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Your Mental Image of Literary Characters

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LittleBillyHaggardy Impudent Upstart from Holy Toledo Since: Dec, 2011
Impudent Upstart
#1: Jun 23rd 2013 at 8:49:43 AM

Apologies if there is an equivalent topic to this one. If there is I was unable to unearth it.

An interesting aspect of literature is that different readers will have different mental images of the characters. Heck, the way your brain pictures a character can even be completely contradictory to the author's written description.

So has your mental image of a character ever been particularly strange? How about completely different from the way most movies or adaptions portray them? Post pictures if possible for comparison!

My most recent example would the be the character Haymitch Abernathy from The Hunger Games. The way he was described made me think of a very depressed hobo and for some reason my brain jumped to Emmet Kelly. So for the rest of the series my mind had a picture of a hobo clown moping around after Katniss and Peeta trying to be a good mentor.

I also remember when first reading Harry Potter, thinking Snape was a much older guy with a longer beard. A much more stereotypical looking wizard. The movies did a good job of replacing that image in my mind though.

An earlier example: When I was very young and was read The Hobbit for the first time, my mental image of Gollum was as a particularly wizened old sailor man in a yellow raincoat, with a white beard and disturbingly wide, shiny eyes. I think it was his association with boats that made that connection.

Nobody wants to be a pawn in the game of life. What they don't realize is the game of life is Minesweeper.
Ninety Absolutely no relation to NLK from Land of Quakes and Hills Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: In Spades with myself
Absolutely no relation to NLK
#2: Jun 23rd 2013 at 9:23:44 AM

Some depictions of literature in visual media have been so pervasive that it's now all but impossible to separate them from my mental image. I had a big LOTR painting in my room when I was a kid, and it portrayed Frodo as a bishie, Sauron as a literal eye opening on the horizon (no fire here), and Gollum as a very old-looking creature, wrinkled and long-haired, who appeared fused to his boat, not one for all the froggy-jumping later seen. However, the movies have all but rewritten my mental image, which is good, because they are quite a bit more evocative than my imagination.

On the other hand, sometimes I actively hace to resist an imposed mental image, as it doesn't fit my version of the characters at all. Robb Stark and Jon Snow come to mind.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
ArcadesSabboth from Mother Earth Since: Oct, 2011
#3: Jun 23rd 2013 at 1:13:54 PM

I've had to fight to reassert my earlier mental images of the LOTR characters over the movie images, most of which I greatly dislike. Except a few like movie Gandalf; he's perfect.

Edit: Well, other than not having 4-inch eyebrows, I guess.

edited 24th Jun '13 9:05:14 PM by ArcadesSabboth

Oppression anywhere is a threat to democracy everywhere.
Darkabomination Since: Mar, 2012
#4: Jun 23rd 2013 at 1:29:30 PM

For some reason I always picture books in CGI. NOT! quite as shiny, but the same 3d models. Though the more fantasy there is, the more it turns into a cartoon. For instance, I can't see Discowlrd in any way other than a gritty anime.

windweaver Since: Nov, 2011
#5: Jun 24th 2013 at 1:36:49 PM

My image for Katniss from the hunger games was a bit more of an angular face (like she still didn't eat quite as much as she needed to and she had much sharper features for it in my head) but I saw Jennifer Lawrence play her and it just seemed perfect to me.

A lot of books I've been reading lately haven't been movies yet so I'm going to need more time to think on this one.

lexicon Since: May, 2012
#6: Jun 26th 2013 at 10:29:34 PM

This is an interesting subject. I don't really picture the characters as I'm reading but I am reminded of fans of The Hunger Games being surprised that Rue was black in the movie. It was only briefly mentioned in the book. I'm pretty good at paying attention to these details myself.

God_of_Awesome Since: Jan, 2001
#7: Jun 28th 2013 at 2:06:37 PM

Donald Morgan is specifically not black in The Dresden Files, but the TV Show version of him is and that is always what I envision.

Ninety Absolutely no relation to NLK from Land of Quakes and Hills Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: In Spades with myself
Absolutely no relation to NLK
#8: Jun 28th 2013 at 3:57:35 PM

Really? My main debate was whether to have him with or without a beard, based on two conflicting pieces of fanart I saw.

Dopants: He meant what he said and he said what he meant, a Ninety is faithful 100%.
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