As stated in the previous post, i did tag Suchi,for the same, and here is Suchi's novel heroes list :) I throughly enjoyed reading it.

The Novel Heroes tag:
Apart from the fact that this makes very nice conversation, I guess thinking about who I found attractive in books gives me insight into what I find attractive in general ;) I am not limiting my list to books, but exploring movies and mythology as well.
Books:

1. Rhett Butler: Starting with what you started J I read GWTW when I was 12, and thought Margaret Mitchell was an amazing character-izer. I loved the shades of grey in Scarlett, Rhett, Melanie and Ashley, but it was Rhett that I liked the most of the lot. He was Almost Perfect, never a boring moment with him, grossly misunderstood, sophisticated, sometimes even a little crude, but having a tender, sensitive side to him as well. Ultimate schoolgirl fantasy – the bad boy who’s good at heart :D

Favourite Rhett Butler scene: One of many, but I guess it has to be when melanie’s just had her baby and Scarlett wants to flee the Yankees and go home. He acts like a cad to Scarlett, and then comforts her when he realizes she is really distraught, and then mocks her to get her fire up, and then behaves like a perfect gentleman to Melly, and then leaves Scarlett on the road because he thought he had to join the ‘army’ which only had kids in it! That man was like the raymonds’ ad, ‘the complete man :D

2. Francisco d’Anconia: I decided to go with one Rand hero, because they are mostly all essentially the same :P And I picked Frisco, because, well, he’s Frisco. Roark made me clutch my hand to my throat while reading FH, Rearden wrenched my heart, Galt, sorry to say, made no impression on me whatsoever (Who is John Galt?) Leo made me laugh cynically, Andrei Taganov (who almost made it to this list) made me actually weep, but Frisco was life itself. There’s one thing I say about rand…though I am not a fan of her methods, I love the core of her being. The throwaway elan of Francisco d’Anconia which is the crux of celebrating life…that is the core of rand to me. I guess with Frisco, I am more in love with the idea of the person than with the person himself. But then, we are talking Rand here…the height of abstractness!

Favourite Frisco scene: The one where we are told he had the ‘crude form of a partial differential equation’ in his hands when he was a kid of 10, playing with levers and pulleys.

3. Surya (Alai Osai): Kalki is one author who creates the most amazing characters. Though I love Kalki’s women (Sivakami, Nandini, Poonkuzhali) I am not averse to his men either. In fact, I am quoting three of kalki’s men in my list :D The first is Surya from Alai Osai. It is a semi historical novel, and Surya is a patriot with communist leanings. He is in love with Seetha (his athtanga, it is endearing how he calls her that way throughout the book. Seetha calls him ‘ammaanji’ :D) However, we are talking about 1930’s Thanjavur, and Seetha gets married to Raghavan, who lives in Delhi. The story then winds on, the freedom struggle as the background. Surya is a protagonist, one who flashes in and out with his secret conspiracies and  he hovers around Seetha, trying to protect her from Raghavan, whose good nature morphs into something sinister over time. He is patriotic, and he is extremely sincere in his beliefs, be it the love for his country or the love for Sita!

Favourite Surya scene: Seetha, Raghavan, Surya and Dharini, with their friends, visit the Taj Mahal. The scene by itself it highly charged – it begins with an AMAZING description of the Taj-in-moonlight by Kalki, and then an exchange of words when the hidden feelings of each of the characters is brought out. Seetha’s devotion to raghavan, raghavan’s eye on Dharini, Surya’s feelings for Seetha…There is a marble figurine of the Taj that Seetha buys (either Raghavan presents it to her or she buys it herself – not sure which) Surya gets into an argument with raghavan and ends up breaking the figurine into a thousand smithereens :D I guess this is one of those things you need to actually read to get it.

4. Mahendra pallavar: The second Kalki character, the father of narasimha varman in Sivakamiyin Sabatham. He’s actually way more charismatic than his son! I love the way he disguises himself as Vajrabahu and enters Pulikesi’s camp. His only fault, he was too nice and Pulikesi takes advantage.

Favourite MP scene: He’s on his death bed when Narasimha pallavan vows to marry Sivakami and none other. MP says that rather than let that happen he would rather marry Sivakami himself!

5. Vandiyathevan: Wits. Charm. Liveliness. Nuff said :D

Fav VT scene: How he meets Nandini, ramming his horse into her pallakku. How he shoots the stuffed crocodile (Man, that was hilarious!)

6. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore: I love shades of gray characters, but Dumbledore was a whole spectrum by himself.

Favourite APWBD moment: Oddment! Nitwit! Blubber! Tweak!

7. Snape: Though I don’t find Snape attractive in the conventional sense, I could not go by a Rowling survey without mentioning Snape.

Favourite Snape moment: “Always’

8. Percy Blakeney: ‘The Scarlet Pimpernel’ was one of my favourite adventure-type novels and Percy was this ammanji type character who was actually a savior in disguise. Spurned by his own wife, and she later finding it out and following him to France to help him save her brother…a very oodal-modal type of story. Percy’s the disguise master too.

Favourite PB moment: The climax, where he disguises as the Jew to rescue a bunch of people from the French revolutionaries.

Movies:

1. Apoo, from Aboorva Sagotharargal. The guy was a shorty, but I loved his scheming mind!
2. Kamal’s character in Varumaiyin Niram Sivappu. Idealism, truth, no-bullshit
3. Prakash Raj’s character in Ghilli. (Yes, I know, weird taste :P) If I were Trisha I would have chosen him over Vijay (but I’d have chosen even Otteri Nari over Vijay, so…)
4. Amitabh Bachchan’s character in Abhimaan (I love this movie!)
5. Madhavan’s character in Kannathil Muthamittal (no-nonsense, intellectual, sucker for adoption :P)
6. The Joker, Dark Knight. (OK, not attractive, but very, very intriguing)
7. Di Caprio’s character in Titanic: I am an unashamed fan of the said movie. Di Caprio’s character is the free spirit…I wonder what is so attractive about them!!
8. John Nash, A Beautiful Mind: Maybe I should visit Princeton to find out whether the real Nash is anything like the Russell Crowe portrayal, but the Crowe Nash owes most of his charisma to the scriptwriters. For all his manic ego and his insecurities, there is something enormously endearing about Nash. “There has to be a mathematical explanation for how bad that tie is.”
9. Achilles (Troy): Maybe it was just Brad Pitt :P Or maybe it was the scriptwriter again. ‘I'll tell you a secret. Something they don't teach you in your temple. The Gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. and we will never be here again.”

Guess with movies the actor’s personality sometimes influences the role, and their subsequent impact on me :P I find kamal, Big B and prakash Raj very charismatic actors by themselves.

MYTHOLOGY

1. Ram

Ram was my first hero ever, but one that I have always had a love-hate relationship with. It started with devotion! J I started listening to Ramayana stories before I could talk, and my favourite parts of the epic were 1) when Ram slays the demons who messed up the sacrifice, 2) when he breaks the bow 3) searching for Sita in the forest, asking every bird and tree ‘Did you see Sita?’ 4) the ‘Indru poy naalai vaa’ scene. This was back when I was a kid, and I really did not get the part where she makes Sita walk through fire K When I grew older, I thought that he was a terribly unfair man, and all my ‘crush’ on Ram melted. He not only tries burning his wife (for all her silent devotion) but also banishes her when she is pregnant. Injustice! Why was that woman even with him? I guess at some point the whites and blacks merged into shades of gray, and all the respect I have for Ram comes back to the fact that he tried to do the right thing. I guess that is the difference between Ram and Krishna – Ram tried to follow the rules and ended up floundering, while Krishna made his own rules. I guess that at some level it requires enormous courage to do the Ram thing – be just human, nothing more, nothing less. Try to follow the rules, because that is all you have been given, sometimes floundering, facing unhappiness, all to uphold an ideal of righteousness. And is Sita suffered, well, she chose it K

2. Krishna

But then who can resist his charms? J

Why are epics stories of distress and sorrow and frustrations and unfulfilled expectations? Why does the drama excite us more than the passive peace of everyday life we so ardently crave, or even life in all its excitement? Krishna was one person (kind of like Frisco) who could not be touched by distress.

3. Ravana

Ravana’s decisions are a classic case of sunk cost fallacy. It is not his lust for Sita that made him lose the war with Ram; it was his own adamant will not to let go of her, because he had made up his mind to abduct her, and letting her go at any point after that would reveal his weakness. At the root, this is the same tenacity the man displayed to earn the favour of Shiva, this is the same good taste in a man who could play the veena and had chosen a woman like Mandodari as his wife, the valor and intelligence that made him the ruler of a city as fine as Lanka. And that arrogant streak, which brought about his downfall. Ram and Ravan are both weak men, inherently. One allowed his insecurity to get the better of him, the other allowed his vulnerability to get the better of him. The real ‘hero’ of the Ramayana is Sita – for she saw the best of both the weak men in front of her. I look at the Ramayana with Sita’s eye – therefore both Ram and Ravan are special to me.

4. Arjuna:

Prince charming J Skill and humility, charm and artlessness, valor and devotion, certainty and doubt, utterly secure and primordially insecure. This character has many many shades that I just love to explore.

5. Abhimanyu:

I can almost see it: If the Kurukshetra war had had this ‘preview’ on TV, with all the ‘brave jawans’ interviewed by someone like Barkha Dutt, and if Abhimanyu had come up on screen, there would have been this bunch of teenage girls (with ridiculously short skirts) screaming in the background and blowing kisses :P Abhimanyu’s that kind of a guy – the fifteen year old entrant into the World Cup who scores a 99 against Australia in the finals but is run-out (unfairly of course) before he gets his century. Just imagining brave Abhi riding alone into the Chakravyuha, surrounded by all those older ragging ‘adults’ who tear him to pieces, and he raising his chariot wheel to fend them off…I adore that boy.

6. Karna:

An older female friend once told me that women have something called a ‘tragedy complex’  - that they are predisposed (perhaps because of a protective instinct?) to have a soft corner for individuals whose lives have a tragic streak in them. Karna is one such character- his tragedy defines him. (Kind of like Snape, don’t you think?) Had he been another prince, he would have been a more arrogant version of Arjuna, and there’d have been nothing special about that. His unknown origins, the sparkle in his eyes, the luminance of his face, the kavacham and the kundalam – that is his allure. With karna, there’s the streak of the good boy having to be bad because of circumstances (and some choices) – we can’t help but wonder ‘what could have been’.

7. Shiva:

Among all the mythological characters I have spoken about, I think Shiva’s the most ‘complete’  man, the strongest and sanest. He is usually silent, an aloof ascetic. He makes decisions quickly, and executes them calmly. He has his own space, and gives his wife hers. He is the devoted householder, yet the sanyaasai who has shunned the world. I have enormous respect for Shiva.

I don’t remember much of the Greek and Roman myth I (once) read to be very detailed here. Ido seem to recall liking Hercules and Ulysses…

I guess that with each of these men, just like they are all very different, one responds to them in different ways. Just like it is with people J

Suchitra