TTT: Characters of my Heart

People that don’t read often express confusion as to the attraction of the hobby. Why read? Why not be social and have friends?

First-off, bookworms have friends. They do tend to be more picky though, in my experience. But here’s part of the real attraction in books: they introduce you to a wide array of characters you might never have met in real life. Yeah, we know they’re not REALLY real (sort-of), but that doesn’t make their quirks any less enjoyable, or their lessons any less valuable.

So today, in conjunction with The Broke and the Bookish, here are my Top Ten Favourite Characters of all time, in no particular order.

1. Matilda from Matilda (Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake) – the bookish girl with such intelligence that she can move objects with her brain? Yes please! She overcomes her horrid parents and her even more horrid headmistress, she is devious and cunning, and she’s quite the hero too. A nerdy girl with a happy ending? Yes please!

2. Arimoto from The Garden of Evening Mists (Tan Twan Eng) – this gentle Japanese gardener is so wise and wonderful, I just want to adopt him. He also says funny things like, “Your brain is just like a strip of flypaper hanging from the ceiling; every thought, however fleeting and inconsequential, sticks to it.” Read my review for it here.
3. Snowy from TinTin (Herge) – I almost forgot about these books until The Boy and I had a movie marathon one recent rainy weekend. Snowy was a legend, man! The cutest, most clever little dog ever. Just thinking about him makes me miss my doggies back home, sniff. By the way, YJI has a great TinTin review here and I found this awesome TinTin tumblr page here.

4. Hermione Granger from Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling) –  Hermione is confident, super intelligent, brave, funny, bossy… not a perfect girl by anybody’s standards, but quite legit. I used to (okay, lies, I still do) get compared to her all the time. Which annoyed me at first, but it’s cool now. Remember this?

5. Pumpkin from Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) – yeah yeah, the underdog and all that. She’s not the nicest person I guess, but I think she was good underneath it all and just forced into all that nonsense. She was a sweet little thing.

6. The Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll) – truthfully, for my little-girl life Alice was my favourite and I yearned for her adventures. The Cat annoyed me, he was cryptic and that smile was just creepier than the Queen of Hearts. But he grew on me. I appreciate him now.

7. Atticus Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee) – I had a huge crush on Atticus when we read this in school. He was an intelligent (do we see a trend here) and compassionate man. And a great lawyer. And a great father! Plus no wife to upset.

8. Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh (A.A. Milne) – Winnie the Pooh did not really feature in my non-English childhood, so I got acquainted with the characters at a much older age. And Eeyore is adorable.

9. Klara from Heidi (Johanna Spyri) – When my mom was pregnant with my little sister, I tried convincing them to call her Heidi and to rename me as Klara. I’m not sure why I preferred pale Klara while I clearly had a desire for adventure.

10. Rue from The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins) – I’m willing to bet just about everyone will have a THG character on their list. Rue was the sweetest, the most gentle, and actually one of the best-developed characters. I cried for her in the book and the movie.

I think this was definitely my favourite (yes, that’s how I spell it) TTT so far. I would have liked to add Scout (Mockingbird), Amelia (Handle With Care), St Clair (Anna) and Pippy Longstocking too, but rules are rules 😉