March 11, 2016 
Amy Bishop 
As a middle schooler and beyond, I had some very serious crushes on fictional characters. Considering that I spent the majority of my free time wrapped up in a fictional world, this probably comes as no surprise. In college (and to this day, to be quite honest), Jamie Fraser from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander was my huge fictional crush. (The Starz series with Sam Heughan starring as Jamie only made it worse.) I also had a big thing for Numair from Tamara Pierce’s The Immortals series and pretty much all of Jane Austen’s male characters. The thing that made me love all of these characters was their soft spots. They might be brusque on the outside, with some very major flaws, but at the end of the day, they were deeply caring and perfect gentlemen.
In the spirit of some lighthearted Friday fun, I decided to poll the DGLM office and find out who were the fictional characters they were most attracted to. Results below!
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- Jamie Fraser
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- Mr. Rochester
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- Laurie
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- Gilbert Blythe
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- George Knightley
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- Jay Gatsby
- Michael: Mr. Rochester from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, for his unattainable nature.
- Lauren: Laurie from Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women, for his impetuous and willful spirit.
- Mike: Louisa from Jojo Moyes’s Me Before You for her sweet, tough, and caring character.
- Sharon: Gilbert Blythe from L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables, for being in love with Anne for her personality and ideas, not just her looks—and the fact that his feelings for her didn’t get in the way of being a good friend.
- Kemi: George Knightley from Jane Austen’s Emma, for his compassionate character and his long friendship with her, despite his romantic feelings.
And lastly, one of our interns, Chrissy chose Jay Gatsby, from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby for his wealth, his passionate love for Daisy, and his attraction to Nick (and also, because Leonardo DiCaprio).
Who’s the most attractive fictional character in your opinion? What do you think makes a fictional character attractive? What specific traits make our hearts melt every time we read about them?
In grade school I was completely in love with Alec from the Black Stallion series. I don’t really remember why. I think I just wanted his horse. 😉
I feel certain there was another character I fell in love with later on (besides Luke Skywalker, Kirk, Spock, and the Doctor, since we’re talking about books rather than TV or movies), but I can’t for the life of me remember who it was now. Love is fickle.