Literary Fun

[Ashley_Rose]

I thought this would be interesting, as it fun, profitable (?), and smart.

Here is the Five Fictional Characters You Would Punch in the Face Meme:

1) Claudio from Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. I don't care if Wilson played him. Claudio is a whiny, unhelpful, braindead monkey. Did he ever stop to wonder about the fact that Boraccio was diddlying with Margaret the whole time? And the fact that when Hero wasn't with another female member of the household or velcroed to Beatrice, she was with Claudio? I mean. DUH. Zomg. Dummy.

2) The Duchess of Malfi from the self titled play, [strike]I'm a h0r with a h-zero-r[/strike] The Duchess of Malfi, by Webster. She is not cool, she is not romantic, she is not regal, she didn't stand up to her brothers, she is a DUMBASS. She is a whiny, selfish coward, who insted of actually saying, 'Screw you brothers, I found a guy I like, and I'm marrying him,' she said nothing but sneak around with the first semi-attractive guy (who is also a dimwit). She has two kids out of wedlock, which sets a bad impression for the young females of her province, and that also rankles me. She runs away, and then tries to make up for it for dying cool. But she still needed Delio to die poorly to prove that the Duchess wasn't a complete idjit. Gah.

3) The Widower from Witwer by Schnitzler. The man first plays up the sad card, he loved his wife, she was beautiful, can't understand how she's poof!dead. Then he finds correspondance between her and his best friend Hugo, and he keeps his loyalty to the best friend, even though the Hugo has been banging her for months. While he's tearing her apart, Hugo shows up, and suddenly Mr. Widower remembers that Hugo the Disdainful has been sleeping with another bird while he's been cheating with Mr. Widower's wife. Then he gets mad. Agh.

4) Hamlet from the self-titled play, Boob How to be a Ponce I'macrazyloony Hamlet, by Shakespeare. He is not a good guy, he's a moron. He's a moron with a plan. And in Mel Gibson's version I hate Hamlet more because he macks on his mom. EUW. And the moron, instead of just killing his guilty ass Mom screwing uncle, instead drives his girlfriend batty to the point of suicide (I still think it should be called indirect homicide by stupid boyfriend), kills her father, makes his good buddy hate him then kills him, kills his two old friends from school, and indirectly kills his mom. BEFORE he kills his guilty ass Mom screwing uncle. I mean, Jesus, people. What the hell?

5) Raptor Red's Sister, from Bakker's Raptor Red. Self absorbed and bitchy, Raptor Red's sister is a complete bipedal idiot. Her kids take precedence and instead of being smart, she constantly makes Raptor Red make the hard, mean decision instead of letting Raptor Red have some sexamatation. Then, when Raptor Red's awesome boyfriend is around, treats him like garbage a la the peoples of Andorra treat Andri, until Raptor Red's mate does become a creep, thus hurting Raptor Red. And then, in a fit of blind stupidity that cannot truly be verbalized, gets herself killed and leaves her three children to the care of Raptor Red. What a bitch. God I hate her.

Agh.

[Xepher]

I've read hamlet once in my life... and that was in a single sitting just to get through it for school. The first three I've never even heard of. I will agree on Raptor Red though.

Hmm... My own list.

1) Edna Pontellier from "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin. Everyone in this book was bad, but the main character was the worst, she kills herself, leaving her children without a mother, simply because she thinks her own hapiness (or lack thereof) is moore important than everyone else.

2) Carrot from Terry Pratchet's various discworld books. SMACK! You fool, Angua wants you... as in, she wants you in her lycanthropic panties! Stop being so naive and "do it like they do on the discovery channel" already!

3) K'tha-jon from David Brin's "Startide Rising" for being a murderous traitor, and giving killer whales a bad name.

4) The marketing department of the Sirius Cybernetics corporation: For nutri-matic drink dispensers, warm liquid that tastes almost, but not entirely, unlike tea, that awful "Share and Enjoy" song, "Genuine People Personalities," self-satisfied elevators, all the diodes down Marvin's left side,  and the fact that their fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by their superficial design flaws. All in all, "A bunch of mindless jerks who'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes."

5) The entire fracking cast of Harry Potter. This needs sub-sections... And will contain spoilers.
a) Snape, for being a complete tool, having bad hygine, and not realizing goth went out of style 5 years ago.
b) Hermione, for being so predictably prudish.
c) Ron, for being such a cowardly retard.
d) Hermione + Ron (See "Carrot" Above)
e) Dumbledore, for being so fracking obtuse all the time! Really man, if you actually let people in on your huge schemes occasionally, we wouldn't all be hunting down snape for murder right now! Also, for being a Gandalf clone, having a name that means "white," havng a familar that "dies" regularly which is conveinently named "faked," being the head of an order named for a mythical creature that rises from the dead, and then having the nerve to let everyone think you're done for.
f) Sirius, for being the world's lamest excuse for a werewolf, and for being named for the thing you later learned to become. Oh, and for not coming back to life sooner.
g) Nymphodora Tonks, partly for having a name like that in a "children's book," but mainly just for not being a nympho.
h) Lupin, for being the world's wimpyest werewolf and also being named for the thing you later got cursed into becoming. Oh, and not realizing a girl named "nympho" wants to get it on with you.
i) Harry's muggle relatives, for... well, it's obvious.
j) Draco, for being such a cliche little snot.
k) Harry Potter! You I'd punch most of all. For being so cliche, emo, and stupid. 5 years before you finally manage to get a girlfriend, and then you dump her because "it's for the best" and then try to take the "noble hero to the death" approach and push away everyone and everything that ever made you happy, so that you can go and fight a stupid fight alone. Spiderman called, they want their lame movie-ending back! Get a grip!
l) Ginny, for... Umm... Hey, maybe there is one redeemable character afterall. She's actually independant, gets what she wants, and when Harry tells her he's got to break up with her, she right away sees it's "for some stupid, noble reason" and just deals with it, rather than doing the cliche whine and "but don't you like me?" spiderman's girl pulled off. She knows exactly what's going on, and deals with it like a rational human being.
m) Fred and George, for the chaos and anarchy. A punch in the shoulder for a job well done!

[Ashley_Rose]

..... wow.

[thefemnazi]

I heart you Xeph.  But no punching my Tonks, cuz she's too awesome for that.  We can both punch Snape together, though.  I need to think on this so I can post my own.

[Gwyn]

I love Fred and George . Sirius isn't a Werewolf tho, I don't get the "and for being named for the thing you later learned to become." Bits about Lupin and Sirius.

[Xepher]

Sirius isn't a Werewolf

excuse for a werewolf

He's practically a werewolf... in any other mythology, a person who turns into a giant black dog would qualify as one.

As for "being named for what they become" Think about it... Remus Lupin was his name, but he didn't become a werewolf until he got bitten. Yet Remus was one of the founders of rome (along with romulus for who the city was named) who was raised by the she-wolf, Luprica. This was celebrated by the romans during the Lupercalia, which became Valentine's day, but that's another story. And Lupin... "Lupine" (pronounced the same as his name) is the latin for "wolf-like" since Canis Lupis is the scientific name for the wolf.

Sirius is just as bad. He had that name before going to hogwarts and learning to become an animagus. Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky, is alpha canis major, that means the first/lead star in the "Big Dog" constellation. As such, it's often called "The Dog Star." As such, "Sirius Black" is literally, "big black dog." This also explains why Sirius Satelite Radio has a dog for it's logo.

Fenrir Greyback... forgot him. Fenrir Ulf (Wolf of Fenrir) is a part-god wolf from Norse myth. He bit off the hand of Tyr, and is destined to kill and eat Odin at Ragnarok (the Norse armedgeddon.) He's basically a giant devil wolf that eats people. I would imagine he had such a name before he was bitten as well. There's also a character in Narnia called Fenrisulf (another spelling of Fenrir Ulf) that is also a wolf.

Rowling does this a LOT, using names and terms from mythology and older stories, but acting like she's clever for doing so. I'm pretty sure you could take any name in the books and find out the same blatent "hints" hidden in it. Then again, she's not the first to do this. Lucas probably takes the cake with "Darth Vader," who's big revelation turns out to be that he's luke's father. "Vader" of course, is dutch for "Father."

[Lei]

yeah, but Rowling's are much too obvious to the viewers she's targeting. Of course, Lupin also means rabbit in french but otherwise it's all too obvious. I would personally never think of looking into the dutch meaning of the word Vader.

EDIT: Nevermind, Lapin is Rabbit, but Lupe is Wolf. There goes ten years of french down the drain ^^;

[Gwyn]

Oh, I thought you ment their nicknames. I know that she takes alot of names to do with whatever they are.