Who are your favorite characters of all time?
Man, I’m bad at answering questions like this. Okay, male is probably Jean Valjean. Female…urg… Moiraine, maybe? Sioned from Dragon Prince is pretty awesome too. Double urg. I don’t know. Jenny from Dragonsbane has long been one of my favorites, so maybe I’d pick her.
If you could have dinner with 3 characters from books (not just yours) who would you dine with and why. Plus what would you be eating!?
Hmm… Let me answer this as one from a classic, one from a sf/f book not my own, and one from a book that is my own. Otherwise the question is too big for me to get a real answer to, as there are so many.
Well, my favorite character from a classic is Jean-valjean. I don’t know what we’d eat, but I’d avoid ordering bread…
My favorite character from a fantasy book not my own is probably Perrin from the Wheel of Time, though that’s a half-cheat, as I worked on the series. So it would either be him or, if I had to pick another, maybe Sam Vimes from Discworld. We’d avoid sausages in a bun.
From my own books, I don’t know if I can pick a favorite, as they’re all my children. So maybe I’ll just tie it to who would be the most fun to go to dinner with. Kelsier would be too dangerous–you never know who is going to show up and try to kill him. Probably Shallan, as I feel she’d have the most interesting conversation. We wouldn’t order men’s food because I’m too much of a wimp, and it would probably be way too spicy.
If you could bring one character from another universe into the Cosmere, Who would it be?
What an interesting question. I’ll play along in a moment, but I’ll point out that it’s generally not tempting for me to write other creator’s characters. The ones I were most interested in writing were those in the Wheel of Time–and somehow, that ended up happening already.
Generally, when I consider a character that I love, my mind starts breaking down the “Why.” I look at what effect they had on me, and what about them I really love–what is it this character does to the story that is so intriguing. Often, if I boil that down, I can start creating new characters who draw upon this, and other traditions–and that is what excites me.
That said, who would I bring to the cosmere, if I had the chance? I’ll take a different tactic on this than, perhaps, you’d assume. I’d grab some of my favorite villains from other media, because it would be interesting to see how the characters would react. If Magneto were to deal with a world of people with magic, how would he react–and how would the characters react to him? What about Moriarty? Javert? (Okay, Nale’s already got some Javert in him.)
Cthulhu? Nah. That’s going to far