Printable View
Mine has to be Anomander Rake from the Malazan Book of the Fallen. He's just kickass; He owns the sword Dragnipur which imprisons the souls of its victims, his Soletaken (shapechanging) form is a giant black dragon and happens to be the son of Mother Dark. He's just an all around interesting ascendant in Steven Erikson's masterpiece and by far my favorite.
A close second would be Ganoes Paran from the same series.
Who's your favorite fantasy character?
I couldn't never pick a favorite in anything, doesn't mean I never wanted to.
Issac Assimov's R. Daneel Olivaw. Not so much for his appearance in Assimov's robot books, but his tie in to Foundation makes him epically awesome.
Excerpt from Wikipedia for those who don't know who he is.
....In Robots and Empire, where Asimov finally links the Robot Series with the Empire Series, Giskard and Olivaw often discuss the limitations of the Laws of Robotics, a process lengthened by the fact that their positronic pathways prevent thought along these lines, thus often leading to a temporary loss in the ability to talk or move. By the end of the book, when Daneel has formulated the Zeroth Law of Robotics ("A robot may not harm humanity, or through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"), Giskard is the first robot to act according to this new law. However, the act of causing harm to a human being in violation of the First Law proves destructive for Giskard, due to the uncertainty of whether or not his actions benefit humanity in the long run. Before deactivating completely, Giskard transfers his powers of being able to read and influence minds to Olivaw, whose closer tie to humanity allows him to slowly adapt to the new law without any risk of destruction.
Together Daneel and Giskard imagine the science of "psychohistory" or laws of humanics, that would enable them to execute the "Zeroth Law" in a quantitative sense. Thousands of years later this would be developed into practical application by Hari Seldon.
For that time onward, Olivaw manipulates the galaxy with the help of his many robot allies. He sets up both the Galactic Empire and Gaia in order to create a society that does not need robots. Under the guise of Eto Demerzel, he becomes the first minister to galactic Emperor Cleon I and Stannell VI.
Olivaw appears once more in Foundation and Earth, where Golan Trevize and Janov Pelorat from the Foundation eventually find the radioactive Earth, and Daneel's base on the Moon, and learn about his paternalistic manipulations, including the settlement of Alpha Centauri, the creation of Gaia, and psychohistory.
Based on an independent timeline, Olivaw was 19,230 years old during the events of Foundation and Earth. Olivaw is the longest-living Asimov character, as well as the longest living humanoid robot in that universe (being the 1st humanoid robot created). He is theoretically immortal, because he is a robot. However, his parts need replacing, including his brain, and he eventually has to use a biological brain, as his own becomes more complex each time he replaces it. Daneel mentions that the more complex his brains become, the more fragile they are. At the end of the book, he intends on fusing his brain with that of a Solarian, as it has reached the point where an upgrade is no longer possible. Daneel's original brain had lasted 10,000 years, approximately half his lifetime. In contrast, his final brain, which was thousands of times more advanced than his first showed signs of shutting down after only 600 years.
Arlian from The Obsidian Chronicles. Never have I ever wanted so much bad :bou::bou::bou::bou: to happen to a character I love so much.
Pug/Milamber and Tomas/Ashen-Shugar from The Riftwar Saga.
(SPOILER)Pug grew from being a lowly servant to the most powerful magician who ever lived on either side of the Rift. Likewise, Tomas became the most ultimate of bad-asses when he went from being a regular soldier to ruthless warrior by channeling the very soul of an ancient conqueror through a set of golden armor. Like, seriously, that's the coolest smurfing thing ever!
There's probably more but I'm too tired to think of them right now.