15 Characters

Another Facebook meme that I’ve been tagged with.  With a few minor modifications, I thought it’d make good blog fodder.

Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen fictional characters (television, films, plays, books) who’ve influenced you and / or that will always stick with you. List the first fifteen you can recall in no more than fifteen minutes. (I’m removing the tagging requirement because I swiped this from FB, but feel free to tag if you want.)

As a bonus, I’m adding a brief explanation after my choices because, well…, I’ve been lazy lately and need to fill this space with SOMETHING.

1.  Roland Deschain  (The Dark Tower series) – Stephen King’s magnum opus, a fictional character from both the past and the future with ungodly shooting abilities, a tortured man on a quest that may ultimately prove to be futile.

2.  Dirty Harry -  Never mind the two lines he’s most known for (you already know them, so I won’t bother listing them).  The ultimate definition of coolness is sitting in a Chinese restaurant (The Dead Pool) while it’s being robbed, then calmly mentioning to one of the perps, “You forgot your fortune cookie.”  And then reading it to them:  “It says…you’re shit out of luck”, followed by the obligatory KABOOM of the .44 Mag going off.

3.  Bugs Bunny -  Need I elaborate?  Anybody that can defy the laws of gravity and cut hair like he does in “The Rabbit Of Seville” is forever my hero.

4.  Mrs. Lift (Throw Momma From The Train)  – Ugly enough to shatter a clock, and with a voice that sounds like a runaway freight train.  OOOWENNN!!!

5.  Michael Corleone (The Godfather series) -  The ultimate Shakespearean character in a crime saga that ends as a tragedy.  A man who lives to keep his family safe by doing all the things and becoming the kind of person he didn’t want to, only to lose it all anyway at the end.

6.  Jean Luc-Picard – He did what was once considered unthinkable and impossible: he took over from Kirk as captain of the Enterprise in a new series, and put his own personal stamp on the role, making himself arguably even more of a legend than Kirk.

7.  Montgomery Scott, aka Scotty -  The ultimate miracle worker, and his instructions on how to look like one should be required reading for any engineering course:  always overperform and underpromise.

8.  Private Vasquez (Aliens) – Yeah, Ripley pretty much ran away from this movie, but I’ll always remember Vasquez and her smartgun helping the surviving marines get away from a devastating alien attack by disobeying orders and chewing up everything in sight.

9.  Andy McGee (Firestarter) – I actually did a post about him once, about the mental domination/autohypnosis abilities he had and it’s limitations, and the envy I held for such a superpower.

10. Domingo (Ding) Chavez (Rainbow Six, et al) – Tom Clancy’s young gangbanger Latino that joined the Army Rangers and later the CIA, and then became a charter member of an absolutely badass international counter-terrorist squad, Rainbow.  A good example of how far people can go, despite their backgrounds, if they keep their heads screwed on straight.

11. Hannibal Lecter – “Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.”  The one in your mind you want to unleash on all those stupid drivers that don’t signal, rude people blocking the aisles at Walmart, and the cretins that take up two parking spaces with their massive SUV’s.

12. Nurse Diesel (High Anxiety) – I never really cared for fruit cup anyway, so I’ll be as tardy as I want.  Just don’t string me up in your closet, please?

13. Odetta Holmes/Detta Walker/Susannah Dean (The Dark Tower series) – She’s actually two separate personalities merged into a third (Susannah): one humanistic and caring (Odetta), and the other a raving lunatic madwoman bitch (Detta).  Both combined to make a loving, caring woman as well as a merciless gunslinger.  And without any legs, at that.

14. Dr. Joe Early (Emergency!) – I just about had to flip coins to make a choice out of all the primary Emergency! characters.  But I always liked old Joe Early for his unflappable demeanor (in contrast to Dr. Brackett’s volatility), his skill at soothing old ladies and young kids, his quirky sense of humor, and of course his complete professional competence as a doctor.

15. Anakin Skywalker – Another sad, semi-Shakespearean tale of a basically decent kid with a few flaws that became magnified when he started hanging around bad company that seriously misguided him (Palpatine), thus becoming one of the most murderous villains in the Star Wars universe.  And one that was able to, at the very end of his life, redeem himself by killing his evil mentor and saving his son’s life.

Can’t help but note the Stephen King influence here, his characters appear three times, twice from the same book series.  It was a struggle to not pull multiple characters out of the same book/movie/show.

So now I’m interested in seeing your choices.  Anyone game?