HEROES AND WHICH

My staunch, Stalwart Tree, tallest for miles, with skin like a polished gray lizard and home to birds and squirrels and chipmunks.

She’s a great noble HERO of a tree, about to burst once again into the GREEN of Spring, shadowing half the yard for a cool retreat to haven in for Summer.

Just thinking about Heroes, and having done quite a few additions to my long list, a recounting for this End of March and beginning of New Things:

You know I’ve been a reader all my life, with books such a great part of the Who I Am, and though I DO know fiction from fact most days, I’m just posting a list of the folks who, by dint of character or spirit or heroic dedication or plain old good company or sheer brain power---though I think I might not LIKE a few of them, I’d still want on MY SIDE, when I needed them.   They’re all IN IT, Banner and Blade:

Charlie Allnut

Samwise Gamgee

Briene of Tarth

Samwell Tarley
Ree Dolly
Reacher
Gus and Woodrow

 Mal Reynolds and all the crew of Serenity
Ziva
Tyrion
Atticus Finch
Tom Joad

Quigley--Orrin Sackett---Jesse Stone--Frank Reagan--Thomas Magnum

Catniss Everdeen

Lisbeth Salander
 Merry and Pippin

Ripley

Leon the Professional

Gibbs

Abby
Ducky
Neville Longbottom

Walt, Henry,Vic, Ferg, and {Hector} 
"Red" Redding 

Alan Shore, Red Reddington, Dembe Zuma 

Reese and Finch, Shaw, Root, Elias, and Marconi
Donovan Livingston

  Chuck Norris (and would HE not have made a splendid REACHER, for all 20+ movies, had the time been right)
Jessica Jones
Foggy Nelson
Miss Shambala Green or anybody played by Lorraine Toussaint 
Murtagh
Barney, Christmas, Trench, Gunnar 'n' 'em
Atticus Finch
Tom Joad

Marge the Cop 
Jaqen H'ghar
Opie Winston
Wile E. Coyote
Gunny Bricker
Poirot
J.B. Fletcher

Golly

Raylan Givens (or perhaps just his hat)
Boyd Crowder

Penelope Garcia

Dr. Spencer Reid

Andy Dufresne

John Coffey--Paul Edgecombe--Brutal
 Nero, Jax, Bobby-Elvis, Tig, Chibs, and Miss Venus van Dam


Vincent/Hellboy/Clay Morrow

Ben Matlock/Andy Taylor
Lt. Dan 
Aibilene Clark

Andy Sipowicz

Vergil Tibbs
Louis Litt
Bobby Goren

Inigo Montoya

Menolly

Idgie Threadgoode
Molesley  

Rooster Cogburn

Michael Westen and Fi
Summer Glau

Clarice and Hannibal

Mags Bennett

Randall McMurphy

Jack Burton
The Goonies

Luke Danes

Jo March

Mammy at Tara

Edgar Roy

Rumpole

Arya

Mozzie

Clete Purcell

Ignatius J. Reilly

Tarzan
The Hound

Peter and Elizabeth Burke-best marriage on TV

Jeeves, though in our last days, we'd hope for the comfort of a Hoke  

Lorelai Gilmore

Frank Drebbin

Elizabeth Bennet  

Those four teenage boys, strangers to me, who surrounded me suddenly on a silent Eighties street, emerging from the dimness, walking around me like a phalanx of Palace Guards as I passed barred stores and grim faces in the dark, then melted away when I was safely locked in my car and on my way.

And, of course, the realest “Character” there is.   Chris.