What is the greatest thing any of your characters has ever done? What is the most evil thing?

Thought_Bubble · Sep 5, 2010

Thought this might get some interesting answers.

What is the greatest thing any of your characters has done?
What is the most evil thing any of your characters has done?

Give some background or the character's motivations if you need to.

RangerSG · Sep 5, 2010

Most evil thing? One evil wizard killed three guards, enthralled the prisoner and broke him out of jail. Then he took him to his lair and had the prisoner make a golem for him...then he killed the prisoner so he could trap his soul IN the golem.

Greatest thing? I had a character raise a ward with his cloak and take a volley of musket fire so his girl could turn them to ash. He faked his death until she loosed fire, then got up and fought the rest in melee; rapier and cloak style, thank you.

The line to start the fight was one of my favorites. He told the Janissaries they had 10 seconds to get back in their boat and leave.

The Commander said, "No, we'll come take you now."

Kilian pulled his wheellock and fired, killing the commander. "Good, I hate long waits."

TheRob1 · Sep 5, 2010

The worst thing one of my characters has done?

The captain of the Mercenaries in my current wip took a pirate as a prisoner. He beat him mercilessly then began interrogating him. They told the pirate that if he cooperated they'd let him live. Once the captain had all the information he felt he could get/trust he flushed the pirate out of the airlock. Immediately after killing the pirate he walked to the kitchen to make flapjacks.

The best thing? Hard to say. My primary characters are, mostly, not that heroic: they're professionals who do the job and get paid. One of the team, their pilot, broke protocol to rescue a girl from a biker gang. The captain fired him for it.

Kateness · Sep 5, 2010

The worst thing? Genocide (double genocide, really, as it killed both humans and the squid-people). Middle of a big war, and a renegade faction got their hands on the Ultimate Weapon. And used it.

The best thing? Killed "god" and so set his people free, at the expense of his own life.

LilliCray · Sep 5, 2010

Huh... this one's a toughie.

Worst thing - one character--two, actually--have STILL not gotten around to telling me what their REAL story is. A bajillion false starts and nothing to show for it. Stupid word-hogging brfllmph...

Best thing - ....

....

Well, one of my characters nicknamed a bad guy "Muffin" once.

*Disclaimer: I interpret "worst" and "best" in this case in not a moral sense, because I haven't written enough things to have anything really cool to list in the moral sense. It's so not impressive when the worst thing your characters have done is kick a puppy, and the best thing is trying (and failing) to break up a high school hallway fight.

....does that make sense to anyone besides me?

sunandshadow · Sep 5, 2010

I'm not really sure whether this qualifies as best or worst: When one of the minor villains was being a total ass by abandoning his pregnant girlfriend, the main character used magic to temporarily neuter the minor villain, with the idea that maybe he would appreciate the baby if he knew it was the only child he was ever going to sire (and perhaps the lack of testosterone would mellow out his temper). The main character intended to undo the neutering spell after the minor villain apologized to his girlfriend. This plan did not work though. The minor villain thought that by messing with his manhood the main character had humiliated him unforgivably and hired some mercenaries to try to force the main character to undo the neutering spell, then after that kill the mc.

KyraDune · Sep 5, 2010

Best thing: Gave up true love to save the world.

Worst thing: Murdered his father so he could be king.

RemusShepherd · Sep 5, 2010

In a sci-fi story set on a totalitarian future Earth, my protagonist sent out a signal that unlocked every fabricator, allowing the populace to create whatever they wanted -- weapons, drugs, clones, dinosaurs, whatever.

I'll put that in both the greatest and the most evil category.

Mr Flibble · Sep 6, 2010

Ilfayne destroyed a continent once. He didn't really mean to...well okay he did, but he wasn't in full control of his mind at the time. Oh and there was that time he fried a man's brain in his head. And he's quite fond of melting eyeballs.

The best thing? Killed "god" and so set his people free,

One of mine did that too!

knight_tour · Sep 6, 2010

Worst thing: one of my characters tricked the elf and dwarf kingdoms into going to war with each other so that when they were sufficiently weakened he could slaughter them with his goblin/troll armies.

Best thing: There was a knight who was extremely antagonistic to my MC, denigrating him publicly at all opportunities, and breaking the MC's leg after the MC had yielded in a tourney melee. After this knight was later injured so badly everyone thought he would die and all had turned on him, my MC took him in as one of his own bannermen.

Chasing the Horizon · Sep 6, 2010

My writing's so dark I don't think I can choose just one 'worst thing'. Probably the worst numerically was when my protags in the Horizon series accidentally destroyed the social structure of an entire country. But that was an accident (though they're not particularly sorry when they discover what's happened, lol). In that same series we've got one villain who arranges a gang rape out of pure spite and another who feeds a baby to a snake as part of a magic ritual. Charming bunch.

Best thing would have to be the MCs in my UF book fighting to save West Baltimore. Because they could have walked away, this was not their neighborhood, not their friends and family. But they didn't. They stayed and fought, knowing that if they won no-one would ever know what they did.

Budo von Stahl · Sep 6, 2010

Tough one

Love this question, but how to answer it without spoilers? Here goes:

I'd say the greatest thing one of my chars did was to maintain his rage, hatred, and sanity through eons of torment. The most evil thing? Everything he did in the meantime.

bladestalker · Sep 6, 2010

Worst: one of my characters (head of a corporate run state) manipulated a foreign nation into travelling through it's borders to attack another nation, but didn't inform the military, who tracked and ambushed the task force, setting of a 5 year war.

Best: (still in progress/pitch) rescued a small child from a chaos cult in defiance of his caravan leader.

Nivarion · Sep 7, 2010

Trying to find clear cut examples is actually a bit weird for me. I like to put anti-heroes and anti-villains facing off. Heroes who will kill and torture enemy mooks while they scream about their families, and evil overlords who offer universal health care, public education and eliminate poverty in their kingdoms.

I have one scene in my current WIP where the Narrator is a character with god like powers. Another one of the characters is from the same world as the narrator, but got mcguffined inside the fantasy novel he's trying to write, and they've just discovered that she's immune to deus ex and rewriting. One of the tests he does to see how immune to things like that are, is renaming her romantic interest "He who shits on rugs" to see if she remembers his real name.

evil right?

I have another character who has the villain hanging from a cliff. You all know the scene. Where the hero gets all stupid and saves a mass murderer genocidal nut. Instead my character shoots him in the face. with 00.

Edit: Okay, thought of of a evil example. One of my heroes RKV's a very populated planet Into the middle of a populated city. With one of their own cruisers. In a twisted revenge for their many times removed ancestors RKVing his. Is RKV even a verb?

Varthikes · Sep 7, 2010

Greatest thing: My main dragon character, Varthikes, put himself between his sister, Shephaliv, and his best friend, Audwin (a Human), when the former threatened him. Years later, in another story, Varthikes does the same with Audwin's daughter, protecting her from a hostile dragon. Varthikes protected Audwin again by standing up against a grief-stricken Sage Vethes, the leader of his home Range.

Most evil: Egan Fasunyax allies himself with the Norseen (lizard people) to destroy the Earth ships guarding Draconia, provoke the dragons into attacking the colony, and modify the colony governor's message to Earth. This results in Admiral Nabrokov taking command of a fleet to annihilate all the dragons because a few of them attacked the colony "without provocation," according to the faked message.

defcon6000 · Sep 7, 2010

What is the greatest thing any of your characters has done?
There's a couple, one being saving the life of a little girl and repeatedly protecting her from the antagonists (the little girl was a military project and they REALLY wanted her back).

Another is when this demi-god arose from the protag/antag's body (yes, they are sharing the same body) and the secondary character reaches out to antagonize the the antagonist into taking back the body from within, otherwise the demi-god unmakes reality. I know this must sound horribly confusing. :tongue

What is the most evil thing any of your characters has done?
The robot antagonist cuts of the limbs of the robot protag and throws him out into space as a sort of "robot hell" to punish the protag for not giving him the info and the protag can't simply shut down as he doesn't want to lose any valuable information, so he ends up floating around.

PsychicToaster · Sep 7, 2010

In my stories, many epic deeds take place, but the characters' greatest trials are deeply personal ones.

Greatest thing
While being disinherited, the MC puts on her big girl pull-ups and stands by her mother in chastising her younger brother because it's her mother's house and the disinheriting business isn't her brother's burden.

Most evil thing
The MC befriends a talented child, and hopes to nurture their magical gift. Deep down the MC can't help but put the child in the "assets" column when mentally calculating their preparations for the coming war. Sadly, the MC deludes themselves into thinking they are innocently encouraging the child, and don't realize that they should have been keeping a closer watch until it is too late and the child is dead.

Kaiser-Kun · Sep 7, 2010

Ah geez, this's a tough one... my nominees'd be..

Best: The main character who until now has been the butt monkey for been less capable than everyone else in magic, drags his injured friends across a freaking desert.

Worst: The secondary antagonist forcefully extracts magic out of thousands of people and implants it into test subjects to create supersoldiers. Among many other nasties. And unlike the primary antagonists, he's completely human and did it voluntarily.

Fame<Infamy · Sep 7, 2010

Best: Basically on of them bent and reshaped reality to move a great distance (several thousand light years) in seconds to save her daughter from dying. All of this at risk to sheering a black hole across the galaxy when you think about it. I guess that can count as worst too, but it turned out okay.

LROT · Sep 7, 2010

worst thing- In my short story one of my main character, Celestianus, sold his soul to a demon lord, Infernium, in order to defeat his great foe in competition thereby receiving the blessing of the Earth Mother goddess. However, he unwittingly cursed his entire race to be bound by blood to the demon lord.

best thing- not sure yet but Im working on it in my novel

Livasa · Sep 8, 2010

Worst thing: Argus was part of an army that killed off the human race.
Best thing: Argus was part of an army that killed off the human race.

Depends on one's perspestive really

_Sian_ · Sep 8, 2010

Worst thing: My secondary protag leaves two people to die

Best thing: My primary protag basically gives up her life to help keep someone else from being possessed by an ancient soul doing their best to come back into the living world.

What is the greatest thing any of your characters has ever done? What is the most evil thing?

Thought_Bubble

RangerSG

New kid, be gentle!

TheRob1

Trained by the soft master

Kateness

LilliCray

Plot? What plot?

sunandshadow

Impractical Fantasy Animal

KyraDune

Finding Beauty In Negative Spaces

RemusShepherd

Mr Flibble

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

knight_tour

Fantasy Tourist

Chasing the Horizon

Blowing in the Wind

Budo von Stahl

Grouchy Morning Bear

bladestalker

Nivarion

Brony level >9000

Varthikes

Dragon Writer

defcon6000

PsychicToaster

Writing Ninja

Kaiser-Kun

!

Fame<Infamy

LROT

Livasa

_Sian_

Ooooh, pretty lights and sirens :D