foxinthestars (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foxinthestars) wrote2011-04-22 11:08 pm
foxinthestars) wrote2011-04-22 11:08 pm
Fictional Character Meme
1. Comment with "the odds are ever in your favor."
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters and your thoughts on each.
smurasaki gave me an F.
I found this letter challenging at first, but then it seemed to get going...
1. Falcor the Luck Dragon from the Neverending Story. I haven't gotten around to reading the book, but the movie version was the coolest thing ever when I was a child, kind, smart, cuddly, and available for vengefully buzzing school bullies. It's been years since I saw the movie, and I suspect that if I saw it again it would be rather humbling (I know the sequels are best left on the shelf), but still, one of those shining gems of my youth...
2. Fuji of Shishio's Juppon Gatana from Rurouni Kenshin. What I loved about RK was the insistence on the humanity of all the actors, even most of the "bad guys", and it could be argued that Fuji is the purest example, a giant seen by everyone as either a monster or a weapon until Kenshin's teacher cuts straight through that BS and challenges him to fight not as a monster but as one swordsman---one person---to another. Of course Fuji loses the clash of swords, but he wins something much more important.
3. Frankenstein's Creature (he can count as an "f", right?). Of all the movie monsters I can think of, Frankenstein's Creature is probably the one most hideously mangled from his literary source; the novel is a masterpiece, in which Mary Shelley wrote the creature as a sensitive, eloquent, and initially innocent soul. Reviled and rejected by everyone, including his creator, for his hideous appearance, denied even a companion of his own kind, he is driven to violent desperation and ultimately self-destruction for lack of a place to belong in the world. That pop culture renders him into a lumbering murderous beast is kind of a pet peeve, actually.
4. Falman, Vato from Fullmetal Alchemist. The member of Mustang's crew with the photographic memory, Falman comes across as a pretty regular guy who never gives up even though he knows he's in over his head. I especially remember when he got the job of babysitting Barry the Chopper and wasn't even clued in on the plans being spun around him, poor guy, but despite it all he comes through in a pinch, like the time he struck a decisive blow in the fight with Sloth at Mt. Briggs.
5. Falada the talking horse from the fairy tale The Goose Girl. I mention him because of vague memories of a live-action version of the story on PBS when I was a child that might have vaguely creeped me out or for whatever reason stayed with me (edit to add, I'm pretty sure it's this version). In it, the narrator simply announced that "her horse was named Falada, and he could talk," but I remember it as strictly an informed ability; given my girlhood love of horses (hey, it was the original heyday of My Little Pony) being promised a talking horse with no payout was a letdown. Of course the villainess then has Falada killed to keep him from talking (the scene wasn't gory, but is probably the creepy part that made this stick with me); ironically after he was dead and his head was hung up on a gate was the only part where he did talk, although the old-fashioned voice-over was vague enough that it wasn't clear even then whether he was talking or just thinking. Falada also has a cameo early on in Castle Waiting, and there he actually does talk.
2. I will give you a letter.
3. Post the names of five fictional characters and your thoughts on each.
smurasaki gave me an F.I found this letter challenging at first, but then it seemed to get going...
1. Falcor the Luck Dragon from the Neverending Story. I haven't gotten around to reading the book, but the movie version was the coolest thing ever when I was a child, kind, smart, cuddly, and available for vengefully buzzing school bullies. It's been years since I saw the movie, and I suspect that if I saw it again it would be rather humbling (I know the sequels are best left on the shelf), but still, one of those shining gems of my youth...
2. Fuji of Shishio's Juppon Gatana from Rurouni Kenshin. What I loved about RK was the insistence on the humanity of all the actors, even most of the "bad guys", and it could be argued that Fuji is the purest example, a giant seen by everyone as either a monster or a weapon until Kenshin's teacher cuts straight through that BS and challenges him to fight not as a monster but as one swordsman---one person---to another. Of course Fuji loses the clash of swords, but he wins something much more important.
3. Frankenstein's Creature (he can count as an "f", right?). Of all the movie monsters I can think of, Frankenstein's Creature is probably the one most hideously mangled from his literary source; the novel is a masterpiece, in which Mary Shelley wrote the creature as a sensitive, eloquent, and initially innocent soul. Reviled and rejected by everyone, including his creator, for his hideous appearance, denied even a companion of his own kind, he is driven to violent desperation and ultimately self-destruction for lack of a place to belong in the world. That pop culture renders him into a lumbering murderous beast is kind of a pet peeve, actually.
4. Falman, Vato from Fullmetal Alchemist. The member of Mustang's crew with the photographic memory, Falman comes across as a pretty regular guy who never gives up even though he knows he's in over his head. I especially remember when he got the job of babysitting Barry the Chopper and wasn't even clued in on the plans being spun around him, poor guy, but despite it all he comes through in a pinch, like the time he struck a decisive blow in the fight with Sloth at Mt. Briggs.
5. Falada the talking horse from the fairy tale The Goose Girl. I mention him because of vague memories of a live-action version of the story on PBS when I was a child that might have vaguely creeped me out or for whatever reason stayed with me (edit to add, I'm pretty sure it's this version). In it, the narrator simply announced that "her horse was named Falada, and he could talk," but I remember it as strictly an informed ability; given my girlhood love of horses (hey, it was the original heyday of My Little Pony) being promised a talking horse with no payout was a letdown. Of course the villainess then has Falada killed to keep him from talking (the scene wasn't gory, but is probably the creepy part that made this stick with me); ironically after he was dead and his head was hung up on a gate was the only part where he did talk, although the old-fashioned voice-over was vague enough that it wasn't clear even then whether he was talking or just thinking. Falada also has a cameo early on in Castle Waiting, and there he actually does talk.