![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenak1. Leave a comment to this post.
2. If requested, I will give you a letter (feel free to comment if you've already had a letter from elsewhere or don't want one).
3. Post the names of five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and your thoughts on each. The characters can be from books, movies, or TV shows
legionseagle gave me the letter A.
Amanda, from Highlander: The Series (and its ill-fated spin-off), immortal thief extraordinaire, conwoman and occasional heroine. Also not French, as she insists, though she was born in Normandy, but then that was over a millennium ago, and the Normans were mostly doing their own thing then. :) Amanda is one of my most enduring fictional loves, and as time went by, my affection and esteem for her only grew as I realised, by comparison, how unusual she was and sadly still is. For starters, she's a recurring female character who has a friendship and a non-monagamous sexual on/off relationship to the show's hero but never a) gets fridged, b) gets presented as either the evil femme fatale or the star-crossed love of the hero's life, or c) gets punished for her sexuality. I once said that the Duncan/Amanda relationship is like Batman/Catwoman if Batman had a sense of humor about it. (Great case in point: The Finale flashback where Duncan finds Amanda busy mid-heist in disguise as a harem dancer and is a bit too amused until she kicks him so he can help with her escape.)
Alice (Carter), daughter of Jack Harkness from Torchwood. After the disaster that was Jack's brother in season 2 (horribly cast and unconvincingly written), Alice (and Ianto's sister Rhiannon, but her letter doesn't start with an R) showed how you introduce a family member of a main character to the story in a way that has more than one point, both gives us an interesting new character and offers more in depth characterisation for the existing one. I knew I loved her from the moment she instantly twigged Jack's urge to do some grandfather time was because he needed a kid to experiment on in Day One of Children of Earth; I also loved that she's with this clear awareness of her father's nature still deepy fond of him (see her calling his voicemail endlessly when he's temporarily out of commission). That she's the one who gets through and forms an unlikely allegiance with Agent Johnson which gets her father out of captivity. And that the gutwrenching final scene between her and Jack in Day Five is played out in silence, because what could either of them possibly say in this situation?
Anne from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. One of the best examples of how a one shot, one dimensional character turns into something amazing. Originally she calles herself "Chanterelle" and is a goth girl romantisizing vampires, in the s2 of BTVS episode Lie To Me, a bit character among several others to satirize a certain atttitude. The next time we meet her, she has renamed herself "Lily" and is a bit more fleshed out; one of several lost people in the s3 opener Anne, an episode showing Buffy herself adrift in Los Angeles using Anne as her pseudonym, and in the end reclaiming her identity. It's significant that a scene from Anne the episode ended up in the Angel credits and stayed there for all five seasons of the show, though the AtS credits changed significantly in all other regards. But the episode, in the way it used L.A. as a setting and in the thematizing of disconnection, exploited-by-demonic-cooperations hopelessness and identity, is in some ways a trial run for the spin-off, and so it's not surprising that this is where we see the renamed Anne - who has taken Buffy's pseudonym as her final name - again, in a second season of AtS episode at a point where Angel has lost his mission and is on a vengeance path, while she's by then running an organization to help the homeless (as she once was). Anne is a reality check, but much better, she's very much her own character, and in subsequent appearances while she appreciates the occasional help of the AtS crew she's not dependent on them for either her work or her goals. In the last episode of the series, which in many ways is rather nihilistic, it's Anne - who doesn't have any superpowers and never had a romantic or family relationship with any of the regulars on either show - who symbolizes hope by helping people in her own active and unpretentious way.
Arvin Sloane, from Alias. My One True Character from the show. I mean, I was fond of a lot of the others as well, including Sydney herself, and of course I loved the Spyrents, but what can I say? The season 1 primary villain who is also best frenemies with Sydney's dad and has a subtext-ridden not quite avuncular relationship with Our Heroine, but most importantly is played by the magnificent Ron Rifkin won my heart and never lost it. For four seasons, he also had a superb arc, never selling his misdeeds short yet also showing his better qualities. S5, was, err, something different though I will say at least Sloane's development in it could be fanwanked and didn't come out of nowhere, which is more than could be said for MS. Derevko's sudden urge to bomb Washington, meaning: the Irina fans had it worse. Anyway, Arvin Sloane: still my favourite evil-to-grey-to-errr-overlord. Bear in mind that only his wife and Jack Bristow get to call him Arvin on a regular basis. When Agent Weiss tries it in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere at one of those hilariously awkward Bristows-plus-Sloane family dinners, the result cracks me up every time.
Arthur Pendragon, as portrayed in the BBC's Merlin. Previously to this my favourite Arthur was Parke Godwin's from Fire King (one of the few versions of the story where Arthur isn't a background figure but central and three dimensional), but Merlin's royal prat won me over and is now my favourite version of the Once And Future King. He's flawed, he's learning, he can be both immensely funny and incredibly moving, and while the show is by no means an example of perfect characterisation in its writing (case in point: many of the slapstick scenes in the second and third season), it by and large really keeps on doing interesting things with Arthur, especially in the last season when in the third episode of season 4 to everyone's mostly delighted shock Uther actually died which meant that from this point onwards, Arthur was king and thus completely responsible for all his decisions, good and bad.
2. If requested, I will give you a letter (feel free to comment if you've already had a letter from elsewhere or don't want one).
3. Post the names of five fictional characters whose names begin with that letter, and your thoughts on each. The characters can be from books, movies, or TV shows
legionseagle gave me the letter A. Amanda, from Highlander: The Series (and its ill-fated spin-off), immortal thief extraordinaire, conwoman and occasional heroine. Also not French, as she insists, though she was born in Normandy, but then that was over a millennium ago, and the Normans were mostly doing their own thing then. :) Amanda is one of my most enduring fictional loves, and as time went by, my affection and esteem for her only grew as I realised, by comparison, how unusual she was and sadly still is. For starters, she's a recurring female character who has a friendship and a non-monagamous sexual on/off relationship to the show's hero but never a) gets fridged, b) gets presented as either the evil femme fatale or the star-crossed love of the hero's life, or c) gets punished for her sexuality. I once said that the Duncan/Amanda relationship is like Batman/Catwoman if Batman had a sense of humor about it. (Great case in point: The Finale flashback where Duncan finds Amanda busy mid-heist in disguise as a harem dancer and is a bit too amused until she kicks him so he can help with her escape.)
Alice (Carter), daughter of Jack Harkness from Torchwood. After the disaster that was Jack's brother in season 2 (horribly cast and unconvincingly written), Alice (and Ianto's sister Rhiannon, but her letter doesn't start with an R) showed how you introduce a family member of a main character to the story in a way that has more than one point, both gives us an interesting new character and offers more in depth characterisation for the existing one. I knew I loved her from the moment she instantly twigged Jack's urge to do some grandfather time was because he needed a kid to experiment on in Day One of Children of Earth; I also loved that she's with this clear awareness of her father's nature still deepy fond of him (see her calling his voicemail endlessly when he's temporarily out of commission). That she's the one who gets through and forms an unlikely allegiance with Agent Johnson which gets her father out of captivity. And that the gutwrenching final scene between her and Jack in Day Five is played out in silence, because what could either of them possibly say in this situation?
Anne from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. One of the best examples of how a one shot, one dimensional character turns into something amazing. Originally she calles herself "Chanterelle" and is a goth girl romantisizing vampires, in the s2 of BTVS episode Lie To Me, a bit character among several others to satirize a certain atttitude. The next time we meet her, she has renamed herself "Lily" and is a bit more fleshed out; one of several lost people in the s3 opener Anne, an episode showing Buffy herself adrift in Los Angeles using Anne as her pseudonym, and in the end reclaiming her identity. It's significant that a scene from Anne the episode ended up in the Angel credits and stayed there for all five seasons of the show, though the AtS credits changed significantly in all other regards. But the episode, in the way it used L.A. as a setting and in the thematizing of disconnection, exploited-by-demonic-cooperations hopelessness and identity, is in some ways a trial run for the spin-off, and so it's not surprising that this is where we see the renamed Anne - who has taken Buffy's pseudonym as her final name - again, in a second season of AtS episode at a point where Angel has lost his mission and is on a vengeance path, while she's by then running an organization to help the homeless (as she once was). Anne is a reality check, but much better, she's very much her own character, and in subsequent appearances while she appreciates the occasional help of the AtS crew she's not dependent on them for either her work or her goals. In the last episode of the series, which in many ways is rather nihilistic, it's Anne - who doesn't have any superpowers and never had a romantic or family relationship with any of the regulars on either show - who symbolizes hope by helping people in her own active and unpretentious way.
Arvin Sloane, from Alias. My One True Character from the show. I mean, I was fond of a lot of the others as well, including Sydney herself, and of course I loved the Spyrents, but what can I say? The season 1 primary villain who is also best frenemies with Sydney's dad and has a subtext-ridden not quite avuncular relationship with Our Heroine, but most importantly is played by the magnificent Ron Rifkin won my heart and never lost it. For four seasons, he also had a superb arc, never selling his misdeeds short yet also showing his better qualities. S5, was, err, something different though I will say at least Sloane's development in it could be fanwanked and didn't come out of nowhere, which is more than could be said for MS. Derevko's sudden urge to bomb Washington, meaning: the Irina fans had it worse. Anyway, Arvin Sloane: still my favourite evil-to-grey-to-errr-overlord. Bear in mind that only his wife and Jack Bristow get to call him Arvin on a regular basis. When Agent Weiss tries it in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere at one of those hilariously awkward Bristows-plus-Sloane family dinners, the result cracks me up every time.
Arthur Pendragon, as portrayed in the BBC's Merlin. Previously to this my favourite Arthur was Parke Godwin's from Fire King (one of the few versions of the story where Arthur isn't a background figure but central and three dimensional), but Merlin's royal prat won me over and is now my favourite version of the Once And Future King. He's flawed, he's learning, he can be both immensely funny and incredibly moving, and while the show is by no means an example of perfect characterisation in its writing (case in point: many of the slapstick scenes in the second and third season), it by and large really keeps on doing interesting things with Arthur, especially in the last season when in the third episode of season 4 to everyone's mostly delighted shock Uther actually died which meant that from this point onwards, Arthur was king and thus completely responsible for all his decisions, good and bad.
