Fictional Characters #4- Salt and Pepper - As In, They Come As A Set

All of these characters could make this list on their own merits, and yet as romantic-sparks-flying teams they are even better, besides it seems almost impossible to write about any of them without mentioning their other half.

Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in X-Files)

I have a legitimate, somewhat serious phobia about UFO’s and yet X-Files is one of my favorite shows of all time.  Why?  Because the complex and slow building relationship between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully had me hooked week after week.  It wasn’t just about the romantic part, some of my favorite “relationship” episodes come early in the series, when it’s almost exclusively their ability to rely on each other no matter what. 

Sorcha and Red (from Juliet Marillier’s Daughter of the Forest)

This story is really Sorcha’s, and she carries it, with a determination and grit that comes from love, but Red is one of the serious stand-up guys in fiction, a Clark Kent for the Middle Ages, trying to do right by everyone he cares about. He isn’t perfect, but he’s perfect for her.  This isn’t the easiest read, these characters go through so much grief, but it’s one of my favorite romantic stories ever. 

Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson (from the Amelia Peabody series by Elizabeth Peters)

[Small spoiler alert]  Yes, their initial meeting in Crocodile on a Sandbank is lots of fun, and I especially love that it’s Amelia’s brain that first gets Emerson’s attention.  However, what I really love is that in the eighteen (I’m not kidding) books that follow it, nobody makes married life look more fun, romantic, enduring, and interesting than Amelia Peabody and Radcliffe Emerson. 

Rick Castle and Kate Beckett (played by Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic in Castle)

These two are fairly recent entries on this list, and in fact it was after watching an episode of Castle that I started thinking about doing this list for my blog.  They remind me a bit of Mulder and Scully, though with more humor and more flirting, which is a big compliment coming from me.  Besides, Rick Castle is a novelist, and that’s always going to earn a character extra points in my book, pun intended. 

Belle and The Beast (from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast)

This has always been my favorite fairy tale, maybe because it’s one in which it’s the girl who truly does the saving.  However, I recently, and finally, bought this movie on DVD and I was once again struck with the fact they couldn’t have written a version of Belle more designed to suit me if they had tried.  Yes, Robin McKinley did “book worm” Beauty first, and that’s a big part of it.  However, Belle is also a character that, while she clearly loves her father, is a bit uneasy with everyday expectations, something I’ve always struggled with myself.  And The Beast is perfect, all bluster and no bite (except when it comes to the bad guys) who manages, in spite of his fearsome looks, to come off as awkwardly sweet.    

Fictional Characters #3 - Best of the West

As I’ve written in previous posts my earliest love of history came from stories of the American West, and as you can tell from the last entry in this category, “western” characters continue to be some of my favorites.

Laura Ingalls (played by Melissa Gilbert on Little House on the Prairie, and from the books by Laura Ingalls Wilder) 

Ok, so this is a “fictionalized” character.  There really was a Laura Ingalls Wilder, and she did an incredible job of turning the story of her life into a series of books that one little girl from Idaho adored.  I also remember being so sad when the Little House series ended my Dad had to console me with the fact that it would always be on in reruns. 

Jimmy Hickok (played by Josh Brolin in The Young Riders)

Yes, again there was a real James Butler Hickok, but I think it’s safe to call this depiction a fictional character.  In re-watching the series as a happily married grown woman, I was still impressed with how strong and interesting Hickok is as a character.  One episode, “The Peacemakers”, is carried almost entirely by the character of Hickok and is so compelling I felt like I was watching a classic western movie, instead of an episode of a sometimes cheesy 90’s western. 

Kicking Bird (played by Graham Greene in Dances With Wolves)

Being a Native American historian, I’ve had to live with so much academic analysis of Dances With Wolves that it’s almost impossible for me to see it as just a movie anymore.  However, the highlight of this movie, in my opinion, is Graham Greene’s portrayal as Kicking Bird.  He’s determined, smart and funny, and creates one of the least stereotypical and most enjoyable Indian characters on film.  Greene’s also behind another of my favorite Indian characters, Joseph from Maverick. 

Gus McCrae (played by Robert Duvall in Lonesome Dove)

In my opinion, in all the best and worst ways Lonesome Dove is the epitome of the “western”.   And while Tommy Lee Jones’s Woodrow F. Call is the epitome of the western hero, I think it’s the character of Gus that gives this story its heart.  

Annabelle Bransford (played by Jodie Foster in Maverick)

Do not ask me why I love this character so much.  I can’t even explain it myself.  She’s dishonest, manipulative, and gambles for a living.   Yet, when I saw this movie I thought, “If I could have been a movie actress, just once, that’s probably the part I’d want to play.”     

Mattie Ross (played by Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit)

Forget Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin (which is saying a lot, considering my above comments). The thing that makes this movie amazing is the character of Mattie Ross.   With the possible exception of Whale Rider, I don’t think I’ve seen another film whose portrayal of a teenage girl was so compelling.  She’s the true “western” women in a pint sized package.

Fictional Characters #2- The Sidekicks

Sometimes the sidekicks are as good as, if not better than, the hero or heroine they hang out with.

Hermione Granger (played by Emma Watson in the Harry Potter films)

Yes, I love book Hermione too, of course, but when I see Hermione in my mind I see the movie version.  Book smart, a little bossy, and courageous to the end.  Though it’s a little bizarre to look up to someone who is younger than you and fictional, Hermione has a spot on my heroes list.

Chewbacca (played by Peter Mayhew in the Star Wars films)

Ahh, Chewie.  How is it that a character who can’t actually talk can be so funny and endearing?  He may be a “walking carpet” but there’s no one I’d rather have co-piloting an interplanetary spaceship.

Samwise Gamgee (played by Sean Astin in The Lord of the Rings trilogy)

It’s no surprise that the chubby and diligent Sam is my favorite of the hobbits.  One of my very favorite moments from this trilogy is Sam’s speech from the end of The Two Towers, “It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger … But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come…. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something…That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.”

Alice Cullen (from the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer)

A best friend with total loyalty, unlimited funding, killer fashion sense (pardon the pun), and the ability to see the future, what more could a girl ask for?  If I could be a fictional character for a day, Alice Cullen would be in the running.  I mean, forget being rich and seeing the future, the girl is graceful.  I’d like to try that for one day.

Hugo “Hurley” Reyes (played by Jorge Garcia on Lost)

“Dude. Dude? Dude!”  Other than the ability to convey an entire thought with the inflection on a single word, I love Hurley because he snuck up on me.  Yes, of course, I instantly sympathized with the overweight character, but still, Hurley appeared to be simply the plucky comic relief to more serious characters like Jack and Sawyer.  Instead he ended up ruling the universe, in a manner of speaking, and he deserved it. 

Fictional Characters #1 - The Villains

As you all undoubtedly can tell I've been in a blogging slump, so in order to solve that I decided to create a list of my favorite fictional characters.  I was shooting for roughly fifty and came up with forty-seven entries, which is close enough.  There was no set criteria or scientific process involved, just me, rattling off a bunch of favorites and trying to group them in some interesting way.  So here it goes, in no particular order....

Today's entry?  The Villains, not necessarily the baddest (though they're bad enough), but in my opinion the most memorable and interesting.

Darth Vader (from the Star Wars movies)
Head-to-toe black, telekinetic strangulation, a secret past, and a whole fleet of deadly looking ships waiting to blow you out of the sky, and if that weren't enough just his breathing can scare the crap out of you.

The Cigarette Smoking Man (played by William B. Davis in X-Files)
The ultimate poster child for a "Smoking is Bad" campaign, he expertly toyed with and tortured Mulder and Scully in episode after episode.  The only thing more satisfying in the final episode than seeing the dynamic duo in full mushy mode was watching the Cancer Man go up in a ball of flames.

Lex Luthor
There are lots of versions of Superman's nemesis, one of my favorites is Kevin Spacey in Superman Returns, a little bit goofy, but pure evil.  One of the best things about Lex Luthor is that in most versions he doesn't have any super powers of his own, he's just clever and absolutely ruthless, demonstrating that Superman's biggest strength, his goodness, is also his greatest weakness.

Screwtape (from The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis)
In all seriousness, Screwtape  may be the scariest villain of all, because every one of us, in a manner of speaking, fights him every single day.  His truest statement,  "The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slopes, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts."

Ursula (from The Little Mermaid)
Nothing is more delightfully wicked than belting out "Poor, Unfortunate, Souls."  The fact that she reminds me of a junior high teacher who scared me to death is just a bonus.

Love, love, love

Happy Valentines Day!

Does it have an apostrophe or not?  I am chronically apostrophe challenged, so who knows.

Tracy and I actually celebrated on Saturday, we went out to dinner and had a great day.  I think that Valentines Day should be about all kinds of love.  Love for family, love for friends, love for humanity in general.  So I'm sending everyone a big mental hug today!

Marathon Application

So I just applied for a job.  Frankly, the timing stinks a bit, as I've basically just quit another job to focus on my dissertation, but awhile ago my Mom asked me what the ideal history job would be after graduating and I said something like, "Oh, probably a public history job, like doing museum education, somewhere in the Pacific Northwest."

Well this job is job is a museum education job at a small history museum south of Seattle (far enough south that the cost of living isn't insane). Not only is it a fantastic job, but I'm pretty qualified for it and it has great pay and benefits.

It was posted four days ago and I've been hemming and hawing ever since.  Not just because of the timing but because I knew it was going to be one of those herculean job applications, with hundreds of tiny little boxes to fill in and supplemental questions that require pages of writing.  I just wanted to officially decide it was worth it before putting in that kind of time. Well, today I finally went for it and only THREE short hours later, the application was complete.  Ugh. 

Anyway, I don't know whether to hope I get the job - because it's exactly the kind of thing I want to do, or hope I don't - so I can actually finish my dissertation.  But in either case, my brain is officially fried.

A Television Reborn

So a couple of posts ago I lamented the loss of our television set.  Tracy and I did some initial looking, but the idea of slapping several hundred dollars on our Visa was seriously unappealing.  So my very clever husband got on EBay and for about $60 found a television just like ours , and fully functional, only with a cracked screen.  It was a bit of a gamble, as we weren't 100% sure what was wrong with our old TV, but Tracy felt pretty confident so he bought it.

The TV arrived yesterday (the biggest package I've ever received via the Postal Service I might add) and in less than an hour Tracy had used parts from it to fix our television. Genius!