attempt to pick a favourite fictional character, an

For me, trying to pick one favourite fictional character from all the books I've read, movies I've seen, comics I've read and videogames I've played (they count too, right?) is like trying to pick one favourite song or riff from an album or a band's discography, or trying to pick a favourite scene from a movie or book. It's tough. Perhaps tougher than it should be.

But I'll try! (Primarily because I'm supposed to write this, but yeah . . .)

I guess, in the interest of making sure I don't have to rack my brains too much, I would have to say that my favourite fictional character of recent times is Raoul Duke from Hunter S. Thompson's novel Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as well as the film adaptation (where Johnny Depp turned in a brilliant performance . . . and you thought he was good in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies).

Yes, Raoul Duke is primarily based on Hunter S. Thompson himself, but he counts, right, as a fictional character? Anyway . . .

I like him primarily because of his distaste of conventional, conservative culture—primarily, his penchant of getting very twisted on anything from cocaine to mescaline to LSD to ether—and how recklessly he goes about his business—alongside his "300 pound Samoan" attorney—first covering (or attempting to) the Mint 400 race, and then attending a narcotics convention in the same city. There's something to be said about performing a "burn" (in his words) on one hotel in Las Vegas before coolly checking into another hotel to do it all over again.

The way he (and his aforementioned attorney) go about degrading and abusing multiple symbols of American (and, really, worldwide) consumerism and excess is something I really enjoy, and is the main thing I really like about the chararcter. You could say I like his "philosophy," I guess. Notably, I feel this strange affinity towards his philosophy of his (and, I presume, by extension, Hunter S. Thompson's) drug use being primarily to make himself into a mess: instead of the "consciousness expansion" that Tim Leary peddled, Duke considers himself a posterchild for a generation of "permanent cripples" and "failed seekers" (to quote directly from the book), and what's not to love about that sort of cynicism?

I'm a cynical bloke, unfortunately, and I can't help but feel an odd sort of affinity towards that kind of weltanschauung (pretentious +1, yeah), that sort of worldview.

Of course, if you'd asked me a year or so ago I'd have mentioned a different character. If you ask me in a year's time it'll probably be a different character. I have more important things to think about than favourite characters, but for now, this is it:

Raoul Duke.