fannish5: Five characters who are best at what they do

1.) Benjamin Linus (Lost). What Ben does is perhaps best described at "surviving via mindgames and manipulation" with a sideline of "don't be afraid to get yourself beaten up now and then and be in a seemingly powerless possession, it makes people even better to manipulate". You could argue that Jacob and Smokey are even better at this, but I ask you back: who's still around by the time the show ends? Huh? I rest my case.

2.) Xena (Xena: Warrior Princess). There have been female warriors before and since, but I'd still put Xena against anyone else, male or female, in martial combat. (Not that I don't say "strategy" or "long term survival".) How did that great nonsense verse go... "You've not lived till you've been gored/By Xena". *hums melody from The Bitter Suite*

3.) Natasha Romanov(a) (The Avengers). Best spy of them all, clearly. Someone should write the crossover where she and Ben match mindgame and pretending-to-be-powerless-using-real-emotions-to-trick-enemy skills, but it won't be me. In my fanon, there's just one thing Judi Dench!M really can't forgive Nick Fury for, and that's for making Natasha an offer Natasha couldn't refuse before she could.

4.) Havelock Vetinari (Discworld). Best benevolent tyrant ever (except if you're a mime). As opposed to many a competent power player, he doesn't even seem to have their Achilles heel, i.e. not allowing any other competent people to rise, thereby creating a lack of goverment competence once they've shovelled off the mortal coil. (*looking at you, Bismarck*) It's point of discussion whether the Patrician is grooming Moist or Carrot as his successor, but either one would not do a bad job.

5.) Kalinda Sharma (The Good Wife). Might or might not be the world's best P.I., but is definitely the best one in the show's Chicago. If I needed either dirt to be dug up or my innocence proved, Kalinda is the Private Investigator I'd hire. If I could afford her, that is.

Thirty Days of Borgias: Day Twenty Three

Day 23 ~ Cesare, Juan & Lucrezia: Shag, marry, stab - what would you do?

Well, Juan is for the stabbing. (Was that ever a question?) My first inclination would be to shag Cesare and marry Lucrezia, what with her being my favourite Borgia sibling and favourite lady on the show. But then I remembered what happened to their actual spouses. Well, you could say that Giovanni Sforza had his historical as well as his show fate coming, but poor Alfonso d'Aragon, by all accounts, did not. Alfonso d'Este survived Lucrezia, their marriage was by all accounts a success, but then again, he gave her six children and she died in childbirth. While Alfonso moved on to attempted marriage with his mistress and yet more children, I'm not sure I could, after having been married to Lucrezia.

On the other hand, Cesare's wife, Charlotte d'Albret, got a few months of marriage during which he seems to have been on his best behaviour, enough for a fond memory but not everlasting grief. Said months of marriage took place in France, so there was avoidance of the fascinating mess that was Borgia family life in Rome, so inpenitrable to outsiders. She also got a daughter, Louise, for whom she acted as regent after Cesare's death, and in this function a rich and independent life without further attempts by the male relations to marry her off and interfere with her life. Louise seems to have inherited the Borgia charm and brains without her father's more sinister qualities. So basically, it was win all around for Charlotte d'Albret. Which makes me revise my original reply to: stab Juan, shag Lucrezia, marry Cesare. He'll be dead soon enough anyway.


( The rest of the days )