List of stock characters
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A stock character is a dramatic or literary character representing a type in a conventional manner and recurring in many works.[1] The following list labels some of these archetypes and stereotypes, providing distinctive examples.
| Character Type | Description | Examples |
| A | ||
|---|---|---|
| Absent-minded professor | An absent-minded scientific genius[2] | Professor Calculus, Emmett Brown |
| Action hero | A film hero protagonist with unrealistic physical resistance and fighting capabilities | John McClane, Indiana Jones, John Rambo, Jason Bourne |
| Air pirate | A pirate who operates in the air and travels by aircraft (also known as a "sky pirate") | Don Karnage, Vaan, Balthier, Quintinius Verginix, Twig, Nathan Zachary in Crimson Skies |
| Alien invaders | Extraterrestrials who mount an invasion against Earth[2] | War of the Worlds, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Independence Day |
| Angry black woman | An assertive, opinionated, loud, and "sassy" African-American woman with a sharp tongue, often depicted as nagging and emasculating a male character[3] | Sapphire in Amos 'n' Andy.[4], Wilhelmina Slater in Ugly Betty[5], Aunt Esther in Sanford and Son. |
| Angry white male | A person typically known as having a traditional conservative viewpoint, especially in the context of U.S. politics, characterized by opposition to racial quotas, political correctness, affirmative action, and other liberal policies | William Foster in Falling Down, Archie Bunker, Vernon Dursley |
| Anti-hero | A cowardly, antisocial or honorless protagonist | Faust, Falstaff, Walter White |
| Archimime | A jester in Ancient Rome who imitated manners, gestures and speech of living and deceased famous people. | |
| B | ||
| Bad boy | A roguish macho | Charlie Harper, Jim Stark in Rebel Without A Cause |
| Battle-axe | A domineering, brash and brazen woman | Xena, Agnes Skinner |
| Bimbo | A dumb, pretty girl | Karen Smith (Mean Girls) |
| Black brute | An inherently violent black man | Jules Winnfield, John Shaft; Gus in Birth of a Nation |
| Blackface | A black person played by a white person | Tropic Thunder, Birth of a Nation, Soul Man |
| Black knight | Evil fighter antagonist | Darth Vader, Mordred |
| Blind seer | Blind or blinded fortune teller or prophet | Tiresias, Mother Abagail in Stephen King's The Stand |
| Blonde stereotype | A pretty, but stupid blonde | Blonde and Blonder, White Chicks |
| Boy next door | Average and nice guy | George Gibbs in Our Town |
| Breeches role | A role in which an actress appears in male clothing | Shakespeare in Love |
| Bug-eyed monster | Staple evil alien;[2] | Formics |
| Byronic hero | A proud, moody and cynical man, yet capable of deep and strong affection | Childe Harold, Eugene Onegin, Mr. Rochester |
| C | ||
| Cat lady | Old woman overly concerned with her cats | Arabella Figg, Crazy Cat Lady |
| Conanesque[6] | character inspired by Conan the Barbarian | Claw the Unconquered, Thongor of Lemuria |
| Contender | A competitive underdog | Rocky Balboa, Terry Malloy |
| Crone | Malicious old woman, often occult or witch-like | Baba Yaga, Wicked Witch of the West, Bellatrix Lestrange in Harry Potter (film series) |
| D | ||
| Damsel in distress | A noble Lady in need of rescue, traditionally from dragons | Princess Peach, Princess Buttercup, Princess and dragon |
| Dark Lady | A dark, malicious or doomed woman | Lady Macbeth, Agatha Trunchbull, Annie Wilkes |
| Holmesian detective | A private or police detective who solves crimes by using logical deduction | Sherlock Holmes, Columbo, Hercule Poirot, Virgil Tibbs |
| Hardboiled detective | A gruff, tough and streetwise, but generally honest detective | Sam Spade, John Hartigan, Philip Marlowe |
| E | ||
| Elderly martial arts master | A wise, powerful man teaching his powerful craft to a young student. Often needs to be avenged | Keisuke Miyagi, Snake in the Eagle's Shadow, Pai Mei |
| Esper | A telepathic human[2] | Lincoln Powell in The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester,[7] Akira |
| Essex girl | A promiscuous and stupid female (originally from Essex) | Amy Childs |
| Everyman | An ordinary individual | Everyman |
| Evil clown | An evil and chaotic clown | Pennywise, The Joker |
| F | ||
| Fall guy | A scapegoat | |
| Farmer's daughter | A desirable and naive young woman. She is also described as being an "open-air type" and "public-spirited".[8][9] | |
| Femme fatale | A beautiful, but mischievous and traitorous woman | Ruth Wonderly, Poison Ivy |
| Feral child | A child who has lived from a young age without human contact | Mowgli, Tarzan |
| Final girl | A "last girl standing" in a horror film | Laurie Strode, Sally Hardesty, Lila Crane |
| Fop | A foolish man overly concerned with his appearance and clothes | Max Downing |
| G | ||
| Gentle giant | A physically imposing but kind-hearted character. | Rubeus Hagrid, Fezzik, Hodor |
| Gentleman thief | A sophisticated and well-mannered thief | Arsène Lupin, A.J. Raffles, Simon Templar |
| Geek | A generally not athletic fan of super heroes, science fiction and fantasy, especially of Video Games, Comic Books, Films and Roleplaying Games. | Sheldon Cooper, Steve Smith |
| Girl next door | An average girl with a wholesome conduct | Winnie Cooper, Betty Cooper |
| Grande dame | French for "great lady". A flamboyant woman, prone to extravagant and eccentric fashion. Usually a stereotype of an elderly high society socialite.[10][11][12][13] | Constance in Gosford Park, Princess Dragomiroff in Murder on the Orient Express; Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest |
| H | ||
| Hag | A wizened old woman, often a malicious witch | witch in Hansel and Gretel, Baba Yaga |
| Harlequin | A clown or professional fool | Till Eulenspiegel |
| Hawksian woman | A tough-talking woman, originally in a film by Howard Hawks | To Have and Have Not (film) |
| Hero | A powerful and morally integer protagonist, often on a quest[2] | Luke Skywalker, Neo (The Matrix), Harry Potter |
| Herr Pastor | An authoritarian pastor in an Ethnic German congregation | |
| Hooker with a heart of gold | A prostitute with heart and intrinsic morality | Nancy (Oliver Twist), Fantine, Inara Serra |
| Hotshot | A reckless character known for taking risks. | Martin Riggs, Pete Mitchell (Top Gun) |
| I | ||
| Ingenue | A young woman who is endearingly innocent and wholesome | Ophelia, Cosette, Snow White |
| J | ||
| Jewish lawyer stereotype | A Jewish lawyer that is clever, greedy, exploitative and dishonest | Maurice Levy (The Wire), David Kleinfeld in Carlito's Way, Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad |
| Jewish mother stereotype | A nagging, overprotective, controlling, smothering, and overbearing mother or wife | Sheila Broflovski, Mrs. Wolowitz. |
| Jock (athlete) | A male athlete, often muscular, but not very smart | Luke Ward |
| Jester | A prankster or fool, originally one employed by a king (court jester) | Puck |
| Jewish-American princess stereotype | Materialistic and selfish Jewish girl with a pampered or wealthy background | Fran Fine, Princess Vespa in Spaceballs |
| K | ||
| Killbot | Usually large, menacing machines created to perpetrate murder | Sentinel (comics), Terminator |
| Knight-errant | A noble Knight on a Quest | Galahad, Sir Gawain |
| L | ||
| Legacy Hero | A hero who inherits or adopts the name and attributes of an already or previously existing hero | The Phantom, Green Lantern, Robin (comics) |
| Lipstick lesbian | Lesbian and bisexual women who exhibit extremely feminine gender attributes | The L Word |
| Little Green Men | Little humanoid extraterrestrials with green skin and antennae on their heads;[14] known familiarly in science fiction fandom as LGM | The Great Gazoo; Martians in Martians, Go Home. |
| Loathly lady | A woman who appears to be hideous, often cursed | The Wife of Bath's Tale |
| Lone Vigilante | Loner who becomes a vigilante for Justice | Batman, Charles Bronson's Death Wish Movies, Dirty Harry |
| Lovers | Main characters who deeply and truly fall romantically in love, despite the blocking effect of other characters. Often moonstruck, star-crossed lovers that are strongly fraternizing with the enemy. | Romeo & Juliet Tony and Maria (West Side Story) |
| M | ||
| Mad scientist | An insane or highly eccentric scientist, often villainous or amoral.[2][15] | Dr. Victor Frankenstein, Dr. Moreau, Rotwang, Davros |
| Magical Negro | A black man with special insight or mystical powers coming to the aid of the white protagonist | Bagger Vance, John Coffey in Green Mile, Dick Hallorann The Shining |
| Mammy archetype | A rotund, homely, and matronly black woman | Aunt Jemima, Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Aunt Chloe in Uncle Tom's Cabin, Louise in Forrest Gump, Calpurnia in To Kill a Mockingbird, Mammy Two Shoes in the Tom and Jerry series |
| Manic Pixie Dream Girl | Usually static characters who have eccentric personality quirks and are unabashedly girlish | Garden State, (500) Days of Summer |
| Marianismo | A female Hispanic American folk character celebrating feminine virtues like purity and moral strength | |
| Martian[2][14] | Dwellers on Mars. Often prone to invade earth. | Barsoom, H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, Mars Attacks |
| Mary Sue | A youthful but one-dimensional character with overly idealized and hackneyed mannerisms, often considered a stand-in for the author | Wesley Crusher, Bella Swan |
| Miles Gloriosus | A boastful soldier from the comic theatre of ancient Rome | Volstagg |
| Monster[2] | A generic feral antagonist; sometimes portrayed as misunderstood | Godzilla, Frankenstein's monster, King Kong |
| Mother's boy | A man who is excessively attached to his mother | Private Frank Pike, Howard Wolowitz in The Big Bang Theory, Eddie Kaspbrak in Stephen King's It |
| N | ||
| Nerd | A socially-impaired, obsessive, or overly-intellectual person. Often interested in doing well in school (academically and in terms of behavior) as well as reading books. | Martin Prince, Steve Urkel, Sheldon Cooper |
| Nice Jewish boy stereotype | A studious, gentle and sensitive Jewish boy. | |
| Noble savage | An idealized indigene or otherwise wild outsider with noble characteristics. | Chingachgook, Tarzan, Winnetou |
| O | ||
| Outlaw (stock character) | A romanticized, often charismatic or social bandit. | Robin Hood, Billy the Kid, Man with No Name |
| Occult detective | Traditional detective who investigates supernatural mysteries. | John Constantine, Hellboy |
| P | ||
| Paladin | A holy knight, a paragon of virtue and goodness. | Huma Dragonbane, Sturm Brightblade, Knights of the Round Table |
| Pantomime dame | A pantomime portrayal of female characters by male actors in drag. | Widow Twankey |
| Pet Negro | A beloved black person that a particular white person often pampers and parades as a special and distinct from other black people.[16] | Arnold Jackson, "Stephen" in "Django Unchained" |
| Petrushka | A Russian kind of jester. | |
| Princesse lointaine | A romantic love interest and beloved sweetheart and girlfriend for a Knight-errant. | Dulcinea. |
| Professor | A common generic name for fictional characters who fill the role of doctors, scientists, or mad scientists. | Emmett Brown, The Professor (Gilligan's Island) |
| R | ||
| Rake | A man habituated to immoral conduct. | Francis Charteris (rake), Lord Byron. |
| Redshirt | An expendable character who dies soon after being introduced; this refers to characters from the original Star Trek television series, often from the security or engineering departments of the starship, who wore the red variation of the Starfleet uniform and whose purpose in the narrative was to serve as cannon fodder | Star Trek. |
| Reluctant hero | A person who doesn't seek adventure or the opportunity to do good, and often doubts his or her abilities to rise to heroism. However, circumstances result in the character's becoming a true hero. | Bilbo Baggins, Frodo Baggins, Alex Rogen from The Last Starfighter. |
| S | ||
| School diva | A well-liked or worshipped female student, who sees herself as an alpha female. Her male analogue is the Big Man on Campus (BMOC) | Blair Waldorf from the Gossip Girl TV and novel series, Regina George in Mean Girls, Angela Hayes in American Beauty |
| Secret identity | An alias a character may take so that he or she may act in secrecy. | Superman's alias Clark Kent, Spider-Man's alias Peter Parker, and Batman's alias Bruce Wayne. |
| Senex iratus | A father figure and comic archetype who belongs to the alazon or impostor group in theater, manifesting himself through his rages and threats, his obsessions and his gullibility. | Pantalone in Commedia dell'arte; Frank Costanza (Seinfeld) |
| Shoulder angel | A small angel representing conscience, in contrast to the shoulder devil representing temptation | Jiminy Cricket |
| Shrew | A woman given to violent, scolding, particularly nagging treatment | Kate (The Taming of the Shrew) Lois (Malcolm in the Middle) |
| Sidekick | A plucky but generally subordinate close companion of the protagonist | Robin, Dr. Watson, Sancho Panza, Little John |
| Sinnekins | Pairs of devilish characters who exert their perfidious influence on the main character | Flotsam and Jetsam, Hotep and Huy in The Prince of Egypt |
| Soubrette | A character who is vain and girlish, mischievous, lighthearted, coquettish and gossipy | Susanna |
| Southern belle | A young woman of the American Old South's upper class | Blanche Dubois, Scarlett O'Hara, Blanche Maxwell in Mandingo (film), Lara Lee Candie-Fitzwilly in Django Unchained, Mistress Epps in 12 Years a Slave |
| Space Nazis | Nazi-like antagonists in science fiction works | Patterns of Force, Iron Sky, Galactic Empire (Star Wars) |
| Space pirate | Pirates in outer space who travel by spacecraft | Captain Harlock Sabalom Glitz |
| Spear carrier | A minor character who appears in several scenes, but mostly in the background | Momo (Avatar: The Last Airbender) |
| Spinster | An older, childless woman who has never been married | Miss Havisham |
| Spoiled child | A child who exhibits behavioral problems from overindulgence by his or her parents | Veruca Salt, Veronica Lodge, Dudley Dursley |
| Strawman | A symbol for people regarded as lacking needed qualities | Old Major and Benjamin in Animal Farm |
| Stupid superior | A superior who misuses his or her power - with or without an own agenda - and therefore endangers subordinates | Admiral Marcus (Star Trek Into Darkness), Dwayne T. Robinson in Die Hard |
| Superhero | An unrealistically powerful hero dedicated to protecting the public[2] | Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, Avengers, X-Men |
| Übermensch[2] | A (often only seemingly) perfect human being, esp. the DC Comics character Superman | Superman, Captain America |
| Supersoldier | A soldier who operates beyond human limits or abilities | Captain America; Soldier (1998 American film), Master Chief (Halo) |
| Supervillain | Antithesis to the Superhero | Lex Luthor, The Joker, Dr. Doom |
| Swamp monster | Humanoid creatures similar to fish or resembling living piles of swamp mire | Heap (comics), Man-Thing, Swamp Thing |
| Swashbuckler | A joyful, noisy and boastful renaissance era swordsman or pirate | The Crimson Pirate, Dread Pirate Roberts, Zorro |
| T | ||
| Tarzanesque protagonist[17] or Tarzanide[18] | A character raised in the wilds, often by animals, akin to Tarzan | Bomba, the Jungle Boy, Cave Girl, George of the Jungle, Ka-Zar (comics), Korak, [ Mowgli, Nyoka the Jungle Girl, Rulah, Shanna the She-Devil, Sheena, Queen of the Jungle |
| Tomboy | A girl with boyish and/or manly behavior. | Arya Stark, Juno MacGuff, George (Famous Five) |
| Tortured artist | A character who is in constant torment due to frustrations with art and other people. | Brian Topp |
| Town bully | A bully oppressing meeker residents of a town. | Biff Tannen, Nelson Muntz, Henry Bowers in It (1990 film) |
| Town drunk | A male in a small town who is drunk more often than sober. | Barney Gumble, Haymitch Abernathy, Otis Campbell |
| Tragic anti-hero | An anti-hero who (merely accidentally than intentionally) destroys his own happiness, and therefore often turns back to fighting the evil | Elric of Melniboné, Anakin Skywalker, Severus Snape |
| Tragic hero | A hero with a major flaw that leads to his or her eventual death and downfall. | Sigurd, Boromir, Orpheus |
| Tragic mulatto | A mulatto who is sad or suicidal because he or she fails to fit in with white or black people | Judy Kovacs in the episode Are You Now or Have You Ever Been in the television series Angel, Eliza, Cassy, and Emmeline in Uncle Tom's Cabin |
| Travesti | Portrayal of a character in an opera, play, or ballet by a performer of the opposite sex | Edna Turnblad |
| Treasure guardian | A character who guards a valued treasure | Frodo Baggins |
| Tycoon | A person who wields considerable economic power, often acting at the expense of the less fortunate | Montgomery Burns, Scrooge McDuck, Ebeneezer Scrooge |
| V | ||
| Valley girl | Affluent women or teenagers characterized by speaking Valspeak and a vapid materialism | Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls |
| Vice | An allegorical evil part in medieval morality plays. | |
| Village idiot | A person known locally for ignorance or stupidity. Often turns out to be very brave and good, and sometimes, underestimated (see Wise fool) | Neville Longbottom |
| Villain[2] | An evil character in a story | Snidely Whiplash, Fu Manchu, The Master, Lord Voldemort, Palpatine, Professor Moriarty |
| W | ||
| Whisky priest | A priest or ordained minister who shows clear signs of moral weakness, while at the same time teaching a higher standard | Father Callahan, Elmer Gantry, Samuel Parris |
| Whiteface | A performance in which a black person wears theatrical makeup to make themselves look like a white character | White Chicks, Watermelon Man, Miles Pope in True Identity, Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi, The Blacks (play) |
| White hunter | White big-game hunters in Africa | Allan Quatermain |
| Wise fool | A fool with an attribute of wisdom | Shakespearean fool, such as in King Lear, Stańczyk |
| Wise old man | An elderly character who provides wisdom to the protagonist. | Obi-Wan Kenobi, Albus Dumbledore, Yoda, Gandalf, Keisuke Miyagi |
| Y | ||
| Yokel | An unsophisticated country person | Rose Nylund, Cletus Spuckler |
| Youxia | A Chinese type of the Knight-errant | Li Mu-Bai, Fong Sai-yuk |
| Z | ||
| Zombie[2] | Animated corpses prone to eating humans and thus spreading their condition. Often caused by Voodoo practices or viral agents. | Dawn of the Dead, The Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, Inferi |
See also
References
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- ↑ M. Keith Booker. Encyclopedia of Comic Books and Graphic Novels: [Two Volumes]. [S.l.]: ABC-CLIO, 2010. 9780313357473
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ http://www.unz.org/Pub/AmMercury-1943may-00593,
- ↑ Vivanco, Luis Antonio ; Gordon, Robert J. . Tarzan was an eco-tourist--: and other tales in the anthropology of adventure. [S.l.: s.n.]. p. 114
- ↑ Association pour la diffusion de la pensée française, France. Direction générale des relations culturelles. Bulletin critique du livre français, Edições 628-630. [S.l.]: Association pour la diffusion de la pensée française, 2001.
