Last night I finished re-reading the final Harry Potter book. (Stop looking at me like that)
I found myself rooting for Harry and the others. I’ve read books that have a fancier, more pleasurable way with words, but none that I’ve been able to get into like the HP books.
Maybe it’s because of the size of the total story (seven books) or the fact that I began more or less when the books began (so I’ve several years of aquaintance with HP) or the fact that HP were the books that got me back into reading as a form of pleasure. Whatever it is - I could easily be attached to the characters, feel their ups and downs with them, and feel some triumph when they triumphed.
There’s a void now. I have many many half re-finished books on the go, but none of them evoke the same connection as HP… I don’t really root for the people in the books. They are half-hour soap-operas to HP’s epic seven-part movie.
So… the point of this thread. Can you recommend a book or series of books that have characters you find yourself rooting for?
Stephen King’s The Stand (I recommend the original version, not the “uncut” version):
Stu Redman
Frannie Goldsmith
Nick Andros
Tom Cullen
Larry Underwood
Glen Bateman
Ralph Brentner
Root for? Oh yes, you will. You’ll root so much it’ll almost physically hurt when one or more of them is in danger. (Ok, a couple of these people you might want to slap upside the head a few times during the first part of the book, but you’ll end up rooting for them.)
I really, really, really enjoyed and cared for the characters in Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series. Yes, I suppose this makes me the person swearing in church, as I gather the Dopers rally around the four books for the story, and then recommend people to leave it at that.
Other than that, though;
Morpheus in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comics. (As well as Death, of course)
Captain Vimes in Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch series. (My favourite character)
Tyrion, Jon and Jaime in George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series.
I was going to mention this series. I just finished the first book, and I’m about to start A Clash of Kings. I really love Jon, Arya, and Tyrion, among others.
Not sure if that’s what you’re looking for, but those two popped immediately into mind. If you want characters you can become invested in, you will find them hard to top (there are others in the same tier, but I’m not sure there’s one above).
ETA: I was on the HP kick from the time book three came out until the last. Great fun. I"m surprised no one has mentioned LoTR or the Hobbit yet – both exceptional and very close to the Potterverse. (Or did they mention it and I missed the reference? Sorry if so.)
I root for Frodo et al every time I reread Lord of the Rings.
For something short, you can certainly cheer for the characters in “The Last Unicorn”.
For something long, I root for the main character Elspeth in the Obernewtyn series, a fantasy series few others seemed to have found, or maybe few others here like…
Lobsang, do you like the show Supernatural, and the whole urban fantasy-horror thing? If so I’ve got a series to recommend to you. So far Rob Thruman has written three books about a pair of brothers named Cal and Niko - Nightlife, Moonshine and Madhouse. The brothers’ relationship reminds me a lot of Sam and Dean’s (the first book came out midway through the show’s first season, so I think it’s just coincidental that the relationships have the same feel)
Anyway, Cal and Niko are definitely the type of characters you can care a lot about as they, a puck, a vampire and a psychic get themselves in trouble while fighting the good fight. And I guarantee you’ll never think about elves the same way after the first book. And as a plus, unlike the later Anita Blake books they don’t take away from the adventures to bone everything that moves.
Oh, and if you haven’t read it yet, you need to read War For The Oaks by Emma Bull. You probably won’t be as enamored by the phouka as female readers tend to be, but I bet you’ll find the characters ones you’ll be pulling for.
Nausicaä, of the eponymous comic book. You won’t just root for her, you’ll wish you were her. It’s available in regular book form (“graphic novel”), and is ~1300 pages, so you have time to really get into it.
I was also going to recommend Bujold. In addition to her science fiction, she’s written several excellent fantasy novels. You should probably go with her Chalion books: The Curse of Chalion, Paladin of Souls, and The Hallowed Hunt - each book is a stand-alone work and in my opinion they’re better than her current Sharing Knife series (which is a work in progress) .
I reccomend *Battle Cry * by Leon Uris.
I read this for school & it mooved me so deeply I didn’t want to write the report on it, didn’t feel as if I could do the characters justice.
If you’re into fantasy, Scott Lynch’s The Lies of Locke Lamora has a seriously excellent protagonist–a gentleman thief and magnificent bastard–that you’ll love by the end of the first book.
Actually Vimes is my favourite person in the whole of Discworld. If I ‘Theif of Time’ hadn’t been my very first Discworld book my Username would be Vimes.
As posted in the Reading thread, I am currently about 50 pages from the end of A Thread of Grace, and I tells ya, if Renzo dies, I am going to hurl this book against the wall and kick it to the curb. And it’s a signed first edition. And anybody who spoils it for me will get the same treatment.
Berserk, the manga or anime, has you rooting for everyone.
The manga is probably better in that it has less cheese, but the anime is complete and ended perfectly while as the comic is still being produced (possibly past where it should have been ended.)
(the first book came out midway through the show’s first season, so I think it’s just coincidental that the relationships have the same feel)