Unpopular Opinions

[LadyIrony]

Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse series all read like they were written by a 12 year old girl. 

[DearEvette]

On 12/24/2021 at 9:36 AM, Anduin said:

Give me someone who's seen the world. Knows how things work. They don't have to be a stone-cold badass, but a little experience can't hurt. Start them when they're already interesting, not before.

One of the reasons I really enjoyed Lois McMaster Bujold's Chalion series.  Older protagonists, a good world build and and interesting premise.

The first book's (The Curse of Chalion) protagonist is an older solider, an officer who had been a POW and escaped and made it back to his country (Chalion) with nothing but the borrowed clothes on his back.  He is tasked with lifting a curse and his dilemma is how the heck is he supposed to do that.  He knows specifically what he needs to do to lift it but he (and we the readers) are all.. well hell, how is he supposed to accomplish that?  No quest, no journey, no band of brothers...  just one task that involves his person.  Lots of intrigue and betrayal and impediments, tho.

The second book in the series'  (Paladin of Souls) protagonist an older woman, mid-forties.  She was the former queen of Chalion who prior to the events of the first book, had been given the same task to lift the curse but she failed spectacularly and she went a little mad (they called her Mad, Sad Ista).  In her book she is given a different task to solve.  Again, no hero's journey or quest more like a mystery to solve and bad guys to remove.

Regards the hero's journey, in fantasy it is hard to get away from since the entire genre is built on that foundation.  It is what happens when that is the format one of the seminal works of the genre used and what many people really identified as quintessential 'fantasy.'  Personally, I do find it comfortable at times because it is so familiar and when done well it is great.  But that said, I also can find myself supremely exasperated that it is such a crutch and so many fantasy novelists still use it as the foundation. 

[Grrarrggh]

6 hours ago, LadyIrony said:

Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse series all read like they were written by a 12 year old girl. 

HEY!! There's no reason to insult 12-year-old girls!!! 

[Spartan Girl]

My UO Harry Potter opinion: I liked that Harry and Ginny ended up together. The movies didn’t give them or Ginny’s character a fair shot. You can accuse her of being a Cool Girl Trope but I loved the fact that she turned out not to be the shy little wallflower that she was around Harry in the first four books.

Edited January 8, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[peacheslatour]

Quote

I haaate magic realism.

I feel the same way about time travel. Just no.

[Katy M]

3 hours ago, peacheslatour said:

I feel the same way about time travel. Just no.

I'll admit to reading and watching some time travel stuff that I like.  But, mostly I just get caught up in noticing stuff that they're not accounting for in changing the spae-time continuum.   It makes no sense!!!!!!  

[Mabinogia]

Time travel is a perfect example of how insane my personal tastes are. Don't like time travel movies/books/shows also LOVE Doctor Who and my favorite ep is Blink, which is very heavy in the time travel. I make no sense. 

[andromeda331]

On 1/7/2022 at 11:37 AM, Birnam Wood said:

Also, on an entirely different note. the very existence of Professor Bhaer is clearly a giant F-U to the publisher. The latest film got it exactly right by minimizing him... and completely wrong by making him a frat-bro. There's NO WAY that Jo would ever marry someone who told her that her writing sucked. You suck, my dude.

That's exactly the reason I hate Bhaer. Jo's stories always sounded like so much fun and she had so much fun writing them.  He buzzkill told her they sucked. Nope, he was the one who sucked. He wouldn't know good writing if it bit him on the ass.

[SusanM]

47 minutes ago, andromeda331 said:

That's exactly the reason I hate Bhaer. Jo's stories always sounded like so much fun and she had so much fun writing them.  He buzzkill told her they sucked. Nope, he was the one who sucked. He wouldn't know good writing if it bit him on the ass.

Maybe but in all fairness to him the only reason Louisa May Alcott is even known today is because she turned her attention away from writing thrilling stories that bore no resemblance to anyone's real life and instead wrote Little Women.  She's a great example of that old writing maxim "write what you know" actually working.

[SmithW6079]

On 1/8/2022 at 10:29 AM, LadyIrony said:

Twilight and the Sookie Stackhouse series all read like they were written by a 12 year old girl. 

Know your audience... ;-)

2 minutes ago, SusannahM said:

Maybe but in all fairness to him the only reason Louisa May Alcott is even known today is because she turned her attention away from writing thrilling stories that bore no resemblance to anyone's real life and instead wrote Little Women.  She's a great example of that old writing maxim "write what you know" actually working.

This might be the UO, but I finally read "Little Women" a few years ago, and I hated it. I thought Mrs. March was passive aggressive and controlling, not loving and caring the way her daughters thought she was. 

20 hours ago, Katy M said:

I'll admit to reading and watching some time travel stuff that I like.  But, mostly I just get caught up in noticing stuff that they're not accounting for in changing the space-time continuum.   It makes no sense!!!!!!  

I love time travel stories and alternate history timelines. I love the whole mindfuckedness of it all, :-)

 

[Birnam Wood]

14 hours ago, SusannahM said:

Maybe but in all fairness to him the only reason Louisa May Alcott is even known today is because she turned her attention away from writing thrilling stories that bore no resemblance to anyone's real life and instead wrote Little Women.  She's a great example of that old writing maxim "write what you know" actually working.

True, but she actually hated and resented that stuff. She had to do it because it paid the bills -- she much preferred the thrillers! 

At any rate, what had Bhaer ever done? Don't mansplain her writing, my dude. Jo would have been so much better off sharing a garret with a like-minded lady friend...

[SusanM]

27 minutes ago, Birnam Wood said:

Jo would have been so much better off sharing a garret with a like-minded lady friend...

Alcott definitely did not want Jo to get married.  I don't know if she finally did so because she actually thought Prof Bhaer was her own ideal man so she gave him to Jo or because society insisted the happy ever after for Jo had to include a wedding so Alcott said "fine then, you want a wedding, I'll give you one but you won't like it".

[Katy M]

14 hours ago, SmithW6079 said:

I love time travel stories and alternate history timelines. I love the whole mindfuckedness of it all, :-)

I actually really like alternate histories (assuming that means what  think it does, kind of a what-if scenario).  I would like time travel more if they would account for all the changes.  That's why I like Back to the Future.  Doc Brown is very insistent that you think 4th dimensionally and chastises Marty several times for his lack in that area.  To bring it back to books, there's a character in Timeline that doesn't want to go back because he may kill his grandfather and he's told that it's very unlikely that one person could do anything that would meaningfully change history.  I don't know that I believe that. 

[SmithW6079]

21 minutes ago, Katy M said:

To bring it back to books, there's a character in Timeline that doesn't want to go back because he may kill his grandfather and he's told that it's very unlikely that one person could do anything that would meaningfully change history.  I don't know that I believe that. 

Well, there is the "butterfly effect" theory, that making one small change in the past has consequences for the future. Ray Bradbury's1952 short story "A Sound of Thunder" introduced the concept. 

[BlackberryJam]

My apparently unpopular opinion is that I hate split time line novels. I don't want to read about Mary Ellen in 1954 heading to the big city and great granddaughter Allison finding Mary Ellen's diaries in 2019 and following her journey. I hate that crap. I hate it all. 

[dubbel zout]

23 minutes ago, BlackberryJam said:

My apparently unpopular opinion is that I hate split time line novels. I don't want to read about Mary Ellen in 1954 heading to the big city and great granddaughter Allison finding Mary Ellen's diaries in 2019 and following her journey. I hate that crap. I hate it all. 

I'm not a fan of this convention, either. The connection between the two time lines is never interesting or clever enough for me.

[SusanM]

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but based on how many novels and short stories are written this way, possibly unpopular with authors but I loathe fiction written in present tense.  It's barely bearable to me when it's first person but when it's third person it gets tossed in the reject pile.  I know I'm probably missing some gems out there but life is just too short to slog through a reading style that is like nails on a chalkboard as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, BlackberryJam said:

My apparently unpopular opinion is that I hate split time line novels. I don't want to read about Mary Ellen in 1954 heading to the big city and great granddaughter Allison finding Mary Ellen's diaries in 2019 and following her journey. I hate that crap. I hate it all. 

When this format works, I love it. But, it gets done too many times and rarely does it work.  

[Mabinogia]

2 hours ago, SusannahM said:

Not sure if this is an unpopular opinion, but based on how many novels and short stories are written this way, possibly unpopular with authors but I loathe fiction written in present tense.  It's barely bearable to me when it's first person but when it's third person it gets tossed in the reject pile.  I know I'm probably missing some gems out there but life is just too short to slog through a reading style that is like nails on a chalkboard as far as I'm concerned.

I drop a book like it's on fire as soon as I discover it is in present tense. I drop it with heavy cursing if it's first person present. I have never come across one that worked for me. It always seems like someone who wanders around muttering to themselves about what they are doing. "I am walking down the street. I see a cat. I go and pet the cat." It's very "See spot run. Run spot run." to me. 

Something about present tense always feels very simplistic to me. 

[Haleth]

Aren’t the Hillary Mantel Wolf Hall books written in present tense?  (I seem to remember so.). They are superb, brilliantly written. 

[Anela]

I don’t understand why The Invisible Life of Addie Larue, was all I kept hearing about for a while.  
 

Spoiler

This darkness gives her freedom: of course it’s like a CW show in print: she’s young and beautiful, immortal, but easily forgotten, so there are no permanent ties.

Except, to HIM. For one night a year, she has no choice but to spend time with this guy. That isn’t freedom, it’s controlling and not at all sexy.

I bought it last summer, then took it back, and put it on hold on the online library system.  I’m skimming parts, and might not finish.  

[Haleth]

Anela, the last page is worth it.

[Vanderboom]

On 1/8/2022 at 6:32 PM, Spartan Girl said:

My UO Harry Potter opinion: I liked that Harry and Ginny ended up together. The movies didn’t give them or Ginny’s character a fair shot. You can accuse her of being a Cool Girl Trope but I loved the fact that she turned out not to be the shy little wallflower that she was around Harry in the first four books.

My problem was with the way Ginny was written; I wanted better for her. She was either a nonentity or the Coolest Thing Evar, and Likes Harry isn't really a personality trait.

My UO is that I'm totally over small town romances, in book or tv form. As much as I love a good trope, there is just no interesting way to tell this story anymore.

Also: not every good book should be made into a movie. I refuse to watch any version of Dune because of this.

Also: The Outlander series should have been a trilogy at most.

[Grrarrggh]

8 hours ago, Vanderboom said:

My problem was with the way Ginny was written; I wanted better for her. She was either a nonentity or the Coolest Thing Evar, and Likes Harry isn't really a personality trait.

That's because Rowling doesn't write character based books. She writes a storyline with a few scenes then shoe-horns the characters in, whether they would do that or not.

[truthaboutluv]

On 1/8/2022 at 6:32 PM, Spartan Girl said:

My UO Harry Potter opinion: I liked that Harry and Ginny ended up together. The movies didn’t give them or Ginny’s character a fair shot. You can accuse her of being a Cool Girl Trope but I loved the fact that she turned out not to be the shy little wallflower that she was around Harry in the first four books.

My unpopular opinion is that I strongly disagree with the idea that the movies did Ginny's character some great injustice as if there was so much more to her in the books that the movies ignored. No, there wasn't. 

A bunch of pages of others propping the character up and saying how super special and amazing she was did not equal actually being amazing. And honestly, a lot of Ginny's "awesome, personality" moments, particularly in HBP, showed her to be an obnoxious twat. 

JK's idea of giving Ginny a "personality" was to turn her into a snotty, sometimes rude as hell prom queen that was supposed to read as "cute" and "badass". Except for how she never actually did anything particularly meaningful in terms of the larger story. 

IMHO, dull and boring and chemistry less as Bonnie and Daniel may have been in the films, at least I didn't actually dislike movie Ginny. She was just dull but for the most part, actually kind of sweet. Book Ginny was an insufferable twat by the end of the series. 

Of course, I wholeheartedly own my bias in the fact that by the series end, the only Weasleys I could stand were the twins. So there's that. And well Bill and the other older brother were barely present. 

[Grrarrggh]

12 minutes ago, truthaboutluv said:

Of course, I wholeheartedly own my bias in the fact that by the series end, the only Weasleys I could stand were the twins. So there's that. And well Bill and the other older brother were barely present. 

Seriously? You liked those bullies? Then again, they're only the boys their parents made them....

[Mabinogia]

I really didn't like any of the Weasley's. Arthur was okay I guess, and I kind of felt for Ron because I kind of related to him more than Hermione or Harry, but I think the Weasley's were very overrated. 

[JustHereForFood]

I am neutral on Weasleys, but I did not like Hagrid at all. I think we were supposed to like him because he was someone with a big heart who does not hide his emotions and is loyal to Harry and the others, but for me he was a loud, short-tempered, often aggressive idiot and alcoholic. He kind of reminds me of my uncle whom I similarly dislike, so there's that.

He is nice to animals, I give him that.

[proserpina65]

I hate feminist retellings of Greek mythology.  Yes, the mythology is all kinds of fucked up, and I like it that way.

[Grrarrggh]

2 hours ago, JustHereForFood said:

I am neutral on Weasleys, but I did not like Hagrid at all.

Yes! He assaulted an eleven year old! And he's pretty much useless. 

[Ohiopirate02]

28 minutes ago, proserpina65 said:

I hate feminist retellings of Greek mythology.  Yes, the mythology is all kinds of fucked up, and I like it that way.

Madeline Miller's Circe was meh for me.  I've read a lot of historical fiction and it was no better than the many titles I have read over the years.  But, I do not read for the beautiful sentences.  I read for the characters, and feelings, and plot, and immersion into a new world for a few hours.  Maybe I missed that special something that elevates her writing above Philippa Gregory.

[Blergh]

On 1/12/2022 at 1:44 PM, proserpina65 said:

I hate feminist retellings of Greek mythology.  Yes, the mythology is all kinds of fucked up, and I like it that way.

Not to mention, since ancient Greeks actually believed in said mythology and many medieval through Baroque scholars valued said mythology, it's important to understand WHAT these folks actually believed and what the implications would be for their societies for how the beliefs were applied. 

I'd also like to point out that with literally hundreds of Greek city-states with each having their own official versions of popular myths (to say nothing of  how the citizens individually would interpret said versions), one can't say they were entirely monomaniacal about their beliefs. BTW, Athena's Birth had no fewer that 15 different interpretations that have survived to contemporary times out of countless others that crumbled to dust, burned,etc. before they could be coherently written down for scholars to study- to say nothing of any versions that never made it past a single campfire story.

For the record, I have nothing against contemporary folks reworking Greek,etc. mythology for their own and others' entertainment but people need to understand what folks in the past actually DID believe instead of  retroactively  overhauling  myths and  attempting to apply  that retro spin to ancients' beliefs and lives. 

[Starleigh]

On 1/9/2022 at 6:57 PM, SusannahM said:

Maybe but in all fairness to him the only reason Louisa May Alcott is even known today is because she turned her attention away from writing thrilling stories that bore no resemblance to anyone's real life and instead wrote Little Women.  She's a great example of that old writing maxim "write what you know" actually working.

I've read most of her thrillers and actually liked some of them. No, they aren't timeless classics like LW but the writing style is clearly very Alcott and they aren't as trashy as you'd think based on Prof Bhaer. I don't remember the title but my favorite one was about the scheming governess who planned to seduce (not literally) one of the eligible bachelors of her young charge into marrying her. There was something very satisfying about that story.

[Spartan Girl]

On 1/12/2022 at 2:44 PM, proserpina65 said:

I hate feminist retellings of Greek mythology.  Yes, the mythology is all kinds of fucked up, and I like it that way.

Perfectly understandable. While I do love them, I DON’T like them if they completely change the ending of their source material. For instance, Medusa by Jessie Burton was great until the author decided to change the ending so that 

Spoiler

Medusa “accidentally” turns Perseus to stone and escapes the island with her sisters. I mean, WTF? It was a good sympathetic take on Medusa—Poseidon raping her and Athena cursing her was awful—but I couldn’t feel good about the new ending because Perseus wasn’t written as a villain. And because he dies, that means his mom is stuck marrying the evil king and nobody will save Andromeda from being sacrificed to the sea monster. But at least Medusa gets to live on and turn men to stone—yay feminism? 

I prefer the ones like A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes that give depth to the female characters without deviating too much from the source material, sad endings and all.

[proserpina65]

23 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Perfectly understandable. While I do love them, I DON’T like them if they completely change the ending of their source material. For instance, Medusa by Jessie Burton was great until the author decided to change the ending so that 

  Reveal spoiler

Medusa “accidentally” turns Perseus to stone and escapes the island with her sisters. I mean, WTF? It was a good sympathetic take on Medusa—Poseidon raping her and Athena cursing her was awful—but I couldn’t feel good about the new ending because Perseus wasn’t written as a villain. And because he dies, that means his mom is stuck marrying the evil king and nobody will save Andromeda from being sacrificed to the sea monster. But at least Medusa gets to live on and turn men to stone—yay feminism? 

 

Yeah, that would absolutely piss me off.

[andromeda331]

On 1/10/2022 at 7:09 AM, Birnam Wood said:

True, but she actually hated and resented that stuff. She had to do it because it paid the bills -- she much preferred the thrillers! 

At any rate, what had Bhaer ever done? Don't mansplain her writing, my dude. Jo would have been so much better off sharing a garret with a like-minded lady friend...

I don't think he ever did anything. He just seemed more the type who only considered what he thought "great literature" worth writing or reading and dismissed everything else. 

On 1/10/2022 at 7:40 AM, SusannahM said:

Alcott definitely did not want Jo to get married.  I don't know if she finally did so because she actually thought Prof Bhaer was her own ideal man so she gave him to Jo or because society insisted the happy ever after for Jo had to include a wedding so Alcott said "fine then, you want a wedding, I'll give you one but you won't like it".

I'd love for it to be that reason. Too bad in the sequel he wasn't killed off. There was a tv series years ago Little Men based on the book and they killed him off. I always thought Louisa May Alcott would have been happy about that.

On 1/11/2022 at 7:03 PM, Mabinogia said:

I really didn't like any of the Weasley's. Arthur was okay I guess, and I kind of felt for Ron because I kind of related to him more than Hermione or Harry, but I think the Weasley's were very overrated. 

I didn't either. Their just mostly annoying. I do feel for Ron especially since his mother seems to prefer Harry over him.

On 1/12/2022 at 12:44 PM, proserpina65 said:

I hate feminist retellings of Greek mythology.  Yes, the mythology is all kinds of fucked up, and I like it that way.

I don't mind retellings. But I like the old myths just as much. There's a lot of really great stories and characters. Actually Hera is one of my favorites. So is Madea and Andromeda. Its half the reason my username is Andromeda (my love of astronomy is the other reason.)

[Spartan Girl]

On 1/23/2022 at 5:51 AM, andromeda331 said:

I do feel for Ron especially since his mother seems to prefer Harry over him

I don’t think that was true at all. That was mostly Ron’s insecurity, as evidence by the Horcrux locket vision in DH.

Molly took to Harry because he was an abused child who didn’t have a good family and he was Ron’s friend. He just became part of the family. Sure, he might have been guilty of playing favorites among her own children, but she never preferred Harry to Ron. I mean, could she have had the foresight to get Ron nonfrilly dress robes like Harry in GOF? Sure. But I wouldn’t read too much into it. Ron had years of insecurity about his place in the family long before he even met Harry. 

[Snow Apple]

I didn't think Molly favored Harry over Ron either. I think Molly spent Harry's money to buy his dress robes, but can't afford to buy Ron's with her own money. They have 4 boys at school at the same time. I wonder if they have more modern dress robes from Bill and Charlie's time, but they were taken by the twins and Percy and they had to dig up that frilly thing from the attic for Ron?

My own mother treated my friends better than me because they are guests. That's how I view Molly. LOL

[Spartan Girl]

34 minutes ago, Snow Apple said:

I think Molly spent Harry's money to buy his dress robes, but can't afford to buy Ron's with her own money. 

Yup that’s right, she had to buy Ron’s second hand. And her using Harry’s money for his dress robes makes more sense: even though Harry would’ve been more than happy to share his inheritance, Arthur and Molly wouldn’t have felt right about it, and come on, you don’t use someone else’s money to buy them crappy dress robes.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Spartan Girl

[peacheslatour]

4 hours ago, Spartan Girl said:

Yup that’s right, she had to buy Ron’s second hand. And her using Harry’s money for his dress robes makes more sense: even though Harry would’ve been more than happy to share his inheritance, Arthur and Molly wouldn’t have felt right about it, and come on, you don’t use someone else’s money to buy them crappy dress robes.

I thought they were old family robes?

[Haleth]

I never got this.  Ron is a wizard.  Couldn't he have altered the frilly thing to look less ridiculous?

[Ohiopirate02]

1 hour ago, Haleth said:

I never got this.  Ron is a wizard.  Couldn't he have altered the frilly thing to look less ridiculous?

Ron does try to make his dress robes look better, but JK decides in this instance for Ron to be a mediocre wizard and he fails.  One thing I do not like about the books is how drastically Ron's abilities change in order to fit whatever story JK is telling at the moment.  He should have a base level of competency, and something like altering his dress robes should be in his wheelhouse.  I always read Ron as lazy and unmotivated, not hanging on by the skin of his teeth the way JK writes him in almost all of the books. But when danger strikes in the final third of the book, Ron is now suddenly capable of helping Harry defeat the villain at hand.  

[Grrarrggh]

On 1/25/2022 at 8:41 AM, Ohiopirate02 said:

Ron does try to make his dress robes look better, but JK decides in this instance for Ron to be a mediocre wizard and he fails.  One thing I do not like about the books is how drastically Ron's abilities change in order to fit whatever story JK is telling at the moment.  He should have a base level of competency, and something like altering his dress robes should be in his wheelhouse.  I always read Ron as lazy and unmotivated, not hanging on by the skin of his teeth the way JK writes him in almost all of the books. But when danger strikes in the final third of the book, Ron is now suddenly capable of helping Harry defeat the villain at hand.  

That's because she wrote scenes not characters. 

[peacheslatour]

Quote

That's because she wrote scenes not characters. 

That's a very astute observation. 

[Grrarrggh]

On 1/27/2022 at 9:15 PM, peacheslatour said:

That's a very astute observation. 

It only hit me about a year ago when I tried to read the series again. It had been about a decade since I'd really given it much thought and it just seemed incredibly obvious all of a sudden that Rowling doesn't care at all about characters. She wrote scenes she liked or thought were "adventurous" then jammed in these static, cardboardy people whether they would fit or not. It's why I infinitely prefer HP fanfic to the original.

[peacheslatour]

1 minute ago, Grrarrggh said:

It only hit me about a year ago when I tried to read the series again. It had been about a decade since I'd really given it much thought and it just seemed incredibly obvious all of a sudden that Rowling doesn't care at all about characters. She wrote scenes she liked or thought were "adventurous" then jammed in these static, cardboardy people whether they would fit or not. It's why I infinitely prefer HP fanfic to the original.

I haven't read them in years and years either. I doubt I ever will again. My husband really liked them so I read them because they were lying around the house but my son had just finished LOTR when the HP books came out and he and I agreed they were just watered down LOTR.

[JustHereForFood]

On 1/28/2022 at 1:29 AM, Grrarrggh said:

That's because she wrote scenes not characters. 

I don't know, I am really, really angry at JKR lately, but I have to say, I think some of her character work was pretty good.

[Grrarrggh]

1 hour ago, JustHereForFood said:

I don't know, I am really, really angry at JKR lately, but I have to say, I think some of her character work was pretty good.

Who? (and please do not say Snape, he's such a shallow, badly written character; not to mention a crap spy who only did anything through plot amour)

[Ohiopirate02]

20 minutes ago, Grrarrggh said:

Who? (and please do not say Snape, he's such a shallow, badly written character; not to mention a crap spy who only did anything through plot amour)

I do like the character arc of Neville Longbottom.  In book one, he's the kid who everyone overlooks and thinks "what is he doing here?" because he appears to be the worst student and awkward to boot.  Harry only defends Neville against Draco because Neville is a Gryffindor.  Neville grows as a wizard at Hogwarts where he is free of the cloud of his parents and has encouraging instructors not named Severus Snape.  Then you get to Order of the Phoenix, and Harry (and the reader) sees how sad Neville's life is.  That scene in St. Mungo's is heartbreaking.  Also heartbreaking is the 180 Neville's grandmother does at the end of that book when Neville is no longer the disappointment she previously thought.  But through it all, Neville is brave and loyal becoming a leader in Dumbledore's Army and instrumental in the Battle of Hogwarts.  

[Grrarrggh]

36 minutes ago, Ohiopirate02 said:

I do like the character arc of Neville Longbottom.  

True, though sadly he doesn't get much page time. So that's one out of what, 200 characters? ;)