- Faramir – The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien. I love Faramir solely for his reply to his father Denethor’s pronouncement that “In desperate times gentleness may be repaid with death”: “So be it.” His stance is something that I aspire to in times that feel increasingly more desperate.
- Mogget – Sabriel, Garth Nix. He’s a sarcastic cat. A sarcastic cat. He makes me laugh, with his slightly malevolent insouciance.
- Hugo Lamb – The Bone Clocks, David Mitchell. OK, yes, he’s a sadistic psychopath, but his abortive relationship with Holly is redemptive and a little tragic too.
- Adora Belle Dearheart – Going Postal, Terry Pratchett. I actually wish there was a Discworld book starring Adora (or Spike, as her brother called her). She is just so fantastically abrasive.
- Jenny Wren – Our Mutual Friend, Charles Dickens. Abrasive, and tragic too: far more spirited than most of Dickens’ heroines, apart from perhaps her friend Lizzie Hexam.
- Jane Roland – the Temeraire series, Naomi Novik. I love how Jane just bulldozes her way into the Admiralty, ignoring all the prejudices against her gender.
- Lizzie – Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter. Lizzie’s quiet, female rebellions against masculine order, against masculine history, is deeply compelling.
- Marvin the Paranoid Android – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams. Every comedy needs someone to be the butt of all the jokes, and Marvin does the job perfectly: an antidote to Hitchhiker‘s exuberant silliness.
- Foaly – Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer. Foaly’s a centaur technician who wears a tinfoil hat to keep people from reading his mind. His banter with LEPrecon operative Holly Short is perfect and hilarious. (Lord, this is making me nostalgic. I should go back and read Artemis Fowl soon.)
- Balthamos – The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman. Balthamos is another deeply sarcastic character, with some unexpected moral character.
(The theme for this post was suggested by the Broke and the Bookish’s weekly meme Top Ten Tuesday.)
The English Student 