Composite Character in Literature.
- 1066 and All That:
- "The memorable Dutch King Williamanmary."
- There's also a more convoluted example where the book starts off being clear that Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck (two men who claimed to be the rightful heir during the reign of Henry VII) both existed, but becomes utterly confused as to which of them was which, calling them both by a variety of composite names, and finally suggesting that maybe there was only one of them after all.
- The Adventures of Strong Vanya: The main character combines traits of the folk hero Ilya Muromets
, who gained super-strength after spending several years lying on a stove, and several different fairy tale heroes named Ivan (see: "Tsarevitch Ivan, the Fire Bird and the Gray Wolf" who married Princess Vasilissa, or "The Death of Koschei the Deathless", who got a horse out of Baba Yaga) - In most modern adaptations of Aladdin Or The Wonderful Lamp, the Big Bad, usually named Jaf(f)ar as in The Thief of Bagdad (1940), is a composite of the original tale's unnamed Vizier, his son whom the princess is betrothed to, and the Evil Sorcerer. Disney's adaptation also combines the Genies of the Ring and Lamp.
- Many adaptations of Alice in Wonderland conflate the Queen of Hearts with the Red Queen. The first is from "Adventures in Wonderland" and is a playing card; the second is from "Through the looking glass" and is a chess piece.
- Anno Dracula:
- In the short story "Castles in the Air", the vampire hippy guru Khorda from the 1973 film Deathmaster turns out to be one of Dracula's hangers-on from the earlier books, General Iorga. This is a gag on the fact that Robert Quarry, who played Khorda, had previously played the title character in Count Yorga, Vampire and The Return of Count Yorga, and many people consider Deathmaster to be a Spiritual Successor.
- "Flattop" in the James Bond pastiche sections of Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha is a composite of the Dick Tracy villain of the same name, Frankenstein's Monster, and Bond Dragons Oddjob and Jaws.
- Dracula himself, constantly reinventing himself and shapeshifting to match, is a composite of every portrayal of the Count.
- Kit and Holly in "You'll Never Drink Blood in This Town Again" are the main characters of the film Badlands, but have a string of aliases suggesting they're every Outlaw Couple in 20th century fiction.
- Similarly to Dracula, Hamish Bond in Cha-Cha-Cha is a composite of Ian Fleming's James Bond and Sean Connery's James Bond, before Mother Roma's influence turns him into Roger Moore's Bond.
- In One Thousand Monsters, Albert "Smiler" Watson, the Shell-Shocked Veteran with a Victoria Cross, is based on the title character in the 1966 Sergeant Cork episode "The Case of Albert Watson V.C.", but his nickname comes from "Smiler" Washington in the 1962 play Chips With Everything. Both parts were played by Ronald Lacey.
- Also in One Thousand Monsters, the Satanist Portuguese missionary who fathered (and, in the Anno Dracula version, also sired) Nemuri Kyōshirō is, incongruously enough, the very devout Sebastião Rodrigues from Silence.
- O-Ren "Cottonmouth" Blake in Dakaiju is mostly O-Ren "Cottonmouth" Ishii, but her surname and vampirism nod to another Lucy Liu character, Sadie Blake. (In a further gag, when discussing her codename, she says that if she had to have a snake name, at least it wasn't "Viper".note )
- In the same book, the Haitian drac dealer Georgia Rae Drumgo is named after two drug dealers played by Hazelle Goodman: Georgia Rae Mahoney and Evelda Drumgo.
- The title character in Carrie was based on two different girls whom Stephen King went to school with growing up, both of whom had difficult lives and died young.
- In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, the utterly vile Danforth stands for several different judges who presided over the witch trials. Miller initially worried that he had made Danforth too one-dimensional ... only to find that the real judges were even worse.
- Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes begins with the assassination of a Tsarist official, de P___, who is a composite of Konstantin Pobedonstev and another P-named official who really was assassinated. The implication was that Conrad hoped that the fate of the latter would happen to the former.
- Also by Conrad, Kurtz of Heart of Darkness is a combination of a number of sadistic Evil Colonialist types in the Belgian Congo, although his name in particular references Georges Antoine Klein (Kurtz is German for short and Klein is German for small) who had just died when Conrad was in the Congo.
- Sultan Mehmed of Count and Countess is a mix of the real-life Sultan Mehmed and his father.
- Darkness at Noon:"The life of the man N. S. Rubashov is a synthesis of the lives of a number of men who were victims of the so-called Moscow Trials. Several of them were personally known to this author. This book is dedicated to their memory."
- Doctor Who Expanded Universe
- The novelisation of the Doctor Who serial The Invasion of Time combines the characters of Jasko and Ablif into a single character. The character in the book is named, appropriately enough, "Jablif". Oddly, he's also a Decomposite Character: Ablif appears in the scenes at the Outsiders' camp, only to be replaced with Jablif when they return to the citadel.
- The New Series Adventures novel The Ressurection Casket is Treasure Island Recycled In Space. The character of Kevin is Ben Gunn, and the parrot, and the Black Spot — It Makes Sense in Context.
- The Wonderful Doctor of Oz is, as the title suggests, a Land of Oz mashup. Melinda, Queen of the Metal Mice, who rescues the fam from the poppy field and turned her fiance into a Cyberman is the Queen of the Fieldmice, and Nick Chopper's lost love Nimmie Amee, and the tinsmith. The Doctor's new friend from thirties New York shares the role of Dorothy with the Doctor herself, including having "Dorothy" as her chosen name, but her ultimate role as a trans woman who becomes Queen of the Land of Fiction is explicitly compared to Tip/Ozma.
- Dame Alice from ''The Gallows in the Greenwood" by Phyllis Ann Karr is a composite of three different characters from the Robin Hood stories and ballads. She starts off as the Sheriff's Wife (a minor character in some ballads), takes her husband's place when Robin and his outlaws murder him (becoming the Sheriff for the events of several famous stories) and finally retires to a convent, becoming the Prioress who ultimately kills Robin Hood in some versions.
- Here Lies Arthur is a Deconstruction of Arthurian Legend, based largely on the earliest Welsh/Romano-British versions of the tale. Lancelot doesn't appear as he was added to the legends many centuries after the period the story is set by Franco-Norman writers, so his role as Gwenhyffar's (Guinevere) lover is given to Arthur's nephew Bedwyr (Bedivere).
- The protagonist Gwyna (or Gwyn) is depicted as the basis for the legends of Nimue, but also fulfils Bedivere's role as the one who throws Caliburn (Excalibur) into the water after the final battle, as Bedwyr is already dead by this point. Her name suggests she may also be the origin of Gawain (the version of The Green Knight told In-Universe is about Arthur and not one of his men).
- King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table: Percivale's sister combines traits of two different characters known as that — she has the role of the Grail heroine, but the name of Dindrane.
- In the Dramatic Audio version of the Left Behind book Armageddon, GC officer Anita Sanchez is one for two female officers (a Hispanic and an African-American) working in the San Diego headquarters where Chloe Williams was incarcerated.
- Nellie Oleson in the Little House on the Prairie books was a composite of three different girls Laura Ingalls Wilder knew growing up: Nellie Owens, Genevieve Masters and Stella Gilbert. There is some speculation that Mr. Edwards was a composite, as well, since pinning down his historical personage has proved confusing.
- DI Jack Spratt in the Nursery Crime books by Jasper Fforde is every fairy tale Jack. Although he insists he didn't kill many giants.
- Old Mortality: John Balfour is one of Sharp's assassins and is identified as John Balfour of Burley (sic). Historically there was a John Balfour of Burleigh, who wasn't a covenanter and had nothing to do with the assassination. The real assassin was John Balfour of Kinloch. Sir Walter Scott appears to have been confused by the identical names rather than actually combining the two historical figures into one character.
- From the preface to Tom Sawyer:"Huck Finn is drawn from life; Tom Sawyer also, but not from an individual—he is a combination of the characteristics of three boys whom I knew, and therefore belongs to the composite order of architecture."
- Elenn in Jo Walton's Sulien series is a composite of Guinevere from Arthurian Legend and Fionnbharr from the The Cattle Raid of Cooley.
- In Philip José Farmer's Wold Newton family, he sometimes does this to tie characters together. Most notably, the Duke of Holdernesse and his illigitimate son James Wilder, from the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Priory Road School", are combined with John Clayton, Earl of Greystoke and Clark Savage Sr, to make Tarzan and Doc Savage cousins. It is also a standard part of Wold Newton lore than MacReady from Who Goes There? is Savage and Professor William Dyer from At the Mountains of Madness is his associate William "Johnny" Littlejohn. The composition of Captain Nemo with Professor Moriarty has proved more controversial among Woldian scholars, despite it being a key point in Farmer's Other Log of Phineas Fogg.
- Five Nights at Freddy's: The Fourth Closet, the third novel of the Five Nights at Freddy's book trilogy, combined Funtime Foxy and Mangle, both white and pink colored versions of Foxy with an Ambiguous Gender, into one animatronic. The result is a Funtime Foxy that resembles the Sister Location character, but can change form into the more broken-looking Mangle from the second game.
- In A.C. Gaughen's retelling of Robin Hood Scarlet, the titular character is a combination of Will Scarlet and Maid Marian
- The protagonist of Dorothy Dunnett's King Hereafter is a combination of the historical Macbeth with a contemporary ruler, Thorfinn Sigurdsson.
- Similarly, his wife, Groa, is both Thorfinn's wife Ingibjorg and Macbeth's wife Gruoch.
- In-Universe examples: in the kid's book I Funny TV, the protagonist, Jamie, is making a sitcom pilot based on his own life. The writers decide to simplify things by fusing his best friends, Teen Genius Pierce and cool-guy Gaylor, into one character named Bob. Subverted when stage fright keeps Bob's actor from going on, so his real friends are Pushed in Front of the Audience. Likewise, in his real life Jamie deals with two bullies, his cousin Stevie and another boy named Lars; the writers like Lars better, so they make him Jamie's cousin in the show.
- Discworld:
- Wyrd Sisters parodies Hamlet and Macbeth simultaneously. Duke Felmet is Macbeth and Claudius; King Verence is Hamlet's father, King Duncan and Banquo; and Tomjon is Hamlet and Malcom. (And then the Fool turns out to be Fortinbras and actually Malcom.)
- Blind Io, the Top God, is mostly Zeus with a bit of Odin (he used to have two ravens who would go forth and bring him news of the word. However, as his eyes are floating around him all the time, and ravens are famous for getting at the juiciest parts of corpses...)
- Hoki the Jokester, the Disc's main Trickster God, looks like Pan, but his name and the fact he was banished from Dunmanifestin for "the old exploding mistletoe trick" suggest Loki.
- Soul Music: Imp y Celin, whose name translates to Buddy Holly, while he's repeatedly stated to look a little like Elvish Presley. In addition, the Band With Rocks In has similarities to The Beatles with Imp as John Lennon (especially in the Animated Adaptation where he says they're bigger than cheeses). The animated series also ran with the idea the Band were every major rock group in composing the songs. And Discworld comics artist Graham Higgins draws Imp as looking kind of like a cross between Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix.
- In-universe in Wolf Hall, when Henry VIII tells Thomas Cromwell and the Archbishop of Canturbury, Dr. Thomas Cranmer, that the French have taken to referring to them as the single entity "Dr. Cranmuel." Then the narration shortly thereafter says "Dr. Cranmuel left the room."
- Sandokan: Lord Guillonk's character is often fused into James Brooke's in retellings.
- Quantum Devil Saga: Avatar Tuner: Downplayed with the protagonist Serph, who got "recomposed" from being a Decomposite Character in the game. He takes name, appearance and Atma powers from the game Serph, however, since the game Serph was a Heroic Mime, he got most of the dialogue that was spoken by Gale in the game. Justified: in the original story draft, Yu Godai had conceived Serph to be a speaking character with a role in the plot, however Atlus made him a Heroic Mime to be more in line with the rest of the games, thus Gale was created to have his personality. Serph's personality in the books, however, has been rewritten to be in stark contrast with Gale's one (being less cold and calculative and more idealistic and compassionate), and Gale was included in the book without making Serph Heroic Mime, Adapted Out or Demoted to Extra.
- Isaac Asimov's Opus 100: On page 222, Dr Asimov tells readers that Cleon II and General Bel Riose of "The Dead Hand" are mostly based on Justinian and Belisarius from sixth century Rome, but also had bits of Tiberius and Sejanus from first century Rome. These characters were chosen based on his interest in history, covered in "Part 8".
- The Sherlock Holmes novel The Beast of the Stapletons by James Lovegrove ends with the reveal that Dr Stapleton from The Hound of The Baskervilles is Moriarty's stepbrother, and it was he who wrote letters to the papers defending his brother under the name "Colonel James Moriarty", as mentioned at the start of "The Final Problem".
- In the Orion novels by Ben Bova, the Creators take different names when they're interfering with different cultures. Orion's love Anya is also known as Athena, and in the Arthurian stories becomes the Lady of the Lake. Aten, Orion's creator who seeks to rule alone, is the god of the same name from Ancient Egypt's flirtation with monotheism, but also calls himself Ohrmazd, one of the names of the Zoroastian god (and in the first book is fighting Arihman). In the Arthurian stories, the Creators who called themselves Aphrodite and Hades in Greece take the names Morganna and Merlin, and Morganna's lover in some sources, Ogier the Dane, has the role of her husband Urien.
- The Squire's Tales series does this a lot with characters and sequences from Arthurian Legend. For example, Lorie is a combination of two Love Interests that Gawain has in the legends: Lorie, who is a fairy, and Ragnelle, given her particular appearance. She's also introduced fulfilling a role that Nimue had in Le Morte D Arthur, though Nimue shows up later as a separate character.
- In the third book, retelling the story of Sir Gareth, the dwarf (Roger) turns out to be Gaheris under a curse, and also replaces the unnamed knight who attacks Gareth when he's with Lyonesse.
- In Old Friends: Essays in Epistolary Parody by Andrew Lang (1890), the letter from Herodotus is an addendum to the story of Rhodopis of Thrace in The Histories, in which he is told that Rhodopis is still living, some hundred years after the events he documented, and is queen of a hidden land in Africa. From the description (and Lang spells it out in a footnote) it's pretty clear that this is Ayesha of Kor, who was evidently more than 2000 years old during the events of She.
- Universal Monsters: Book 6 shows that the released Karl (from Bride of Frankenstein) is essentially both Karl and Fritz (from the original Frankenstein film), as he has memories of both identities.
