This One's For The Boys

I decided to do a blog post about the only major books in my life in which my favorite character is male rather than female. In order to qualify for this the book has to be fairly large and have more than one main character. Thus books like Artemis Fowl and Ender's Game don't count. I am doing this because generally my favorite characters are female and I think the boys are feeling a little left out.

Illiad
I am currently reading the Illiad for my Greek History class and this shout out goes to Diomedes. He has got to be one of the most amazing male characters ever written. Now you might try and say that the Illiad doesn't have many female characters in it (and you would be correct) BUT this was actually a pretty close contest. Athena is easily my second favorite character and it was a close call between the two.

Mistborn
Even though Vin is pretty sweet, Elend is my favorite character in the Mistborn series (particularly the first book). I guess I identified with Elend a lot in the first book and would like to think that if I was in his place I would have made similar decisions as he did. For many people he doesn't get awesome until the second and third books in the series but Elend book 1 is my favorite.

Way of Kings
The book I am currently trying to plow through is Way of Kings. I have not finished it yet but I am about 500 pages in and so I think I can say with some confidence that I know the characters well enough to make this kind of decision. Kaladin is easily my favorite character followed closely by Dalinar, then Adolin. This book is something of a rarity because usually if my first choice is male then my second choice will be female but in this book my top three characters are all male. I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing that I don't really like any of the females in the book that much . . .

Alera Codex
Jim Butcher is not inept in writing female characters, but Tavi (the main) is just so well-written except for his age (see my review) and lovable that you can't help making him your favorite. Invidia and Isana are my favorite after Tavi though.

A special shout out goes to Brandon Sanderson for writing two of the only four books I could think of (given the aforementioned restrictions) where my favorite character is male. Perhaps he will turn in to the opposite of Robert Jordan for me (Jordan writes strong female characters that I absolutely love).

Honorable Mentions
Dragonlance (Tanis and Raistlin come close but they just don't beat Kitiara)
Harry Potter (Bellatrix takes the cake then Ginny but Harry, Ron, and Sirius are close behind)