Gawd! None of the above... it really is a personal reaction, isn't it? More so with book characters because you imagine how they look in your head. And I find I'm the same as you; there are many I identify with, or like, but very few that make me think "I want to have a thing with him". One that did do that for me was Lewis (he has no surname) in Françoise Sagan's The Heart-Keeper, who just happens to push all my buttons at once because he has dark hair, very green eyes and a pale face and is a bit androgynous. Offhand, he's the only one. I'd like to marry several, notably Seth from Adam Bede and Mr Bingley, but that's got nothing to do with finding them sexy.

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heh, well it's a good job we aren't competing for the same fictional characters, it would only make them fictionally big-headed

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Vimes is *extremely* sexy. I would probably read the back of a fag packet if he had a cameo in it.

Vetinari just doesn't do it for me, and neither do any of Pratchett's characters.

I think he struck gold with Vimes. My feeling is that Vimes was not written with female attention in mind - at least at the beginning. The low-key but devoted nature of his relationship with Sybil, his attempts to shrug off the trappings of his privileged life, and his towering stubbornness all seem to be pitched to male readers of a certain age.

I find him irresistible. The Watch books are the only Discworld books that I continually reread (aside from the early witches ones) and it's largely Vimes that keeps drawing me back.

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Oh, and Bullseye. NOT the ridiculous Colin Farrell film version. Ever.

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I like Sam as a character, very much, just not as a sex symbol. I can't play the marry-shag-throw off a cliff game with Vimes/Vetinari/Carrot because I don't really want to throw Carrot off a cliff - but it'd definitely be marry Vimes, shag Vetinari.

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That's about three or four of us so far. I'd like to ask Terry P what he was aiming at with that character.

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Not sex, I think. The Discworld really isn't very interested in sex, romance or soppy stuff. (Marriage and parenthood, yes.)

Incidentally, I find even Sam way sexier than the Great Trio one is presumably meant to find sexy, ie Rochester, Darcy and Heathcliff. Rochester's a pompous chauvinistic hypocrite, Darcy's shyness is sweet, but he's still a bit too humourless and up himself, and Heathcliff is just a spaniel-strangling, self-pitying lout. Wouldn't give any of them the time of day.

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I haven't read much Discworld, but so far it hasn't been as sexless as I imagined. Rincewind is a completely sexless character IIRC, and that makes his arc a bit tedious for my tastes.

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Rincewind is hot, you blind fool.

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Carrot is sort of the Bayliss of Ankh Morpork, isn't he?

I always thought Dolly in "Major Barbara" was Teh Sexx.

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Carrott seems a long way from Bayliss, though they are both police (ETA and extremely tall). Though it seems that the element of wholesome earnestness in Bayliss is part of the frisson.

Edited at 2007-11-28 03:11 pm (UTC)

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They want to do the right thing, although their upbringing has in some ways deprived them of the social skills to do so.

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I always thought Carrot was more like Fraser of DS, but without the dark side and the flaws that makes him human (and therefore attractive, to me, anyway).

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You're welcome to Vimes and Vetinari and anyone else, but Adora Belle Dearheart is mine, dammit!

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I'll fight you for her fair, nicotine-smelling hand.

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Fie on you for suggesting her hands are fair, varlet!

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This is where the sketchiness of my knowledge of these books lets me down I'm afraid. I think I'm about ten years behind the times.

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Going Postal is one of the more recent ones. And of those I've read, one of the best.

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I still desperately want to sexxor Howl from "Howl's Moving Castle". Thank god for all those Potter freaks allowing me to feel unashamed about perving over children's literature.

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Did you see the ghibli film, where Howl was voiced by Christian Bale? I haven't read the book and happytune tells me it's quite different, but I thought it was good.

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Yeah, I ain't hot for the movie version, as like all anime characters outside of Cowboy Bebop he looks twelve.

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Do comic book characters count? I'd do the nasty with John Constantine in an instant, and then spend the rest of life looking over my shoulder for the nasty that would be about to kill me :)

Oh, and totally agree with the Vimes thing - sexy as hell!

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It's a whole other interesting question, the appeal of cartoon characters. I'm reminded of that exchange in Red Dwarf where they are watching the Flintstones.

'We are sitting here, discussing whether we'd have sex with Wilma Flintstone? We must be mad. She's never be unfaithful to Fred and we both know it.'

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I always thought Vimes was meant to be sexy - Vetinari seems completely sexless to me. But then, I always found Carrot profoundly unattractive, if very sweet.

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And yet Carrott turns Angua on. In the thing I've just been listening to, Gaspode says 'Your tongue is hanging out'.

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