# Which Shakespeare character?



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

I was just thinking about Shakespearean characters in relation to suitable avatars for TC members - cogitations confidential! - and that made me wonder who I like best, and who I think would most fit my character to choose as an avatar.

And that made me wonder which ones you like best? Which do you identify with most, or would like to meet? Which ones do you think are most like you, and might serve as your avatar? Three separate answers here, I think - the ones we like best aren't necessarily the ones we feel most akin to. Leave their grisly fate and gender out of it - just, who do you cotton to?

The one I identify with most has to be Hamlet, on philosophical & psychological grounds. Cassius and Brutus I also feel some kinship with - their characters, not their assassination habits. 

The one I like best, and would most like to meet, is Viola out of Twelfth Night - such an attractive, loyal character.

And the one best suited as my avatar? Difficult. I have the inquisitive, garrulous trait of the nurse in Romeo & Juliet, but I hope not her prurience. On reflection, I think the one I'd most like to be is Kate (Hotspur's wife) in Henry IV Part One, and I think some things about her - her close, sparring relationship with her husband, and her sense of humour and loyalty - well, I aspire to them, at least.

But enough drivelling; which ones do you go for? There are so many, and so lovely.
Pick between one and nine.

Thanks in advance for any replies. :tiphat:


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I will accept Mercutio, as thou dubbest me, fine lass. A fine sense of humor (as others tell me), but given to occasional emotional outbursts.

Besides, the name will just fit as my car's rear vanity license plate.

Come to think of it, so will *******, but Bach has already taken it for his rear license plate.


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## Couac Addict (Oct 16, 2013)

Tchaikowsky's has already committed himself to Yorick.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Tchaikowsky


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Couac Addict said:


> Tchaikowsky's has already committed himself to Yorick.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Tchaikowsky


Too bad that isn't P.I. Tchaikovsky. But I think P.I. would have picked Romeo or Juliet, since that was a favorite story of his... sigh...

I think I'd be poor Helena in _Midsummer Night's Dream_, who loves the right man Demetrius who doesn't accept her until the very end when the fairies put everything right... sigh...


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Maybe Henry V, as the floundering French he used when wooing Catherine of Valois was nearly as bad as mine at its best (although, in real life Harry's French was probably excellent given his Anglo-Norman/Plantagenet origins). I wouldn't fancy that haircut, though.

Character-wise, probably Macbeth's gatekeeper - like me, somewhat put out when being pestered at work when it's inconvenient.


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## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

I've always felt kinship with Othello -- but I suspect I fall short. This bit from Coleridge's Table Talk always stuck with me:



> Jelousy does not strike me as the point in his passion; I take it to be rather an agony that the creature, whom he had believed angelic, with whom he had garnered up his heart, and whom he could not help still loving, should be proved impure and worthless. It was the struggle not to love her. It was a moral indignation and regret that virture should so fall:-"But yet the pity of it, Iago!-O Iago! the pity of it, Iago!" In addition to this, his hourour was concerned: Iago would not have succeeded but by hinting that this honour was compromised. There is no ferocity in Othello; his mind is majestic and composed. He deliberately determines to die; and speaks his last speech with a view of showing his attachment to the Venetian state, though it had superseded him.


And Orson Welles' deliveries haunt me still. The sheer presence of Othello, which I had always too felt in the text, awes me. He has what Emerson would deem _character_: --



> This is that which we call Character,-a reserved force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a Familiar or Genius, by whose impulses the man is guided, but whose counsels he cannot impart; which is company for him, so that such men are often solitary, or if they chance to be social, do not need society, but can entertain themselves very well alone. The purest literary talent appears at one time great, at another time small, but character is of a stellar and undiminishable greatness. What others effect by talent or by eloquence this man accomplishes by some magnetism. "Half his strength he put not forth." His victories are by demonstration of superiority, and not by crossing of bayonets. He conquers, because his arrival alters the face of affairs. "'O Iole! how did you know that Hercules was a god?' 'Because,' answered Iole, 'I was content the moment my eyes fell on him. When I beheld Theseus, I desired that I might see him offer battle, or at least guide his horses in the chariot-race; but Hercules did not wait for a contest; he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever thing he did.'"


I know it is Hamlet who is truly immortalized in most mortal's souls; but for me it has always been Othello. .. "The nature of the Moor is noble, confiding, tender, and generous; but his blood is of the most inflammable kind; and being once roused by a sense of his wrongs, he is stopped by no considerations of remorse or pity till he has given a loose to all the dictates of his rage and his despair."

I've talked too much. I'm off to read Othello :tiphat:


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Which ones you like best? 
Lady Macbeth. She makes sure to get what she wants, without getting her hands dirty. But after long, too much guilt snaps her brain. And though I don't "like" Iago, he is one of Shakespeare's more successful villains, very crafty and manipulative. The dramatic irony of that play gave me so much anxiety when I first read it. Julius Caesar isn't really interesting as a character, but I do like how the play points out a difference between Caesar the man and Caesar the idea. The man is old, kinda weak, and is not on stage as much as the more interesting assassins. The idea is the mask that Caesar the man wears to woo the public, the idea is what will stand the test of time, unlike the man himself who will crumble like the Ozymandias statue. So the fact that Caesar is barely in the play, but the idea of Caesar is what drives the plot, I find very fascinating.

Which do you identify with most, or would like to meet? 
I'd say Hamlet also, for the same reasons you mentioned. He starts out a confused little kid who painfully learns about the world and himself as he gets older. I definitely had that feeling.

Which ones do you think are most like you, and might serve as your avatar? 
Random pick, but I would say the Duke from Measure for Measure. He's a good guy who first wants to find out what the problems are in the city, and then wants to remedy them. I always make sure to stay on good terms with as many people as I can


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

My favourite character is Cloten from _Cymbeline_. That guy is pure knockout.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Erudite Aramis! :tiphat:


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Prince Hal, from Henry IV, perhaps.

(Someone already chose Henry V, but I thought I'd take a different angle...)


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Which ones you like best? 
Gosh. So many are self centered and tragic, although Philostrate sounds like a fun fellow and Benedick from Much Ado is not without his merits.

Which do you identify with most, or would like to meet?
Romeo of course. (Well actually I'd rather meet Juliet. Okay really I'd rather meet Olivia Hussey.)

Which ones do you think are most like you, and might serve as your avatar? 
Probably Caliban.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I believe I am Falstaff.


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## Avey (Mar 5, 2013)

Not to be too obvious, but I am going with Gloucester in King Lear. He is no saint. No hero. And no one should want to be him.

But Gloucester represents the age-old maxim that one must face adversity, struggle, and suffer, to truly know, sympathize, and feel. One truly sees only after one is blind.


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## Guest (Jun 3, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> Character-wise, probably Macbeth's gatekeeper - like me, somewhat put out when being pestered at work when it's inconvenient.


Definitely on my list!

Sentimentalised old fool (I'm a sucker for an old man) - King Lear
Heroic - Hotspur.
Anti-heroic - Iago.
Cynic - Jaques.
Complete wet - Lysander
First girl I lusted after - Puck

I'm not sure that last really belongs, but which characters I like depends on my encounters with those characters and as I don't have a comprehensive overview, I just have to go on those that I've played, or played opposite, or watched from afar.


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