On Beautiful Characters

[sunlit_music]

So.

Beautiful characters.

Do any of you write about them? How do you make them interesting, and realistic? And which beautiful characters do you like?


My favourite beautiful characters are:

- Aseena, from Daniel's Forgotten Streets. Tough, smart, caring. She's hilarious! One of those larger than life characters. You know. The ones that make everyone stop what they're doing to watch them. I actually knew a woman like Aseena. The whole world seemed to stop just to pay attention to her! And she can make people fall in love with her just by focusing all her attention on them like they're fascinating or important.

- Seras Victoria and Integral Hellsing. Tough ladies steal my heart. Seras is a sweetie, and I love how she grows into a more confident woman. Integra is just AMAZING. She never says die. She refuses to give in, even when she's helpless and outnumbered. There's a great dignity about her, and a frightening ruthlessness too. She's practically made of iron. Her relationship with Alucard of twisted love and mutual respect is fascinating. It takes a strong woman to handle Alucard. 

- The Queen of France, from Victor Hugo's Ruy Blas. Flawed, passionate, vulnerable. Brave. Compassionate because she cared about her maid at an age when few nobles cared about their servants. She was also generous in giving alms to beggars, and saw her lover (a servant) as an equal.

- Kitten Avignon/Katerina Deserov, the Duke's courtesan from Jane Routley's Mage Heart. Clever, witty, and so, so wickedly fun. She's a woman of contrasts, too - one minute she 'll be giving alms. Setting up a free health clinic for struggling people. The next minute, she'd say harsh, cynical things about men in power.

- Mina Harker. She may look sweet and harmless...but this is one lady you do *not* want to mess with. Fiendishly clever (she was the REAL brains of the operation. While most of the other men bumbled and faffed around (with the exception of Van Helsing), she came up with ideas on how to defeat Dracula. Very sweet and brave too...I love how she comforts her friends and husband. And it is moving how she is the only person who urges her friends to have pity for Dracula, after everything he's done to her.


Worst beautiful characters:

- Arya, from Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle. Dreadful, dreadful series. Dreadful love interest. Dreadful protagonist. Dreadful...look, nearly everything was dreadful about that series, OK? Arya was rude, insulting to the religious dwarves, smug about her atheism (I hate how she makes other atheists look bad). And why does she wear leather if she's a vegetarian? o_O I never really got that.

- Princess Josiane, and Princess Imajane  from Tamora Pierce's novels. 2D cut out villains. I find it really annoying how Tamora Pierce often portrays flirty women, women who wear make up/fine clothes or blonde women in pink as being evil, stupid or unlikeable. At least Uline of Hannalof was flirty and likeable. Is it just me, or is Imajane is the same as Josiane, but with a different name?

- Ginny Weasley. Likeable in the first 4 books. Rude in the 5th book (made fun of Umbridge's fear of centaurs, when centaurs are known for raping women). AWFUL in the 6th book (insulted Fleur constantly, hexed Zachariah Smith, insulted Ron's lack of sexual experience, defended Harry's use of Sectumsempra (which slashed open a student's face). She never apologised to Fleur for her rudeness - it was Molly who apologised to Fleur).


Next post will be on sympathetic ugly or plain characters!

Comments

[baeraad.livejournal.com]

0_0 I had no idea you had actually read that post. Now I feel kind of embarrassed - it's far from my best work. ^_^; Still, I'm glad you like Aseena. She was fun to write - a sort of street-level Messiah whose main skill is always looking like she knows what she's doing. ;)

As I said in my Twilight post, most of my main characters are off-the-chart-hot. For a lot of years, I tried writing gritty, realistic stories about people who frequently made mistakes and who wasn't anything special. And then I wrote Flesh of my Flesh, mostly as a relaxing pasttime, and I realised something - gritty and realistic is boring. =] So since then I've given up all pretense of having everyman characters.

I always work hard at making sure that a character is more than a pretty face, though - that they have skills and problems and ideals and weaknesses (most of which are also larger than life, because that's what's fun). I like to refer to it as my Dessert Doctrine of Pervy Writing. Once I have given a character dreams and goals, skills and abilities, likes and dislikes and friends and enemies, only then do I feel that I may allow myself to also give her really big boobies. 8)

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Forgotten Streets! I liked how all of the characters were passionate, and incredibly talented and so very flawed.

I always work hard at making sure that a character is more than a pretty face, though - that they have skills and problems and ideals and weaknesses (most of which are also larger than life, because that's what's fun).

That's a great way of writing believable characters, actually. :) Characters with no flaws are boring. And larger than life flaws create larger than life conflict, which is what all stories need to become fascinating.

Once I have given a character dreams and goals, skills and abilities, likes and dislikes and friends and enemies, only then do I feel that I may allow myself to also give her really big boobies. 8)

*laughs*

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

I totally agree about Integra and Seras.

For me it's definitely Cynthia Velasquez from Silent Hill 4. Beautiful, seductive, and I only wish we saw more of her in the game. (A lot of people hate her though. Oh well.)

Bad beautiful characters... hmmm... I'd have to think about that some more.

[sunlit-music.livejournal.com]

I don't play Silent Hill. But Cynthia sounds awesome, the way you describe her in your fanfics! I liked how she was confident and seductive, and went for what she wanted.

Why do a lot of people hate Cynthia? o_O She seems fascinating.

[rosehiptea.livejournal.com]

Mostly because of her sexuality -- people call her a slut. It's pretty depressing.

I wish she had had a bigger part in the game so we knew more about her.