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/lit/ - Literature

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4769840 No.4769840[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Who is the single greatest character to have ever been invented in all of literature?

>> No.4769843

>>4769840

>the judge

>> No.4769844

>>4769840

jon snow

>> No.4769846

Xenu

>> No.4769847

god

>> No.4769851

>>4769840
Achilles
>people answering non-Greek characters

Ishygddt

>> No.4769855

Heathcliff

>> No.4769859

that guy in the elevator in that shitty vonnegut book

>> No.4769864

>>4769855
No, Garfield!

>> No.4769869

Nostromo

>> No.4769871

Don Quixote, of course.
Bonus points for God, Hamlet, Jesus and Shakespeare

>> No.4769874

>>4769871
Too much patrician for one post.

>> No.4769878

All this shit taste, jesus christ.

>> No.4769881

>>4769859
which one?
slapstick?

>> No.4769883

>>4769874
Frankly, I didn't expect that. I allso forgot Ulysses, Antigone, Prometheus and Oreste.

>> No.4769887

>>4769871
Jesus and Shakespeare were invented?

>> No.4769895

>>4769881
>Slapstick
>Shitty
Only Vonnegut was enough of a pleb to think Slapstick wasn't one of his best works.

>> No.4769901

holden caulfield

>> No.4769922

Dr. Crucifer is a terrifyingly awesome character -- read Darconville's Cat.

>> No.4769923

>>4769840
So the Dune worm is a human hybrid? Never read the series.

>> No.4769927

>>4769923
Nope, read the first book at the very least.

>> No.4769929

My dick

>> No.4769932

>>4769923
No, that's just Leto II

He formed a symbiosis with the larval form of the sandworms to become a sort of pre-worm that allowed him to live for over 3,500 years.

>> No.4769937

>>4769923
"We [and the Sandworm larva] are virtually one body now, they my skin and I the force that moves the whole... Most of the time.

At this writing the /whole/ could be considered rather gross. I am what could be called a pre-worm. My body is about seven meters long and somewhat more than two meters in diameter, ribbed for most of its length, with my Atreides face positioned man height at one end, the arms and hands (still quite recognizable as human) just below. My legs and feet? Well they are mostly atrophied. Just flippers, really, and they have wandered back along my body. The whole of me weighs approximately five old tons. These items I append, because I know they will be of historical interest."

>> No.4769942

Melancholy Dane obv
Only reason Hamlet isn't Shakespeare's best play is that there's nothing interesting that doesn't revolve around Hamlet.

>> No.4769943
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4769943

Hamlet - The archetype of modern consciousness.

>> No.4769954

Falstaff, you plebs, Falstaff! Kudos to those who said Hamlet. Don't you guys see? Shakespeare invented the human.

>> No.4769964

Stephen Dedalus is probably the most fully formed character I've encountered, although he is kind of a buzzkillling little shit

>> No.4769998
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4769998

>>4769943
more like the arch-mneisis

>> No.4770022

>>4769942
what's Shakespeare's best play in your opinion?

>> No.4770046

usami haru

>> No.4770050

>>4769932
>>4769937
>making me want to read the book
Is this in the original Dune or some spin off "sequel", I see /lit/ gets pissed at the sequels.

>> No.4770065

Baldanders and Dr. Talos
Edmond Dantes
Cyrano de Bergerac

>> No.4770068

John Galt.

>> No.4770070

>>4769887
Jesus as portrayed in the Bible matters most than Jesus as a historical figure. The former is an invention.

>> No.4770073

>>4770050

The first book is great. The sequels aren't the same and get pretty boring. The books his son "wrote" are shit tier.

>> No.4770080

Proust as recreated by himself in In Search of lost Time.
Bardamu (ie Celine destroyed by himself in Journey to the End of The Night).

>> No.4770093

>>4769843
Yes.

The Judge is beautiful. But the human Judge, not the gnostic interpretation where he's just Lucifer in human skin.

As a human, the Judge is a brilliant architect and artist of human flesh, willing to go to any lengths to create the existential work of art that is his life. Even dragging a stone out into the middle of the desert, just so he can sit on it and wait for someone to come.

>> No.4770113

>>4769840
The Narrator

>> No.4770119

in terms of sheer reproduction, i don't think anyone tops sherlock holmes

>> No.4770126

>>4770022
Lear's probably the best mix of stagecraft and depth. It juggles two significant plots, but keeps them relevant to each other and juggles a whole bunch of huge themes, some oblique and some obvious. Huge cast of great characters
Also Edmund is in the top 3 best villains with Based Iago and Malvolio

>> No.4770135
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4770135

Conan the Cimmerian ought to be in consideration. He's more than a pulp hero- he's the black and viscous Id of manhood made flesh. There is no blood and iron as sharp as Conan's.

>> No.4770136

>>4770050
God Emperor of Dune is the fourth book in the Dune series, and probably the best book Herbert ever wrote.

It's a shame most people will never make it to God Emperor, they usually drop the series at Dune Messiah or Children of Dune because the series becomes less focused on action.

>> No.4770159

>>4770136

>TO BE FAIR THOSE BOOKS GET PRETTY FUCKING DULL FRIEND
>LIKE I PUSHED THROUGH AND READ BUT GOD DAMN
>ALSO CAN YOU IMAGINE HOW HORRIBLE HIS SON MUST FEEL
>HAVING REALLY ONLY ONE THING TO DO IN LIFE AND THAT IS TO FINISH YOUR FATHERS MASTERPIECE
>THEN TO HAVE IT BE REALLY REALLY JUST OK
>LIKE JUST AVERAGE
>GOD THAT GUY MUST WAKE UP FEELING AWFUL EVERY DAY

>> No.4770170

>>4770159
Heheh, I'm reading Heretics of Dune and I'm just about ready to drop it. It's a shame really, God Emperor is my favorite book ever

>> No.4770184

>>4770113
Are you sure it's not Sherlock Holmes?

>> No.4770206

>>4769871
>Don Quixote
Sancho Panza is way better

>God
yes i agree harold bloom

no really i agree

>> No.4770216

>>4770206
They are two sides of the same coin. We should call them Sanquixote (or Doncho Panza).

>> No.4770217

Borges

The other one, the one called Borges, is the one things happen to. I walk through the streets of Buenos Aires and stop for a moment, perhaps mechanically now, to look at the arch of an entrance hall and the grillwork on the gate; I know of Borges from the mail and see his name on a list of professors or in a biographical dictionary. I like hourglasses, maps, eighteenth-century typography, the taste of coffee and the prose of Stevenson; he shares these preferences, but in a vain way that turns them into the attributes of an actor. It would be an exaggeration to say that ours is a hostile relationship; I live, let myself go on living, so that Borges may contrive his literature, and this literature justifies me. It is no effort for me to confess that he has achieved some valid pages, but those pages cannot save me, perhaps because what is good belongs to no one, not even to him, but rather to the language and to tradition. Besides, I am destined to perish, definitively, and only some instant of myself can survive in him. Little by little, I am giving over everything to him, though I am quite aware of his perverse custom of falsifying and magnifying things.

Spinoza knew that all things long to persist in their being; the stone eternally wants to be a stone and the tiger a tiger. I shall remain in Borges, not in myself (if it is true that I am someone), but I recognize myself less in his books than in many others or in the laborious strumming of a guitar. Years ago I tried to free myself from him and went from the mythologies of the suburbs to the games with time and infinity, but those games belong to Borges now and I shall have to imagine other things. Thus my life is a flight and I lose everything and everything belongs to oblivion, or to him.

I do not know which of us has written this page.

>> No.4770236

>>4770217
Every time I read Borges, when I'm done all I can think of is that I need to read more Borges.

>> No.4770249
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4770249

Severian the Great

>> No.4770422

>>4770249
/thread

>> No.4770489

Faust.

>> No.4770518

I'm going to throw in Zaphod Beeblebrox

>> No.4770528

Jesus Christ

>> No.4770554 [DELETED] 
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4770554

Honestly, I am not sure. In my opinion it would likely be Felix Hoenikker. In my opinion, Vonnegut did a brilliant job on making an Oppenheime-esque sociopath(at least post-Hirosima). Though at a second, Dorian Grey.

>> No.4770593

>>4770518
i'm going to throw that nomination out

>> No.4770600

>>4770489
Faust appeared on German oral tradition long before any of the plays.

>> No.4770606

>>4769840
Meursault lel

>> No.4770611

>>4769840

There is no such thing.

>> No.4770691

>>4769840
Philipp Marlowe

>> No.4770695

>>4770217
that is fucking amazing, which is that from?

>> No.4770708

Merlin the Enchantor

>> No.4770735

Satan, formerly Lucifer, of
>paradise lost

>> No.4770768

as pleb as it sounds, hannibal lecter
followed by iago, shylock, don quixote, lolita, ashenbok, milton's lucifer

>> No.4770770

>>4770695
Borges and I, a short fiction by Borges that appears in his Labyrinth.

>> No.4770772

>>4770735
>formerly Lucifer
>Didn't actually read PL
Lucifer was the name given in the present to the angel he used to be. His actual name when he was an angel is, according to Raphael, lost.

>> No.4771510

>>4770093
Sorry to be pleb, but who is this? I haven't the foggiest who you are talking about,

>> No.4771525

>>4770735
>Satan
>Lucifer
>the same

Nope.

>> No.4771561

>>4769881
lol he means the black guy from cat's cradle. who slapped his ass and yelled every time he spoke

>> No.4771566

Florentino Ariza.

>> No.4771589
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4771589

Gilgamesh, because he's the first character that someone wrote about (as far as we know).
Ergo every other character ever written about is just a re-hash of Gilgamesh.

>> No.4771601

Odysseus.

>> No.4771766

>>4771510
From the McCarthy novel Blood Meridian.

The Judge is the demonic antagonist who seems to know everything and is impossibly weird. Some people interpret him as a literal demon or the demiurge or etc, etc (and there is at least one scene where he reenacts Paradise Lost with himself in Lucifer's role), but I prefer to see him as a mortal with an education in the classics and an excellent sense of stagecraft.

>> No.4771774

Edmond Dantes

>> No.4771777
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4771777

America

>> No.4771787

Beowolf is pretty great.

>> No.4771809

Gregor Samsa

>> No.4771849

Socrates

>> No.4771864
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4771864

>> No.4773548

I don't think she's the greatest, but my vote goes for Hermione Granger. Book version.

>>4770135
Conan is great.

>CROM!

>> No.4773731

>>4770136
The internet insanely overhyped God Emperor of Dune for me.

I would have enjoyed it if I had no expectations. But starting a book expecting it to be the GOAT is a recipe for disaster.

I sincerely wish I hadn't read it.

>> No.4773751

>>4770600
Fine, Goethe's version of Faust

>> No.4773756

Ginny Weasley

>> No.4773773

>>4773731
But it is goat

What didn't you like?

>> No.4774132
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4774132

Milton's Lucifer, and possibly Arthur Dent

>> No.4774145

>>4774132
Holy shit, is that real?

>> No.4774155

>>4774145
Ain't no laws in space, plus he's Canadian.

>> No.4774175

>>4774155
It's still a dangerous narcotic, regardless of where it's "legal".

>> No.4774177

>>4774175
>dangerous

>> No.4774198

>>4774175
Photoshop isn't illegal

>> No.4774206

John Galt.
Atlas Shrugged's naturalistic character driven plot lead to far more human characters then other author's vapid representations.

>> No.4774208
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4774208

>>4774132
>literally one click

>> No.4774258

Socrates

>> No.4774982

Hamlet, or Shakespeare. They're essentially the same person anyways
>inb4 go to bed Stephen

>> No.4775029

>>4770518

i'm gonna catch nomination and toss it in the trash where it belongs

>> No.4775032

>>4774982
what a dumb belief to actually have

>> No.4775034

For his spirit of defiant knowledge — Prometheus, who is Satan, who is Faust, who is Manfred.

>> No.4775070

>>4770217
Now that's one shitty translation

>> No.4775081

>>4774177
>pot head

>> No.4775118
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4775118

the boy from hatchet was really great because he had to rely only on himself n not his mommy

>> No.4775121

>>4769887
Yes. Shakespeare was invented by Sir Francis Bacon.

>> No.4775136

>>4769840

Owen Meany gets my vote.

>> No.4775430

>>4773773
Leto's cryptic pompousness and saccharine love for Hwi, Duncan's ineffectualness, the dialogue, the foregone conclusion, Dune not being Dune, the pacing...

>> No.4775496

Its actually the fat guy in the Big Lebowski

OVER THE LIIINE

>> No.4775562
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4775562

>>4775136
good choice

i'm still partial to pic related

>> No.4775843

>>4769840

Ignatius J. Reilly

>> No.4775854

Hamlet

>> No.4776183

>Colonel Aureliano Buendía

>> No.4776476

>>4774175
lol @ dangerous narcotic

>> No.4776506

>>4769847
Lel

>> No.4777324

>>4770068
but anon... who is John Galt?

>> No.4777535

>>4775430
Everything about Leto is fucking fantastic

But I agree with you about Duncan. He was such a shitty character and his ignorance and refusal to deal with change really pissed me off.

Slow pacing was intentional, it is supposed to reflect the dull, monotonous life of the God Emperor

>> No.4777554

God of the Old Testament
Socrates
Falstaff

>> No.4777557

>>4777554
basically, fat guys with beards

>> No.4777561

The Old Man from The Old Man and the Sea.

>> No.4777596

>>4777324
Hank Rearden is more impressive. Or the Mexican his girl used to fuck

>> No.4777659

>>4775430
>>4777535

God Emperor is great because it is so clearly the result of Herbert getting sick of his fans and his series. Hence the entire plot being the same "TODAY'S HERO IS TOMORROW'S TYRANT, OKAY?" spiel that was the whole point of the original trilogy, only spelled out tediously in words of many, many syllables through the self-centered ramblings of a pedantic penisman while the only remaining character from the original book is like "god, will you just shut up and stop being such an asshole already?" for hundreds of pages. It is basically Herbert taking a slow, boring shit in the face of everyone who still read his books because they enjoyed buying into power fantasy of prophetic psychedelic kung fu wizards in space rather than because they got his point. Melodrama of Leto's "relationship" with Hwi is totally intentional parody of traditional pulp-hero's relationship with traditional pulp-heroine, with the punchline being that instead of being mighty-thewed hunk who is rewarded with a woman designed for him to find perfect in every way, Leto is a gigantic phallus which must be destroyed to allow mankind to endure. It's a pretty funny book full of laugh-out-loud touches such as Nayla's orgasm, but since it is the first book in the series where Herbert is overtly taking the piss, a lot of people are confused by it.

>> No.4777691

>>4777659
Heheh, is there really somebody this stupid?

>> No.4777693

Telemachus

>> No.4777695

>>4777659
Dude, Frank Herbert wasn't like that. He did write about a lot of deep/pretentious stuff, but his main goal in writing was always to entertain people

>> No.4777701

>>4770249
this

>> No.4777704

>>4777695

I'm entertained.

>> No.4777706

Hector

>> No.4777709

Leopold bloom, obviously

>> No.4777714

Starbuck.

His legacy lives on in price-gouged frapps.

>> No.4777735

>>4770518
you're dumber than I could possibly have imagined before I opened this thread up on /lit/

>> No.4777765
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4777765

>>4770518
>Hitchhiker's Guide

It's not even a book.

>> No.4777813

>>4777704
You're also a massive fucking faggot

>> No.4777817

>>4777813

Why are you so angry?

>> No.4777820

>>4777817
Can raw anger truly be expressed through words?

>> No.4777833

>>4777820

You could try screaming into a pillow.

>> No.4777840

>>4777833
But pillows aren't words. Are they?

>> No.4777877
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4777877

>>4769840
Dog dragon from never ending story.

>> No.4777895

>>4769840
Sonichu