Monday, March 3, 2014

#DWJMarch: Favorite Main Character


Today I want to know -- Who is your Favorite Main Character from a Diana Wynne Jones tale? Post on your blog or any social media site. Use the hashtag #dwjmarch and/or come back and leave a link here (or just comment here, of course).

Of course, this is a super difficult question for me to answer so I'm not sure why I'm expecting any of you to be able to answer it easily either.

Is it Wizard Derk (The Dark Lord of Derkholm)? I love his brilliant mind, his ability to nurture life in plants and animals, and his love for his wife and children (even the griffin ones).

Maybe Sophie (Howl's Moving Castle, Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways)? She's powerful, both within her magic and without. I love Howl but he is just such a slitherer.

Christopher Chant (The Lives of Christopher Chant and more) has his ups and downs. I definitely like him better as an adult. Okay, I adore him as an adult. But then now I'm thinking about Millie (also The Lives of Christopher Chant and more). She's rather amazing, isn't she?

And then there's Charmain Baker (House of Many Ways). She reads a lot and wants to be a librarian!

Who is your choice (or choices) for favorite main character?

16 comments:

  1. I love Millie! I wish that we'd gotten to see more of Millie as an adult -- I feel like in adulthood she's rendered rather generic, and you don't see as much of her awesomeness as in Lives of Christopher Chant and Conrad's Fate.

    (I LOVE THAT SCENE in Conrad's Fate where Millie and Conrad are tearing apart Christopher's character, and then Conrad feels terribly guilty after because Christopher is so helpful to him.)

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    1. Millie! She is more generic as an adult but she's also a kind mother (which must mean that DWJ liked her too).

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  2. I know it's a cliche, but I still love Howl to bits and pieces. :D

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  3. I haven't read enough of her books to pick!

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    1. Don't worry ... we'll get you caught up soon enough. ;)

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  4. I do love Millie. She is awesome. Howl is great fun to read about but I wouldn't want to have to live with him! Here are mine, but it's kind of a pathetic entry: http://howlingfrog.blogspot.com/2014/03/dwj-favorite-main-character.html

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    1. As pathetic as my complete non-decision? Haha. I shouldn't have written prompts that even I can't answer well. :)

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  5. Charmain is a favorite of mine, too! (See: http://heretherebebooks.net/2014/03/03/diana-wynne-jones-month-day-3-favorite-character-dwjmarch/)

    I also love all the princesses in Castle in the Air; that scene when they plan an attack on the bad genie is FANTASTIC.

    And yes! I wish we'd seen more of adult Millie doing things like she did when she was younger. I can't remember her at ALL in The Pinhoe Egg, and in Charmed Life she's just a nice marshmallow kind of person.

    -- Anastasia @ Here There Be Books

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    1. Charmain is awesome. I think I'm going to re-read House of Many Ways this month even though I read it kind of recently. I'm just in the mood for that house and some bookish love!

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  6. I went with my gut and ended up choosing Polly (Fire and Hemlock), Kathleen (Dogsbody) and Sophie.

    http://rocalisa.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/dwj-march-favourite-main-character/

    I'm still trying to figure out how to post a picture of a book collection that is part paper books and part ebooks (and if I have one of each, do I include it twice?)

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    1. I think we've covered just about all of the main characters. Maybe I should have asked "are there any that we don't like?" ;)

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    2. I'm not madly keen on Charles, from 'Witch Week', since I find him unsympathetic to a ridiculous degree. I think he's realistic, and I feel sorry for him, and understand why he is like he is, but I don't like him much.

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  7. I couldn't settle on one favourite main character, either, so I picked four...

    http://ela21.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/dwj-march-favourite-main-character/

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  8. I still have so many books left to read, but from what I have read, Sophie is my favorite so far. And, I do really like Howl too!!

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