excuse for not finishing the series was because I was reading a different series at the time so I had to quit one of the other series so I could focused on the other one. But anyway lately I have been thinking about going back to finish the book series that I didn't finish. I also remember really liking that series but I think I started to hit the point in a long book series that I just completely get tired but I usually go back to the series but sometimes I go back after several years later.

I stopped reading at number eleven which was called the Prophecy in the series and the girl who was the protagonist of the book was Catty. She is the one that is able to go back in time. The other girls have different powers like Vanessa can became invisible, Serena can read other people’s mind, Jimena can see into the future and Tiana has the powers of telekinesis. But I think my favorite power is actually Catty’s even though Serena is my favorite character of all of the group.

What I really like most about the books is that they incorporate Greek mythology plus Superpowers plus scary shadow demon thingies that are equated in the lives of different teenage girls. I really liked the fact that all the girls are so different from each other like Vanessa is in the popular clique, Catty is in the artsy one, Serena is a musical gothic girl, Jimena was from the gangs and Tiana is a homeless girl that has been on the run from demons from a long time. In real these girls would not be the best of friends and because the books alternate from their points of view you get a sense of familiarity from each one of them.  But it has been a while since I have read the books like back in 2012 so I think I have to reread the books again. But it’ll be worth it.

The Golden Compass

I remember the first time when I saw the Golden Compass movie. Well I remember renting the movie from Family Video store but still I remember that in the movie the people in the movie had talking animals stuck to their side. It wasn't until many years later that I watched the movie again did I figured out that the talking animals were actually daemon, meaning that they are the other part of their soul. But anyway the second time that I watched the movie it made more sense and I actually really enjoyed it. So when I found out it was actually a book written by Phillip Pullman I rushed the next day to read the book. That all happened two years ago is why now I am blogging about it after these years? Two reasons actually, the first is because I recently own the movie the Golden Compass and the second reason is because I have yet to finish the trilogy. Yup there are two books after the golden compass, the Subtle Knife and the Amber Spyglass.

I realized that I should continue to finish the second book the Subtle Knife. I was barely a few chapters in that book until I returned back to the library. I have no idea why stopped because I was actually on a good part of the book. Must have been finals stress because I remember being a bit anxious during around the time. But I’m going back to finished the book starting with watching the Golden Compass because I really don’t want to reread the book again. Besides the movie, if I remember correctly the movie was very close to the book. But anyway after the movie I am going back to finish The Subtle Knife and then after it will be the Amber Spyglass. Truthfully I actually have been wondering what happened to Lyra and Pan after they arrived to that other world and if you read the book you would know what I am talking about. But if you watched the movie I just gave you a hint to what happened to Lyra after the movie ended.