Kevin's Watch

Having completed the series, I wonder who everyone thinks were the best characters of the entire series. Not sure if this has been posted anywhere else. Sorry for not doing a search.

My thoughts are (besides Covenant himself):

1. Hile Troy
2. Lord Mhoram
3. The Harrow (had such potential and died too soon)
4. The Mahdoubt
5. Sunder
6. Stave
7. Elena
8. Kasereyn
9. Pitchwife

What are your thoughts?

It's a good list, but excludes the greatest character of all - Foamfollower.

1. Foamfollower
2. Mhoram
3. Bannor
4. Brinn
5. Stave
6. Mahrtiir
7. Pitchwife
8. Sunder
9. Elena
10. The First

I made three lists and disregarded them all. Too hard. The Chronicles has some great characters. Even though he does virtually 'nothing', his soulless grin and lack of action throughout most of the Chronicle lends so much contrast to when he actually does do something - makes VAIN my most interesting character in the series.

Good posts, both of you, and good points. I thought about Foamy, but then compared him to the others and he did not stand out (for some reason). I did not think of Vain, but that is a good point. He was a sentient being and SRD wrote his character so that you always wondered what was behind his eyes, but we never really got to 'hear' any of that. In fact, when he finally spoke in the last book, it was something of a shock.

I would really like to have known more about the Harrow. I will always feel like he was a missed opportunity for SRD. What would it have been like for him to be around during the confrontations with She and Lord Foul? How could he have helped Jeremiah? What uses would he have made of Linden's staff and ring? Linden should have had to wrest them back from him or that should have been a condition of his own personal redemption. My opinion, for what it is worth.

Wait!!!! How could I miss this: Esmer!

Probably one of the most really necessary characters in the series. His nature seemed to fit. Another character that should have still been around at the end. The only thing that did not fit in the story, or that seemed forced, was the manacles. How could the ur-viles/Waynhim have known that they should even be manacles? I think that there was some explanation, but it seemed a little 'lame.'

..The Land...

Good lists. If I were to pick one character from each of the Chronicles, I'd go as follows:-

First Chrons - Mhoram (edges Foamfollower out... just)

Second Chrons - Brinn (edges Pitchwife out... just)

Last Chrons - Stave (edges Esmer out... just, and there aren't any other characters well-drawn or interesting enough to even choose from).

1. Vain
2. Anele
3. Foamy
4. Hamoko
5. Brinn
6. Stave
7. Liand
8. Nom
9. Amok
10. Esmer

1. Foamfollower
2. Mhoram
3. Bannor
4. Brinn
5. Anele (up to a point)
6. Infelice
7. Stave
8. The First
9. Esmer
10. Manethrall Gay / Rue for her speech at Revelstone in TIW.

1. Mhoram
2. Stave
3. Foamfollower
4. The First & Pitchwife
5. Linden (Second Chronicles & Fatal Revenant only)
6. Elena
7. Mahrtiir
8. Hyrim
9. The Mahdoubt
10. Hamako

It would be easier to make a 'worst characters' list. There are too many good ones to decide. At 14, I was smitten with the first girl--also the first person--we met in the Land. I wanted to lay my head in her lap, too. And I was freakin' pissed when TC raped her. For the pivotal role she plays in TC's character alone, she deserves a place on these lists. But she was so much more ... briefly. She embodied the Land in all its glory and uncorrupted innocence at the very beginning. Lena.

Zarathustra wrote:It would be easier to make a 'worst characters' list. There are too many good ones to decide. At 14, I was smitten with the first girl--also the first person--we met in the Land. I wanted to lay my head in her lap, too. And I was freakin' pissed when TC raped her. For the pivotal role she plays in TC's character alone, she deserves a place on these lists. But she was so much more ... briefly. She embodied the Land in all its glory and uncorrupted innocence at the very beginning. Lena.

Good post, and big miss on my part.

Mhoram was always and still remains one of my favorite (perhaps #1) character.

I actually liked Jeremiah, but that could be because I was not expecting much out of him in the Last Dark. The Last Dark also made Roger a more interesting character to me...but both are edged out by Stave.

Obviously, I'm rambling here... will have to come up with a formal list...

Not exactly individual characters, but certainly interesting, are the Viles and their descendants.

The obvious question raised by this thread is what does it mean for a character to be "interesting" in the context of the Chronicles and the universe in which they take place. It seems to me that complexity and conflictedness of motives, purpose and/or nature are key elements of what makes characters interesting. In this light a character like Mhoram, while very likable and admirable, is less interesting than characters like Infelice, Memla, the Lurker, Triock, Rire Grist - and, of course, Covenant and Linden.

To clarify, Mhoram is less "interesting" in the sense that there is little, if anything, about his motives that I found puzzling or hard to sympathise with. He is as close as the books get to a straightforward hero. Covenant, by contrast, constantly challenged me, re-read after re-read - especially in the First Chronicles - to understand what was driving him.

lists !

there were certain characters peppered throughout all 10 books who SRD just nailed; he obviously knew their voices and motivations so intimately that he was able to make their every line and action sparkle.

some of my favourites :

in some ways Baradakas is a bit of a forerunner to Mhoram, and although he has only a few scenes in LFB they depict a potent & passionate character - as with Mhoram he's somewhat priest-like, apparently unpartnered in his devotion to his lore; yet it's Baradakas who is prepared to club Covenant unconscious after TC fails the test of truth at Soaring Woodhelven.
Later, after probing Covenant, Baradakas tells him that he believes the Unbeliever is a man who knows the value of beauty. At this point in the story his seemingly blind validation of this rapist and coward seems naive; however Baradakas is sure enough of to feed and shelter Covenant and also provide him with a White-Gold triggering lillianrill staff .. his 'off-screen' death was a bit of a shame

Triock was unusually bitter and unforgiving (with plenty of reason!) for an inhabitant of the Land; he falls into a large category of characters who were victimized as a result of Covenants earliest transgressions in the Land; Lena, Atiaran, Trell, Elena to name a few.
Triock's story was one of those which became more compelling for me upon re-reads, it's a devastating arc, and his often outraged & accusatory stance towards Covenant is both justified and well-written. His ultimate demise is SRD at his brutal best too.

There are precious few moments of levity throughout the chronicles, Pitchwife probably stands out as the character most adept at confronting despite with humour and sustaining his essentially mirthful spirit.
Usually though, SRD's inherently light-hearted characters are among the most vulnerable to despair.
Foamfollwer's gradual descent into near-savage bloodlust is ultimately redeemed, but it is hard to see a character so masterfully established early on as a jesting, jovial Giant endure so much self-loathing.
Amok tends toward mischief and a joy for life, which only makes reading his unmaking all the sadder.
For mine though, it's Hyrim son of Hoole who really gets to me.
His arc is really compelling imo; completely good-natured, with a sense of humour that mirrors that of the Giants that he loves, Donaldson portrays Hyrim wonderfully well, a self-effacing man who affects buffoonery but who in fact possesses a sensitive and insightful mind.
Hyrim seems obliquely aware of the danger he faces as he prepares to tackle his mission to Seareach (he's clever and cunning enough to appeal to Covenant's love of Foamfollower in an attempt to win the Unbeliever's active support), but he quickly finds himself facing the stuff of undreamt-of nightmares. I find it heartbreaking to read of Hyrim's relentless exposure to pain and misery, culminating in his cruel demise on the beach at Seareach (or is it a pier ? I always imagine a beach anyway); smoke coming out of his eye sockets, warning the Bloodguard in vain to not touch the fragment of the Illearth Stone - to me it's one of the most powerful scenes in all the chronicles. Ultimately, Hyrim's innocence is utterly appalled and his efforts amount to nothing; it's not fair !

Donaldson really rendered palpable Elena's charm and charisma and his teasing out of her madness was strangely nauseating; she eventually became one of the most tragic figures in the chronicles, although I suppose that her ultimate fate as a new-age forestal/ur-vile (what ??) is somewhat of a redemption.

I always loved the way Donaldson wrote the haruchai.
Essentially they were all pretty much the same character, although SRD explored the inner workings on a handful of the stoic warriors - Bannor's original journey as a dour foil to Covenant, suspicious of the Unbeliever, was a bit more singular than many of the haruchai to follow.
I think I found Brinn the scariest, the guy was a goddamned fanatic early on in the 2nd chronicles, and he had some great lines - "Ur-lord have we not served you well?" was oddly affecting- as was his extreme willingness to snap Linden's neck at the drop of a hat. His return in TLD was a good moment, maybe I would have enjoyed it more had I not read the preview months prior, but it was good.
Cail was enigmatic.
Hergrom was a bit-player, but featured in some landmark scenes.
Stave was the biggest departure by far, smilin' and jokin' and sheddin' tears; you couldn't shut the guy up either. Despite my currently ambiguous attitude to the last chronicles, I *will* give them a re-read again sometime in the future, and I expect I will be able to put Stave's achievements into clearer context. But he was a stalwart to say the least.

I was also an early supporter of the Harrow, whose sarcastic snark was a welcome departure from the all the earnest world-saving, and also Esmer, who consistently entertained me and kept my attention; he had some great lines, his ability to induce nausea in Linden was expertly and viscerally written by SRD, and his pathetic plight became increasingly cruel and explicit.
Esmer's initial introduction was one of the better parts of ROTE, he kicked the crap out of Stave, displayed weird, previously unseen theurgies e.g. the fountaining gouts of dirt - and I loved this evocative line from Mahtiir : "he wields a storm among the mountains".
He really did aid and betray, putting Linden and company in some of the deepest shit they faced, but also bestowing Linden with valuable, if obscure, advice. Donaldson clearly had a ton of fun playing with both the ocean/rain images when describing Esmer's eyes, raiment and even his emotions (

now he seemed to seethe with squalls..

), and he was even better at showing his conflicted nature, with reactions as ambiguous as "gladness or remorse" or "anticipation and abhorrence".
SRD gives the thumbs-up to euthanasia when Stave puts an end to his pitiable existence.

Of course Mhoram and Foamfollower were absolute titans, that pretty much goes without saying, two of the best fictional characters I have encountered.

1. Foamfollower
2. Mhoram
3. Bannor
4. Vain
5. Stave
6. The Harrow's Destrier
7. Theomach

In no particular order, and not necessarily all-too-sincerely (this is more a reminder of candidates than an election itself):

1. Dr. Berenford
2. The Creator
3. Jerrick
4. Berek
5. The woman who lived in Morinmoss
6. Atiaran
7. Trell
8. One or another Ranyhyn
9. In the same spirit, one or another Wraith (although individually nameless, so possessing less "character" than the horses of Ra)
10. Mishio Massima's original rider
11. "Diassomer Mininderain"

Jerrick I would classify as "tantalising" more so than interesting. There is just enough of him in AATE to whet our appetites. The suggestion is that he is a kind of prototype of Kevin or, perhaps, the Viles and Demondim, and the honest members of the Clave - a good person with good purposes tricked into tragic error by Foul and/or his servants.

I mentioned the Viles and their descendants earlier. The strong picture we are given of these beings is that they were all much more communal creatures than the people in the different human cultures, probably even more so than the Haruchai. This raises the question of whether a Waynhim or ur-vile could be an individual person in the sense that the humans in the story are.

I was glad to find this thread, because it captures well one of my biggest struggles in the first 24 hours since finishing TLD. Namely, I thought the Last Chronicles suffered for a lack of strong supporting characters.

In the first and second trilogies, it was supporting characters that kept the momentum going when Covenant and Linden got too self-absorbed for my comfort level. This last time, I'm not as sure on my first reading that the same is true.

Largely I agree with TheFallen's list. I intentionally am making a distinction between greater and lesser characters on the general basis of screen time (or Hyrim would contend), and I'm not comfortable merging the series. So I come up with this:

First Chronicles:
1. Mhoram
1.1 Foamfollower (it is so close)

Second Chronicles:
1. Pitchwife
(That's it)

Last Chronicles:
1. Stave (by a lot)
2. Mahrtiir

For each of these, I am looking for round characters who, by definition, undergo their own moral or narrative evolution. While Mhoram is certainly very heroic, I still find his journey from new Lord, to Elena's second, to High Lord to be a remarkable journey. His discovery and fear of the capacity for Desecration was believable at all times. Foamfollower's journey into and back out of Despair is similarly remarkable. At a glance Pitchwife could come off as a little bit too much of a jester, but the subtlety in his own evolution I found entirely satisfying.

I've had to really think hard to realize that Stave is the most satisfying to me by this reasoning. One of my struggles with the final books was that I kept wishing for Mhoram or Pitchwife--or someone remotely like them--to show up. For me, that never really happened. Stave's journey, though, came close enough, while simultaneously transforming the Haruchai on the whole from a rather flat characterization to a much more rounded one (I never really found Brinn to be all that and a bag of chips).