Anyone else’s “favorite” characters always change?
My favorite characters used to be the wholesome nerdy ones when I was a kid, like Barry Allen as the flash, Ray Palmer as the Atom, Felicity Smoak; Peter Parker as Spider-Man, and even Sam from that 80s show Quantum Leap
Now please tell me why my newest favorite characters are the complex antiheroes, who save the city but have a blurred line between right and wrong, like the Arrow, Deadshot, Deadpool, Arcane characters like Viktor or Jayce or Jinx, and struggle with every choice they make, seemingly always making the wrong one.
When it came to Good Omens, Sherlock, the DC universe, or even Thor+Loki, the same thing happened, my immediate favorites were John, Aziraphale, The Flash, and Thor, the more “normal” and chaotic good of the bunch. But then, as the stories evolve, I relate more and more to Sherlock, Loki, the Arrow and Crowley, for some indescribable reason, and tend to emphasize with those characters more. But for what purpose? Why?
…I guess innocent child Rose is reminded of the naive goodness and innocent faith in light from characters like the Atom, Spider-Man, the flash; and on the other hand, grown-up Rose is reminded of the cruelty of the world and what I’ve faced, and the difficult and almost always incorrect choices and mistakes I’ve made myself in life. Just like Loki, just like Crowley, just like Sherlock, just like the Arrow, just like Jayce & Viktor and any other character who believes they are making the right choices for the right reasons because of what has been done to them, or who they think they are, but then they consider, maybe… maybe they were in the wrong after all.
There’s also a recurring theme of eternal loneliness for these characters, so maybe it’s also because I feel like I don’t deserve to be with anyone just like they do. The characters I hate the most inevitably become the ones I love the most, with this feeling the whole time they’re on screen that I truly relate more to them than the other I claim to be my favorite, purely because I lie to myself. I lie to myself that I could never like that other character because he is portrayed as “bad.” But are they really all that bad?
I guess I hate them the most as a projection of the part of me that I hate, but eventually come to acceptance and love that portion of me, and that part I can see in these characters.
Nobody is perfect, and most people try to do what they think is right for themselves. And sometimes that means they make certain choices. And these choices can be far more catastrophic than they ever conceived, granting them grief and reflection on their actions, and as a consequence of their pain, the forevermore struggle to change. yes, I can relate to that. I can relate to that very well.
