Your favorite character?

[chongjasmine]

What is your favorite character in Elantris?

Mine is Raoden.

[Trizee]

Hrathen. Sarene is just plain annoying, and though Raoden is likeable, he's just too perfect to be interesting. Hrathen though, there's a complex guy. He's also very intelligent, and considers everything he does using his intelligence, and not based on preconceptions.

[Straff Venture]

Galladon, because of his awesome pessimistic wit and little lines in Dula

[Cones For Eyes]

She wasn't a major character but Kaise always bought a smile to my face with her little quips. Especially in scenes involving her and Sarene

[Observer]

Hrathen. I love his inner conflict stuff. Galadon is an easy second.

[Voidus]

Dilaf, he just seems like the realest character to me.

[Iredomi]

I liked Adien but he wasn't a very fully fleshed character. But I would say Galadon was my favourite. I loved how he was the exception to his people, and he was a great counter point to Raoden.

[Aethling]

Sarene, she went into an unknown and managed to come out ahead in pretty much every way.

[AyeJay]

Hrathen. Loved his story arc and his actions at the end. Serene was at her best when interacting with him (she lost IQ points around Raoden). 

[Carcinios]

That guy from the Arelish underworld... I think his name was 'Hoid'

[MasterGhandalf]

Hrathen, definitely. It's fairly rare for a character to be both an extremely effective villain and to carry their own dramatic arc that the reader gets emotionally invested in, and Hrathen does both with style. I'm also a sucker for redemption stories, and am always moved by Sarene's tribute at Hrathen's grave at the end. Elantris is probably my least favorite full-length Cosmere book (not that I don't like it, mind, I just think the others are better), but I still consider Hrathen one of Brandon's best characters.

[variety.of.passions]

Oh, that's such a difficult question to answer! On my first read through, it was definitely Sarene. But I'm reading it now for the second time and I'm remembering just how amazing all the other characters are. My favorite probably still is Sarene, though.

Edited September 4, 2013 by variety.of.passions

[Gamma Fiend]

Gotta go with the Dula on this one. Without Galadon, Raoden wouldve never had the chance to thrive in Elantris.

[ADIMORTIS]

Definitely Hrathen, My favourite character ever. he's just too Awesome.Of all the cosmere books Eantris may not be my favourite, but in terms of character development , the best one I've read about....

[Moogle]

Hrathen, as he was the only character with much depth in Elantris. A good 'villain'.

 

I liked Elantris, mind, but the characters were utterly uninteresting Mary Sues for the most part. Sarene's inability to draw was just... ergh.

Edited August 30, 2013 by Moogle

[Gaelan]

Gotta go with the Dula on this one. Without Galadon, Raoden wouldve never had the chance to thrive in Elantris.

I will take Galladon too. Devoted farm dude from Duladel who becames Elantrian while the Reod and stills as friendly as your old farmer grandpa. Yay.

 

P.S: I'm really curious about how he ended into the 17thshard troops. Maybe we don't know the Dula so good, or maybe the 17thshard isn't as dark as we seem to figure out, but I think that it doesn't fit for how is he shown in Elantris. Sure we will have to wait, kolo?

Edited August 30, 2013 by Gaelan

[Gamma Fiend]

Upvoted just for the "kolo" lol
And when do we find out he becomes 17th shard? Cause that's a dank as hell twist. Besides that though, he just helped so much with the story in Elantris. I definitely agree Raoden was just too "perfect" a character. I definitely enjoyed him as a character, he was definitely funny, but Galladon just added that perfect pessimistic juxtaposition.

[GreyPilgrim]

Galladon is Grump in the Ishikk interlude in WoK. He says kolo, IIRC, which was the little Easter egg that led people to figure it out. If you didn't know, Gamma Fiend, one of the other guys in that interlude is Demoux from Mistborn, and the third is someone from White Sand.

I also love Galladon as a character, though I will have to jump in the Hrathen wagon. He had the most realistic and interesting character arc of the three protagonists, plus I love all the mystery surrounding Shu-Dereth and the Fjorden Empire.

Of all the characters, I am most excited to see Galladon's activity in the sequels, if only to see how he develops further, and (hopefully, fingers crossed) how he ends up in the Seventeenth Shard. I know that the sequels will not focus on the same protagonists, but I am sure they will all play some part in them.

[Ete'ni]

.

Edited June 10, 2014 by Ete'ni

[nightwatcher]

Raodin drove me nuts, and Serene, while shes pretty intense, was exactly the same as every other female character in the cosmere (seriously, I love BS, but I feel like all the female protagonists are pretty much the same person. Though of course, there are small differences). I'd have to go with Hrathen, just cause he's so conflicted, with Galladon the hilariously pessimistic dula as a close second.

[duladen]

I think mine might be obvious. Understand?

[Aether]

I think mine might be obvious. Understand?

No. Please elaborate.

Mine is Hrathen. When reading through, I found Raoden's chapters to be the most exiting ones, but Hrathen is by far the most interesting and well-developed character.

Edited January 7, 2014 by Aether

[Peng the Just]

Dilaf, he just seems like the realest character to me.

This is why we should avoid voidus in dark alleys.

[el_warko]

 

Serene, while shes pretty intense, was exactly the same as every other female character in the cosmere (seriously, I love BS, but I feel like all the female protagonists are pretty much the same person. Though of course, there are small differences

 

I am not alone then. 

[Kadrok]

Elantris is the cosmere book I've most recently read, and I absolutely loved it.

 

In terms of characters, my favourite(s) is(are)... well I loved Hrathen, Sarene and Raoden for different reasons

 

Sarene: I like strong, opinionated women with more than two brain cells to rub together, and I liked her arc. A little disappointed more wasn't made of the gender power dynamic with all the women learning to fight, while the men wasted their time counting coins, but whatever...

 

Raoden: Very hard to put my finger on why I like him so much. I could be a terrible narcissist and claim to have a lot in common with him, but a lot of that is tied into something I have no intention of testing. See, whenever I watch things featuring a Zombie apocalypse or survival situation or whatever, I always think of what I would do, and that is usually centered on not just surviving, but figuring out why things are the way they are. Thus, I like to imagine that were I in Raoden's shoes, I too would have attempted to coordinate the populace in a productive harmony, and poured effort into understanding the situation and how to fix it.
Naturally, I have no way of knowing how I'd actually act in that situation, so it's all just a bit armchair survivalist, but I suppose it all amounts to... Raoden did exactly what I wanted him to do in the story, and that aided in identifying with him. Or some gibberish like that...

 

Brace yourself for a rant.

 

Hrathen: FINALLY! Finally!!! My gosh, finally! A "religious" character who believes what he does not because of some mystical "faith" (read: blind faith) but because he finds it the most rational explanation for the evidence he's seen. I nearly clawed my eyes out at that conversation between him and the Korathi priest about faith, and was relieved at the end of his stay in Elantris when he realised that his rational position would be sufficient for his God. I am so sick to death of "religious" character "cameoing" in episodes of whatever, who are questioned about their beliefs by the hegemonic-ally central secular humanist characters, and all they can come up with by way of explanation is "I have faith" as if

 

a) blind faith is actually a good reason to believe something

b ) there are no good arguments for the existence of God.

c) the non-"religious" characters are somehow completely without faith, possessing a somehow pure objective outlook with absolutely no assumptions at all... as if evidence is never interpreted, filtered through a worldview.

 

I say "religious" in quotation marks because I dislike the designation of certain worldviews as "religious", I don't see what function it serves, other than as a means for the holders of certain worldviews to denigrate other worldviews, and thereby avoid having to actually deal with the evidence and arguments for and against either side.

 

*AHEM* Rant over.

 

So yeah, I identified a lot with Hrathen because I identify with his version of faith (aka, well thought out and rational).

 

On a related note, I think we need to introduce rant-box functionality to this forum, if only for people like me who get seriously sidetracked... something like:

 

HYPOTHETICAL TOPIC: Where would you like to live in the Cosmere (No spoilers please)

Probably Kharbranth, because of its free healthcare. I think we can take for granted the medical edifice operating in the background, and I'd like to know I'll be taken care of if I were to become injured. Speaking of which...

 

[rant]

Impassioned appeal in favour of universal healthcare.

[/rant]

 

Edited January 17, 2014 by Kadrok