The most memorable S.K. Character - Who did you Love?

Ode to the characters that made the books a great read. Whether its because we admire them for their unfailing strength of character, their charm or they just simply pulled at your heartstrings (the "aaah" factor).

For me, its:

DARK TOWER Series: John "Jake Chambers, Eddie Dean and Oy the billy bumbler.

SALEMS' LOT: Mark Petrie

THE SHINING: Danny Torrance

THE STAND: Nick Andros and Tom "M-O-O-N" Cullen

DOLORES CLAIRBORNE: Dolores

ROSE MADDER: Rose Daniels

THE TALISMAN: Jack Sawyer and Wolf (did anyone else think Wolf reminded them of Tom "M-O-O-N" Cullen?)

THE GREEN MILE: John Coffey and Paul Edgecombe

GERALD'S GAME: Jesse

DESPERATION: David Carver

BAG OF BONES: Kyra Devore

FIRESTARTER: Charlie McGee

THE RUNNING MAN: Ben Richards

THE LONG WALK: The original Musketeers: (Ray Garraty, Pete McVries, Art Baker), Scramm, Abraham Pearson, Harkness, Collie Parker, Stebbins.

THE MIST (Sketelon Crew): David Drayton, Ollie (he killed Mrs. Carmody), Mrs. Reppler (lady with the bug spray), Amanda Dumfries.

JERUSALEM' LOT (Night Shift): Charles Boone and Calvin.

DREAMCATCHER: "Duddits" Douglas Cavell (admit it guys, Duddits is the only reason you all loved this story so much)

RITA HAYWORTH & THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION: Andy Dufresne

Surely Coffey. The character was very well written.

I loved Donna Trenton in Cujo. I think she's King's best-written, most nuanced female character.

I also love Dick Hallorann in The Shining although I don't think he's as well-written.

Of the villians, my favorite is probably Leland Gaunt from Needful Things.

Always Roland. To me him embodies the perfect Stephen King character. He has all the necessary attributes of the modern knight.

we are in the area of king's major weakness here. there are no characters in any of his books (except maybe the collective nature of the clown/spider/IT in IT) that spring to memory as rochester in JANE EYRE or Lear in KING LEAR or even most any of the characters in the Oz books. King's characters tend to be the same person in every book. The girl who loved tom gordon is the same child in Hearts in Atlantis and the child in Firestarter and Danny in the shining. the women are the same, and if you look closely, all the adult humans are the same, except for those who are not TRULY human.

An exception to this may be Roland. I have not read the Dark Tower series yet(i). I'm awaiting the end of them. Are we there yet, Daddy?

Andy, we are at the end of the quest and we have even had a rewrite. You are fortunate not to have already read the DT. The additions made by SK really made a difference. Get started! I think you will definitely change your opinion about a "stand out" character.

Roland is my favourite character, also rans would be Eddie Dean in the Dark Tower series and Jack Sawyer in The Talisman and Black House

MAJGross: Okay!!! Your message has given me the impetus to do so. Knowing my obsessive-compulsive nature, i must get my summer reading done first, but it is my intention to spend this fall and maybe winter (although Florida really has a seven month fall) on DT.

thank you very much.

I demand my right to be wrong!

Definitely Roland. He's so evocative. MAJGross, you're right, he is a modern knight.

I also like Jake Chambers a lot too. Most of the time, he's just a kid, a lot like King's other child characters... but then he'll do something or say something, and you'll realize how adult he is, and how much more there is to him.

>5 andyray:

I think you're right that a lot of King's characters aren't really characters at all, but shorthand ("the girl," "the child in peril," etc.) Some of them are sort of "stand-ins" for archetypes, symbols rather than people--Mother Abigail in The Stand comes to mind. But I don't think all of his adult characters (or even his child characters necessarily) are the same. The way Father Callahan would handle a situation is wildly different from the way Wendy Torrance would handle it, for instance.

Partly because of the genre he writes in, King is going for an air of universality. His goal in most of his books is to make at least one character that's "just like you," a point of entry to facilitate the willing suspension of disbelief. It seems to me he does that very well.

Bronte's goal is simply to convince you that Rochester is real. If anything, I think King has a harder task. He has to convince you that vampires are real. Carrie certainly seems as believable as Rochester.

Lear is a whole different comparison. There's no characterization there at all. Lear isn't even a character. He's a role. The performer bears as much responsibility for making Lear believable as Shakespeare.

TheBentley: well thought out points and well accepted here, all but the last one. Lear definitely IS a character. If you don't believe that, try to have anyone of the following play "the role": (these are used as they come to mind)

forrest whitaker
kevin spacey
brittany spears (tongue in
cheek here)
robert preston
marlon brando
al pacino
ad infinitum.

Point? Lear's character is madness occurring from despair. none of those above have that passion in them.

of course this is ALL OPINION (IMHO) and you know what they say about opinions. Again...thank you for your thoughts.

I just finished re-reading The Dead Zone and I would have to say that Johnny Smith is definitely one of King's best. There is a depth to Johnny in his thoughts and personality that really makes him stand out as a real person.

>11 andyray:
andyray--

I agree completely on your point about Lear. That's actually what I meant. Since Lear is meant to be "met" by the audience on stage with an actor in the part rather than by a reader on the page, the actor bears a great deal of responsibility for the characterization. Put a bad actor in the role and we would call the character "poorly developed."
That's not to say Lear doesn't have characteristics chosen and emphasized by the author, but Shakepeare alone doesn't bear the sole burden of making Lear believable or fully developed. Lots of that falls to the actor and the director. That's not the case in a novel.

It's as if a novelist is expected to create an entire fantasy world that can exist in the mind of any reader. A playwright--even the very best--creates the blueprint for a world that others are expected to bring to life.

By the way, far afield from the point, I think Forrest Whitaker could maybe pull it off. And Brittney Spears, God help us all, is apt to try at any moment--probably at the urging of Madonna. :-)

TheBentley--

thoughtful comments.
you're right: forest whitaker could do it. so could mel gibson. have you seen his HAMLET? he puts olivier to shame. whatever he's like in person, he (Gibson) is the actor par excellent of our time.

I would agree with Roland being the stand out. THere is no bottom to that man, I also agree that some of his characters are similar. There's usually a "adult man who isn't great but is honest and decent and comes through." and of course "child in peril" but the women are rather different I think.

Dolores Clairborne is far different from Sussanah, or the female in Rose Madder whose name is escaping me. There are other stand out characters who break the mold,too.

One of my favorite characters in addition to many that have already been named is Arthur Denker/Kurt Dussander. Apt Pupil was a great short story and a bad movie. Oh well. Such is the fate of many a King based movie.

Johnny Smith, the everyman from The Dead Zone, was great. I also enjoyed Trisha from The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, and I think I may have fallen in love with Dolores Claiborne for just a short minute.

Without going back and flipping through books, my favourite stand outs are:

The Stand: Frannie and Stu and Nick and Tom

The Gunslinger Series: Roland, Susan Delgado (due to her death), Cuthbert and Alain

Blaze: Blaze

The Stand: Harold Lauder and Larry Underwood.

They both had shading and depth beyond the others. Tom Cullen was adorable, but he's been reprised too many times to seem like a character in his own right any more.

The Dark Tower: Roland

The Talisman: Osmond - that freaking lunatic scared me more than most of King's grotesqueries!

The Green Mile - Percy Wetmore.

I think that the characters that King writes the best are those with flaws - not necessarily villains, but not those in the 'hero' role, either.

Tommyknockers - Jim Gardner and Ev Hillman

Insomnia - Ralph and Lois

Bag of Bones - Mike Noonan, Mattie Devore

Lisey's Story - Lisey

Cell - Clay, Alice, Tom and Jordan

My favourite characters, heros and villains, are:

Randall Flagg - The eyes of the dragon, The Stand, Dark Tower

Prince Peter - The eyes of the dragon

Stanley Uris - It

Dinky Earnshaw - Everythings Eventual, Dark Tower

Atropos - Insomnia - really gave me the creeps

Pete & Henry - Dreamcatcher - sorry #1 but I didn't take to Duddits, mainly because his name annoyed me all the way through.

Roland Deschain - Dark Tower - because he's Roland.

And the ones I really hated:

Patrick Hocksetter - It - because of the fridge.

The wife in Thinner

Pam - Duma Key

My favorite is Jim Gardener from Tommyknockers.
Also Ollie from The Mist.
And that blind girl from The Langoliers
(sorry, forgot 'er name)

Okay Roland is obvious.....
Dark Tower- Jack and Oy
The Stand- Frannie
Rose Madder- Rose
Bag of Bones- Mike and Mattie
..........I think that they are basically repeats, but hey at least we're all on the same page

It - Ben Hanscom
The Shining - Dick Hallorann
Dreamcatcher - Duddits
The Dead Zone - Johnny Smith
The Stand - Tom Cullen & Randall Flagg (he made such a good bad guy!)

Carrie White is my favorite female character. She lacks the polish of his later characters but to me she stands out as one of the strongest. Not long into the book I began to really care about what happened to her, and I don't feel that strongly about every main character.

Eddie Dean is my favorite of the men, I enjoyed how his character evolved throughout the series.

The two villains that stand out to me are Randall Flag and Annie from Misery.

Roland, Jake and Oy.

Villains? Love Annie, but how much does that have to do with Kathy Bates?

Roland Deschain, Susannah Dean, Eddie Dean, Jake Chambers, Oy the Billy-Bumbler, Cuthbert Allgood, Alain Johns, Dandelo, The Jaffords Clan, Gordie Lachance, Chris Chambers, Vern Tessio, Teddy Duchamp, Ace Merril, Polly Chalmers, Leland Gaunt, Randall Flagg, Mike Hanlon, Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier, Stan Uris, Henry Bowers, Alan Pangborn, Andy Dufresne, Red, Todd Bowden, Johnny Smith, Dolores Claiborne, Sarah Hazlett.

From The Stand - definitely Larry. Just LOVE that 'bad boy gone good' thing!

Harold Lauder from The Stand is the character that first comes to mind when asked this question.

#29 That's just too intriguing to get away with without some kind of explanation - and you're the second person who's mentioned Harold. What's to love about him? Or did you just mean he was the most memorable - and not necessarilly the most lovable?

I think it's so sad seeing such an insecure person really love Fran and her just turning around and running off with Stu. Of course, we can't blame Fran - I wouldn't want to be with some fat sweaty guy who cries when mowing the lawn and leaves chocolate smudges on everything, and yet Harold loved her so genuinely. I can understand how someone with such an insecure self image would be so hurt. And then he turns around and goes off the deep end plotting all these evil schemes. I just like seeing this already fragile character break and turn into this dark lunatic, with no power over Flagg. It's interesting to me :)

And on top of that I can picture this boy i went to school with who is Harold to a T. Let's just hope he doesn't get any ideas if he's read this

#31 I soooo want to log in under a new name and pretend to be that guy now! Like those TV interviews where the interviewee slags off some character from their past then the presenter says - 'And now, all the way from your home town of Froginabucket . . .you haven't seen him for 28 years . . .!'

But I wouldn't do that. ;-)

What makes King's books so much more than 'just horror stories' is the fact that we can have all these great speculations about his characters. What if Frannie had loved Harold? How might things have gone then? Might he have genuinely become one of the good guys? Although I also love the film (for TV) of The Stand I was disappointed that it gave the impression that Harold just went bad out of jealousy, when in the book he gets so much closer to being a good guy until he is corrupted by Nadine. Do we think he might still have gone bad if he'd got together with Fran? Or would he still have been tempted? I think his basic character flaw is weakness, which suggests to me that he might always have been ultimately corruptible, but when I read the bit just before he meets Nadine, when he's seriously thinking of getting over his jealousy and becoming a useful member of the community, I want that so much. What do you think?

ETA In fact, this has now got me thinking so hard that I'm going to set up a 'what if' thread for anyone who cares (don't want to hijack this one too much) as there are so many of those in King's stories.

In fact, I've done it - and it's here:
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?newpost=1&topic=44149#lastmsg

Ah Ha! You pretending to be him would have been hilarious!

I didn't see the movie. I don't think they could have done Harold justice since so much of his decisions are run by thoughts in his head. and that Nadine, Whew! She just came in and drug Harold down. She was crazy. Poor Harold.

Jerome Wireman in Duma Key. This book moved me to pieces, and halfway through or so, I was head over heels in love with Wireman.

Dark Tower series: Cuthbert Allgood and Eddie Dean (probably my two favorite of his characters)

Salems Lot and Dark Tower: Father Callahan

The Stand: Larry Underwood (I like how he kept Larry from telling people about his past as a musician)

Duma Key: Wireman

I really like the way he writes his bad guys (at least the ones that are "human"): Randall Flagg (various), Greg Stillson (The Dead Zone), Killion (The Running Man), Mrs. Carmody (The Mist)

Wow, I'd have to say Randall Flagg for sure.

Roland, Cuthbert and Alain.
Susan Delgado.
Eddie Dean.
Edgar Freemantle and Jerome Wireman.
Mike Noonan and Mattie.
Tom Cullen.
Wolf.
And probably my favorite, Jack Sawyer.

Does anybody else see a connection between Morgan Sloat, Greg Stillson and Big Jim Rennie? They all seem like the same kind of bad guy. Big and tough on the outside but really weak and insecure on the inside. Creepy.

Sure, there are definite themes and archetypes he returns to. He captures bad guys perfectly because he gets into their insecurities and makes them 3-dimensional (mostly). I also find in real life that bad guys get away with a lot because they are so ridiculous that some people don't take them too seriously; he seems to put that across well too.

He also does the good but downtrodden, battered wives, religious nuts, slightly 'simple' (for want of a better word) but good men, the elderly and children very very well. Not a fan of his middle-class married couples - well, not when we are supposed to be relating to or sympathising with them. He's better at sending them up :)

Interestingly I've read a few interviews where he talks about his mum being single and struggling in low paid work, and about seeing from quite early on how people can be exploited, how life isn't always fair, etc. I think those ideas colour his work a great deal.

Jake Chambers with his Oy and Jack Sawyer with Wolf share my heart pretty equally... (in the tender mushy spot) BUT Roland Deschain is probably bar none also my favorite fictional character of King's. I am very fond of Eddie too though..... And of course everyone from Roland's childhood including the Sweet Susannah Delgado.
My favorite pairing is from IT- Ben & Beverly :). I agree that King has sometimes cast the same person under a different name (or set up the same romance, same boy & his creature) but heck he does a helluva job with them so I'll allow it.

Ralph Roberts from Insomnia

I'm pretty sure I love this book more for it's audio rendition than I would in type - if that helps explain my POV to non-fans of Insomnia. Eli Wallach (the voice talent) FTW.

Boy, I've been wracking my brain over this for a few days and it suddenly hit me this morning. There are lots of characters I like but my absolute favorite - hands down - the one I want to be when I grow up - is Glen Bateman from The Stand. And I thought Ray Walston's portrayal of Bateman in the miniseries was spot on, too.

I am so glad that other people said Oy! He is my favorite. Even if he is not human.

Randy Flagg, baby! 8)

PS I thought Henry Leyden in Black House was brillant, too. And Glen Bateman in The Stand. The title character in Dolores Claiborne was wonderfully portrayed. I could go on for a while, I suppose. :)

Favourite character is a whole different ball game from those I loved, and Harold Lauder is an ideal example of that. A despicable, unlovable swine of a person, but what a superbly written character. Without him having just the right balance, the whole book falls down IMO.

Other favourites (some lovable, some not) include John Coffey, Randall Flagg, Danforth 'Buster' Keaton, Leland Gaunt, Ben Hanscomb, Rose McClendon, Atropos, Duddits Cavell and Stoke Jones.

>37 Moomin_Mama:: See, I really like his middle class married couples. They're unbelievably frustrating, but they're incredibly well-rendered. You might not LIKE Donna Trenton, but she's absolutely spot on for who she is. Louis and Rachel Creed are more damaged, but they're still exactly real, and I don't have any trouble sympathizing with any of them. They often make me mad, but then so do most of the people I know in real life from time to time.