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

[thisbluespirit]

It is such a weird old little show, so strange and so unique! You wouldn't really. Before I watched it, I'd kind of assumed it was The Avengers but possibly with some sort of sff or supernatural aspect to it.

Given some of the things you look for in fiction and characters/relationships, I think you'd adore Elements, but obviously, it was made 1978-81, so it does require the patience to watch ancient TV. (In technical means alone; off the top of my head I can think of pretty much nothing in it that's not aged well otherwise.) They're so... other and strange it finally made me work out what my sexuality was. XD But there's not much of it, it's completely unique in TV SF and it's generally quite available via streaming services at the moment, so it's well worth a look if you ever fancy it.

It sort of grew out of the genre of 1970s nightmare fuel kids' TV, but they snagged Joanna Lumley and David McCallum for the leads, upgraded it to adult early evening TV, and turned lack of any remaining budget into some sort of weird beige, brown and green art form. It's claustrophobic, minimal, static and never deigns to explain itself, somehow genuinely still creepy, and I adored it to pieces.

(It's comprised of six serials, like classic Who serials, from 4-8 x 25 min episodes each. They're just known as Assignment 1, 2 etc. A1 is a good intro, although some people rec skipping it because it still has some of the trappings of its original concept as children's TV. I don't - I like Lead and it contains pretty much the only explanation of elements and what they do that we ever get! A2, we'd probably all have to agree is peak. My fave ones though, are the two serials with Silver, because I am all about the weird elemental OT3. ♥)

A long time ago, when I was deeply ill and had just watched it, I made this vid, which I do think is a reasonable look at what it has to offer and exactly how much static brown, beige and green TV you would have to sit through to get it, if you're curious. :-)

Sorry about the pitch! I love it a lot, in short. And if nothing else, there is some really cool fic if you want things that appeal to those of us on the grey & asexual side of the spectrum as well as being plain awesome.