Thursday, October 10, 2019

Blogtober Day 10: Characters with bad luck

Ever notice how often luck comes into play in stories? It's rarely ever commented upon, but in traditional literature, films and television, the protagonist usually has good luck. They reached their destination, or complete their journey relatively unscathed. They usually end up finding a mysterious stranger with all of the answers at the right time, or in the case of TV or film, they find a helpful newspaper or turn in the TV and see a news report related to the exact thing they're after. Some characters have all of the luck.

Others do not and they're on this list. Aside from Halloween, the most superstitions seem to revolve around Friday the 13th. Since this year, October 13th isn't a Friday, I've decided to discuss unlucky characters today instead.


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Odysseus from The Odyssey

Odysseus is known for two things. One is that he came up with the idea of the Trojan Horse. The second, and more well-known, achievement of his was that it took him an obscenely long time to return home after the Trojan War. The Trojan War ended and it took him 10 years to get home. The man suffered way more crap than anyone could've or should've been forced to endure. He dealt with cyclopses, giants, witches, siren, and multiple shipwrecks, just to name a few obstacles. Yes, he brought some of that on himself by angering Poseidon,  but he still had to go through way more trials and tribulations than was necessary. I'm pretty sure Odysseus earns the gold medal for "Most Unlucky Protagonist"

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Sansa Stark, A Song of Ice and Fire

I could put any of the Starks on this list and it would fit, but I feel like Sansa deserves the title more than the others. From the beginning of A Song of Ice and Fire, it seems like the universe has it out for the Starks, but it seems to hate Sansa the most. Her father is killed, her family is broken apart, she's held captive by her father's killers. The rest of her family is missing, dies or is reported to have died. She's abused by her fiance, before getting cast aside and betrothed to a series of men, each worse than the last. Sansa has to deal with way too much, and all because of a mistake she made as a child and the machinations of others.


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Winston, Nineteen Eighty-four

Winston lives in a dystopia, and he seems to be aware of it. Yet, despite his family all disappearing, having thoughts counter to what the Party tells him is true, and living in an actual dystopia, he's surprisingly optimistic. He believes one day, the Party and Big Brother will be overthrown and something better will replace it. And in return for hoping there will be a better world, Winston is tortured, forced to betray his lover and then released, knowing soon, the Party will kill him.

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Primrose Everdeen, The Hunger Games

I know Katniss seems like a more likely choice, but hear me out. Prim's name gets called at the Reaping, and Katniss volunteers. Some would say that makes Prim lucky, but now she needs to worry about her sister possibly dying in her place. Then, her sister becomes a symbol for the revolution, leading to an attack on, and the destruction of, District 12 which means Prim is forced out of the only home she's ever known. Thrust into the rebellion without much of a choice, Prim becomes a nurse and while helping the injured during the final assault on the Capitol, she's killed in an explosion. Katniss had some bad luck, but she played more of an active part in her fate than Prim did.


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The Baudelaire Children, A Series of Unfortunate Events

Violet, Klaus and Sunny go from one terrible situation to another, chased all the while by Count Olaf, in the series. Their parents die in a fire, they are sent to live with Olaf, but even after they get away from him, he continues to pursue them. From one bad living situation to another, these kids can't seem to catch a break.

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Arthur Dent, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Arthur Dent just wanted to prevent his house from getting bulldozed. Instead, the entire planet Earth gets destroyed, leaving him as one of the last humans in the universe. He then spends several years flying around the universe, never fully understanding what's going on or why his planet was destroyed. Other characters I mention had bad luck, but they didn't lose their whole planet in the process. 

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