Viable Variety

You know... there are an awful lot of character stereotypes with V names. I thought maybe we'd explore the pros and cons and choose some favorites...

Virgins

This is a category I just can't abide. Oh, sure, if someone wants to make this choice in real life, that's their business (though I certainly don't want to hear about it *shivers*), but there is a lot of literature that glorifies this, and you know what? It annoys me.

In my American Literature class in college, my professor was clear—sex was fatal until the eighteenth century, at least (and still in, in horror movies), but mostly this whole lot of literature comes across as sanctimonious to me.

Victims

Here we have a category where I don't mind someone starting OUT this way, but they sure as heck better find some cajones somewhere along the line, or they are pathetic and dull. I find Victimization can tell us some very interesting things about a character. REvictimization on the other hand... THAT, I have a hard time stomaching...

Victors

These I find almost as hard to stomach as victims, oddly enough—only the part of the book I can cope with them is the END. Anyone who is too stereotypically heroic gets my vote for lingerie training, preferably sprinkled with a little public humiliation... ESPECIALLY if they start out in a suit *shivers*. (suits are EVIL—even more evil than just pants, as people who wear suits tend to think a lot of themselves. NOT MY THING).

Visionaries

These come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and mostly I dig them. I also dig visionaries with faulty vision—in fact I've got a book planned with a visionary FRAUD and I think he makes quite a suitable villain. After all, what is more evil than telling the world you know something is going to happen when you know no such thing... you just want to manipulate them... *cackles madly*

Vicars

And by this, I mean anybody with silly hats. *cough* Okay, so not all of them wear hats, but... this is another category of people I am probably likely to put in a villain category... not that I have so much against religion, but ORGANIZED religion and I don't always get along, and a VICAR as I understand it is a FILL-IN for the REGULAR clergy, and so PRIME suspect material.

Vice-Squad

Oh, I'm ALL FOR anyone with vices... seriously though-- I am a bit picky about my cop lit... I need approachable, and so it needs to be written well—the Iain Pears ones were good, as the cops also have humor to their characters. I'm more likely though, to enjoy cop material if there is a dirty cop involved, so it becomes a conspiracy of sorts, or turns in on itself.

Vixens

I love my sisters in naughtiness, and vixens are right up there. Oh, sure, they are a flashier sort than we subtle tarts, but I can get along with that—provided they are smart and there is no moral lesson to the story making a 'wrongness' out of this vixen behavior.


So there we have it... Any more V-characters you can think of? Any you love or hate? Any rules you'd apply—only tolerate WHEN....