This week’s Booking Through Thursday question asks:

Who is your favorite Male lead character? And why?

Edmund Dante from Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo comes immediately to mind. He’s not your typical male lead, he’s far from heroic in his quest to seek vengeance, but I love him all the same. Edmund was a riveting character who seemingly had the devil’s luck along with a devil’s cunning. He had elaborate plans and carried them out methodically. I mean really, escape from a prison and interpose himself in upper society with a fortune to back his plans? No one would have thought it possible, but he did it, and all for revenge.

Severus Snape from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series is also another favorite of mine. Okay sure, he’s not the lead, but he is a hero. And really, whenever Severus is in a scene he always grips your attention none the less. Scene stealer. Now here is a character who was badly abused and mistreated as a boy, who found comfort, solace, and acceptance with the wrong crowd when the “good guys” were happy to humiliate him and put his life at risk. And yet, for the woman he loved, he was willing to turn his back on the only people who acknowledged his abilities in order to do what was right. He played a dangerous game of double agent, fully knowing that he probably wouldn’t survive the war. On top of that he’s dark, snarky, and brilliant. How could you not love this guy?

And of course, I have to mention a manga character as well - Uzumaki Naruto from Kishimoto Masahi’s Naruto and Naruto Shippuuden. A demon attacked the shinobi village he lived and his father the Yondaime Hokage, the leader of the village, was left with no other choice but to seal the unbeatable demon into the body of a newborn child. That child was Naruto, and by another Hokage’s order the truth of Naruto’s sacrifice was kept hidden from him and the younger children. He suffered the wrath and anger of villagers who saw him, not as the hero and living sacrifice that he was, but as the demon. And yet, despite that, he always smiles, shrugs off the abuse, and wishes only to be accepted and gain the ability and power to protect those who are precious to him. He is a Jinchuuriki, a person with a demon sealed inside of him, and he lives up to the very definition of what a Jinchuuriki means. Power of the Human Sacrifice.

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