Inspired by the “most powerful character” thread, but with the limitation that the character has no or extremely limited super-powers. What fictional character has the best all-around Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Consitution, and Charisma?
I’d have to nominate Ender. Even before he was fully grown he had a higher than average strength. His intelligence has to be in the 20s, and his strength and dexterity at least 18. The only two ability scores you can make a case for being less than 18 are Wisdom and Charisma, and even those he gains in later in life.
I don’t know how true to real life this portrayal is, but the young Julius Caesar, as portrayed in Colleen McCullough’s historical novels about Rome, was brilliant, strong, brave, agile, beautiful, witty, and just about everything other positive adjective you could come up with… eh probably averaged a 17.
Sir Harry Flashman, VC: tall, strong, handsome, athletic, a natural horseman, a good hand with sword and pistol, popular, famous, a devil with the ladies, cunning, omnilingual, and smart as hell. Oh, and a cowardly lying, thieving, duplicitous, lecherous, treacherous scoundrel who rose to ill-deserved fame and fortune by skulking, shirking, fleeing, backstabbing,genral moral turpitude and all-round skullduggery. Alignment? Probably Chaotic Evil. Well, you didn’t say they had to be good.
Sherlock Holmes would probably score highly on all of these counts. I initially thought his charisma score wouldn’t be very high, but then I remembered that he had an “uncanny” ability to calm and soothe people who had suffered stress of various types. He could charm almost anyone into providing information he needed.
Yeah…as much as I dislike the Uberfication of the Bat, the way he’s generally portrayed, he’s got straight 18s. Well…OK, maybe only 14 or 15 on Str and Con, but the extra points were just shifted over to Int and Cha.
Sorry CandidGamera, but ol’ Doc’s the original “Trained to the peak of human physical perfection, genius inventor, massive willpower, and intimidating as hell.”
And he’s bronze, to boot.
And any sleek roadster from the 40s is way cooler than the Batmobile, which is just hokey.
I just quoted this portion of your post, though, to point out that the Batmobile has been a sleek roadster from the 40’s at one point, along with two dozen other incarnations.
Rose to starship command younger than anyone in history. Can find a way out of any trap, and turn any defeat into a victory. Infinitely charming to women; admired and respected by men. Can balance Spock’s intellect and McCoy’s earthy common sense, maintaining strong friendships with both. A skilled warrior, diplomat, chess player and leader.
Honor Harrington is a candidate, though she has the unfair advantage of being from a high-gravity world. Her Strength and Dex are stated to be beyond the bounds of “normal” human ability, so call them 20 or so, and she’s a natural-born leader, certainly better than 99.5 percentile, so that puts her at 18 Charisma (possibly higher, since she also seems to be weakly empathic). At least in fields of military endeavor, she’s a clear genius, and no slouch otherwise (except in mathematics: She’s got a great intuition for it, but struggles at actual calculation). Her only real low score would be Constitution, seeing as she’s one of a small minority who doesn’t respond favorably to many of the medical technologies of her day.
Not sure about the Strength part, but I’ll nominate Mike Callahan from Spider Robinson’s Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon series. You need a lot of 18s to keep that group together.
Though I admit I can’t recall offhand if he really qualifies as a “normal human” or not…
