AutoJC Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I have to admit, the character Ragnar Danneskjold in Atlas Shrugged gets my vote. Imagine being able to seize ships stocked with foreign aid so that you can give hard-earned money back to the producers in the form of a tax refund? One of the things that stimulates me about Ayn Rand's novels is her ability to concoct such characters. So which Ayn Rand character did you find most fascinating? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackSabbath Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I have to admit, the character Ragnar Danneskjold in Atlas Shrugged gets my vote. Imagine being able to seize ships stocked with foreign aid so that you can give hard-earned money back to the producers in the form of a tax refund? One of the things that stimulates me about Ayn Rand's novels is her ability to concoct such characters. So which Ayn Rand character did you find most fascinating? Ragnar is my favourite character just ahead of Francisco. I wish there was more of Ragnar in the book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Areactor Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Gail Wynand and Dominique Francon. I can't help but to love these two characters. It must be the Nietzsche in me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Concerto of Atlantis Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Ma Chalmers and the 'Soybean Cult'. Seriously though, my favourite character will always be the one that introduced me to this world. The one who stood on a cliff and laughed. Howard Roark. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucentBrave Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Howard Roark... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard_Halley Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I would say Galt, but he had the misfortune of being turned into an abstraction early in Shrugged. So, Roark it is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Invictus Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I liked Eddie Willers. He wasn't endowed with the same talents as Galt or D'Anconia but it never stopped from working to the best of his potential. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evangelical Capitalist Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 My favorite would have to be Hank Rearden. We get to see more of his "intellectual journey" than that of any other character, as he discovers the premises on which he has lived his life versus the premises which direct others. Mostly, though, I think it's the speech at his trial: "the public good be damned." Roark is a very close second. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
always_learning Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I'd go with Roark because I associate with him a little better. He was more of a practical artists than any other character. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AutoJC Posted April 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Gail Wynand and Dominique Francon. I can't help but to love these two characters. It must be the Nietzsche in me. Or perhaps you saw the movie. Both these characters were given great portrayals by Particia Neal (as Dominique) and Raymond Massey (as Wynand). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MinorityOfOne Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 Most fascinating character: Probably Roark, though Ragnar, Dominique, and Wyatt are very strong contenders too. (In very different ways.) Favorite character: definitely Francisco. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Socionomer Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 From a clinical psychological point of view I would say Keating's mom is most fascinating. My favorite scene in The Fountainhead is Roark's encounter with her on the porch of the Keating home at the beginning of the novel. The contrast between the significance that the encounter likely represented for each of them is striking. Whereas Roark may have considered the episode the equivalent of negotiating around a fallen branch obstructing his path on the pavement, Mrs. Keating saw it as an opportunity to address her many neuroses stemming from having existed at the percetual level of awareness for so many years. If any thought did go through Howard's mind at the time, it might have been one of fascination mixed with pity for the extent to which the human spirit can debase itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshleyAyn Posted April 2, 2004 Report Share Posted April 2, 2004 I'd have to say Francisco is my favorite! I said to someone recently {in jest} that I want to meet my Francisco and she wanted to know why I didn't say my Galt...I think that Francisco is the most romantically portrayed character I have ever read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldsalt Posted April 3, 2004 Report Share Posted April 3, 2004 Male character: Hank Rearden. His is the most directly developed characterization. Female character: Dominique. I found way too much of her in myself so it gave me some great insights to some of my own mistakes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tryptonique Posted April 21, 2004 Report Share Posted April 21, 2004 Hank Rearden. I can relate the most to his character. He had personal struggles and he still rose to the top to conquer the industry. In this capacity, I can also relate to Galt's "son of a gas station mechanic" part as well. However, Hank had some personal problems integrating all aspects of Objectivism into his life. He made errors of knowledge, not errors of morality. In that capacity, I have made my own. I'm not proud of them, but you move on because to give up would be the greater crime (as he illustrates to Dagny when he apologizes, tells her he loves her, and lets her know that he knows about her other love). Hank is someone who is always pushing to make yourself. I think the lyrics to the Incubus song "Make yourself" remind me of how Hank sees life which is why I have always liked that song. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kesg Posted April 22, 2004 Report Share Posted April 22, 2004 No one has so far mentioned Dagny Taggart or Equality 7-2521, so I will. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rainoffire Posted April 23, 2004 Report Share Posted April 23, 2004 My personal favourite was Hank Rearden. He appears to start off relatively unarmed against people such as his family and the thugs who steal from him. He tries to appease them, keeping his diquiet to hidden, (esp. concerning his wife). But as the book progresses, we see him arm himself intellectually and see his "rebellion". Besides him, Francisco for his sheer, youthful love of life. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AshRyan Posted May 11, 2004 Report Share Posted May 11, 2004 Ragnar is my favourite character just ahead of Francisco. I wish there was more of Ragnar in the book. Gotta agree with this. I love love love Ragnar and Francisco, and find them to be Rand's most fascinating characters. But then, I love all of Rand's heros, just in different ways and for different reasons. Others high on the list would be Roark, Kira, Equality, Rearden, Mallory...I guess I'd better stop there or I'll just end up listing them all! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Betsy Posted May 11, 2004 Report Share Posted May 11, 2004 I'd have to name the characters who most remind me of the people I know and love. My father was a delightful and challenging combination of Francisco and Rearden. My husband Stephen is like Francisco and John Galt in many respects with some heroic characteristics that are uniquely his own. (Stephen also has a definite Ragnar streak at times, so watch out!). Gotta love 'em! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaSheezy Posted May 12, 2004 Report Share Posted May 12, 2004 Dagny, definately Dagny. Reading her thoughts, for the first time, made my brain scream, "Those are MY thoughts!! In WORDS!!" I had never thought it possible. Atlas Shrugged was my first glimpse into a world that existed, and not just in my own head, and I experienced it all through Dagny's eyes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ramare Posted May 14, 2004 Report Share Posted May 14, 2004 If by fascinating you mean held my interest and made me struggle to understand him, Gail Wynand, far and away. I still go back to puzzling over him every so often. If by fascinating you mean made me laugh, love life, and want to meet him, Francisco dear wins the day. Mr. d'Anconia takes the title for All-Time Favorite Fictional Character (as well as other, more minor, but equally fascinating titles, such as Coolest Name, Best-Looking In a Suit, and Plays Most Interesting Tennis Game.) Some other more minor fascinating characters include Ellis Wyatt, Steven Mallory, and Bjorn Faulkner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmbivalentEye Posted May 16, 2004 Report Share Posted May 16, 2004 Francisco D'aconia is unbeleivable. I thought he was amazing. Dominique is great too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Story Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 Somehow the following passage from Shelton seemed relevant to the discussion about Ayn Rand heroes. --- [begin quote from Shelton] --- Some years ago, I walked into the Hall of The Age of Man in the Museum of Natural History, in New York City. Inside the entrance, on a table, was a display of skulls. In the middle was a beautiful skull. It was larger than the other two, was beautifully proportioned and very symmetrical. The two smaller skulls were disproportionate and asymmetrical. I stopped and surveyed them a minute and remarked to my wife, who was with me, "The one in the middle is a human skull! The other two must be the skulls of apes-perhaps a gorilla and an orangutan." Now there are great differences between the skulls of man and ape, but the contrast between these skulls was so great, that I was fooled for the time. Imagine my chagrin when, upon approaching the table, I found that those two skulls were the skulls of modern European and American white men. The one in the middle was the skull of an old Cro-magnon man. What a fine head that old man had! If the rest of his organism was as much superior to the bodies of modern man as his head is superior to the heads of living man, what a super-man he must have been! We have come a long way down the slope since those far off days when the men of Cro-magnon painted and carved in their caves. The Hygienic System alone holds out to us the possibility of re-ascending that hill and re-attaining the position once occupied by the men of Cro-magnon. It has been suggested that the Greek gods and goddesses were Cro-magnon. Perhaps. --- [end quote from Shelton] --- Perhaps Cro-magnon man would have at least looked like an Ayn Rand hero. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stephen_speicher Posted June 5, 2004 Report Share Posted June 5, 2004 Somehow the following passage from Shelton ... Who is "Shelton?" I knew a Robert Shelton in my third grade class, but I doubt you mean him. If the rest of his organism was as much superior to the bodies of modern man as his head is superior to the heads of living man, what a super-man he must have been! We have come a long way down the slope since those far off days when the men of Cro-magnon painted and carved in their caves. That is bizarre. Do you believe this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerry Story Posted June 8, 2004 Report Share Posted June 8, 2004 Who is "Shelton?" I knew a Robert Shelton in my third grade class, but I doubt you mean him. Considering that you asked, I guess it's proper for me to answer. Be careful what you ask, you might get an answer. Herbert Shelton was definitely NOT an Objectivist. But Shelton was an intellectual giant, and Bo7b Wynman, who admires both Ayn Rand and Shelton, commented more than once over the years that if Rand and Shelton could have met and learned from each other, that would have been a great event. Bo7b Wynman thinks they were geniuses in opposite ways. I tend to agree. But if you really truly want to know about Herbert Shelton, here is one of his best books: http://www.soilandhealth.org/02/0201hyglib...e/020125toc.htm Also there are many more free books, a few by Shelton: http://www.soilandhealth.org/ Shelton was a man with a mission. He passionately devoted his life to the subject of health. Shelton goes down in history as the man who fanned the "dying embers to fierce flame" by his writings, and he salvaged a whole body of literature from oblivion.. I have no opinion about Shelton on CroMagnon man. That's the first time I saw that myself. I don't know what to make of it. Here is a passage from Shelton: --- [begin quote] --- Since the morning stars first sang together no single event has occurred in this earth of ours more significant in its nature and more instructive in its consequences than the rebirth of Hygiene. Hygiene holds out to every human being the most perfect health, the best physical and mental development, the most entire liberty and the most perfect happiness of which man is capable. In that glorious future which is even now, with the aid of our advancing knowledge, opening before us, when man shall live in a day-long, life-long observance of the laws of his being, there shall be no diseased life, no painful death. Such unceasing obedience of the laws of life can result only in health and length of life. Happiness and peace shall reign where now is misery and strife. Beyond that, what is there to be wished for? We assume radical ground for Hygiene and insist, as we have done for years, that if the Hygienic revolution is permitted to complete itself, it will sweep over the world with its saving message and means. Before it, in its majestic march, the prejudices and false theories of centuries, the passions of the interested, the opposition of physicians and the cynicism of skeptics will fall. The gross habits of the masses, the wretched modes of life of the more particular and select, the thoughtless, careless conduct of the guardians of youth, the prevailing ignorance of the laws of life and the yet worse indifference on the part of those who have been set apart to proclaim to man the "way to heaven," will all be destroyed and a new, fresh, unsophisticated life will evolve. Out of this turbid, dark, half-chaotic mass will evolve good health, physical beauty and intellectual and moral excellence. What poor creatures are men and women! How little do they do that lasts! They are born, they suffer, they die and are forgotten. They give birth to offspring that suffer and die as they do. How departure from the laws of being has tamed man and shorn him of his pristine glory! How it has destroyed the image of his Maker from his face and left in its place horrible disfigurement! How it has dimmed his eyes and quenched the bright flash these should wear! How it has bowed the back of once majestic man till his carriage resembles that of felon or slave! How it has robbed his heart of noble impulse and planted there instead low desire and passion! How it has transformed man! With exceptions so rare as to be remarkable, man has presented himself in every phase a creature of low, grovelling appetites and passions, a bond-slave to desires that are abnormal and overpowering. His higher faculties have been subordinated to his propensities, his habits are masters of his principles; his convictions constantly yield to his desires. His aims are low, his gratifications lower; his successes, about which he boasts and swaggers, are sheer fictions; his achievements are practical defeats. From all this degradation and defilement, from this low tone of existence, this groveling in indulgence, this hibernation in darkness, this sub-bestial life, is there no deliverance? Are no means of redemption at hand? There is the primrose path of self-destruction; is there no straight and narrow way to health and happy old age? Let the truthful answer be to all these questions: yes, there is a way to superior health. To those of us who love our bad habits and who refuse to look at them in the bright light of noonday to see what they really are and who refuse to give them up, either for health or for life, but will die first, there is no redemption. For the rest of us, if we start new and saving habits and keep them growing until they have smothered the bad ones, we will have laid the foundation for future health. When all of mankind has been freed from the thralldom of disease-producing habits --- [end quote] --- Another passage: --- [begin quote] --- Our highest ideals, whether of manhood and womanhood or of institutions and life, are merely foreshadowings of possible realities. The wildest speculations of one age become the common-place facts of the next. We may seek every day for the perfect man and woman; but we are not, therefore, justified in declaring that they are never to be found. Perfection comes within the range of human capability. It is a possibility for the race if not for the individual. "There is no telling what tall oak may grow from this little acorn, especially if it is warmed with golden sunshine and watered with silver showers." --- [end quote] --- Warning: Be careful when you ask a question, you might get an answer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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