8 of the Best Protagonists of All Time (and What We Can Learn From Them)

By Rachel Leitch

Think of your favorite protagonist.

Chances are it might be an iconic name like Anne Shirley, Luke Skywalker, or Lucy Pevensie. These heroes and heroines are iconic for a reason.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve asked a group of readers who their favorite protagonist of all time was. I also researched and looked up top ten lists of fictional characters. I got a lot of fantastic answers. Too many to use them all, unfortunately. So I narrowed it down to eight that I’m familiar enough with to write about.

So what makes these eight protagonists so iconic? And what can we learn about our own protagonists through them?

1. Anne Shirley 

Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery

The red-haired romantic has long been a favorite by girls everywhere.

I, for one, remember listening to the book on audio, watching all three movies, and reading the children’s copy we had until it was ragged.

Describing Anne’s personality is a bit of an interesting study. Prone to a temper? Yes. Melodramatic? Definitely. Holds onto a grudge a bit too long? Yes. In denial of reality most of the time? Yes.

Those aren’t normally the words we use to describe a beloved character. In fact, they’re most suited to characters who pop up in bad reviews.

But we love Anne not only in spite of those things, but because of those things.

No one sees the world quite like Anne does. Her voice is unique, something no author has been able to replicate in the years since the book was published.

We roll our eyes at her antics sometimes. But we still love her.

We love her because even though the littlest of things bring her low, the littlest things also excite her. We love her because she makes mistakes, just like we do. We love her because she voices out loud things we feel deep down inside sometimes. And we love watching her grow. 

A strong voice was the gateway to those experiences. It drew us into her story so we could take that journey with her. 

Whether or not your readers have everything in common with your main character, a unique voice will draw them in and not let them go.

2. Bree Nichols 

The Rock Harbor series by Colleen Coble

(And Samson, too, naturally.)

Search-and-rescue pair Bree Nichols and Samson front one of the biggest series in Christian suspense.

When author Colleen Coble was interviewed about the series, she described Bree as caring and sympathetic—to the point that she trusts a little too easily and is a little too overprotective.

The important words here are caring and sympathetic.

Our characters have their passions. They have their weaknesses. They have their fears and the things that make them angry.

But we can’t forget to give them a heart. 

Even if your protagonist is an antihero or even just not nice at all outwardly, there has to be a heart lurking deep inside. 

When we give them something or someone that they would do anything for, chances are, a relationship of our own will come to mind—someone or something that we would do anything for. Instantly, a connection is formed between us and the character.

3. Elizabeth Bennet

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

I’ve never read Pride and Prejudice, and it wouldn’t normally be my type of book. Yet it is on my bucket list to read and I’m familiar with Elizabeth Bennet.

Elizabeth is known for her outspokenness, her bold opinions, and her firm beliefs—namely when it comes to Mister Darcy. (The aforementioned prejudice in the title.)

Whether or not her beliefs are wrong, just a little off, or just plain maddening at times, she believes in them. We have to respect that.

Although we will naturally respect it more when a character grows in or perhaps even changes their beliefs. Which Elizabeth also does.

This particular dynamic offers so many possibilities.

What if your character is wrong?

What happens then?

 What if they only think they’re wrong and find out later they were right all along?

Or what if they are right and stay in that belief?

What if they’re right about a few things and wrong about others?

The possibilities and the reactions to those possibilities are endless.

If we’re alive, we have beliefs—rooted in anything from our pasts to our current situations, from what we’ve read to what someone has told us.

When a character explores their beliefs, we explore it with them.

It expands our minds and forces us to think about things we might not have otherwise considered.

And once we get started exploring, it’s hard to stop.

4. Hiccup

Dreamworks’ How to Train Your Dragon

Confession: I am a How to Train Your Dragon nerd.

And half of that is because of Hiccup. (The other half belongs to Toothless.)

Hiccup truly is one of my favorite heroes of all time. And very little of it belongs to what he can do, but rather what he can’t.

Multiple people agreed with me that it was Hiccup’s weaknesses—his clumsiness, scrawniness, awkwardness, and penchant for disaster—that made him strong.

There’s a reason everyone loves underdogs.

We love seeing what’s hidden inside someone who feels useless. We love seeing them rise above the circumstances that fight to keep them down. We love seeing something come from nothing.

In Hiccup’s case, his weakness covered his humor, his creativity, and his hope for something better.

Truth is, we’ve all felt like an underdog before.

We know what it’s like to not feel like we belong, to be left out of a group, or to desperately want to fit in. We know what it’s like to feel unprepared and unequipped.

The underdogs, like Hiccup, remind us that we are so much more.

5. Jo March

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

Though many people claim the March sisters as a whole as their favorite heroines, most, when pressed, claim the fiery wordsmith Jo as their favorite.

Jo doesn’t take the usual path to anything. She doesn’t like what other girls like. She’d rather spend time at home scribbling in her notebook than go to a party. She’s prone to furious anger.

But what she does love, she does passionately.

She’s unconventional. Different. And she goes all in.

Tagging on a bit to Hiccup’s lesson above, we all know what it’s like to feel different.

 Jo reminds us that that is a good thing. That we were each designed differently than anyone else on the planet. And that’s a great thing from a protagonist, too.

6. Luke Skywalker

Lucasfilm’s Star Wars movies

I gotta be totally honest, I’m more of a Chewy and R2-D2 person. But the fact remains that Luke gets the coolest scenes in the original Star Wars trilogy. And he is easily the most iconic character of our time.

One helpful reader referred me to a fifteen-minute video explaining why he’s so great. I won’t go into all that here. If you really want to know, you can watch it yourself:

But I will try to sum up.

 Luke has captured so many viewers because of his stubborn insistence to cling to hope. A dream of one day becoming a pilot. A belief Vader will change.

He never gave up (which is really incredible after The Empire Strikes Back, just sayin’). He believed when I, as a skeptical viewer, did not.

Life is dark sometimes. We go through some really terrible things that feel like our own version of The Empire Strikes Back. It hurts. It’s hard.

 Characters like Luke grab us because their hope bleeds out of their story into ours. It reminds us to hang on and makes us believe that we can.

Another thing that I will mention is that (as the video above mentions) Luke wasn’t just a good person.

Luke had the choice to choose something good or something evil. The best heroes have those two choices too and are capable of choosing either. They feel the tension between both sides.

 The difference between the hero and the villain is that the hero makes the right choice. 

For example, while we see a lot of that hopeful good in Luke, we also see his tendency to impatience and anger that would also make him very capable of making the wrong choice. What matters is that no matter how many times he fails, he holds on to hope and makes the right choice anyways. 

7. The Pevensies 

The Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis

While the Narnia books may be beloved for their world and the great lion Aslan, it’s safe to say some of it falls on the Pevensies’ shoulders — Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy.

Each of them has their own struggles, their own strengths and weaknesses, their own hurts. Throughout the books, the siblings never stop growing—from the time Lucy steps through the wardrobe to the time they bid it goodbye.

They win great victories and make terrible mistakes. And they leave Narnia a better family than they came in.

And because we journey with them, we also become better people.

8. Samwise Gamgee 

The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

I have never read Lord of the Rings. (Please save your fury for the comments.)

 But I do know about Samwise Gamgee, proving how much of an impact he has not only on series readers, but also on innocent bystanders alike.

Sam sacrificed his quiet life in the Shire—everything he’d ever known—to go with Frodo in his quest to defend the ring.

 No idea what it would entail. No idea if he’d ever get to come back. No idea if he’d even live.

When Frodo couldn’t even follow through with his mission, it was Sam who carried him up the mountain.

Sam makes us take a good hard look at our lives and all the things we cherish the most. Sam makes us think, makes us wonder—would we give it all up?

Those are the heroes that inspire. The heroes that sacrifice. The heroes that carry.

These are only eight of the beloved heroes, but more live on in my mind and your mind. As do the lessons they teach us—both when it comes to writing and when it comes to life.

*Did I miss your favorite? Share your favorite hero and why in the comments below!*