Fictional Crushes Tag

Rachna tagged me. Exactly what I need right now, a tag, to get back on writing business of blogging.

So this tag that Rachna created, is about, surprise surprise, fictional heroes (I have known Rachna since school days: she defines the word book worm. Its an accomplishment for me if I can find a book that I have read and she hasn’t! By book I, of course, mean fictional books and not course books). The tag requires to name ten fictional crushes I have ever had. I am not sure if I can name ten of them because like real crushes, my fictional crushes fades away and I don’t even remember them after a while. Yet, here is a list of my fictional crushes that I do remember(in the descending order of intensity of my crush: the top one being the most intense):

1. Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastián d'Anconia or simply, Francisco d’Anconia (Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand): I have the biggest crush ever on Francisco d’Anconia. Honestly, my heart race every time his name appears in the book. I dream about him, I wish he was real so that I can meet him just once in real life.

Why do I like him so much, you ask? He is a perfect man. He can do anything, any work perfectly and effortlessly. As Ayn Rand says while sketching his character:

Two things were impossible to him: to stand still or to move aimlessly.

"Let's find out" was the motive he gave to Dagny and Eddie for anything he undertook, or "Let's make it." These were his only forms of enjoyment.

Just my kind of person and then there is his famous money speech is a killer. Just an excerpt:

"So you think that money is the root of all evil?" said Francisco d'Anconia. "Have you ever asked what is the root of money? […]

"When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor--your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?”

2. Fitzwilliam Darcy or simply, Mr. Darcy (Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen): I won’t be exaggerating if I say that he is every teenage girl crush. Well he was mine. On my sixteenth b’day, a neighborhood didi presented me with two abridged books: ‘Little Women’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice’. Till then my reading habits were restricted to Archies, Tintin, Nandan, The Three Investigators, Nancy Drew and Famous Five. It was my first introduction to Jane Austen and I simply fell in love.

Why do I like him? In the first pass Mr. Darcy is arrogant, haughty, snob and all the other synonym of the word. But the way he changed for his love Elizabeth Bennet. All the things he did for her and the way he pursued her: simply romantic. Is it a surprise that I fell in love with him as a teenager?

3. Alan Shore (Boston Legal): The next fictional character that makes my heart go ‘ooh’, ‘aah’, doesn’t belong to a book but to a TV series called Boston Legal. But as he is still a fictional character, I think he counts. (Just so we are clear, I love Alan shore and not James Spader, the guy who plays Alan Shore. No doubt that James have done a great job but its the character that I have crush on and not the actor).

Alan is far from perfect. In fact, the first time I watched Boston Legal, I found him very inappropriate, sexist and even cheesy but his heart is in the right place. He always do the right thing even if it means being slightly off track, and even, at times, illegal. His arguments in the court, his logic, his views, his attitude, and his caring nature (despite being a lawyer), grows on you till he becomes irresistible. And the best of all, his friendship with Denny Crane. Denny Crane has completely opposite views about life, politics and everything else, as compared to Alan and yet both of them are inseparable. Difference in opinion do get in the way of their friendship and yet their friendship survives. I simply love watching that show and every time Alan Shore appears on the screen, my heart starts beating a bit faster.

4. Cole Turner (Charmed):  Yet another TV character who make my heart race. I started watching Charmed back in India (on Star Movies, I think). I am a big sucker for any TV series, book, movie based on magic, witches, wizards, vampires etc but honestly this series is very cheesy. But there are few characters that absolutely captivated me. Cole Turner (played by Julian McMahon) is introduced in season 3 as a love interest for Phoebe (played by Alyssa Milano) the youngest of the charmed sisters. He is half human and half demon, and is sent by the Source (of all evil) to destroy the Charmed sisters. But his human half fells in love with Phoebe: deeply and passionately in love. He turn against everything he has known for his entire life to be with her. Some thing or the other keep happening and the two of them never get together in real sense.

The tortured love, the bad boy, the rebellion all of these factors makes him so lucrative, I guess. He makes my heart pound. I love the season three to season five of Charmed just because of him. Coincidentally, I tried watching a lot of other movies and serials starring Julian McMahon but it was just the Cole Turner character that has that effect on me.

5. Raj Malhotra (Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge): Let me start this one with the statement that I don’t like Shahrukh Khan. I think he overacts and dramatize even the simplest of the scenes. The only movie I can tolerate him in is Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge and again, it has more to do with the character he played than him.

Raj Malhotra, is a party boy, an incurable flirt and yet when he falls in love, he is sincere, he is respectful and he understands Simran’s (played by Kajol) emotional turmoil of choosing between love and heart, or family and tradition. Which Indian teenager girl can resist him? I couldn’t. I have watched the movie uncountable times and each time I fall in love with him yet again.

Well that’s all the fictional characters I could think of that make my heart race. How about you? Pick up the tag if you like it. If you are a bookworm (or even a movie lover, or a TV addict), you would love doing it..