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This entry is trivia, which is cool and all, but not a trope. On a work, it goes on the Trivia tab.

Following

Creator's Favorite

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"During my darkest hours, my quietest saddest moments, my loneliest times, writing Cristina Yang fortified me. I leaned into Cristina, wrote her more eloquently, colored her more brightly, drew outside her lines. Let her do and think and live in ways that voiced my dreams."
— Shonda Rhimes on her favorite Grey's Anatomy character

Just like the fans, it's inevitable for a creator of a work to have a favorite character. When this happens, it can go horribly wrong, leading to the creator trying to force the character on an uninterested audience and we get a Creator's Pet. However, they can just as easily handle it better. Maybe the character isn't The Scrappy and audiences like them, or they don't get a lot of Character Focus, or maybe instead of Character Shilling the writer chooses to show instead of telling you how great the character is. Whatever the difference is, these characters do not qualify as a Creator's Pet.

In fact, since many of the obvious tells for favoritism aren't there, often the only way to know for certain is from Word of God. Compare My Real Daddy, where the fanbase displays this towards one of the specific creators associated with a character or work.

Contrast Creator's Pest, a character which the author hates.

Compare Creator's Favorite Episode, which is this, but for works.

Examples:

    open/close all folders 

    Anime & Manga 
  • The author of Attack on Titan, Hajime Isayama, mentioned that his favorite character is Jean Kirschtein due to his ability to be blunt and say exactly what he's thinking despite the circumstances. In more recent interviews, he has stated his favorite to be Reiner.
  • Kiyohiko Azuma considers Sakaki his personal favorite character in Azumanga Daioh. Appropriately, she's the only member of the main cast to go through a full arc of Character Development, and the 2009 reprint's touch-ups focus on her to a much stronger extent than anyone else, going so far as to slightly modify the way she wears her shirt in the Okinawa arc despite it not being strictly necessary.
  • Bleach:
    • Creator Tite Kubo admitted he likes every character he's created. However, he's often misquoted as saying his favourite is Mayuri Kurotsuchi: Mayuri is his favourite character to draw. The character is guaranteed to always appear in bizarre costumes and make-up. He is also the author's exploration of "necessary evil" and Kubo has admitted writing Mayuri's character has made him reassess what he is and is not willing to tolerate in life.
    • A downplayed example for the anime; out of Ichigo's sisters, the staff seems to prefer Karin over Yuzu. In the first episode of the anime, it's Karin, not Yuzu, who's taken by a Hollow and causes Ichigo to use Shinigami powers to save her, while in the manga it was Yuzu. Also Karin gets way more filler episodes dedicated to her than Yuzu does, even getting some mild Ship Tease on her end with Hitsugaya, which is exclusive to the anime.
  • The series director of A Certain Scientific Railgun, Tatsuyuki Nagai, is a huge fan of the characters of Saten and Uiharu. However, in the manga, they don't get very much screentime, so for the adaptation he had their roles greatly expanded upon, adding them into arcs they originally weren't in, and even had entire non-canon arcs of the series made just to further show them off. However, this resulted in a fair amount of backlash, not so much at their characters, as the extra arcs diluted the manga's otherwise dark and tragic nature.
  • Both authors, Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata, consider L to be their favorite character in Death Note. This doesn't protect him from dying in the middle of the series, though.
  • Naoto Hosoda, director of the anime adaptation of The Devil is a Part-Timer!, has openly declared his love for Chiho Sasaki, to the extent that the ending sequence for each episode includes Naoto's own fanart of her. The anime tends to downplay all of her negative attributes like how dangerous she can get when in Clingy Jealous Girl mode, and played up Emilia's aggressive nature to kill off any potential threat to his favorite ship of Chiho/Maou.
  • Dragon Ball:
    • From Dragon Ball Z, Akira Toriyama admitted that Mr. Satan was one of his favorite characters and he gets a lot of screentime in the Majin Buu Arc. However, he's very popular (especially in the Japanese fandom, he's more of a Base-Breaking Character in the west). He even once said that if he would ever make another manga, it would focus on him. According to Toriyama, this has shifted through the years starting with Goku, Krillin, Tenshinhan, and finally settling on Piccolo as his overall favorite character.
    • Later on, Toriyama has stated that out of all the characters he had created, his favorite was Jaco, his most recent creation who at that point had been worked into the revival of Dragon Ball in addition to his own series.
    • Toshio Yoshitaka, one of the Dragon Ball Super anime writers, has stated to have fallen in love with both Caulifla and Kale, the Saiyan women of Universe 6.
    • In an interview with Salón del Manga, Hiroyuki Sakurada, the producer for Dragon Ball Super, admitted to liking Android 17 a lot and feeling he didn't have many fights to show his potential, resulting in 17 receiving a lot of focus in the arc, having his newfound power hyped by Goku and the participants/spectators in the tournament at every opportunity, getting to eliminate a bulk of U2 fighters and U4, playing a big part on the defeat of Anilaza and Toppo, and culminating in him winning the entire tournament and making the wish that saved all of the Dragon Ball multiverse.
    • It is thought that the God of Destruction Liquiir is a personal favorite of the creative staff, as he is a rather minor character yet he receives a lot of focus from both the anime and manga. The fans don't mind.
  • While Hiroko Utsumi was the director of Free!, she was not the least bit ashamed to state that Rin Matsuoka is her favorite. Some of her comments regarding him almost approached Perverse Sexual Lust levels, which is rather Squicky when you consider that Rin was sixteen in the series at the time and she basically created him...
  • Fushigi Yuugi: Yuu Watase themself confessed that Nakago is their favorite character and tended to favor him because of it.
  • JoJo's Bizarre Adventure creator Hirohiko Araki has stated that his favorite Jojo is Diamond Is Unbreakable's Josuke Higashikata. While he is generally liked by the fandom, he's not the favorite, those being Jotaro Kujo in Japan and Joseph Joestar in the west.
  • Lady!!: Suheir Fahad, Lynn's Arabic voice actress, stated that Lynn was one of her favourite characters to voice.
  • Kira Yamato and Lacus Clyne of Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny. Director Mitsuo Fukuda admitted that they're stand-ins for him and his wife, Chiaki Morosawa, who is also one of the head writers of the show.
  • Koichi Tokita, creator of the Mobile Fighter G Gundam manga, had a major preference towards Allenby Beardsley, causing Rain Mikamura to suffer character-wise, going from a sisterly-type character to more of a Tsundere than she was in the show and making the series' climatic battle turn into a Anti-Climax.
  • The director of Mobile Suit Gundam 00, Seiji Mizushima, stated that his favorite character was Nena Trinity, largely because he worked with her CV, Rie Kugimiya, on Fullmetal Alchemist. Although Nena's role in the series was largely unimportant and her fate was anticlimatic, she was a popular character in the series in Japan. Of course, in the West, to this day it's still a push between people who think she's cool and those who look at her as an evil bitch.
  • In-Universe example in Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun, where Nozaki zig-zags this with his shoujo manga male lead Suzuki. He likes Suzuki's visual design, and will use it for new characters when he doesn't have a model. He's also firmly behind Suzuki and Mamiko's relationship, such that he can't see them with anybody else. However, the only thing he likes about Suzuki is his visual design; he doesn't seem all that interested in him as a person, and finds his name snark-worthy.
  • Naruto: At approximately 25:00 of this 2015 Viz Shonen Jump podcast, Masashi Kishimoto reveals that his favorite female character is Hinata, because "she's not violent at all."
  • Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, has three: Luffy, Gaimon, and Buggy.
  • The late Takeshi Shudō, the original head writer for Pokémon: The Series, stated that Musashi/Jessie and Kojiro/James of Team Rocket were his prized creations, which made him all the more frustrated with their Villain Decay as the series went on.
  • Puella Magi Madoka Magica: Director Akiyuki Shinbo absolutely adores Sayaka, to the point that he begged Gen Urobuchi to bring Sayaka back to life after she'd been killed off, to which Urobuchi said no. Amusingly, Urobuchi's favorite is also Sayaka.
  • Hiro Mashima has one for each of his three major series: for Rave Master, it's Plue, whom he makes sure to include in every one of his series in some capacity; for Fairy Tail, he admits it changed throughout the manga's run, but ultimately settled on Lucy by the end; and for EDENS ZERO, it's Pino, which he also said could very well change in the future.
  • The Quintessential Quintuplets: Haruba Negi has stated that of the five titular Quintuplets, Yotsuba is his favorite as she is based off of his wife.
  • Rurouni Kenshin: Watsuki has admitted to Kyoto Arc villain Shishio Makoto being his favorite character, and basically resorted to Deus ex Machina so that Kenshin wouldn't have to break his vow in order to survive their battle.
  • In Saint Seiya Omega, Aquila Yuna was the favorite character of the director and the main screenwriter, and it showed: her episodes and stock footage were usually much better drawn and animated than the other characters', and she became a huge Spotlight-Stealing Squad in the Sanctuary Arc, taking over Souma, Ryuho and Haruto's roles as The Lancer, The Heart and The Smart Guy. She was still popular with fans because she was a nice and reliable girl, people liked seeing the token female character getting a prominent role in a battle Shōnen, or they just found her hot. When the writer and director were replaced in the second season, the new staff wasn't nearly as fond of Yuna and she was Demoted to Extra.
  • School Rumble: Harima is creator Jin Kobayashi's favorite character.
  • Fujio Akatsuka had a list of his favorites published in a magazine back in the day, stating his top favorites were Papa of Tensai Bakabon, and Chibita originally from Osomatsu-kun.
  • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's director, Hiroyuki Imaishi, has stated that Kittan is his favorite character. Notably, he gets a few Ship Tease moments later in the series with Yoko, who is stated to be the favorite character of Atsushi Nishigori, the show's animation director.
  • Kazuki Takahashi claimed that Katsuya Jounouchi (Joey Wheeler) was one of his favorite Yu-Gi-Oh! characters.

    Art 

    Asian Animation 
  • Motu Patlu: According to this Quora post, production company Cosmos-Maya's favorite character is Motu, with Inspector Chingum being a runner-up.

    Audio Plays 
  • This situation is a frequent problem that occurs over at Big Finish Doctor Who where the creators of Doctor Who audio enjoy working with a particular actor/actress too much.
    • In particular we're describing Sophie Aldred (Ace, 7th Doctor), India Fisher (Charley, 6th and 8th Doctors) and Philip Olivier (Hex, 7th Doctor). So they keep using and re-using their characters long past their ability to generate decent stories. The result? A character that everybody remembers for sticking around too long, characters that would have had a much more memorable run if they'd gone out on a high, and left people wanting more.
    • Tracey Childs (Klein, 7th Doctor) is another character which is reeling due to not knowing when to quit. There have been at least three points where her story could have come to a natural end (Nazi, tragic villain, companion, and now Tyke-Bomb). Big Finish just enjoys working with Childs, but that isn't a strong reason in storytelling terms. Ironically, Klein was brought in as a companion because fans were tired of the Seven-Hex-Ace team.
    • The favourite monster of Nicholas Briggs, the Big Finish Doctor Who director and producer, is the Daleks, and it shows. Most of the stories he writes have something to do with Daleks, he plays all of the Daleks, he plays the Daleks in the revival series, he even played the Daleks in the DVD re-release of the Third Doctor story "Day of the Daleks", he does the Big Finish podcasts with his ring modulator at the ready slipping in and out of his Dalek voice, the first story he wrote for Tom Baker's much-hyped return was an attempt to give him a Dalek story with no Davros in it, the big event series Dark Eyes is all about Daleks, any event story he writes is all about Daleks... On the bright side, he is very, very, very good at it.

    Comic Books 
  • X-Men:
    • Chris Claremont has a particular fondness for Storm (it's not a coincidence that bad guys under his pen often take a shine to her). He also particularly likes Kitty Pryde. On a lesser side, he was particularly fond of Sage during the early-to-mid-noughts, having her go from very minor recurring character to major member of a tertiary X-Men title to Uncanny X-Men to New Excalibur to a major supporting role in his run on Exiles. Surpassing all of the above, however, is Magneto, who Claremont famously reinvented from a stock Card-Carrying Villain into the tormented He Who Fights Monsters archetype fans know and love today. Indeed, Magneto was so favored by Claremont that when he left Marvel in the '90s, his last story focused on Magneto taking on a Bastard Understudy named Fabian who then quickly betrayed him. (Coincidentally, the writer replacing Claremont was Fabian Nicieza.)
    • Dave Cockrum's favorite X-Man was his creation Nightcrawler, while John Byrne's favorite was Cyclops.
  • Frank Miller has admitted that Miho is his favourite Sin City character.
  • Marvel Comics' Jim Starlin:
    • While he did not create Adam Warlock, he is certainly a favorite character of the author who took him from an obscure Fantastic Four side character to one of the foremost tacticians of Marvel Comics in the 90's.
    • He has also expressed fondness of Spider-Man and inserts him into most of his cosmic based stories, even though Spidey is generally considered a "street-level" hero.
    • Also on a regularly basis, he seems to like The Incredible Hulk. And preferably in his big, strong, Savage Hulk persona.
    • It also seems he has a soft spot for Doctor Strange, trying to include him in his stories whenever he can.
    • Beyond all of these, however, is Thanos, who is somewhat like Adam Warlock in being a cosmic-tier character of the type that Starlin preferred, with one very important difference — Starlin did create Thanos, and so favored him above all others. How much did he favor Thanos? Enough to demote the aforementioned Warlock into Thanos's emo sidekick during the '90s, as well as to come up with the The Infinity Gauntlet storyline which basically boils down to "Thanos lords it over the ENTIRE REST OF THE MARVEL UNIVERSE, and is not even defeated by any hero or combination of heroes but instead by his own hubris". Indeed, Starlin's love of Thanos ran so deep that when he eventually crossed over to write for DC, he reinvented the obscure Hawkman/Captain Comet villain Onimarr Synn into a very thin Expy of Thanos.
  • Kurt Busiek, creator of Astro City, has created many characters for the setting that include super-powered beings, armored villains, aliens, and gods among others, but has stated that his all-time favorite is Quarrel.
  • The late Mark Gruenwald's favorite superhero was Captain America, and to this day Gruenwald's run on the character is considered one of the best.
  • Paul Dini acknowledged that Zatanna is his favorite character; hence, her inclusion in many of Dini's works in comics and the DC Animated Universe. His wife, stage magician Misty Lee, is basically real life Zatanna.
  • Robert Kirkman has said that Carl Grimes is his favorite character in The Walking Dead and has said that the story is about him and his growth.
  • Simon Furman, writer for a great number of Transformers comics, has a couple favorites:
    • Grimlock. By his pen, Grimlock is a cunning warrior who uses Hulk Speak to make his enemies underestimate him, while the TV series simply had him be too dumb to string a sentence together.
    • Nightbeat, a C-list character whom Furman brought to the forefront by making him a Film Noir-style Hardboiled Detective. In the current IDW-universe that Furman created, he killed Nightbeat off so fans knew that Anyone Can Die, even his own favorite character. He did something similar in the G2 comics, killing off Nightbeat as a self-inflicted Player Punch.
    • Galvatron. Give Simon Furman a chance to writer Transformers, and sooner or later, the big G will turn up, and lots of character death tends to follow. In the original Generation One comics, there were no less that three different versions of the guy by the end of the series (in the UK version at least. The US only had to deal with one).
    • Bludgeon and Thunderwing, whenever he needs a badass Decepticon leader. Bludgeon tends to get more use, though.
  • Shimy and Razzia from Les Légendaires were stated by the author to be his favourite characters. Regardless, they both still are fan-favourites, and he admitted he enjoyed turning Shimy into a Doom Magnet.
  • During his career at Marvel, Brian Michael Bendis's absolute favourites were Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, and Kitty Pryde.
    • The former ended up being heavily involved in much of Bendis' street-level character work (particularly Jessica Jones and Daredevil, the former of whom ended up marrying Luke Cage and having his baby under Bendis' pen), and became a prominent character in his work on the New Avengers, eventually leading the team. This is generally a case of Tropes Are Not Bad, though, as the end result was Luke got modernised and developed extensively past his previous blaxploitation characterisation, and Bendis was able to reign it in enough to have Luke retire and leave the Avengers.
    • On a similar note, Jessica Jones is easily another one of his top favourites, as after her series was shelved for being too mature for Marvel to keep publishing, he quickly repackaged her into a less-mature book to keep using her. Thanks to marrying Luke, she then became heavily tied with Bendis' Avengers work, helping Luke co-lead it at times. And before this, she too would make regular appearances in Bendis' Daredevil work when she became the character's bodyguard briefly, and years later would be revisited by Bendis when the character's Netflix series brought her into prominence. Her prominence mostly stood out as Bendis was the only writer to use her substantially until he left Marvel, outside of small guest roles, and yet managed to be one of the most prominent characters in the 2000s due to just how much influence Bendis had on the company's output at the time.
    • Kitty, meanwhile, ended up becoming the primary love interest of Bendis' Ultimate Spider-Man for a while. And when they broke up, he had her permanently transplant into his supporting cast, while fully admitting he had a massive crush on her since he was a teenager. When Bendis began writing X-Men, he naturally brought Kitty to the forefront, having her lead the time-displaced original X-Men, then transport with them to join 'his' side of the X-Men during a time where the franchise was split between Wolverine and Cyclops' factions (Bendis was writing Cyclops' side), taking her out of the other X-Men books so that he basically had full control over her. At the time, he was also writing Guardians of the Galaxy, and so he had Kitty get together with Star-Lord so he could bring her into that book, too. Of course, Kitty is a fan-favourite, so how bad this was is debatable, especially as he still paid focus to other characters while writing.
    • Miles Morales is another example, though Bendis didn't really use him much outside of his own book (which Bendis was the only writer throughout its entirety until he left Marvel). However, he was still a character that was important to Bendis, second only to the aforementioned Jessica among the characters Bendis had created himself.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog:
    • Several writers of Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics) have admitted that Princess Sally Acorn is their favorite character.
    • In one Q&A, Ian Flynn described Guru Emu as his favorite Downunda Freedom Fighter to write, given that his peace-loving, mystic ways are such a departure from the other members of the group.
    • In a Q and A, Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) co-editor Joe Hughes named Tails as his favourite character:
      He's a young, brave kid with a really strong sense of right and wrong. He doesn't do what he does because he's addicted to adventure, and he isn't motivated by tragedy. He just wants to help people. I admire that.
  • Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Mirage): Peter Laird has Donatello as his favorite turtle, given that he's a fan of sci-fi. Kevin Eastman, more fond of Darker and Edgier content, is particularly fond of Raphael. When production of the original 1990 movie was finished, Laird and Eastman got the stunt suits for Don and Raph respectively to keep as souvenirs.
  • Of all the heroes created by Stan Lee, his absolute favorite was the ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing. Another that Stan was known to adore was Spider-Man, and cared especially about the character's role within Marvel.
    • Stan's favorite Marvel character overall was the Silver Surfer, even though he attributed the character's creation entirely to Jack Kirby.
    • While Stan didn't create Lobo, he said Lobo is his favorite DC character.
  • Keith Giffen wrote and illustrated the Legion of Super-Heroes during the book's most acclaimed and best-selling eras. Out of all Legionnaires, his favorites are Matter Eater Lad, Superboy and Supergirl, to the point he created Andromeda when he was forbidden from using Kara Zor-El by editorial.
  • DC writer Sterling Gates' favorite character has been Supergirl since he read Crisis on Infinite Earths when he was a kid. He is also very fond of Superman and The Flash.
  • The Flash: Joshua Williamson is most known for his run on The Flash (2016), and when asked about his favourite Flash, he gave several answers. When he was a kid, his favourite was Bart Allen, a Fun Personified superhero. When he became a young adult, his favourite was Wally West, the Flash who really had to find his place in the world and learn to be his own man. Then, when Williamson became older, it was Barry Allen, who mentored Wally. However, in terms of his actual treatment of the characters, Williamson tends to like Leaning on the Fourth Wall while Armed with Canon in his treatment of Wally, a character who was the Creator's Pest of Dan Didio, who was editor-in-chief during most of Williamson's Flash run. He makes it clear how important Wally is to the mythos, establishes that Wally is faster than Barry despite some attempts to imply otherwise, has characters talk about how Wally is their favourite Flash and had Barry pass the torch of lead Flash to Wally again no less than three different times.
  • Don Rosa famously really loves the complete world of the Disney Ducks Comic Universe created by Carl Barks, but it's no secret his absolute favorite character by far is Scrooge McDuck, occasionally even calling him the greates comic book character of all time. Most (but not all) of the Disney comics Rosa wrote and draw feature Scrooge as the main protagonist, most famously of course his fictional biography The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
    • He also often expresses his affection for Goldie O'Gilt, Scrooge's old rival and flame who originally appeared in a single story by Carl Barks. Under Rosa she became an Ascended Extra and was cemented as Scrooge's One True Love which was used even by other writers.
    • While Rosa often claims that for him only the stories by Barks himself can be considered canon ignoring the works of other writers, he also loves Panchito Pistoles and José Carioca from the film The Three Caballeros enough to write and draw two adventure stories with them.
    • Most characters Rosa created were only one-shot characters as he was more interested in the characters Carl Barks created. The only exception was Arsene Lupin a.k.a. the Black Knight, a character he created because he wanted to add a new villain to Scrooge's Rogues Gallery. He loved him enough to give him a cameo in another story before finally deciding to produce a sequel to his first appearance.
  • The Boys: In an interview with Sci-Fi, Garth Ennis admitted that Billy Butcher is his favorite character that he's ever written

    Fan Works 
  • Family Guy Fanon: The two main authors (Boyariffic and The Super Blackwing) have a few favorite one-time characters that they turned into recurring characters in the show's fanon.
    • Boyariffic: Change for a Buck, Hudson, Kimi, Brandy and Horowitz.
    • The Super Blackwing: Randall Fargus, Shelly Boothbishop, Adrianne Beaky, Francis and Thelma Griffin.
  • Paradoxus (Winx Club, World of Warcraft): Since it has Loads And Loads Of Authors (for fanfic standards, at least), each author has her own favorite character.
    • Phoenix Daybreak and Popsicle are the "literary mothers"note  of respectively Trisha and Altalune.
    • Bloom_Farella's favorite character is one of the canonical ones: Bloom.
    • Crowgirl doesn't favor anyone over the others and, instead, likes various characters for different reasons — Stacy because of her maturity in spite of her rather fragile mental health; Morrigan for her resilience in the face of the horrific memories from her past life; Harmony because she depicts the always relatable envy towards what other people have; Joan for her status as a wicked fairy who contradicts the canonical paradigm of the sweet, good fairy; and Trisha as well, but only her post-Face–Heel Turn version.
    • The official illustrator, Silvstardust, has stated that she loves Trisha.

    Films — Animation 
  • Jack Black has stated that his favorite role of his entire career is as Po from Kung Fu Panda.
  • John Ratzenberger named P.T. Flea from A Bug's Life as his favourite Pixar role, because "in real life, I always get a kick out of those kinds of characters, people who just go into a rage for [no] explicable reason. He was always on edge. His blood pressure was always way over the top, and everything that he did was done in a panicked state. So it was a lot of fun to play him."

    Films — Live-Action 

    Literature 
  • A Song of Ice and Fire's author George R. R. Martin has freely admitted on several occasions that Tyrion Lannister is his favorite character, and he's one of the more popular characters with the fandom (especially in the television series). However, he's also stated that not even he's safe.
    • He's gone on to say that second place goes to Arya Stark - and perhaps more importantly, she's also GRRM's wife's favourite character, to the point she's threatened to leave him if he kills Arya off. Fans have been watching nervously for any news of their marriage ever since.
  • J. K. Rowling has claimed her favorite character in Harry Potter is Remus Lupin, who is also a fan favorite. Though it doesn't stop her from killing him in the 7th book. According to her, she cried after writing that chapter, then cried again years later when writing his biography for Pottermore.
    • Stephen Kloves, the screenwriter for all of the movies save the fifth one, told Rowling that Hermione is his favorite character. Some fans cite this as the reason Hermione gets far more attention than Harry or Ron in the later movies.
  • Reputedly, Jane Austen loved her creations. We know about it from her letters to family and friends and from her nephew's memoir; he wrote that she had taken a kind of parental interest in them and kept thinking about them after she had finished her work.
    • Two of her great favourites were Edmund Bertram from Mansfield Park and Mr. Knightley from Emma. She thought them to be superior and moral.
      Jane Austen: They are very far from being what I know English gentlemen often are.
    • When sending a copy of Emma to a friend whose daughter had been lately born, she wrote: "I trust you will be as glad to see my Emma as I shall be to see your Jemima." She was very fond of Emma, because when commencing that work, she said, "I am going to take a heroine whom no one but myself will much like."
    • Soon after the publication of Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen jokingly wrote about Elizabeth Bennet, "I must confess that I think her as delightful a character as ever appeared in print, and how I shall be able to tolerate those who do not like her at least, I do not know". She had also personal affection for Mr. Darcy. She once joked that as long as readers liked the central couple, she didn't mind if they hated all the other characters.
  • Brandon Sanderson:
    • Hoid, the mysterious world-hopping Deadpan Snarker of The Cosmere, is his favorite character overall. Hoid is quite popular with fans as well, but Sanderson has stated that the specific reason he loves Hoid is still a spoiler.
    • For The Stormlight Archive, his favorite character is Dalinor, whom he has called "the soul of the story."
  • In her A Tale of... novellas, Serena Valentino really loves the Odd Sisters, to the point where she's said, "These stories are heavily influenced by The Odd Sisters, and they have quite taken on a life of their own, and I find they are very frequently directing the plot." This would explain why they go from being secondary characters in the first story to being occasional POV characters who are directly responsible for most of the plot points in the second story.
  • J. R. R. Tolkien named Samwise Gamgee as his favourite character in The Lord of the Rings, going so far as to name him the real hero of the story.
    • He was also deeply fond of Eowyn, so much so that allegedly, rather than going with his original plan of marrying her to Aragorn, he instead married her to Faramir, who was the closest thing he had to a self-insert in the series.
  • The late Robert Jordan named Lan as his favorite character from The Wheel of Time.
  • Neil Gaiman's favorite character from mythology is Loki, and has used him in two separate works - The Sandman and American Gods. He likewise wrote the 2017 book Norse Mythology, where he writes of Loki's most (in)famous tales from the myth.
  • The School for Good and Evil's author Soman Chainani has said that Sophie is his favorite character.
  • Stephen King has mentioned that Annie Wilkes of Misery was his favorite character to write, as she ended up surprising him with moments of unexpected depth and sympathy as he was working on the novel.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rowley is Jeff Kinney's favorite. He's one of the few characters to appear in every book, and has a series of Spin-Off books.
  • Rainbow Magic is written by several authors under the pseudonym Daisy Meadows, and as such, Danielle the Daisy Fairy was elected to be Meadows' favourite fairy.
  • She didn't create him, but Star Trek novel author Diane Duane has made no secret of the fact that Dr Leonard "Bones" McCoy is her favourite character in the entire franchise. It shows; pick up any Trek novel of hers, and you're guaranteed at least once instance of the good doctor being awesome.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Babylon 5: Walter Koenig has consistently ranked Alfred Bester as his favorite role of his career for being such a compelling villain that allowed him to drastically play against type.
  • Blake's 7: Avon was a lot of people's favourite character - including creator Terry Nation and script editor Chris Boucher.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Kennedy. While not necessarily the favorite of his, Word of Joss was that he really liked the character and she was given a lot of focus despite a lot of fans hating her and claiming she was a Creator's Pet.
    • At various points, Whedon named Spike, Willow, and even Riley Finn as his favorite character from the show.
  • Community: Dan Harmon has gone on record saying that he based Jeff Winger's ability to talk himself out of (or into) anything on his own silver tongued status. As the series progressed, he found out more about austism spectrum disorder while writing the character Abed (and from fans writing in), thought he might have a lot of these traits, too, and was ultimately diagnosed as being on the spectrum. Is it a coincidence that the series shifts focus from Jeff as the main character to the full ensemble, and that Abed becomes a prominent character whose talents border on godhood?
  • Doctor Who:
    • Jon Pertwee's favourite monster was the Draconians, due to their visual effects. It's possible to notice him stepping up his performance in the scenes where he's acting against them in "Frontier in Space". His least favourite monsters were the Daleks, because any emotion they could express was created in the edit and there was nothing to play off as an actor, and during "Planet of the Daleks" and "Death to the Daleks" his performance is clearly bored.
    • Writer Robert Holmes' favourite Doctor was the Fourth, the one he was most involved in creating. He had the Fourth Doctor mention that he preferred himself to the last one in "The Brain of Morbius", and admitted when he wrote Peter Davison's final story "The Caves of Androzani" with him as the Fourth Doctor. He also wangled a way of giving the Fourth Doctor a gratuitous cameo (by means of the Doctor temporarily regressing mentally) in his Sixth Doctor story, "The Mysterious Planet".
    • Tom Baker liked any and all 'slithering', body-horror-themed monsters like the Wirrn and the Krynoid. His favourite companions were Sarah Jane and Romana II. Unfortunately, he's better known for his dislike of the companions he hated (Leela and K-9).
    • Eric Saward's favourite monster was the Cybermen, an affection that some fans (and Terrance Dicks) found crossed into Hijacked by Ganon at times. Dicks's famous Writer Revolt was when he had a very cheap monster, a robot played by a ballet dancer in a morphsuit, slaughter a whole platoon of Cybermen in a gratuitous Curb-Stomp Battle in "The Five Doctors", just to make Saward cross.
    • David Tennant, a Promoted Fanboy, has often stated that Peter Davison was 'his' Doctor. "Time Crash", the Comic Relief special, involves the Tenth Doctor meeting the Fifth Doctor and is basically a paper-thin allegory for this. His favourite monster was the Zygons, which he never got to fight in his tenure itself - so the featuring of Zygons in "The Day of the Doctor" was written as Steven Moffat's present to him.
    • Patrick Troughton has been the favourite Doctor of perhaps the most succeeding portrayers - Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy and Matt Smith (arguably also Tom Baker, who despite not being a fan had seen some Troughton episodes and admired the performance a great deal). Davison even stated that after meeting Troughton incidentally and discussing things, he took the advice to leave after 3 seasons to avoid wearing himself out on the show; and Smith ultimately inspired his final costume design off the Second Doctor's (especially the bowtie) after seeing "The Tomb of the Cybermen".
  • Donkey Hodie: According to her Meet Our Neighbors article, Duck Duck is Stephanie D'Abruzzo's favorite puppetry role of all time.
  • Downton Abbey: Lady Mary Crawley was Julian Fellowes' favorite character, and dear god, it showed.
  • The Muppets: Kermit the Frog was Jim Henson's signature character, but his favourite was Rowlf the Dog. When he died, Kermit was recast, while Rowlf was retired for a while.
  • The Noddy Shop: Kyle Kass, who played DJ, loved the Ruby Reds the most out of the show's puppet characters because of their jazzy harmonies.
  • Patrick Troughton once said that his favourite television role was Daniel Quilp in the 1964 Mini Series of The Old Curiosity Shop.
  • Once Upon a Time:
    • Regina is reportedly this for Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis, and it shows.
    • Writers Jane Espenson and David H. Goodman have both cited Rumpelstiltskin and Captain Hook as favorites of theirs.
  • The Partridge Family: Story editor/consultant Dale McRaven's favorite character was Keith. He said, "I did dumb things, so I had Keith do dumb things, too. He wasn't a dumb character, though."
  • Penny Dreadful: Vanessa and the Creature are series creator John Logan's favorite characters to write for.
  • Saturday Night Live: Laraine Newman's favourite character to play was Lina Wertmuller, who she described as a character "which, I think, only pleased me and no one else".
  • Sharpe: Sean Bean named Richard Sharpe as his favourite role:
    He's a very complex character. He knows that he's a good soldier, but he will always have to fight the prejudice of aristocratic officers because of his rough working-class upbringing. On the battlefield, he's full of confidence - but off it, he is unsure, a bit shy and ill at ease.
  • Shining Time Station: George Carlin considered the series a highlight in his career. He'd gotten tired of being only known for his caustic comedy and appreciated the opportunity to show off his gentler side, especially on a show that taught complex moral lessons to children without talking down to them. He never tired to meeting young fans who ran up to him to meet Mr. Conductor and got a huge kick out of seeing them grow up and come to his stand-up shows to "complete their education".
  • Supernatural: On the DVD Commentary for the episode "All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One" (S02, Ep21), the writer, Sera Gamble, said she loved Andy. She said, "You know my heart belongs to the geeks, the nerdier... If you live in a van filled with weird books then I’m your friend, you know?"
  • WKRP in Cincinnati: During season 3 the writers decided that Herb was their favorite character so there were suddenly many episodes focusing on him.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Savio Vega, in the mid 90s. A big name in the Puerto Rico wrestling scene, he was moderately talented and hired by WWE, where he was moderately over. He was teamed up with Razor Ramon. He was pushed hard as an underdog contender in the excreable King of the Ring 95. And he was a constant television presence during the early days of Monday Night Raw. Savio never connected with fans the way the bookers hoped he would, but not for their lack of trying.
  • A peak modern example would be Baron Corbin. He hasn't been pushed hard enough to quite be a creator's pet, but he's always on television, always has a major role in some kind of storyline or other. He's not very good in the ring and isn't over. He gets tons of focus. When he couldn't get over as a monster heel, he was made into the Smackdown General Manager. He was Kurt Angle's opponent in his final match — and he won. He still isn't really over, and has never had a good match.
  • By his own admission, Perry Saturn was a favorite of WCW booker Eric Bischoff. It wasn't enough to get him through the glass ceiling, but Saturn always had something to do, had a reign as Television Champion and a reign as Tag Champion (with Raven). More importantly, he rarely had to lose at a time when undercard wrestlers who managed to get over were often punished for it by being jobbed and humiliated.
  • Sable came into WWF at a time when women's wrestling was dead and the only role for women was to valet. Furthermore, she hadn't the microphone skills of either of the other women on the roster, Sunny and Marlena both having been in the wrestling business for years. Yet, for some reason, both Vince McMahon and Vince Russo were enamored of her. And thanks to good writing and pushing her as an Action Girl (something that had never been done by a promotion with a national audience at the time), for a couple years, everyone else was too. WWF even brought back the Women's Championship just to give Sable something to do, and even the purists couldn't say too much bad about her matches because there was nothing to compare them to and they were mostly booked around her inability to actually wrestle. Sable was less than pleasant to deal with behind the scenes and this caught up with her, causing her to leave WWF in mid-1999. When she returned in 2003 she was no longer so unique and wasn't pushed as hard as a result - nonetheless she could be seen in the background of a lot of upper card angles, although she wasn't the focus of them.
  • In AAA, Sexy Star was a favorite of promoter Dorian Roldan. She was generally billed as the top woman in AAA's women's division. This isn't to say she was bad enough in the ring or disliked enough by fans to be a full on Creator's Pet, but backstage, she was known as the "female Hulk Hogan of Mexico" for her politicking. Things hit the fan though when Star left wrestling to become a boxer — and then came back a few months later. AAA stripped then-champion Taya Valkyrie of the AAA Reina de Reinas Championship on a technicality, and within short order Star was champion again. This lead to a major increase in the intensity of her unpopularity backstage. Then — and take the following with a grain of salt as it's never been proven — Star got into a real fight backstage with a friend of Taya's, Lady Shani, and despite having been a professional boxer briefly, lost the fight handily. It is then believed that wounded dignity from the lost fight is why Star infamously applied a shoot armbar to and injured Rosemary. And Dorian Roldan initially refused to take any action at all against Star, making comments implying that he thought it was nobody's business how he managed backstage discipline. However, when AAA's sponsors threatened to pull out if nothing was done, Roldan caved and fired Star.
  • Most Ring of Honor bookers, from Gabe Sapolsky, to Adam Pearce, to Delirious had an unapologetic love for Samoa Joe. Initially ignored when Rob Feinstein scouted All Pro Wrestling's King Of Indies events and only hired for a one off appearance, the positive crowd reaction he got made Sapolsky decide to keep him and gradually build Joe up as the face of the company. Every booker who gets to use Joe seems to have the same mentality, as he is used for the purpose of creating new stars sparingly, despite a semi-willingness to do the job, and rarely puts anyone over on the way out. His legendary matches with Low Ki, CM Punk and Kenta Kobashi probably don't hurt. He'd have been the face of the company no doubt if not for that other company's investment in him.
  • Before he got Joe, Sapolksky's favorite wrestlers in Ring Of Honor not in The Carnage Crew were Christopher Daniels and AJ Styles, who he admitted would have been the main focus of the National Wrestling Alliance World Heavyweight Title picture if he had a say in now NWA-TNA was booked. Neither Daniels nor Styles became face of ROH simply because TNA pulled them away, but not before Daniels ran the top Power Stable in the company and Styles became the first Pure Champion on a never finished journey to decide the undisputed champion against World Title holder Samoa Joe (the angle eventually went to Bryan Danielson and Nigel McGuinness)
  • In NJPW during the era of Inokism - a time when Antonio Inoki thought that pro wrestlers should also be legitimate trained fighters and fight other fighters in real fights - there was Kazuyuki Fujita. Unlike most NJPW wrestlers, Fujita actually turned out to be a fairly good mixed martial artist, as he was a fairly accomplished amateur wrestler and had a notoriously tough chin. Inoki promptly put Fujita into the main event scene of NJPW, despite Fujita's pro wrestling being about average in ability and below average in charisma.
  • Pro Wrestling NOAH, looking for someone to succeed Mitsuharu Misawa as the company Ace ended up selecting Naomichi Marufuji. And the fans weren't having it. Marufuji was well liked as an upper midcarder and an underdog challenger, but the NOAH fans just didn't see him as Ace material. The fact that Marufuji was a Junior Heavyweight had a lot to do with it.
  • AEW head honcho Tony Khan makes no secret of the fact that Orange Cassidy is his favourite wrestler. Dude dressed like him for Halloween.

    Tabletop Games 
  • Games Workshop love the Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000. They give the SMs more focus and spotlight than any other faction in the game. In particular, they have special rules and unique models and characters for several Space Marine Chapters.
    • Games Designer Matt Ward's favorite chapters are the Ultramarines and Grey Knights, who were very much the Creator's Pet faction of GW during the height of his tenure.
  • When Catalyst Game Labs was doing the design work for its new line of BattleTech miniatures in 2020, the vast majority of their designs depicted the "standard" or Prime variant for a given 'Mech. The one exception is the Banshee: rather than depicting the standard BNC-3E model, the Banshee miniature instead matches the up-gunned 3S or 5S variant. In part, this is because one of the designers has a particular fondness for the 3S. However, since the standard Banshee is regarded both in-universe and out as a Low-Tier Letdown thanks to the utterly pathetic level of firepower it packs for its tonnage, this also means that the Banshee miniature represents a 'Mech that players will actually want to use, rather than being a waste of plastic and money.

    Theatre 
  • Sir John Gielgud's favorite role of all time was Prospero.
  • Peter Fenton has said his favorite character to write is the Snowman in See Amid the Winter Snow.
  • Nick Lang surprised fans with his two favorite characters from the Hatchetfield saga: Becky Barnes and Linda Monroe. Becky is one of the most sympathetic and straightforwardly heroic characters in the series, but Linda is The Sociopath as well as a Hate Sink. Turns out, Nick loves to hate her just as much as the fans do!

    Toys 
  • BIONICLE:
    • Story writer Greg Farshtey's favorite is Kopaka — mostly cool, collected and stoic but incredibly stubborn and antisocial (though he has his moments). This is even evidenced in the first tie-in comic that convinced LEGO to expand Greg's role from magazine editor to comic writer, which tells the story from Kopaka's POV. He's also the favorite of LEGO marketing manager Paul Bufton.
    • Lewa was the favorite of David Molina, co-director of the first Direct to Video film. The film presented him as, in his words, a cross between a Native American and a hippie, as opposed to his immature, snarky and aloof self from the comics and books.
    • Producer Sue Shakespeare chose Nokama from the second film as her favorite, for her being a strong but kind female character.
    • Kopaka's polar opposite, Tahu was the favorite of Jeppe Fonnesbaek from Advance (a marketing company that co-created the franchise) and marketing director Erik Kramer. Because he can surf on lava.
  • Mixels:
    • Andrew Seenan, the toy design lead for the series, has Chomly as his favorite Mixel, a lot of it out of how much expression his jaw and wild eyes gives him.
    • Gemma Anderson, another design lead, has the Weldos as her favorites, thanks to how varied in personality they are, along with their fun pieces and designs.

    Video Games 
  • Several of the people behind Age of Wonders, including Djurre van Dijk himself, have named the Halflings as their favorite race, and Ham the Wanderer in particular as their favorite character. Ham's favoritism shows most in the Wonderpedia for Age of Wonders 3, where a LOT of the flavor text snippets for various units are attributed to him.
  • BlazBlue gives us Noel Vermillion. She's the mascot character of the series, and admitted favorite of Arc System Works producer Toshimichi Mori. She even became the central character in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift. The only things saving her from Creator's Pet status is that the fans don't (mostly) hate her and the story not giving her any breaks.
  • Tomonobu Itagaki has gone on record to say, several times, Kasumi from the Dead or Alive series is his daughter, while showing no personal or close concern from any other character he has created or directed during his days at Team Ninja / Koei-Tecmo. The man was very protective of Kasumi too, openly admitting she would never appear in Ninja Gaiden, claiming Kasumi was too pure and wasn’t the type to engage in the same bloody works as Ryu Haybusa, allowing her less morally inclined (and almost as popular) sister Ayane to appear instead. Long after Itagaki had left Team Ninja, Kasumi started making cameos in Ninja Gaiden, becoming fully playable in Ninja Gaiden III and soaking herself in blood as much as Ryu and Ayane.
  • Koei-Tecmo's Warriors Games:
    • Dynasty Warriors series producer, Akihiro Suzuki, admitted that Xiahou Dun is his favorite character because he admires his stoicism and being dutiful. This explains his increased screentime in the later games particularly in the Battle of Fan Castle where he faces his rival, Guan Yu, despite that they never had a rivalry together in history and in the novel.
    • Samurai Warriors developers are very fond of Naotora Ii as her model is based from Real Life Japanese actress Satomi Ishihara, who is the favorite actress of series producer, Hisashi Koinuma. This also explains Naotora's constant appearances in other Koei-Tecmo games and crossovers particularly in Dead or Alive 5: Last Round as a Guest Fighter, Warriors All-Stars as the female representative of her home game and Warriors Orochi 4 as one of the eight characters who get a deified form.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Hironobu Sakaguchi's reason for continually reprising the character of Cid was that he had a particular affection for middle-aged Boisterous Bruiser eccentrics.
    • Yoshitaka Amano says that his favourite characters for the series that he's drawn are Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI, and Kain Highwind from Final Fantasy IV.
    • Final Fantasy VI:
      • Yoshinori Kitase regards Celes as his favorite character.
      • Kaori Tanaka, a character designer also wrote all of Edgar and Sabin's dialogue. She imagined backstories for them more complicated than what we see in the game, explaining about their parents, the culture of Figaro, etc., and even published a doujinshi exploring their family background called A Marriage of Figaro. Japanese fans regard her as the Figaros' Real Daddy. She asked in interviews for fans to send her fanart of the brothers.
    • Final Fantasy VII:
      • The dev team was very fond of Cloud Strife, with Yoshinori Kitase, Kazushige Nojima and Tetsuya Nomura all calling him their favourite, and they occasionally engage in (affectionate) Armed with Canon about their personal interpretations of the character. Nojima even went so far as to rewrite Cloud's backstory while concealing it from the rest of the team, which only found out about Cloud's presence in Nibelheim and the involvement of Zack during playtesting. Nojima's On A Way To A Smile: Case of Tifa acts as a slight Fix Fic of Cloud's characterisation as it is portrayed in Nomura's Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, explaining his attempts to deal with his health and mental problems.
      • Jun Akiyama was very attached to Yuffie. Most of Yuffie's dialogue was written by him alone, and it's consistently witty and attentive to her character in a way that several of the mandatory party members don't even get. In particular, she's often allowed to upstage the other party members by stating a contrary point of view (like telling Cloud not to help someone, or refusing to empathize with sympathetic characters), where other party members will simply feed Cloud the same line translated for their character's manner of speaking. She gets a date scene with Cloud (and is the only potential date who gets to kiss him, upstaging Cloud's 'serious' love interests), shows up to tag along with Barret during his and Tifa's escape in Junon, and gets her own elaborate sidequest. Later, when Akiyama became the main writer of Kingdom Hearts, he made sure that Yuffie was included in it in place of the originally planned Rikku. Not bad for a character who was almost entirely cut.
      • Event planner Motoru Toriyama said his favourite character in VII was Aerith, as he was assigned to most of the early scenes featuring her and told to really make sure the player adored her as much as possible. Therefore, he wrote her as a bright, playful flirt in accordance with his own tastes.
      • For Final Fantasy VII Remake, Nomura said his favourite 'this time around' was Barret, signalling that they were going to Retool a character who had always been very important in the original but never very popular.
    • Final Fantasy XIII: Tetsuya Nomura has said that his favourite design he's ever done is Lightning, which he feels fits the character so perfectly he's never wanted to tweak it.
    • Final Fantasy Brave Exvius: In the artbooks the series producer Kei Hirono says his favorite character is Dark Fina, while the main scenario writer Yukinori Kitajima prefers the amnesiac Fina.
  • The creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, Scott Cawthon himself, freely admitted◊ that Bonnie, a literal Killer Rabbit, was the animatronic he found the most terrifying, having several nightmares about him during development. Since then, Bonnie has had a lot of appearances in promotional media, even overshadowing the titular character.
  • The director for Fuga: Melodies of Steel, Yoann, loves the Big Fun Felineko Boron Brioche. So much so, that he called out everyone on Twitter who sacrificed him in the Soul Cannon during the tutorial, and made him Purposely Overpowered just to spite his boss Hiroshi Matsuyama, who was also guilty of doing the same thing during developmental playtesting sessions.
  • The King of Fighters:
    • SNK have flat-out admitted that Rugal Bernstein of The King of Fighters '94 is their favorite character, deliberately designing him to be the most badass boss character there could be and making him the Final Boss of the non-canon Dream Match Games '98 and 2002 as well as bringing him Back from the Dead for KOF XV. Normally, this would be annoying if it weren't for the fact that he managed to literally beat his way into the hearts of players the world over and becoming one of SNK's most iconic characters.
    • Speaking of KOF XV, its creative director Eisuke Ogura has admitted that he considers K9999 to be his favorite character and that he wanted to bring him back ever since his last appearance in vanilla 2002, which took some serious guts considering that everyone else at SNK hated the character for being a complete Captain Ersatz of Tetsuo Shima to the point that they acted as though K9999 never existed. But considering that Ogura had complete control over XV's roster, nothing was stopping him from redesigning K9999 into Krohnen.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Originally, series director Tetsuya Nomura said his favorite character was naturally Sora, the protagonist. But as time passed and the series became more of a Villain-Based Franchise, he changed his mind and said that his favorite was Xehanort, the Big Bad, particularly his original "Ansem, Seeker of Darkness" incarnation from the first game.
    • Nomura's favorite member of the Organization is Luxord. Oddly enough, he's the member of the Organization with the least amount of screen time.
    • Axel, a major, but not too big a figure in Chain of Memories, has been stated to have been a favorite among the Kingdom Hearts development team, and even Nomura has admitted to having a fondness for him. This, combined with his fandom popularity is what ended up giving him a much greater role in future installments.
  • The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild: Out of the four characters who are part of the ensemble of Champions who trained to confront Ganon, Mipha is the favorite of game producer Eiji Aonuma. Meanwhile, Urbosa is the favorite of game director Hidemaro Fujibayashi.
  • Ragnar Tørnquist, the creator of The Longest Journey series, stated on numerous occasions that Crow is his favorite character in the series.
  • Out of the seven playable characters in Maniac Mansion, the creators took a liking to Bernard the most. In fact, this is a big reason why he became the main protagonist in the sequel Day of the Tentacle.
  • Mass Effect: The developers had great affection for Liara T'Soni; after Shepard, she's the character with the most to do across the trilogy.
  • It's very telling in the Mega Man X series that creator Keiji Inafune favors Zero over any other character, as Zero becomes increasingly prominent in the series and is consistently hailed by friend and foe alike as the greatest Maverick Hunter of them all, to the point he outright supplants X as the star by the time the Mega Man Zero series lands. Thankfully he doesn't fall into the dreaded Creator's Pet category as Zero is very popular and liked by fans as well. Inafune's preference is because this was the first protagonist Inafune got to design and Zero was intended to be X until it was realized the design was too drastic a change:
    Keiji Inafune: I didn't get to completely design a Mega Man [protagonist] from scratch until Zero. Back when the SNES was coming out, I was asked to give Mega Man a redesign, so I created this character. But I realized that this design wouldn't be accepted as Mega Man, so I had another designer create the new Mega Man, and I worked on Zero to release him as the 'other main character' that would steal all the good scenes!
  • Hideo Kojima is notable for not giving his favorite characters any favoritism in his games. His favourite boss character is the extremely obscure Running Man from Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake who is never seen or even mentioned again after his one battle (probably because his affection extended mostly to the game mechanics involved in his battle themselves). His favourite main character is Raiden, who gets Demoted to Extra in Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and has since only appeared in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, a game written and designed by another team with no connection to Kojima whatsoever.
  • Ed Boon's favorite Mortal Kombat character is Scorpion. Not only has he appears in practically every Mortal Kombat game (except vanilla Mortal Kombat 3, through he's later added in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 due to fan demand), but he now serves as the mascot of NetherRealm Studios. There's a bit of personal connection here as Boon himself lends his voice for Scorpion's signature catchphrase, "GET OVER/COME HERE!". This is lampshaded in pre-release displays for Mortal Kombat 11, where the variant shown off is literally named "Boon's Main".
  • Pokémon:
    • Series creator Satoshi Tajiri's favorite Pokémon are Poliwag and Poliwhirl.
    • Series producer and director Junichi Masuda has stated that his six favorite Pokémon are Pichu, Victini, Alolan Exeggutor, Sylveon, Torchic, and especially Psyduck, even wanting the water fowl to have Eevee's spot in Pokémon Let's Go, Pikachu! and Let's Go, Eevee!. As an extension of that, his favorite Pokémon type is Water, and his favorite attack is Surf.
    • Series artist Ken Sugimori's favorite Pokémon is Gengar due to its simple design.
    • Atsushi Nagashima, the director behind the Pokémon Trading Card Game, has mentioned both Gengar and Darkrai as some of his favorites... and shamelessly names himself as the main reason the two get way more cards than most.
    • Character designer James Turner's favorite Pokémon in general is Deoxys, while Vanillite is his favorite out of the ones he's personally designed due to it being one of his first.
  • Persona:
    • Surprisingly, it's not one of Persona 2's staff members who has admitted that their favorite character was Lisa Silverman, but Takehito Koyasu, who was the voice actor for the game's male lead Tatsuya Suou.
    • For Persona 3, according to character artist Shigenori Soejima, Mitsuru Kirijo was the most popular character among the development staff, while he himself likes Akihiko Sanada. Their popularity among the staff, along with Aigis' popularity among fans, is likely why they appeared in Persona 4: Arena, whereas the rest of the P3 characters didn't appear until its sequel.
  • The creators of Scarlet Hollow named the player character's cousin Tabitha as their favorite character. Ironically, they expected players to dislike her, so finding out she was popular with them too was a pleasant surprise.
  • Prolific videogame voice actor Nolan North is especially fond of Spec Ops: The Line and has been recommending it constantly anywhere he can. Hilariously, his character Captain Walker is as far removed from North's most well-known roles as possibly can.
  • Katsuhiro Harada, the lead developer at the helm of the Tekken series names his favorite character as series regular Heihachi Mishima. Nothing's really come of the preferential treatment aside from Heihachi's appearance in every Tekken installment, though (this is in spite of the fact that he canonically did not even participate in the fifth tournament). However, it didn't stop him from having Heihachi Killed Off for Real in 7, since the game has been billed as the final chapter of the Mishima family, so it was quite surprising that Harada chose Heihachi to bite the dust, but not after he had the most story appearances throughout 7.
  • Blizzard developers have admitted a few times that they prefer writing Horde characters and storylines when creating new World of Warcraft expansions, and have also often apologized when it leaves the Alliance content feel rushed or incomplete.
  • Kosuke Yabuki, the producer of ARMS, has a fondness for Min Min, such that when Masahiro Sakurai made plans to include an ARMS representative in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Yabuki requested to have Min Min specifically be made playable, even though she already appeared in the game as a Spirit.
  • President Toshihiro Kondo from Falcom has expressed that his favorite characters in the Trails Series are Estelle Bright due to her being the protagonist that he had a hand in developing and Rean Schwarzer due to his long arc. He usually flip-flops between the two in interviews.

    Visual Novels 
  • The staff behind the Danganronpa games have said multiple times that the character considered the best representation of the franchise, as well as the personal favorite of artist Rui Komatsuzaki, is Toko Fukawa. In fandom, Fukawa used to one of the less popular characters in the first game, though she's seen a very considerable rise in popularity since she was promoted to main character in Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls. Kazutaka Kodaka, the series creator and writer, meanwhile has stated his favourite is Series Mascot Monokuma, on basis that he was a character Kodaka could do anything with.
  • The developers of Double Homework stated on one occasion that Tamara was one of their favorite characters ever to create.
  • Nasuverse
    • According to Fate/side material, Sakura Matou is Type Moon's favorite heroine.
    • Takashi Takeuchi, the lead artist for Type-Moon, has openly expressed that he is an enormous fan of Saber from Fate/stay night, and was one of the largest driving forces in the creation of Last Episode (a happy and satisfying conclusion to the otherwise Bittersweet Ending of the Fate route), just so that she could canonically have a happy ending with Shirou. It's gotten to the point that even he jokes at his inability to not insert an Expy into every work in the franchise.
      • With the release of Fate/Grand Order, Takeuchi has expressed a lot of love for Sakata Kintoki.
  • In an interview to promote the English release of School Days spinoff Shiny Days, 0verflow's Mathers Numakichi mentioned that he loves all his characters equally, but Setsuna Kiyōra stands at the top of the list.

    Webcomics 
  • The Jaegers from Girl Genius are apparently so loved by the authors that they keep getting involved in the plot. Not that anyone's complaining.
  • Misfile's creator Chris Hazelton has stated that his favorite character in the strip is Emily and he loves writing drawing her the most, and that she is the character he most identifies with in story.
  • Electric Wonderland creator Peter Paltridge has continually expressed an affection for Aerynn Arlia, a Magical Girl with unlimited gag potential and a mysterious origin.
  • El Goonish Shive creator Dan Shive stated his favorite character is Susan, which he found quite ironic as she was originally created to be an unlikable Straw Feminist he could tear apart… but then Character Development happened. He's also expressed a fondness for Grace.
  • Heartcore creator TL Welker is very fond of Teo, who often features prominently in artwork alongside Amethyst.
  • Yokoka's Quest creator Chris H. Riley doesn't hide the fact that Copycat is their favourite character. Fortunately, the annual popularity polls have made clear that he is a fan favourite too.

    Web Original 
  • Chess-centric YouTube channel founder and star agadmator will show any interesting game that crosses his path, but often favors games from Mikhail Tal, Rashid Nezhmetdinov, and Vassily Ivanchuk. Justified in that those three players are unusually inclined to choose active attacking lines over safer ones, which makes for sharper and more interesting games to study.
  • The SCP Foundation's SCP-173. While it's fairly average fare these days (a Living Statue that attacks unless someone is watching it), it has the honor of being the first SCP. As such, the site creators are very defensive of it. Even editing its article can incur the mods wrath.
  • Matthew Santoro has stated that Eugene is his favourite character in his web series, which is why he gets the most focus, secondly only to Matthew.
  • The Nostalgia Critic:
    • When pressed on their favorite sketch characters to play, Tamara usually goes for Hyper Fangirl (being her most prominent and fleshed-out character) and Doug usually says Devil Boner for the Large Ham fun of performing him (though it's reportedly gotten harder to do his voice with age). Both Tamara and Doug have also said that they really love acting and writing Abusive Parents Aunt Despair and Uncle Lies.
    • In terms of parody characters, Tamara was most delighted at playing Furiosa in Mad Max: Fury Road, Rey in The Force Awakens and Wonder Woman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and squeed about the costumes for a while.

    Western Animation 
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars:
    • Dave Filoni's favorite Star Wars character is Plo Koon, resulting in Plo receiving a fleshed out Ascended Extra role in The Clone Wars. George Lucas lampshaded how much Filoni likes the character.
      George Lucas: Plo Koon is Dave's favorite character. He's constantly trying to push him into the series. If it were up to him, Plo Koon would appear in every episode.
    • Corey Burton has listed Cad Bane as one of his absolute favorite roles in his career.
  • Arthur: At a ComicCon panel, some of the writers admitted that George was their favorite character, on grounds that he's so interesting to write for, given how creative, imaginative, and inventive he is, despite being withdrawn, shy, and timid.
  • Young Justice co-creator Greg Weisman has said that Black Canary is his favorite DC Comics character, which is partly why she's one of the team's mentors on the show.
  • Voice actor Peter Cullen has stated Optimus Prime and Eeyore to be his favourite voice roles.
  • Many people who watched My Life Me agreed that the only likeable character was Mr. Towes, a Large Ham who had a penchant for randomly slipping into an accent mid-sentence. According to this interview, the series' creator agrees.
  • Dib from Invader Zim is Jhonen Vasquez's favorite character and is actually based off of him (Jhonen) from his childhood. Doesn't stop Dib from being the shows Butt-Monkey.
    • However, he does mention Gaz as the character he would most like to spend time with. At the same time, he also lamented her lack of personality in the show, hence he works to give her a more rounded personality in the comics.
  • Edward and Scoutmaster Lumpus from Camp Lazlo are ones for the writers. Creator Joe Murray cited them as being an absolute pleasure for the staff to write episodes for.
  • Ben 10: Alien Force head writer Dwayne McDuffie called Charmcaster his favorite character, which is what led to the character’s Heel–Face Revolving Door arc in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. He also cited Echo Echo as his favourite alien.
    • Ben 10: Omniverse show runner Derrick Wyatt said his favourite alien was Grey Matter.
  • Total Drama creators Jennifer Pertsch and Tom McGillis have cited Izzy and Owen as their respective favourite characters. They've also listed Duncan, Heather, Noah, and Beth as favourites as well.
  • Rebecca Sugar's favorite Steven Universe character is Greg Universe.
  • The Amazing World of Gumball: Ben Bocquelet, creator of the show, stated that he "likes Darwin the most"
  • The Simpsons: Lisa is Matt Groening's favorite character as seen here and here. Although in this interview he says that his favorite is Homer. He also has mentioned some of the secondary characters as his favorite, like Comic Book Guy, Apu, and Ralph Wiggum.
    • Former showrunner Bill Oakley's favorite character is Superintendent Chalmers, due to him believing that he "seemed to operate in the normal human universe" compared to the other members of Springfield Elementary.
    • Joe Mantegna, the voice actor for recurring Simpsons character Fat Tony has also stated in interviews how much he enjoys voicing the character, and will take time out of his schedule to make appearances as him in the show. Even if Fat Tony's only line in the episode is, quote, "him choking on a pretzel"note .
  • On Futurama, the Hypnotoad is Matt Groening's favorite character.
  • Trey Parker and Matt Stone have said that Eric Cartman is their favourite character on South Park.
  • James Woods loves voicing Hades so much that he'll take any opportunity to do so, regardless of any pay cut he has to take, and will do for the rest of his days.
  • Butch Hartman has admitted that his two favorite characters in The Fairly OddParents! are Mr. Crocker and Timmy's Dad.
  • In an interview with Disney Magazine, Jim Cummings cited Darkwing Duck and Don Karnage as two of his favourite roles, stating "they're both probably the closest to me - I kinda improvise a lot of them, kinda ad-lib".
  • The Legend of Korra creators Bryan Konietzko and Michael Dante DiMartino stated this was the reason why Asami Sato changed roles from The Mole to being one of the main characters during development, as keeping her in the former role would mean that she'd have no place in the show once her status as such was revealed.
  • Sonic the Hedgehog (SatAM) creator Ben Hurst liked all the characters so much he had trouble choosing a favourite:
    Sal's also one of my favorite characters - although Dulcy will always have a special place in my heart. The wonderful thing about Sal is that, not only is she strong and capable, she can give as well as get in any exchange with Sonic. She doesn't order him around - she cajoles, persuades, convinces him to go in the direction she suggests - but as we all know - if Sonic really doesn't want to go in her direction - it just plain old ain't gonna happen. To me, what truly sets Sally aside is her heart. She has a deep well of compassion she draws from - and though Sonic is equally compassionate, Sally has the ability to articulate her heart-felt feelings (which Sonic will then agree to with a "Yeah, that"). I fell in love with the characters. All of the characters. But my favorites were always Sonic and Sally - and the relationship between them was a joy and pleasure to keep alive.
  • X-Men: The Animated Series: During an interview done by Doug Walker as The Nostalgia Critic, Julia Lewald (one of the writers) stated her and the rest of the crew behind the show's favorite character was Beast. Eric Lewald (showrunner) said that his was Professor Xavier.
  • Gravity Falls creator Alex Hirsch's favorite character is the series Big Bad himself, Bill Cipher.
  • Keith David was once asked which one of his voice-over roles was his favorite. He replied that his three all-time favorites are Dr. Facilier, Spawn, and Goliath.
  • Dan Povenmire, co-creator of Phineas and Ferb, has done his share of voice work but makes no secret of the special place he has in his heart for Dr. Doofenshmirtz, to the point of writing him into his and Jeff "Swampy" Marsh's follow-up series Milo Murphy's Law. He has done many TikTok videos in-character, often while dressed in a lab coat, and even played Doofenshmirtz in a live-action fan remake of "Busted." Since the character is a huge fan favorite and loved by the network as well (even getting his own web series, Doofenshmirtz's Daily Dirt), everyone benefits from this.
  • Voice Actress Carolyn Lawrence has said that the titular Orel Puppington from Moral Orel was her favorite role she'd ever played.
  • In a variant, Frank Angones, co-creator of the 2017 DuckTales series, mentioned that Daisy Duck is his daughter's favorite Disney character, and that that's why it took so long for her to appear in the show: he didn't want her to just be Donald's Distaff Counterpart, so he saved her until there was a good chance to develop their relationship.
  • The Owl House creator Dana Terrace stated she became rather obsessed with Amity Blight as she began to delve into her character, even dyeing her hair the same color as Amity's.
  • One of the storyboard directors of Santiago of the Seas Kelsey Wooley has made it clear that the new season 2 villain Pepito the faun is her favorite character of the show.
  • Ready Jet Go!:
    • Craig Bartlett's favorite character is Jet, since he is most like him.
    • Amy Mainzer, who hosts the show's in-between segments, has mentioned in an interview that her favorite character is Mindy.
  • Batman: The Animated Series: Mark Hamill's favorite role of all time is the Joker, joining Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger in many fans' estimation as among the definitive portrayals of the Clown Prince of Crime. Hammill did finally retire from the voice in 2022, to honor the passing of his friend Kevin Conroy.

Alternative Title(s): Authors Darling, Creators Favourite

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