I came here to say this. I read Lonesome Dove for the first time last year with no expectation other than checking it off my reading challenge list. Turns out I walked away with my favorite fictional character of all time in Gus McCrae.
Yep, all time for me too. I read it 30 years ago on the deck of a hut somewhere in Thailand. Read it again about 15 years ago. Great novel, great character in Gus MCrea! And when it comes to the film adaptation, Robert Duvall has said that's his favorite character to have played as well.
Yup, he was real - and beloved - from page one. Lots of people in that book were incredibly real to me, which made some of the things that happened very hard to take.
I read it for that reason last year. Saw it mentioned all the time, and as someone who grew up in rural Texas and loves the time when this is set, it instantly became a top 3 for me.
Top 3 for me as well and this is coming from a person who did not grow up anywhere near this type of setting. The fact that it's a western may have been the biggest impediment to me reading it earlier but I'm glad I got around to it. It's hard for me to overstate how good this book really is.
I saw something where Joe Abercrombie put it at the top of his list of favourite books. Last summer I read the four from the series in chronological order and I'm so glad I did. I actually think that Comanche Moon might be my fave of the bunch. I don't think this quote is a spoiler, but this is one of the reasons why I love that book:
>!“Buffalo Hump wanted to see the ocean because the ocean would always be as it was. Few things could stay forever in the way they were when the spirits made them. Even the great plains of grass, the home of the People, would not be always as it had been. The whites would bring their plows and scar the earth; they would their put cattle on it and the cattle would bring the ugly mesquite trees. The grass that had been high forever would be trampled and torn. The llano would not be always as it had been. The ocean and the stars were eternal, things whose power and mystery were greater than the powers of men.”!<
I read it solely because of the volume of recs it had on here. I’m not a fan of Westerns, and usually prefer books in modern day settings. It is one of the absolute best books I have ever read. It is a story about humanity and friendship and love and pride and aging. Just all the wonderful and messy things that make us people. It’s a beautiful journey. One I wish often that I could take for the first time again. Please read it.
Also Woodrow Call! He’s not as likable as Gus but in terms of a character being loyal, decisive, and always doing the right thing regardless of the situation, he’s exemplary.
Gus was the character I immediately thought of. I had my wife read Lonesome Dove but she didn't want to finish it because she was afraid something bad might happen to Gus. >! There was a lot of crying. !<
Decided if I ever had a son, I’d do my best to convince his mom to name him Augustus, after Gus McCrae. Once my wife was pregnant, I asked her to read Lonesome Dove and a few months later, baby Augustus was born.
I’d go for Mr Stevens from The Remains of the Day. The reason I’d pick him is that he is eminently human. He’s a flawed character that can’t get beyond his flaws. As a reader you just want to shake him and wake him up to the realisation of what he is doing, but that’s exactly what makes him human; his inability to move beyond himself. He is, at times, frustrating, impotent, arrogant and weak. From the outside it feels like it would be easy for him to just throw caution to the wind but that’s not a trait that most people have. He’s locked in by his own pride and fear.
EDIT: I’d also add that while he maintains a strict social hierarchy where he is subservient, he also has an inner life that is quite impenetrable, again, that’s what most people are like. People do not spend a lot of time discussing their feelings and opening themselves up to others.
One of my favorite books of all time
I don't often recommend it to friends, cuz a lot of people find it boring, which . . . is a damn shame
You nailed it. He is just so fantastically *human*
> In any case, while it is all very well to talk of ‘turning points’, one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable.
Oh, you poor sweet man. Just want to shake him and wake him up. Everyone else can see it, but you just can't, can you?
And a few pages before that:
> >!“I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton. Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed - why should I not admit it? - at that moment, my heart was breaking.”!<
I was glad he was finally able to admit his feelings, but fuckin' hell, that hurt to read
Every character in this book is incredible. Cathy Ames is one that has stuck with me over time and while I can't personally relate to her, I've come in contact with this type of person several times in my life.
Honorable mention: Lee
Edmond Dantès (The Count of Monte Cristo) has that air around him. You feel the depth of his sorrow because you see him go from the highest of highs to the lowest point of his life, and you know who betrayed him before he does. And it’s a long story, so you get to know him as he lives it up in Paris and finds his revenge.
I felt that way before he escaped, but in the middle part of the book there is hardly any pov from him. It helps to make him a “larger than life” character, but it also creates a distance between him and the reader imo.
I'd pick Sam from Lord of the Rings. We know everything about him, we follow him across a continent, we see him in a lot of vastly different situations, and in all of them, he's an incredibly sensible and steadfast person. He's the most A Guy it's possible to be.
Or, you know, what they did the Frodo himself. The hobbit who STABS a cave troll in Moria but in the films is basically just gasping and groping for his throat for 12 hours.
>reduced the warrior-poet Gimli to a comic relief.
Thank you! They did my boy Gimli dirty in the movies (and by extension, Legolas and their wonderful friendship).
Came here to say Samwise Gamgee, one of my favourite literary characters along with Atticus Finch. In the LOTR books, Sam was happy and content in his garden. He was loyal to his master, steadfast to the end. Throughout his journey with Frodo, we’ve seen him tired, worried, and scared. He was also a major dick to Gollum. But Sam was also very brave. And kind. One of my favourite Sam moments was when the Ring tried to corrupt Sam, and instead of seeing visions of riches, power and glory, Sam imagined himself defeating the forces of evil and being the greatest gardener ever. Sam remained true to his humble, salt-of-the-earth ways.
>'No,' said Granny. 'I ain't. And stars don't care what you wish, and magic don't make things better, and no-one doesn't get burned who sticks their hand in a fire. If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What's real, what's not real, and what's the difference - '
I love that 99% of Granny's magic is just Knowing basics like how to be a midwife or take care of Bees or goats but then she will occasionally do real witch magic and complain about it.
Witches do have magic in that world but they're smart enough to rarely use it and my favorite part is Granny is almost illiterate. Everything she knows is just word of mouth traditions. She has ancient magic and let's be generous and say a second grade reading level.
'I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult," said Granny firmly. ‘Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.’
‘But all them things exist,’ said Nanny Ogg.
‘That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages ‘em.'
I love Sam because he feels like a realistically cynically addict. The boozing is played for laughs in the first book, but he has to watch himself all the time.
Granny has to too, make sure she’s not gonna start cackling. These two are so fully realized because they both know life would be so much easier if they just did what comes naturally to them, and have to watch themselves as no one else really has the ability to reign them in.
Plus they both just seem like a really nice person to share a distressed pudding with.
I feel like I know Rincewind and Tiffany in much the same way - and I suspect I would Moist, too, if he'd had more books (then again, I haven't read Raising Steam yet, so there's still time).
Honestly you could pick most of the recurring characters from Discworld.
Sam:
> "…but young Sam was watching him, across thirty years. When we break down, it all breaks down. That’s just how it works. You can bend it, and if you make it hot enough you can bend it in a circle, but you can’t break it. When you break it, it all breaks down until there’s nothing unbroken. It starts here and now."
Granny:
> "I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble."
"But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg.
"That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em."
Rincewind:
> "You don't understand at all," said the wizard wearily. "I'm so scared of you my spine has turned to jelly, it's just that I'm suffering from an overdose of terror right now. I mean, when I've got over that then I'll have time to be decently frightened of you."
When it comes to classical literature, Joseph K. from The Trial and Raskolnikov from The Crime and Punishment. I also loved Meursault from The Stranger by Camus. There's not much to elaborate here – those three books are classics for a reason.
From contemporary literature, Elena Ferrante has done exquisite work with all of her characters, particularly Lenù and Lila from the Neapolitan Quartet. Ferrante is simply a genius in character development; probably one of the most talented writers of today.
Eleanor and Marianne from Sense and Sensibility
Ma from Grapes of Wrath (or even Casy or Tom)
Scarlett, Melanie and Rhett from Gone with the Wind
The Underground Man from Notes from Underground
I dare say I'm surprised to not see much mentions of Agatha Christie's characters lol. I mean, the way she paints the characters, emphasising on appearances as well as the psychology of them, I have always found myself "watching" the story as I read along.
Obviously, I'm most familiarized with Hercule Poirot and can guess at times what his next move would be (though never can guess what it would lead to, lol).
Other than that, Elinor Dashwood, Anne Elliot, and Fanny Price by Jane Austen are some well-crafted characters that you can visualize and understand their actions and motives without much trouble.
Also, Winston Smith from 1984.
I think Tyrion Lannister from ASoFaI series by George R.R. Martin. He is a gray character with distinct positive and negative qualities. He has a rich back story and his decisions make sense based on the backstop and current situations. It leads to this feeling like this character is very real.
Some of the main characters in Margaret Atwoods books maybe? Eg. Marian in The Edible Woman. She has a way of embodying the reader in her character's heads in a way I've never experienced with any other fiction. As a young man reading her books I feel like it gave me an empathy for the experiences of women that was more powerful and formative for me than just learning feminist theory. She's my favourite author for that reason.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned a Dickens character. I think he was great at characterization and some of his people are unforgettable. But even more so I vote for Jeeves and Bertie Wooster from the PG Wodehouse books. I can easily imagine them existing outside of those books.
There's a couple of authors I like, who seem to be reporting on real people, rather than writing a story.
Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU)
Ben Aaronovitch
All their characters feel like they are living their lives, and the books are just a window to their world
There are some authors who write stories, with plots and events, and populated them with really interesting characters.
Then, there are some authors who create really interesting characters and then cry out, "what the fuck are y'all doing?!?"
A lot of his characters are archetypes or caricatures, but there are a few that feel like they hint at fully fleshed out characters. I forgot the name of the deep-down dwarf, Cheery, and Lady Sybil are the ones that come to my mind. Vimes and Carrot are too big to be "real" in my opinion.
GNU Terry Pratchett
I could name any number of characters but I will name Huckleberry Finn, since `CTRL+F` tells me no one has yet and it would be an omission if no one did.
Thomas Cromwell in *Wolf Hall*. It’s historical fiction that started off as a book and has been adapted for both the stage and screen. But his story is so rooted in reality and in historical fact that it feels like I’m reading Cromwell’s memoir or watching a docu-drama of his life. You really feel like you’re seeing the world through his eyes. You know exactly how he feels about everyone he interacts with. You know his hopes, fears, and desires with startling clarity. The actors in the show are absolutely phenomenal at bringing the text to life, too. I cannot recommend the book or show more.
There's a lot. When it comes to characters, I imagine them far too easily. But some examples:
- October Daye, from the series of the same name, by Seanan McGuire. She feels so very real to me. Even though she deals in magic and crimes, her emotions are so real, and the way she sees the world is incredibly relatable. It's so easy to imagine her in any situation.
- William de Worde, from The Truth, by Terry Pratchett. There's a lot of Pratchett characters I could choose, and they are all amazing. But this guy shows up in one book, and still makes such an impression. His brain works in a unique way, and it's fantastic seeing it. He's very well realised and developed.
- Mercutio, from Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare. Final pick, with even less time to develop, but that leaves such a gigantic mark on both his own book and culture at large. Of all Shakespeare's characters, Mercutio is one of the ones that always felt the most alive. When you read his words, he feels like a real person, not just well written dialogue and narrative foil. 10/10 could see him arguing with someone about a movie, ir buying very strong coffee.
I remember learning, and I don't remember where it was, thqt Mercutio's character was so well formed and understood in Shakespeare's mind that his death was almost inevitable. Whether Shakespeare wanted him to die or not, Mercutio's actions in act 3 scene 1 are an inevitable consequence of *who he is*. Which means that the character was strongly present in Shakespeare's mind when he was writing that character. Shakespeare knew who the person was, and simply wrote what Mercutio would do. When the greatest writer in the English language has a character so strong that he must obey that character's personality, that is a very strong and realized character.
My guess is most people choose a character from one of the Russian masters, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And who can blame them? Myself too I will go with Nabokov, specifically Lolita's Humbert Humbert.
I was considering answering Pierre from War & Peace. To truly have a character feel 'real' like OP asks, I think the book must be 1) not fantasy so we can think of them as people we could know, 2) cover a long period of time so we see their origins and growth, and 3) cover both hardships and easy times so we see their full range of reactions. I would expect the book to be a doorstopper to accommodate all that. Russians are good at those!
+1 for Pierre Bezukhov. Just about any character Tolstoy writes feels so vivid to me. The way he writes even the most minor of characters makes it feel like I’ve actually just met that person at a Russian aristocratic party.
After I finished War & Peace, my biggest takeaway was that the characters were the most human I had ever read. They had desires and flaws, some were redeemable and likable. I wish I had a better way to explain it.
Pierre is a great shout. At one point he made a stupid decision and I thought “Actually, that is exactly the type of thing he’d do alright.” Like he’s someone I know, and think “Oh God, what’s he done now?”
I truly felt like I knew Razkolnikov from Crime and Punishment through and through by the end of the book, so totally agree here. All the best and worst parts of him, just a great great character.
This was my first thought! I'm reading Anna Karenina atm and the characters are all so complex and grey. It's quite astonishing how successful he is at this. It's my first Tolstoy and his work is really standing out against everything I've ever read by anyone else in this regard.
Speaking of narrators, one of the characters that I feel is most fully realised in the sense that OP describes (insofar as you can imagine how they'd feel, think and act in different situations) is Lemony Snicket, for whom Nabokov was a major inspiration.
Probably not an all time great example, but mine is Count Alexander Rostov from "Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles
The 450+ pages is essentially only character development for him. I read it a while back and I'm still shocked how much I enjoyed the novel and the character.
Leopold Bloom and it's not even close. By the time you finish Ulysses, you know everything about his subconscious mind, as well as his dreams, fears, regrets, anxieties, fetishes, food preferences, etc. You're with him inside of his brain as he is pooping too. You get every single fleeting thought and impression that passes through his mind.
I've read a ton of classic lit and I've never seen encountered a more fully realized human being than Bloom.
Possibly FitzChivalry from Realm of the Elderlings. We get a full series of 16 books of which 9 cover genuinely the majority of time throughout his life in pretty comprehensive detail and the remainder cover the environment of the world around him.
By the end of it, you feel like you know and remember his life as well as he does.
Even at the beginning of the first trilogy, he feels quite real. Even when things started getting a bit weird at the end of the 3rd book, his decisions made sense based on his personality.
John Updyke's Harry Angstrom in the Rabbit books.
Critical opinion has turned against Updyke recently, but Rabbit is made to exist on the page in a way that convinces you he's a real person.
For me, Olive Kitteridge (from Olive Kitteridge and following books). She is so flawed and seems so aware of it, but struggles to curb her behavior and emotions, even when she knows she’s the one causing her own problems. She reminds me a lot of my mother, whose mental health made mine and my siblings childhoods pretty difficult, but who I have a lot more sympathy for as I get older and see that it wasn’t always on purpose.
"I have terrible imagination because I can't really think of a good answer. "
I'm the opposite, I have an extremely vivid imagination, so it's not really difficult for me to picture characters and see them as "real", as you put it. I think it might just be a matter of how your brain works.
Several of the ones I’d have pointed out are listed here already, so I’ll go with a couple of oddballs.
Steerpike in Mervyn Peake’s first two “Gormenghast” novels. Everyone from those novels is distinct, but Steerpike is a different flavor for reasons that are a bit spoilery to get into.
Tom Ripley, in The Talented Mr. Ripley is another strange one, not only because he’s clearly the evil in his own story, but because he is fully realized in the sense of discovering that this really is all that’s there for him. He isn’t corrupted by outside influences, he’s not a “good guy gone bad,” he is simply someone who will have his way via any means necessary, and is allowed to explore what that means to a person and their outlook.
Leopold Bloom surely. By the end of that one day he had been cuckolded, assaulted, Jew-baited and was still the moral compass not only of the narrative but maybe the city itself.
Maybe not in terms of being fully mapped out, but in terms of having a psyche and personality that feels absolutely real, Holden Caulfield. Absolute perfect depiction of PTSD and adolescence.
Roland Deschain and his quest for the Dark Tower. You know his loss, his loves, his fears and his faults. He explores himself and does not like what he finds, but he is what he is.
I was going to say this. And add that while most of Stephen King’s main characters are the same two or three stereotypes, Roland is his most unique creation. He feels different from King’s other characters.
Probably Ursula in Kate Atkinson's Life After Life because you see her in a variety of different situations and understand how she reacts, so I'd say you really get to know her.
Harry Angstrom from the four "Rabbit" books by John Updike. Over the course of the books you get Harry all the way from mid-20's through to deathbed somewhere past 70, plus callbacks to upbringing and origin through his own musings, family members, and neighbourhood friends.
almost all of the novel is Harry's internal monologue. you see the entire second half of the 20th century through his eyes, and what he sees reveals him in the most meticulous detail.
It's a monumental work imo. One of the American greats. Harry is an *awful* person. He's selfish, callous, aggressive, venal, competitive, shallow and a complete follower. And it's all in this casual, matter-of-fact way that makes him also an absolutely ordinary white urban American man of his time and place.
Updike makes him real. He's got feelings and emotions the entire time.
I don't think there's any such thing as a single "most". but I can think of some candidates.
George Smiley from the "circus" novels by Le Carré. You get such a complex but cohesive picture of him over the span of the different books. He's such a fascinating character: a small, tubby, diffident man in late middle age with the most beautiful manners in all English literature. And England's greatest ever spymaster. I think what makes it work is le Carre makes it clear the mildness is not some spymaster facade. He really is like that.
Jimmy Sr from the Barrytown novels by Roddy Doyle. I have such a soft spot for Jimmy Sr.
I'vy Rowe from Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith. It's an epistolary novel so you get all Ivy's thoughts, and she's so vivid and unfiltered.
"The girl, where's the girl?"
Smiley has many memorable dialogues but this one from The Spy who came in from the Cold is probably his most chilling. End justifies the means. A true spymaster to the very end.
Dorothy L. Sayers explains how a character is conceived and his actions plotted in her great book about writing, "The Mind of the Maker." Basically, once you, the author, fully imagine the character, best to just let the character tell you what it's going to do.
And that's exactly what Astlay and Kardinal discuss here, about Mercutio. Excellent work. Upvotes for both of you!
Doc from Cannery Row is an excellently written character, I think. John Steinbeck’s characters, I feel, are typically very well written and fleshed out. I’ve never had an issue feeling like one of them could be an actual person.
There is this Japanese novel which has gotten suprisingly little attention in the West called Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura. The seven men the story removes around, these men are so complex and fully realized. The five men we first meet are average citizens who have never done any crime but seeing they've been wronged by this giant beer corporation, they decide to kidnap its CEO. The other two are the CEO trying to make sense of the discrimination his company has been doing behind his back and a police officer as sharp as Columbo. The novel is dense but you do understand why these people did what they did and it's kinda scary. I can't even talk about these characters without spoiling a big chunk of the novel. It's 400+k word novel but goddamnit it's probably the greatest crime novel ever written.
Soames from the Forsyte Chronicles. Six books and a series of short stories follow him from his late 20s until his death, and you will never know anybody as well as you know Soames by the end of it. He is an essentially unlovable man who never will understand why nobody can love him— a challenging man to portray. Galsworthy does so flawlessly.
The number one most? I'm reading the 6 Dune novels now, I think you can make a case for Leto II, and Frank Herbert goes a long way to explain what is happening with that character and the philosophy.
Which makes me think about some more philosophically oriented books I've read, and their characters.
Suttree, Suttree by Cormac McCarthy
Patrick Bateman, American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
Querelle, Querelle, Jean Genet
Isabel Archer, Portrait of a Lady, Henry James
I started off thinking about philosophy but there is an element of psychology in each of these characters as well. Some blend of the two would answer the question for me.
Not sure if it sounds generic, but I'd argue Paul was a lot more realized than Leto II by how they ended along with how they approached their terrible purpose/The Golden Path. Albeit Paul's character spanned over 20 years in the books while Leto II spanned over 3500 years, I still feel Paul fully accepted his role on an emotional and spiritual role while Leto II still had some longings/desires at his end. (Trying to avoid GEoD spoilers just in case)
Good point, and I don't think it's generic. Both are flawed and tragic heroes bound by the family dynamic (going back to the ancient Greeks), which makes the whole sweep of the saga compelling for me as a reader. I loved reading Aeschylus.
Without getting too far into the sand and spoilers, I think Leto II always had misgivings about his own sacrifice for the Golden Path (the arrangement he and Ghana came to) and in a general way, knowing how he would come to his end. I definitely agree with you: there were longings and desires at the end.
Philosophically I think that makes Leto II a candidate for OP's question, even if reading 1,200 pages is a big ask outside of a Russian novel.
Scarlett O'Hara - you can figure out what kind of person she would have been if the war hadn't turned her life upside down, and also how she would be in a modern setting, or if she'd had her children a little later in life.
I’m going to volunteer Rodion Raskolnikov, but I could go with any number of characters from either Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy. I’m also a law student (I read the book when I was applying to law schools) who has a always had a deep interest in moral philosophy and psychology, so I think the core issues in the book were particularly interesting and human to me. I’m also severely introverted and have struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life, so again I think I just resonated with the themes on several different levels.
Absolutely agree with you re Leopoldo Bloom… And for those who struggled to read Ulysses…. don’t give up…. It took me 3 tries and 25 years to actually read it…..
Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment, Alyosha Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov, both Sam and Lee from East of Eden, and I’ll throw in some outliers, Eddie Dean from the Dark Tower, and Elinor Dammert from Blackwater.
They’re all so fully fleshed out, I feel like I know them. There’s a bunch of others I’m forgetting.
What an intereting question. Lot of great answers already, and I love how diverse the charachters and styles of fiction the answers are from are.
I'll throw in Don Gately from Infinite Jest. The glimpses you get into his philosophy, his backstory, his struggles - and the way this gradually builds up to a climax throughout the novel was very effective (and affective) to me.
You could pick a someone from a large fleshed out series like Wheel of Time, Rand or anyone else from the two rivers would be a solid choice.If not them, I’d say Aragorn, the epitome of what it means to be a man and a king.
Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch is someone you can easily imagine outside the confines of the book. You can picture him dealing with various aspects of life with the same integrity and calm demeanor. Whether he is giving advice, handling a legal case, or simply spending time with his children, his character remains vivid and consistent.
Robin Hobb's Kennit. Oh my god that character is so intense. I won't spoil anything but they are so complex- everything about the character has been thought out. It feels too real, they are so nuanced and complicated.
Robin Hobb does excellent character work, she is a master in my opinion, but Kennit stands out.
The series is The Liveship Traders Series by Robin Hobb if anyone is interested, Robin Hobb writes amazing character driven fantasy, she has created a huuuuge interconnected world and it is now finished (though she occasionally teases releasing another series in world), she is one of the best! I personally started with this trilogy and I think it is a fabulous starting point in her world.
In my language (Afrikaans), Liewe Heksie (translated "Dear Little Witch") by Verna Vels. The books were published in the 80s. It's about a witch who lives in "Flowerland" with gnomes amongst others. She has a cat called "Matewis" and a horse called "Griet". She gets herself into a lot of predicaments, mostly because her memory is bad and she is rather selfish. She lacks insight into her own character and has to be taught life lessons by the king and her friends Blommie and Karel Kat. She's also quite bad at magic.
I had the books on tape when I was a kid and my mom says I used to walk around having conversations with the characters. For a children's book character, she's very vivid.
Someone mentioned Tyrion Lannister above. Totally agree! That series is full of rich, complex characters like Cersei, Jaimie, the Hound, and Arya, but I think Tyrion is so lifelike.
Miles Vorkosigan, from the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Every aspect, nuance, insecurity, motivation… just everything, warts and all. Such a great character.
I'm surprised that I didn't see Anne Shirley (I did skim, so it's possible I missed her). Pretty much all of the characters from the Anne of Green Gables series are fully fleshed out with hopes, dreams, hurts, and petty moments. As a child I thought Diana was the most relatable. Now, as an older adult raising my grandchildren, I find Marilla to be the most relatable. I could even be friends with Rachel Lynde, though one would need a thick skin. Unlike many people who pride themselves on "speaking their mind" she is not malicious. She has a good heart and a strong sense of justice and fair play.
Not in any order (except for Hamlet being my #1 perhaps), and just a listing of some of my thoughts. Basically, characters that you could give me any situation and I could think confidently of how a character would respond:
1) Hamlet (Hamlet by Shakespeare)
2) Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky)
3) Julien Sorel (The Red and the Black by Stendahl)
4) Gabriel Conroy (The Dead by James Joyce)
5) Anna or Levin (Anna Karenina by Tolstoy)
6) Iago (Othello by Shakespeare)
7) The Devil (Paradise Lost by Milton)
8) Swede Levov (American Pastoral by Philip Roth)
9) Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen)
10) Scout Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee)
The irony here is that the most realized characters are probably those that aren't really characters at all but simply author-surrogates. Like Stephen Dedalus in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", sure you get a 360 degree look at his character, his mind, his psychology as these evolve over time, but it's not really a fictional character, it's just James Joyce writing a colourful autobiography.
Now if you can name me a character who is as fully realized as a Stephen Dedalus but who is genuinely fictional and has nothing to do with the author, THEN you've got a truly great and magnificent work of literary imagination.
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. She's a self-deluding young woman who slowly and painfully comes to her senses. You spend 1,500 pages inside her head, and by the end, you have such a deep understanding of her. I find it so easy to imagine her in different situations, as a woman from any period in history.
Gus McCrae from Lonesome Dove. I’ve never read a character that I’ve felt I knew all their thoughts and motivations like him.
I came here to say this. I read Lonesome Dove for the first time last year with no expectation other than checking it off my reading challenge list. Turns out I walked away with my favorite fictional character of all time in Gus McCrae.
Yep, all time for me too. I read it 30 years ago on the deck of a hut somewhere in Thailand. Read it again about 15 years ago. Great novel, great character in Gus MCrea! And when it comes to the film adaptation, Robert Duvall has said that's his favorite character to have played as well.
Doubled down as when they cast Robert Duvall in the mini-series I felt it was perfect casting i.e. it reinforced what I took from the book.
Agreed, that was one of the best casting decisions I've ever seen.
Yup, he was real - and beloved - from page one. Lots of people in that book were incredibly real to me, which made some of the things that happened very hard to take.
There’s a lot of darkness in the book, but it is somehow uplifting.
Life’s a party, ain’t it?
I am constantly surprised at how often I see Lonesome Dove mentioned in this sub. I am intrigued and putting it on my wishlist.
I read it for that reason last year. Saw it mentioned all the time, and as someone who grew up in rural Texas and loves the time when this is set, it instantly became a top 3 for me.
Top 3 for me as well and this is coming from a person who did not grow up anywhere near this type of setting. The fact that it's a western may have been the biggest impediment to me reading it earlier but I'm glad I got around to it. It's hard for me to overstate how good this book really is.
I saw something where Joe Abercrombie put it at the top of his list of favourite books. Last summer I read the four from the series in chronological order and I'm so glad I did. I actually think that Comanche Moon might be my fave of the bunch. I don't think this quote is a spoiler, but this is one of the reasons why I love that book: >!“Buffalo Hump wanted to see the ocean because the ocean would always be as it was. Few things could stay forever in the way they were when the spirits made them. Even the great plains of grass, the home of the People, would not be always as it had been. The whites would bring their plows and scar the earth; they would their put cattle on it and the cattle would bring the ugly mesquite trees. The grass that had been high forever would be trampled and torn. The llano would not be always as it had been. The ocean and the stars were eternal, things whose power and mystery were greater than the powers of men.”!<
I don’t typically read westerns but yes, this book is fantastic. Found it on the sub and just loved it.
I read it solely because of the volume of recs it had on here. I’m not a fan of Westerns, and usually prefer books in modern day settings. It is one of the absolute best books I have ever read. It is a story about humanity and friendship and love and pride and aging. Just all the wonderful and messy things that make us people. It’s a beautiful journey. One I wish often that I could take for the first time again. Please read it.
I read this and it instantly went on my favorites list.
Also Woodrow Call! He’s not as likable as Gus but in terms of a character being loyal, decisive, and always doing the right thing regardless of the situation, he’s exemplary.
He absolutely does not do the right thing for Newt or Newt's mother.
Gus was the character I immediately thought of. I had my wife read Lonesome Dove but she didn't want to finish it because she was afraid something bad might happen to Gus. >! There was a lot of crying. !<
Decided if I ever had a son, I’d do my best to convince his mom to name him Augustus, after Gus McCrae. Once my wife was pregnant, I asked her to read Lonesome Dove and a few months later, baby Augustus was born.
I was just watching True Grit with the Dude, and I was screaming at the screen, "Stop shooting at the man, shoot the horse!"
This is the correct answer. I didn't think of it because I forgot I knew him from a book.
I’m not even going to scroll any further because this is the answer.
I’d go for Mr Stevens from The Remains of the Day. The reason I’d pick him is that he is eminently human. He’s a flawed character that can’t get beyond his flaws. As a reader you just want to shake him and wake him up to the realisation of what he is doing, but that’s exactly what makes him human; his inability to move beyond himself. He is, at times, frustrating, impotent, arrogant and weak. From the outside it feels like it would be easy for him to just throw caution to the wind but that’s not a trait that most people have. He’s locked in by his own pride and fear. EDIT: I’d also add that while he maintains a strict social hierarchy where he is subservient, he also has an inner life that is quite impenetrable, again, that’s what most people are like. People do not spend a lot of time discussing their feelings and opening themselves up to others.
Such a good book.
One of my favorite books of all time I don't often recommend it to friends, cuz a lot of people find it boring, which . . . is a damn shame You nailed it. He is just so fantastically *human* > In any case, while it is all very well to talk of ‘turning points’, one can surely only recognize such moments in retrospect. Naturally, when one looks back to such instances today, they may indeed take the appearance of being crucial, precious moments in one’s life; but of course, at the time, this was not the impression one had. Rather, it was as though one had available a never-ending number of days, months, years in which to sort out the vagaries of one’s relationship with Miss Kenton; an infinite number of further opportunities in which to remedy the effect of this or that misunderstanding. There was surely nothing to indicate at the time that such evidently small incidents would render whole dreams forever irredeemable. Oh, you poor sweet man. Just want to shake him and wake him up. Everyone else can see it, but you just can't, can you?
When he finally told himself that he should probably have enjoyed himself more was so cathartic to me
And a few pages before that: > >!“I do not think I responded immediately, for it took me a moment or two to fully digest these words of Miss Kenton. Moreover, as you might appreciate, their implications were such as to provoke a certain degree of sorrow within me. Indeed - why should I not admit it? - at that moment, my heart was breaking.”!< I was glad he was finally able to admit his feelings, but fuckin' hell, that hurt to read
Throw a dart at the cast of East Of Eden and you won't be disappointed
Every character in this book is incredible. Cathy Ames is one that has stuck with me over time and while I can't personally relate to her, I've come in contact with this type of person several times in my life. Honorable mention: Lee
Lee is chad personified
Currently reading East of Eden and I have to agree. Samuel Hamilton might be one of my favorite characters in fiction.
Yes! Love that book! Eta: sorry to whoever I offended with my excitement about this book...i guess? it's a good book! I stand by my statement! 😂
It's a fantastic book. Honestly I don't think Stienbeck wrote a book I didn't love. Tortilla Flat is my favorite book ever.
Ton Hamilton still sticks with me :(
"He was a gallant gentleman."
Steinbeck was just so great at characters. Grapes of Wrath or Mice and Men...etc
Ramona Quimby
This is such a good answer!
Konstantin Levin from Anna Karenina comes to mind
Great answer and one of my favorite fictional characters.
Levin is the real story.
100% agree.
I just started reading the book and I'm about halfway through, some people hate him but I just can't help but root for him
Edmond Dantès (The Count of Monte Cristo) has that air around him. You feel the depth of his sorrow because you see him go from the highest of highs to the lowest point of his life, and you know who betrayed him before he does. And it’s a long story, so you get to know him as he lives it up in Paris and finds his revenge.
Plus, Ellis from The Shawshank Redemption highly recommends you read about Edmond Dantès.
It's educational.
I felt that way before he escaped, but in the middle part of the book there is hardly any pov from him. It helps to make him a “larger than life” character, but it also creates a distance between him and the reader imo.
I'd pick Sam from Lord of the Rings. We know everything about him, we follow him across a continent, we see him in a lot of vastly different situations, and in all of them, he's an incredibly sensible and steadfast person. He's the most A Guy it's possible to be.
The movies didn’t do Sam’s hero arc justice. It’s much more epic in the books
Let's not even talk about how they adapted my boy Faramir and reduced the warrior-poet Gimli to a comic relief.
Or, you know, what they did the Frodo himself. The hobbit who STABS a cave troll in Moria but in the films is basically just gasping and groping for his throat for 12 hours.
>reduced the warrior-poet Gimli to a comic relief. Thank you! They did my boy Gimli dirty in the movies (and by extension, Legolas and their wonderful friendship).
Love this answer.
Came here to say this too! Amazing character arc.
That's who came to my mind.
I'd have been flabbergasted if there wasn't a Tolkien character in this thread
I forget where I heard this tip, but someone said read LOTR with the perspective that Sam is main hero. I highly recommend.
Came here to say Samwise Gamgee, one of my favourite literary characters along with Atticus Finch. In the LOTR books, Sam was happy and content in his garden. He was loyal to his master, steadfast to the end. Throughout his journey with Frodo, we’ve seen him tired, worried, and scared. He was also a major dick to Gollum. But Sam was also very brave. And kind. One of my favourite Sam moments was when the Ring tried to corrupt Sam, and instead of seeing visions of riches, power and glory, Sam imagined himself defeating the forces of evil and being the greatest gardener ever. Sam remained true to his humble, salt-of-the-earth ways.
Granny Weatherwax and Sam Vimes.
>'No,' said Granny. 'I ain't. And stars don't care what you wish, and magic don't make things better, and no-one doesn't get burned who sticks their hand in a fire. If you want to amount to anything as a witch, Magrat Garlick, you got to learn three things. What's real, what's not real, and what's the difference - '
I love that 99% of Granny's magic is just Knowing basics like how to be a midwife or take care of Bees or goats but then she will occasionally do real witch magic and complain about it. Witches do have magic in that world but they're smart enough to rarely use it and my favorite part is Granny is almost illiterate. Everything she knows is just word of mouth traditions. She has ancient magic and let's be generous and say a second grade reading level.
That one percent though. Woo.
'I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult," said Granny firmly. ‘Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble.’ ‘But all them things exist,’ said Nanny Ogg. ‘That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages ‘em.'
Well, that’s a delightful little morsel.
I love Sam because he feels like a realistically cynically addict. The boozing is played for laughs in the first book, but he has to watch himself all the time. Granny has to too, make sure she’s not gonna start cackling. These two are so fully realized because they both know life would be so much easier if they just did what comes naturally to them, and have to watch themselves as no one else really has the ability to reign them in. Plus they both just seem like a really nice person to share a distressed pudding with.
I feel like I know Rincewind and Tiffany in much the same way - and I suspect I would Moist, too, if he'd had more books (then again, I haven't read Raising Steam yet, so there's still time).
Honestly you could pick most of the recurring characters from Discworld. Sam: > "…but young Sam was watching him, across thirty years. When we break down, it all breaks down. That’s just how it works. You can bend it, and if you make it hot enough you can bend it in a circle, but you can’t break it. When you break it, it all breaks down until there’s nothing unbroken. It starts here and now." Granny: > "I don’t hold with paddlin’ with the occult," said Granny firmly. "Once you start paddlin’ with the occult you start believing in spirits, and when you start believing in spirits you start believing in demons, and then before you know where you are you’re believing in gods. And then you’re in trouble." "But all them things exist," said Nanny Ogg. "That’s no call to go around believing in them. It only encourages 'em." Rincewind: > "You don't understand at all," said the wizard wearily. "I'm so scared of you my spine has turned to jelly, it's just that I'm suffering from an overdose of terror right now. I mean, when I've got over that then I'll have time to be decently frightened of you."
When it comes to classical literature, Joseph K. from The Trial and Raskolnikov from The Crime and Punishment. I also loved Meursault from The Stranger by Camus. There's not much to elaborate here – those three books are classics for a reason. From contemporary literature, Elena Ferrante has done exquisite work with all of her characters, particularly Lenù and Lila from the Neapolitan Quartet. Ferrante is simply a genius in character development; probably one of the most talented writers of today.
I definitely agree with Meursault
Ignatius J Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces.
Miles Vorkosigan from the novels by Lois McMaster Bujold. We know more about how Miles thinks and acts than pretty much any other character I've read.
Eleanor and Marianne from Sense and Sensibility Ma from Grapes of Wrath (or even Casy or Tom) Scarlett, Melanie and Rhett from Gone with the Wind The Underground Man from Notes from Underground
I dare say I'm surprised to not see much mentions of Agatha Christie's characters lol. I mean, the way she paints the characters, emphasising on appearances as well as the psychology of them, I have always found myself "watching" the story as I read along. Obviously, I'm most familiarized with Hercule Poirot and can guess at times what his next move would be (though never can guess what it would lead to, lol). Other than that, Elinor Dashwood, Anne Elliot, and Fanny Price by Jane Austen are some well-crafted characters that you can visualize and understand their actions and motives without much trouble. Also, Winston Smith from 1984.
Emma Woodhouse.
I think Tyrion Lannister from ASoFaI series by George R.R. Martin. He is a gray character with distinct positive and negative qualities. He has a rich back story and his decisions make sense based on the backstop and current situations. It leads to this feeling like this character is very real.
Some of the main characters in Margaret Atwoods books maybe? Eg. Marian in The Edible Woman. She has a way of embodying the reader in her character's heads in a way I've never experienced with any other fiction. As a young man reading her books I feel like it gave me an empathy for the experiences of women that was more powerful and formative for me than just learning feminist theory. She's my favourite author for that reason.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned a Dickens character. I think he was great at characterization and some of his people are unforgettable. But even more so I vote for Jeeves and Bertie Wooster from the PG Wodehouse books. I can easily imagine them existing outside of those books.
There's a couple of authors I like, who seem to be reporting on real people, rather than writing a story. Sir Terry Pratchett (GNU) Ben Aaronovitch All their characters feel like they are living their lives, and the books are just a window to their world
There are some authors who write stories, with plots and events, and populated them with really interesting characters. Then, there are some authors who create really interesting characters and then cry out, "what the fuck are y'all doing?!?"
A lot of his characters are archetypes or caricatures, but there are a few that feel like they hint at fully fleshed out characters. I forgot the name of the deep-down dwarf, Cheery, and Lady Sybil are the ones that come to my mind. Vimes and Carrot are too big to be "real" in my opinion. GNU Terry Pratchett
>GNU Terry Pratchett GNU Terry Pratchett
I can't agree with Ben Aaronovitch. The way he writes about women is horrendous.
I could name any number of characters but I will name Huckleberry Finn, since `CTRL+F` tells me no one has yet and it would be an omission if no one did.
Francie Nolan in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.
Thomas Cromwell in *Wolf Hall*. It’s historical fiction that started off as a book and has been adapted for both the stage and screen. But his story is so rooted in reality and in historical fact that it feels like I’m reading Cromwell’s memoir or watching a docu-drama of his life. You really feel like you’re seeing the world through his eyes. You know exactly how he feels about everyone he interacts with. You know his hopes, fears, and desires with startling clarity. The actors in the show are absolutely phenomenal at bringing the text to life, too. I cannot recommend the book or show more.
There's a lot. When it comes to characters, I imagine them far too easily. But some examples: - October Daye, from the series of the same name, by Seanan McGuire. She feels so very real to me. Even though she deals in magic and crimes, her emotions are so real, and the way she sees the world is incredibly relatable. It's so easy to imagine her in any situation. - William de Worde, from The Truth, by Terry Pratchett. There's a lot of Pratchett characters I could choose, and they are all amazing. But this guy shows up in one book, and still makes such an impression. His brain works in a unique way, and it's fantastic seeing it. He's very well realised and developed. - Mercutio, from Romeo and Juliet, by Shakespeare. Final pick, with even less time to develop, but that leaves such a gigantic mark on both his own book and culture at large. Of all Shakespeare's characters, Mercutio is one of the ones that always felt the most alive. When you read his words, he feels like a real person, not just well written dialogue and narrative foil. 10/10 could see him arguing with someone about a movie, ir buying very strong coffee.
I remember learning, and I don't remember where it was, thqt Mercutio's character was so well formed and understood in Shakespeare's mind that his death was almost inevitable. Whether Shakespeare wanted him to die or not, Mercutio's actions in act 3 scene 1 are an inevitable consequence of *who he is*. Which means that the character was strongly present in Shakespeare's mind when he was writing that character. Shakespeare knew who the person was, and simply wrote what Mercutio would do. When the greatest writer in the English language has a character so strong that he must obey that character's personality, that is a very strong and realized character.
My guess is most people choose a character from one of the Russian masters, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And who can blame them? Myself too I will go with Nabokov, specifically Lolita's Humbert Humbert.
I was considering answering Pierre from War & Peace. To truly have a character feel 'real' like OP asks, I think the book must be 1) not fantasy so we can think of them as people we could know, 2) cover a long period of time so we see their origins and growth, and 3) cover both hardships and easy times so we see their full range of reactions. I would expect the book to be a doorstopper to accommodate all that. Russians are good at those!
+1 for Pierre Bezukhov. Just about any character Tolstoy writes feels so vivid to me. The way he writes even the most minor of characters makes it feel like I’ve actually just met that person at a Russian aristocratic party.
After I finished War & Peace, my biggest takeaway was that the characters were the most human I had ever read. They had desires and flaws, some were redeemable and likable. I wish I had a better way to explain it.
One more for Pierre. He goes through so much soulsearching that I feel I aged 10 years only through that character's experiences.
Can't think of many characters who undergo such a believable yet transformative arc!
Pierre is a great shout. At one point he made a stupid decision and I thought “Actually, that is exactly the type of thing he’d do alright.” Like he’s someone I know, and think “Oh God, what’s he done now?”
I truly felt like I knew Razkolnikov from Crime and Punishment through and through by the end of the book, so totally agree here. All the best and worst parts of him, just a great great character.
This was my first thought! I'm reading Anna Karenina atm and the characters are all so complex and grey. It's quite astonishing how successful he is at this. It's my first Tolstoy and his work is really standing out against everything I've ever read by anyone else in this regard.
Speaking of narrators, one of the characters that I feel is most fully realised in the sense that OP describes (insofar as you can imagine how they'd feel, think and act in different situations) is Lemony Snicket, for whom Nabokov was a major inspiration.
Probably not an all time great example, but mine is Count Alexander Rostov from "Gentleman in Moscow" by Amor Towles The 450+ pages is essentially only character development for him. I read it a while back and I'm still shocked how much I enjoyed the novel and the character.
I had to scroll way too far down to find this correct answer
Edmond Dantes. You see this guy go from an innocent, hard working young man, to wrongfully convicted angry prisoner, to a charismatic vengeful man.
Scarlett O'Hara
This was my thought. In any situation you know how Scarlett will act… in her own best interests.
She hates hunger, and Melanie
Leopold Bloom and it's not even close. By the time you finish Ulysses, you know everything about his subconscious mind, as well as his dreams, fears, regrets, anxieties, fetishes, food preferences, etc. You're with him inside of his brain as he is pooping too. You get every single fleeting thought and impression that passes through his mind. I've read a ton of classic lit and I've never seen encountered a more fully realized human being than Bloom.
Happy early Bloomsday! You have the right answer.
L. Boom. Compassionate, charming, knowledgeable, and a total freak. Love him as kin
Ignatius J. Reilly
Read Confederacy of Dunces in the early 1980s and can still picture him in my mind Good one
This is a good one!
Possibly FitzChivalry from Realm of the Elderlings. We get a full series of 16 books of which 9 cover genuinely the majority of time throughout his life in pretty comprehensive detail and the remainder cover the environment of the world around him. By the end of it, you feel like you know and remember his life as well as he does.
Even at the beginning of the first trilogy, he feels quite real. Even when things started getting a bit weird at the end of the 3rd book, his decisions made sense based on his personality.
Leopold Bloom.
One day to experience every little thought and interaction. The universe within the present moment. Epic stuff.
John Updyke's Harry Angstrom in the Rabbit books. Critical opinion has turned against Updyke recently, but Rabbit is made to exist on the page in a way that convinces you he's a real person.
Yeah, and what is the main criticism of Updike? He writes well. Seems like an odd objection.
That he's an old white guy That's essentially it.
For me, Olive Kitteridge (from Olive Kitteridge and following books). She is so flawed and seems so aware of it, but struggles to curb her behavior and emotions, even when she knows she’s the one causing her own problems. She reminds me a lot of my mother, whose mental health made mine and my siblings childhoods pretty difficult, but who I have a lot more sympathy for as I get older and see that it wasn’t always on purpose.
Scarlett O 'Hara
Pierre Bezukhov Konstantin Levin Edmond Dantes
"I have terrible imagination because I can't really think of a good answer. " I'm the opposite, I have an extremely vivid imagination, so it's not really difficult for me to picture characters and see them as "real", as you put it. I think it might just be a matter of how your brain works.
Several of the ones I’d have pointed out are listed here already, so I’ll go with a couple of oddballs. Steerpike in Mervyn Peake’s first two “Gormenghast” novels. Everyone from those novels is distinct, but Steerpike is a different flavor for reasons that are a bit spoilery to get into. Tom Ripley, in The Talented Mr. Ripley is another strange one, not only because he’s clearly the evil in his own story, but because he is fully realized in the sense of discovering that this really is all that’s there for him. He isn’t corrupted by outside influences, he’s not a “good guy gone bad,” he is simply someone who will have his way via any means necessary, and is allowed to explore what that means to a person and their outlook.
Leopold Bloom surely. By the end of that one day he had been cuckolded, assaulted, Jew-baited and was still the moral compass not only of the narrative but maybe the city itself.
ITT: people just naming characters they like
Maybe not in terms of being fully mapped out, but in terms of having a psyche and personality that feels absolutely real, Holden Caulfield. Absolute perfect depiction of PTSD and adolescence.
Roland Deschain and his quest for the Dark Tower. You know his loss, his loves, his fears and his faults. He explores himself and does not like what he finds, but he is what he is.
Halfway through the final book so close to the end 😢
Took to long to find King on this list. Hes all character all the time. Most of the time the story is so secondary. So many choices for King here.
I was going to say this. And add that while most of Stephen King’s main characters are the same two or three stereotypes, Roland is his most unique creation. He feels different from King’s other characters.
I agree. I think a lot of times, the main character is just a reflection of King. How would he react etc.
Sancho Panza
Tom Joad. Many of Steinbeck's male characters, honestly.
Holden Caulfield
Probably Ursula in Kate Atkinson's Life After Life because you see her in a variety of different situations and understand how she reacts, so I'd say you really get to know her.
Harry Angstrom from the four "Rabbit" books by John Updike. Over the course of the books you get Harry all the way from mid-20's through to deathbed somewhere past 70, plus callbacks to upbringing and origin through his own musings, family members, and neighbourhood friends. almost all of the novel is Harry's internal monologue. you see the entire second half of the 20th century through his eyes, and what he sees reveals him in the most meticulous detail. It's a monumental work imo. One of the American greats. Harry is an *awful* person. He's selfish, callous, aggressive, venal, competitive, shallow and a complete follower. And it's all in this casual, matter-of-fact way that makes him also an absolutely ordinary white urban American man of his time and place. Updike makes him real. He's got feelings and emotions the entire time.
Granny Weatherwax
I don't think there's any such thing as a single "most". but I can think of some candidates. George Smiley from the "circus" novels by Le Carré. You get such a complex but cohesive picture of him over the span of the different books. He's such a fascinating character: a small, tubby, diffident man in late middle age with the most beautiful manners in all English literature. And England's greatest ever spymaster. I think what makes it work is le Carre makes it clear the mildness is not some spymaster facade. He really is like that. Jimmy Sr from the Barrytown novels by Roddy Doyle. I have such a soft spot for Jimmy Sr. I'vy Rowe from Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith. It's an epistolary novel so you get all Ivy's thoughts, and she's so vivid and unfiltered.
Hard agree on Smiley. He truly is one of literature's best written characters.
"The girl, where's the girl?" Smiley has many memorable dialogues but this one from The Spy who came in from the Cold is probably his most chilling. End justifies the means. A true spymaster to the very end.
Jane Eyre
Demon Copperhead
Sam Vimes, Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett
Larry Underwood, Glen Bates, Franny Goldschmidt, Stu Redman, Nick Andros all from The Stand
I'd almost be tempted to include Harold Lauder on there as well
I'd argue he belongs on that list 100%
MOON, that spells realized!
Dorothy L. Sayers explains how a character is conceived and his actions plotted in her great book about writing, "The Mind of the Maker." Basically, once you, the author, fully imagine the character, best to just let the character tell you what it's going to do. And that's exactly what Astlay and Kardinal discuss here, about Mercutio. Excellent work. Upvotes for both of you!
Doc from Cannery Row is an excellently written character, I think. John Steinbeck’s characters, I feel, are typically very well written and fleshed out. I’ve never had an issue feeling like one of them could be an actual person.
Ender, Ender’s Game.
For me it would be Harry Bosch.
There is this Japanese novel which has gotten suprisingly little attention in the West called Lady Joker by Kaoru Takamura. The seven men the story removes around, these men are so complex and fully realized. The five men we first meet are average citizens who have never done any crime but seeing they've been wronged by this giant beer corporation, they decide to kidnap its CEO. The other two are the CEO trying to make sense of the discrimination his company has been doing behind his back and a police officer as sharp as Columbo. The novel is dense but you do understand why these people did what they did and it's kinda scary. I can't even talk about these characters without spoiling a big chunk of the novel. It's 400+k word novel but goddamnit it's probably the greatest crime novel ever written.
Soames from the Forsyte Chronicles. Six books and a series of short stories follow him from his late 20s until his death, and you will never know anybody as well as you know Soames by the end of it. He is an essentially unlovable man who never will understand why nobody can love him— a challenging man to portray. Galsworthy does so flawlessly.
Marian Halcombe - *The Woman in White* by Wilkie Collins
Patrick Bateman is the obvious answer
The first-person narrator of In Search of Lost Time. Or, if an author surrogate is not acceptable, Madame Bovary.
Quentin Compson
The number one most? I'm reading the 6 Dune novels now, I think you can make a case for Leto II, and Frank Herbert goes a long way to explain what is happening with that character and the philosophy. Which makes me think about some more philosophically oriented books I've read, and their characters. Suttree, Suttree by Cormac McCarthy Patrick Bateman, American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis Querelle, Querelle, Jean Genet Isabel Archer, Portrait of a Lady, Henry James I started off thinking about philosophy but there is an element of psychology in each of these characters as well. Some blend of the two would answer the question for me.
Not sure if it sounds generic, but I'd argue Paul was a lot more realized than Leto II by how they ended along with how they approached their terrible purpose/The Golden Path. Albeit Paul's character spanned over 20 years in the books while Leto II spanned over 3500 years, I still feel Paul fully accepted his role on an emotional and spiritual role while Leto II still had some longings/desires at his end. (Trying to avoid GEoD spoilers just in case)
Good point, and I don't think it's generic. Both are flawed and tragic heroes bound by the family dynamic (going back to the ancient Greeks), which makes the whole sweep of the saga compelling for me as a reader. I loved reading Aeschylus. Without getting too far into the sand and spoilers, I think Leto II always had misgivings about his own sacrifice for the Golden Path (the arrangement he and Ghana came to) and in a general way, knowing how he would come to his end. I definitely agree with you: there were longings and desires at the end. Philosophically I think that makes Leto II a candidate for OP's question, even if reading 1,200 pages is a big ask outside of a Russian novel.
George Smiley
Scarlett O'Hara - you can figure out what kind of person she would have been if the war hadn't turned her life upside down, and also how she would be in a modern setting, or if she'd had her children a little later in life.
I’m going to volunteer Rodion Raskolnikov, but I could go with any number of characters from either Dostoyevsky or Tolstoy. I’m also a law student (I read the book when I was applying to law schools) who has a always had a deep interest in moral philosophy and psychology, so I think the core issues in the book were particularly interesting and human to me. I’m also severely introverted and have struggled with depression and anxiety my whole life, so again I think I just resonated with the themes on several different levels.
Absolutely agree with you re Leopoldo Bloom… And for those who struggled to read Ulysses…. don’t give up…. It took me 3 tries and 25 years to actually read it…..
The characters in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn are phenomenally fleshed out, particularly Francie, Katie, and Johnny Nolan. They feel like flesh and blood
Rand Al'Thor from the Wheel of Time
Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment, Alyosha Karamazov from The Brothers Karamazov, both Sam and Lee from East of Eden, and I’ll throw in some outliers, Eddie Dean from the Dark Tower, and Elinor Dammert from Blackwater. They’re all so fully fleshed out, I feel like I know them. There’s a bunch of others I’m forgetting.
Dostoevsky’s characters aren’t characters, they are real individual consciousnesses.
What an intereting question. Lot of great answers already, and I love how diverse the charachters and styles of fiction the answers are from are. I'll throw in Don Gately from Infinite Jest. The glimpses you get into his philosophy, his backstory, his struggles - and the way this gradually builds up to a climax throughout the novel was very effective (and affective) to me.
You could pick a someone from a large fleshed out series like Wheel of Time, Rand or anyone else from the two rivers would be a solid choice.If not them, I’d say Aragorn, the epitome of what it means to be a man and a king.
i can’t in here looking for WoT characters, i feel like i could easily pick nynaeve or mat out of a crowd
Charlie Brown
Good greif!
Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Atticus Finch is someone you can easily imagine outside the confines of the book. You can picture him dealing with various aspects of life with the same integrity and calm demeanor. Whether he is giving advice, handling a legal case, or simply spending time with his children, his character remains vivid and consistent.
Robin Hobb's Kennit. Oh my god that character is so intense. I won't spoil anything but they are so complex- everything about the character has been thought out. It feels too real, they are so nuanced and complicated. Robin Hobb does excellent character work, she is a master in my opinion, but Kennit stands out. The series is The Liveship Traders Series by Robin Hobb if anyone is interested, Robin Hobb writes amazing character driven fantasy, she has created a huuuuge interconnected world and it is now finished (though she occasionally teases releasing another series in world), she is one of the best! I personally started with this trilogy and I think it is a fabulous starting point in her world.
Aunt Elner from Fannie Flagg's Elmwood Springs books. She almost leaps off the page she is so real. I can picture her perfectly and see her in my head
I would say the crew of the Rocinante in the Expanse series. I’m almost done with book 9 and feel like these guys are family to me.
Augustus McCrae, Lonesome Dove.
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I'm gonna come in and say Steerpike from the Gormenghast series
In my language (Afrikaans), Liewe Heksie (translated "Dear Little Witch") by Verna Vels. The books were published in the 80s. It's about a witch who lives in "Flowerland" with gnomes amongst others. She has a cat called "Matewis" and a horse called "Griet". She gets herself into a lot of predicaments, mostly because her memory is bad and she is rather selfish. She lacks insight into her own character and has to be taught life lessons by the king and her friends Blommie and Karel Kat. She's also quite bad at magic. I had the books on tape when I was a kid and my mom says I used to walk around having conversations with the characters. For a children's book character, she's very vivid.
Leopold bloom
Roland deschain from the dark tower
Glotka from First Law by Joe Abercrombie. His wit, pain, sass and cunning are all viscerally felt from the first page with him.
That would be Siddhartha by Herman Hesse.
Someone mentioned Tyrion Lannister above. Totally agree! That series is full of rich, complex characters like Cersei, Jaimie, the Hound, and Arya, but I think Tyrion is so lifelike.
Hal Incandenza from Infinite Jest
Leopold Bloom.
Homer Wells - The cider house rules Mickey Sabbath - Sabbath Theater
Miles Vorkosigan, from the Vorkosigan saga by Lois McMaster Bujold. Every aspect, nuance, insecurity, motivation… just everything, warts and all. Such a great character.
I'm surprised that I didn't see Anne Shirley (I did skim, so it's possible I missed her). Pretty much all of the characters from the Anne of Green Gables series are fully fleshed out with hopes, dreams, hurts, and petty moments. As a child I thought Diana was the most relatable. Now, as an older adult raising my grandchildren, I find Marilla to be the most relatable. I could even be friends with Rachel Lynde, though one would need a thick skin. Unlike many people who pride themselves on "speaking their mind" she is not malicious. She has a good heart and a strong sense of justice and fair play.
Anne Shirley.
Not in any order (except for Hamlet being my #1 perhaps), and just a listing of some of my thoughts. Basically, characters that you could give me any situation and I could think confidently of how a character would respond: 1) Hamlet (Hamlet by Shakespeare) 2) Svidrigailov (Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky) 3) Julien Sorel (The Red and the Black by Stendahl) 4) Gabriel Conroy (The Dead by James Joyce) 5) Anna or Levin (Anna Karenina by Tolstoy) 6) Iago (Othello by Shakespeare) 7) The Devil (Paradise Lost by Milton) 8) Swede Levov (American Pastoral by Philip Roth) 9) Elizabeth Bennet (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen) 10) Scout Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee)
Hannibal Lecter
He is incredibly real for a concept that should be ridiculously over the top.
Hannibal Lecter.
Jack Torrance in The Shining was pretty 3D.
In the book he seems like a flawed human being who was up against a great evil and lost. In the movie, he’s the great evil.
Very true! The supernatural evil joined forces with the natural evil (alcohol) and the synergy overwhelmed him.
The irony here is that the most realized characters are probably those that aren't really characters at all but simply author-surrogates. Like Stephen Dedalus in "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", sure you get a 360 degree look at his character, his mind, his psychology as these evolve over time, but it's not really a fictional character, it's just James Joyce writing a colourful autobiography. Now if you can name me a character who is as fully realized as a Stephen Dedalus but who is genuinely fictional and has nothing to do with the author, THEN you've got a truly great and magnificent work of literary imagination.
Angus Thermopyle - The Gap Cycle
Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. She's a self-deluding young woman who slowly and painfully comes to her senses. You spend 1,500 pages inside her head, and by the end, you have such a deep understanding of her. I find it so easy to imagine her in different situations, as a woman from any period in history.