Who's your favorite character, and why?

[tabouli.livejournal.com]

Although I read my first Forest books at 12, it was 13 years before I found a forum where I could analyse them with other fans. When I did, I was surprised to discover a widespread dislike of Tim, who has always been my favorite character. Observing this made me muse on what it is that draws or repels a reader about a fictional character. I've noticed three factors which seem to shape readers' tastes, which I could tentatively divide into identification, affiliation and characterisation (fledgeling theory).

With identification, what seems to be most important is that the reader understands and feels empathy with the character. This is of course influenced by the point of view from which the story is being presented. Since the dominant PoV for the Marlow series is Nicola's, it's not surprising that most readers seem to identify most with her, disliking characters who ill-treat her and tending to share her opinion of the other characters. This, I suspect, is one major reason for the dislike of Tim, who often clashes with Nicola, and is dismissive of her priorities, especially in End of Term.

For me personally, while I do feel for Nicola in the series, at times I weary of her upstanding, noble ways and stiff upper lip, as I tend to value being resourceful over being principled, and emotional expression over emotional repression. Tim, on the other hand, is very resourceful, her style of managing her own emotional vulnerability is much more similar to mine, and I respect her dedication to her art.

Affiliation is about whether readers think they would like the character were s/he a real person. This overlaps with identification, but not completely: you could, for example, understand Lois' feelings about Nicola and even empathise to a degree without liking her in the least (AF handles this sort of thing particularly well). As we saw in the recent entry from carmine_rose on whether people would prefer Tim or Miranda as a best friend, there seems to be lurking distrust of Tim's perverse sense of humour and desire to 'run the show' (both in the theatre and out). Me, I like Tim's articulate, irreverent style, and am inclined to think that she'll grow out of its less appealing manifestations.

My tastes in fictional characters and my tastes in real people are based on different criteria, so much so that the affiliation factor doesn't enter the picture at all when someone asks me what characters I like in a novel. In fact, I'm more likely to apply this factor to the author (who *is* of the real world domain): would I like and get along with her, based on novels she writes?

Unlike the other two factors, characterisation takes a much more 'mechanics of fiction' approach. It's not about whether the character would be a nice person in real life, it's about whether he or she is a character who creates interesting tension and plot development in the fictional world created by the author. Many of the 'best' characters according to this criterion wouldn't be at all likeable! Another score for Tim in my book: her audacity in Autumn Term, her betrayal in End of Term, her wry perspectives in Cricket Term, her quirky creativity in Attic Term... she's always there, not always nice, but always making things interesting.

This, of the three factors, is always the one I weight most heavily when choosing my favorite character (hence my favorite character in Lord of the Rings is Gollum, and my favorite character in Harry Potter is Severus Snape, etc.). When it comes to fiction, interesting trumps nice every time for me. Which is why even though I follow Nicola's journey sympathetically through the books, I gain much more enjoyment character-wise from Lawrie and Tim.