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Last week was on favorite scenes, and this week is on realistic characters!
FORUM TOPIC OF THE WEEK:
Who’s the most realistic fictional character in a story?
My choice is the one and only… Leo Valdez from The Heros of Olympus series!
I don’t know the exact reason why he felt so real to me, but he felt as though he was an actual person that existed than just a character in a story.
The main reason why I didn’t want the series to end because I had to say goodbye to what felt like a friend.
The thought that he didn’t actually exist in real life felt more strange than the thought that he did!
What character out of all the stories you’ve read/watched felt most real to you?
@kathleenramm I’m gonna have to say Cal Trask from East of Eden. He seemed very, very human to me. I think it was because he was foils with his brother, Aron, and since Aron was the perfect person that we all attain to be, Cal is our sinful self, who could never measure up to Aron.
Lately, it's been on my brain
Would you mind letting me know
If hours don't turn into days@kathleenramm Well, another way of coming around to the point, is who is the most unrealistic fictional character you have watched/read about?
I can’t really think of a character who is realistic. Plus, most films and books have characters who do react realistically to their situations. Usually, this is because of some thing that pushes them to react. Though, unrealistically, I’d have to say that I don’t exactly know for sure.
I guess it might have to be pointed as to WHAT sort of realistic you mean when referring to the word. Do you mean realistic in relation to the actual Earth and circumstances therein? Because that would rule out most fantasy characters. They react with the things upon their own world, not earth. For example, the One Ring from The Lord of the Rings isn’t realistic on earth, thus the characters cannot act realistically on Earth the way they act realistically in Middle-earth.
Though you could mean realistically in relation to a character’s circumstances. This would make more sense, though I could say that Sauron wasn’t realistic in his attempt to overtake Middle-earth. That isn’t sensible at all. The same goes for Thanos. He isn’t realistic at all with his idea of killing half the people on every planet. That’s pure insanity; not realistic at all.
It also isn’t very realistic that the Lonely Mountain should be permeated with gold. Why that mountain and not another? There is a reason behind this; gold doesn’t grow after all (though the concept is intriguing and very degrading to the value of gold if it did grow abundantly). How did the gold get there? It can’t have just BEEN there; then again, these stories have their plots and their elements, such as the gold in Erebor which acts on characters in large ways. If it wasn’t there, the Battle of Five armies wouldn’t have taken place.
Of course, Spider-man isn’t realistic at all. But his fictional circumstances made him quite realistic in his story.
The point being, most characters CAN be realistic and also UNrealistic. It depends on the kind of realistic sense. Because, going off here, any main character or other character in a book, SHOULD be realistic. Otherwise, they are not rational and can’t explain what they do. They do things for a realistic purpose. To stop some bad thing from killing people. To predict the eruption of a volcano so that a city doesn’t burn and blow to the ground. To prevent the surreptitious and deceptive takeover of an empire. To destroy a ring in the only place able to destroy it in order to prevent a very powerful character from taking over a place.
I believe Sunny Gallagher from the Kensington Chronicles is very realistic. She was written in a very realistic way, her thoughts played out as we might have thought in such circumstances.
A wolf is a wolf,
even in a cage,
even dressed in silk.@leon-fleming
Yes, characters can be both realistic and UNrealistic in two different ways.
A character can have supernatural powers that make them unrealistic but also have a well-written character full of depth and heart that makes them realistic.
Some books I’ve read the characters feel like they’re just puppets being controlled by the author. And with every move the character takes, all you see is the author’s thoughts while writing that scene.
But in other books, the characters come alive and don’t just feel like words on a page. I feel as though I know them as a person, not a character made up by someone.
So yeah, the question is who is the most realistic character in the sense of their personality, not in what they do or the world they live in.
@kathleenramm Hi! I’m not sure if you guys are going to know this lol. I have read lots of books with realistic characters, but right now I am going to say Jack Torrance from The Shining!
@leon-fleming
The dwarves dug the gold out of the mountain. It was full of ore.
Utúlië-n äure - auta í lomë
What do you think makes Jack especially realistic?
I really want to figure out the reason why some characters feel like they’re alive and others feel as real my pet unicorn.XD
@morwen Yea, Morwen, I know they dug it out; but it was, after all, a fantasy world. So many things can and can’t happen. It’s not a tweaked version of Earth, after all.
@kathleenramm Okay, cool! That’s easy. I would say Henry York Maccabee.
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