Fannish Friday (early): Favorite Non-human characters

[lirazel]

Who are your favorite characters that aren't human? For the purposes of this discussion, this rules out ghosts, too, and also characters who were once human but became something human adjacent (say, vampires or angels or werewolves) or were something else but became human (Anya from BtVS).

Let's talk about cool characters who were never human in the first place! With an emphasis on those that feel actually other or whose lack of humanity is a central characteristic.

There are characters I love that aren't technically human but that pretty much are at least in how they act (Vulcans and Bajorans from ST and Lorne from AtS all come to mind). But

Here are some of mine:

+ Data is my favorite ST: TNG character. I know he acts very human, but his otherness is built into his story--I really think that all the most moving moments, especially from the first few seasons, were built around him and his attempts to understand his own humanity or lack thereof. We love an android!

+ And speaking of ST, everyone's weird boyfriend Doug Jones does a fantastic job of making Saru on DSC feel like something other than a human. Frankly, any Doug Jones character feels otherworldly!

+ I won't spoil it by going into detail, but I really love the alien character in Some Desperate Glory

+ The faerie characters in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell feel super other to me

+ All of the animal characters in Robin McKinley's books are very lovable

+ Selver from The Word for World Is Forest is totally emotionally understandable and yet still feels very alien to me

What about y'all?

Comments

[greenwoodside]

Adrian Tchaikovsky has a pretty good, playful line in non-human characters. My favourites of his are probably the ravens from Children of Memory, who aren't called Thought and Memory, but could be.

As with his cetaceans from Children of Ruin, they have a split consciousness. In the birds' case, one bird in a pair has something like the executive function, while the other has the power of noticing. They can only function by working together. In the case of the cetaceans, the brain/head does the emotions and executive stuff. The tentacles have mechanical intelligence and follow through on the wishes of the being at their centre.

[lirazel]

My favourites of his are probably the ravens from Children of Memory, who aren't called Thought and Memory, but could be.

Love this!

In the birds' case, one bird in a pair has something like the executive function, while the other has the power of noticing. They can only function by working together. In the case of the cetaceans, the brain/head does the emotions and executive stuff. The tentacles have mechanical intelligence and follow through on the wishes of the being at their centre.

That's so interesting!

[greenwoodside]

Interesting, though thankfully also with the bonus of being well-written and playful! Not just a concept sketched out on the back of an envelope, as that kind of thing runs the risk of being.

Thanks for the thread, by the way. Really enjoyed reading it.