joiedecombat | (no subject)

Because everyone else is doing it: the unguessed answers to the fandom meme, plus some further elaboration on the themes present and a few of the characters who were guessed.

6) Star Trek: Spock. And really, someone should have gotten that one, but it's a big fandom with a lot of characters. Data runs a close second. This would be my thing for excessive self-control again, I think... the appeal of the idea of what might happen if said control ever failed, although that really doesn't work quite the same way with a Vulcan or an android. Anyway.

12) The James Bond franchise: Wai Lin. Someone should have really gotten this one, especially given my established predilection for the Tough Girls (and I think I actually mentioned her to

funwithrage recently). To help jog your memory, Wai Lin was the Bond Girl played by Michelle Yeoh in Tomorrow Never Dies. The one who made Bond look pretty silly several times and generally kicked ass. Yeah, she had to get rescued at the end, but it is a Bond movie, what do you expect? She was still cool and sensible and I don't understand why so many people got all excited about Halle Berry's character in Die Another Day when Michelle Yeoh did it better.

Two more characters to mention, one who was guessed and one who wasn't....

funwithrage mentioned Sturm for the Dragonlance fandom, and while mostly I prefer Tanis, Sturm is another favorite. This, I think, has to do with the same reasons I like Michael in the Dresden Files and why I appreciate the paladin archetype... something about that purity of purpose. In one of the poems in Chronicles, Tanis reflects on "Sturm, who can see the sun / straight through this fog and cloudrack." That kind of vision leaves you blind to parts of the reality around you, but still, I find it appealing somehow. Aya and Squall have a bit of that as well. Probably Aragorn too.

(Tanis and Squall, incidentally, indicate the flip side of this quality, as characters who get thrust into leadership they didn't really want but are too responsible to reject, and must try to take care of everyone and save the day while having no earthly idea what they are doing. Confusion, insecurity, and enough innate responsibility and nobility that they struggle on in spite of both because people are depending on them.)

And the other answer I would have accepted for the Inuyasha fandom is Miroku, the delinquent Buddhist monk. Because there's just something about the naughty but fundamentally good and spiritually powerful priest. Miroku is naughty. He's a wandering houshi who's supposed to be doing that whole "denying the body for the good of the soul" thing, but he actively pursues physical comforts, flirts outrageously with every decent-looking woman he meets, drinks, lies, cons, steals, cheats, uses coarse language when no one else can hear him, and makes poor Hachi the tanuki assist him in his schemes by way of threats and the application of violence. And yet... he has a caring heart; he helps people. He doesn't cheat or steal from those who can't afford it. His flirting seems mostly harmless - and his performance in battle indicates that he could, if he tried, probably evade the various slaps and clobberings that his behavior gets him from Sango, but he never tries. In more serious moments, he displays a surprising serenity - that purity of purpose thing again - and his spiritual abilities are very strong. He's also taken a curse that's going to doom him to an early death and made it a weapon he can use against his enemies, including the person responsible for cursing him in the first place, rather than angsting about it.

Really, I like Miroku and Sango about equally, and I like them together a whole lot.