My son and I were talking about his favorite character Percy Jackson, when he bet EVERYONE knew Percy. I replied that might be true of Harry Potter but not Percy Jackson.
Then I made the statement above in the affirmative. Was I wrong? My wife, who generally disagrees with me on most things just to make life interesting, thought I was probably right.
The only rules are that the character must have first appeared in a book (excluding comics or Spidey wins hands down) and have made their first appearance AFTER December 31, 1959.
I say Potter takes it hands down. The only person who came close in my mind was John Rambo. We discussed Bond, but thought he was probably introduced in the 50’s.
I had to think who John Rambo was, so keep that in mind.
I suppose it’s true re Harry, but I think it depends on your target audience. I also think that this being the Dope, you will soon have several people in here decrying the “literary” descriptor…
My youngest son also loves Percy Jackson (hated the movie, though).
I think Harry Potter is a really solid answer to this question, but I’m enjoying the exercise of thinking about who else might be a possibility.
So far, the best I can come up with is Don Corleone (The Godfather) – the book was 1969. This seems like a fuzzy area, though … if it had ONLY been a book and not a movie, I don’t think we’d even be discussing it because the Godfather is so synonymous with Marlon Brando.
The Cat in the Hat is too early by a shade, in 1957, but I would bet that Max and the monsters from Where the Wild Things Are would be more readily recognizable than Percy Jackson (who honestly doesn’t belong in this conversation at all, not even close).
Robert Langdon. The DaVinci Code sold 80 million copies. Harry Potter is more famous as a movie character. I never read any of the Harry Potter books and I suspect most adults haven’t either. The most popular Harry Potter book was 44 million.
Of course, the 50 year limit is arbitrary. If it was 60, then it would be Frodo (150 million).
What would be more interesting would be the most famous literary character that wasn’t made into a movie?
I’ve never even heard of Robert Langon (although I have heard of the DaVinci Code, enough to know I never want to read it).
In comparison, the Harry Potter series had sold over 400 million copies as of 2008 (happily ganked from Wikipedia. And if you think adults aren’t reading them, you are completely wrong. I used to work in a bookstore, and adults bought the Harry Potter books, apparently for themselves, all the time.
Plus, the first Harry Potter book came out in 1997. Someone who read that at the age of, oh, I’ll go with eleven, back then, is today an adult.
Just for fun I put all the names given up against Harry Potter in Googlefight, and the only one that Harry didn’t squash easily was James Bond, who is disqualified due to age. Yes, even Frodo lost badly.
So what? The rules don’t require you to remember the character’s name, just the character, therefore the guy from the DaVinci Code counts. Remember: the name is not the thing.
While we are at it, we should throw in the shark from Jaws.
I’d vote for Harry Potter as well, given the vast number of book sales. And I think that characters like James Kirk, James Bond and Don Corleone either originated on-screen or are more widely known as movie characters than book characters.
Most people don’t know the character though. They have heard the title “DaVinci Code” and may know it has something to do with a conspiracy, but know nothing about any characters involved.
Already mentioned Jaws. I’m not sure how well known it is in other countries though.