Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Fictional Characters: 98

****SPOILERS TO FOLLOW****

98: David Xanatos
Created by Greg Weisman and Voiced by Jonathan Frakes for the animated show Gargoyles
First Appearance: 1994

 

Why do I like Xanatos?! That’s a stupid question. The original antagonist from Disney’s animated epic “Gargoyles”, this dude is the perfected mix between Lex Luthor and Tony Stark – evil, rich, playboy genius with large goals, deep pockets, and a hot-ass wife. He is also voiced by Riker (and, apparently, designed around his look on Star Trek: TNG no less) and he is so damn awesome that he lives in a fucking castle. That he had taken down. In Scotland. And transported across the sea stone-by-stone. And rebuilt. On top of his building. Which is so tall the castle is above the clouds. And he lives in that castle. Every day. For the rest of his life.

Why else to I like this guy? He’s a friggin’ mastermind of both magic and science. And love. He also doesn’t care for revenge, so when the stone behemoth monsters he helped bring back to life best him time and again, his next attempts are never out of desire to return the favor. No, he couldn’t care less about that shit. No, he wants to just keep getting ahead. A failure is merely a road block toward some other major goal. That’s pretty badass.

What else? How about the fact that, when ANY push comes to ANY shove, he will stand up to any oppression that comes his way. Be that on a strength front (he builds a suit that makes him as strong as Goliath, if not stronger, and proceeds to punch the shit out of him at will); be that on a business level (he brings new meaning to “hostile takeover” in regards to his wife, Fox’s dad); or even on a mystical level (when Oberon – that’s right, from Avalon. That shit happens in this show – shows up to claim Xanatos’ kid, he stops him in his tracks. His giant, skyscraper -height tracks). He’s just completely ready for any and all scenarios.

But the primary thing I love about this guy is that his character changes dramatically throughout the course of the show. Comparing him in the early episodes – a Machiavellian tactician only interested in self-worth-improvement – to those of later episodes – a man dedicated to protecting his wife, son, New York City, and in the end, the Gargoyles themselves – its clear that the writers of this show had an arc planned for him from the start. And I give a lot of props to the makers of this program for it, because they could have just left him a ham-fisted Lex Luthor clone. But instead, Xanatos gets to alter himself for the better, becoming a much more interesting character in the end.

Also? That goatee.

Favorite Portrayal:
He was in a comic book about the events following the show but fuck that. Without the voice, who cares?

Favorite Quote:
While BACK IN TIME BECAUSE HE’S DONE THAT, TOO!

Goliath: If I didn’t fear the damage you would do to the time stream, I’d *gladly* leave you here.

David Xanatos: But you won’t, because you didn’t. Time travel’s funny that way.

Favorite Moment(s):
Here you go!

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Added September 22, 2016
This dude is awesome. And that clip is amazing.
God, maybe I should finish this list…?

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Fictional Characters: 99

****SPOILERS TO FOLLOW****

99: Aya Brea
Created By: Squaresoft for the video game series “Parasite Eve”
First Appearance: 1998

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As I’ve stated numerous times before, I love the Parasite Eve series a whole bunch (with one “possible” exception). At its most base, the series is a slowly diminishing series of events centered around one genetic horror after the other, with the first being pure mitochondrial mayhem in New York City, the second being engineered mitochondrial mayhem out in the sands, and the third being… well, whatever the hell the third one was. The focal point of these stories, thankfully, is never the reason or the method or even the science behind these things, though the first game dabbled a ton in the practice of over-explaining. No, the thing that holds these stories together is the central protagonist, Aya Brea, the buxom, blonde, blue-eyed beauty Squaresoft clearly ripped off of Christina Aguilera.

Aya, being a headstrong – if not somewhat naive – girl in her early 20’s and a member of the NYPD, is first seen in a horrible situation that almost rips apart her home city. People die, people melt, and people transform into monsters, running through the streets and never stopping until a bullet puts them down for good. As horrific as all of this, however, she is going through a terror of her own; she and the first game’s primary antagonist, Eve, both represent opposing sides of the mitochondrial spectrum, one light, one dark. She doesn’t know it yet, however, and so Aya is left struggling with her identity in a monster-filled New York City, battling inner demons as well as those breaking through her doors. She sees herself as a monster and unable to do anything to help, outside of get people to leave her alone, seeing as how monsters are drawn to her.

And that’s what I appreciate about her character, both in the first game and in the second. She is, by all accounts, a monster. Her advanced evolution of cells is the same as Eve’s and thus all the other monsters she faces. But when she finally accepts herself and steps up to the plate, she does amazing things. By the time the credits roll on the second game, Aya has come a long way from her youth; her curious nature, her by-the-books ideals, and her lack of self-worth are done away with entirely. We are left with a character who has come full-circle, in regards to her place in life, and one that is worth continuing to go on adventures with.

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All of her character growth aside, she kicks a lot of ass. I can respect a chick that runs around and beats the shit out of people, monsters, and semi-demigods. She has a wit and charm to her not found in most Squaresoft games, and almost every Square-Enix game ever made lacks the ability to craft characters that are as engaging or interesting as Aya is. Cloud goes through some memorable stuff, but his character in FFVII is bland and he, himself, is not that interesting. The main antagonist from Vagrant Story, Ashley Riot, is a hoot and very memorable, but he doesn’t have any staying power as far as legacy is concerned (which is why there hasn’t been any sequels to that game, barring the fact that it takes place in the same world as Final Fantasy Tactics and FFXII). Ms. Brea showcases a humanity that big fantasy games lack, because she exists in a world that was created with the sole purpose of being set “in reality” (so to speak). Her New York City is our New York City, it simply shifts at a certain point in time and enters a science fiction realm. There is something we can relate to.

Perhaps, then, that’s why I hate Third Birthday, and why – ultimately – her character gets bumped so far down the list. The problem with characters is that, at any point in time, someone can come along and add to their cannon. In a science fiction world, anything can happen to these people, and often times it does. Aya Brea is a perfect example of how to take a great character and ruin her by making new lore, new stories, and new problems for her to face, particularly if everything was already perfect as it was. This is the primary reason Aya is on the list, period. Utilizing a character inappropriately adds to that character’s history and narrative arc and, in the end, suggests that this is always what would have happened to that character. Nay, it is what was going to happen, because it did. It can destroy what came before, somewhat, and tarnish the quality  a bit, simply by ignoring what came before it. Aya is a good warning of what can happen at any time, to any character, in any medium. Which is a shame, because she is pretty much a badass up until that point.

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Favorite Portrayal:
Well, she’s only been featured in video games, but the best one is easily the first. In that one she is fresh-faced and has access to all of her stupid Parasite Powers and she goes through the most growth. In the second one she’s just a loner and she’s dead the entire time you play the third one, so who cares about that.

Favorite Quote:
Eve (after transforming for the very first time into a monster):
“Nucleic domination has finally come to an end once and for all!”

Aya (with a stupefied look on her face):
“…………what?”

Favorite Moment:
In Parasite Eve 2, Aya has a shower sequence.I kid, I kid. My favorite moment is in that game, though, and its after that sequence, when a giant, cannon-mouthed monster shows up and Aya has to battle a monster that takes up four screens. In actuality, that boss fight should have made it on my Top 10 Boss Fights list from last year. What an idiot I’ve been.

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Added September 22, 2016
If I didn’t have such a backlog of games, man, this entry is making me want to play the first game so bad.
God, I hope I still have my PS1 memory card(s)… The Bubba II is a gun I made by playing the game over and over and carrying over the mods and attachments. I could one shot the end boss. I was neigh indestructible.
Good times.
Updated @ 4:53PM
Updated the video to reflect the one that has since been taken down.

Facebook – Top 100 FAVORITE Fictional Characters: 100

****SPOILERS TO FOLLOW****

100 – Ignatius J. Reilly
Created by: John Kennedy Toole for the book “A Confederacy of Dunces”
First Appearance: 1980

If there is any one thing I have to say about Ignatius is that his name makes his character complete. This Quixote-esque figure, rotund and squat (and, according to almost all recent art, the man could pass for John Candy’s double… of course, Candy was slated to play Reilly before he passed away) is every part a memorable character, but to top it off, he comes equipped with a name that showcases just how strange, unique, and memorable the character – and the text itself – would later become.

The behemoth of fat and flatulence is both lazy and over-critical of everything “modern” or “commercial” – his escapades going to the local cinema, for example, yield positively hilarious results as he verbosely berates the images on screen, calling them boorish and insipid. He thinks rather highly of himself, making note of his “god-like mind” on more than one occasion. He is a man humorously out of place in time, “forced” as he says “to function in a century that I loath.” He lives with his mother until such a time as his lack of an income becomes too ever-present a dilemma and thus must enter the work force at the lowest possible rung, deep in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

While Ignatius is traveling from location to location, offending new people, we are reminded – through him – that the strength of man’s self-worth is only able to survive as long as no one can be bothered to test its limits. We all feel alienated, from time to time, in a world that sometimes doesn’t seem our own. Ignatius would prefer to live in the Medieval times, resonates most with that period of literature, philosophy, and methodology. His lack of care for modern societal movements reflect his longing to be a part of them, for with every move he makes to separate himself from the “now”, he takes two steps toward it, perhaps even unbeknownst to him, though I would wager he is at least somewhat aware of this.

His fears of the world mirror our own, though they are clearly more outlandish and grandiose. He dreads leaving his home city, so much so as to define the rest of these United States as nothing more than a “wasteland” and he absolutely abhors the idea of working at a job which under-utilizes his self-evaluated talents and, as such and almost to the same degree, abhors the idea of working for less money than he feels he is owed. His placement of himself within all aspects of society is similar to most peoples’, I feel, in that his self-worth is far greater than the the worth of his person as perceived by others. This clash of value is the center of his personal narrative, and the one most readers – myself included – will find the most simple to appreciate and comprehend.

But while Ignatius himself deals with these issues firsthand, its his interactions with those around him – a police officer, a pornographer, a hot dog vendor, and a homeless black man to name a few – that really showcases the lengths and depths of the human struggle, the fragility of our own existence. While the crass writing style of John Kennedy Toole is fascinating and enthralling, these moments of character-to-character relation invoke in the reader a sense that everyone, even the most bombastic of us, face daily strife from which we can never truly escape. Ignatius is our doorway, albeit an over exaggerated one, into this sense of realization. But it is because he is as “out there” as he is that we can see past the ludicrousness and dig into the real trials of those he meets. That is the meat of his arc.

statue in his honor in new orleans

 

Favoriate Portrayal:
This is easy, since no other version aside from the book has ever graced the world (with the exception of a few stage productions). Numerous attempts at a feature film have been made, each with some overweight comedian at the center, but each on having passed away has led some to claim a curse has been placed on the film’s progress. Recently, though, a version has come into the world of possibility with Will Ferrall in the lead role. I hope to god they don’t go this route, because he is neither fat enough nor is he interesting enough to want to see in a fat suit to make it legit.

Favorite Quote:
“I mingle with my peers or no one, and since I have no peers, I mingle with no one.”

Favorite Moment(s):
I personally love his interactions with old-time college chum Myrna. Their ideologies couldn’t be any more different, yet the two compliment each other perfectly. In a world as crazy as Toole’s New Orleans, these two people found each other and represent the opposite sides of every topic to the points of comedy, sorrow, and parody. The fact that they each hate the other is barely hidden in their opinions of one another, too, which only adds to the complexity of their briefly seen correspondence.

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Added September 27, 2016
The first in my doomed Fictional Character list. Ah, memories.
Since I first wrote this article, a stage version with Nick Offerman has come into existence and, you know, I can see him in that role. I’d like to see that production, if possible.

Facebook – Coming Up Next on the WB

Starting my TOP 100 FAVORITE FICTIONAL CHARACTERS LIST soon. Its gonna be epic, huge, and time-consuming. I stared work on this list on Aug. 18th. Had to weed out the best of the best from over 1000 characters and then struggle with the “order” “(though the back 50 or so could hardly be considered “in order”). Hope to see some commentary along the way, but know better than to assume I will please everyone. Or that everyone will know these characters at all, period. And, as always, this is a list of my FAVORITE characters, so don’t assume I’m crediting myself as official. Although I’m 100% right, anyhow. Think the list starts Monday. Look for it.

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Added September 27, 2016
Too big to finish, that list was a monster and one of the driving reasons that I committed to leaving Facebook, permanently.