For this exercise, all you need is a good movie, TV show, comic, or game, pen and paper, and a notebook or folder. Everytime you find a character you like, take the time to analyze him or her, then base a character of your own on him or her. Change things like the name and whatever you don't like about him. If you need him or her for a story, change his/ her background and such to fit the setting. (Actually, you could do this with things like monsters, weapons, and items, too.) Keep these things in a folder or notebook. You may want them later. I know that plagarism is a big deal in school, but don't worry, this is not plagarism! It is common in movies, TV, literature, and games. For instance, Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai movie Yojimbo was based on the 1928 book Red Harvest, a crime story about an unnamed gunslinger who cleans up a town over-ridden with crime, mostly by pitting the bad guys against each other, but he wasn't against offing them when he needed to. Yojimbo was later remade by Italian director Sergio Leone into Per un pugno di dollari, a.k.a. A Firstful of Dollars (1964). Yojimbo was also remade into the 1990 movie Last Man Standing. (Much thanks to Jitterbug Fantasia's Star Wars Origins. You can read there where George Lucas got the inspiration for Star Wars.)

I think this is an interesting exercise - partly because I already do it ;) and partly because I'd like to see others' identificaton of character archetypes and creation of variations upon them. So orionx, what do you want us to post here? Something about the results of theexercise, but what?

I'd like to see how other writers change known characters into something of their own. For instance, a lot of what I like to write deals with demons and Japanese history and such. I could take a well known character-- Solidus Snake-- and turn him into a demon with four tentacles and two katanas. It may sound bland, because I gave a bland description, but I think this could be used to do some good in people's writings.

I'd kinda like to note that I don't mean to copy Boolean in his posting of exercises. I had came up with a few of my own to practice with a while back and since he had been posting his in hopes of helping others, I figured I could do the same.

Alright here's mine. I was initially interested in the character Tomo from Fushigi Yuugi. He is a minor villain who is slavishly loyal to the major villain for reasonsof unrequited love. Perhaps the most interesting thing about his character is that he had very poor self esteem with regards to his leader/love object and was quietly begging for affection, but acted very egotistial and angry/defensive to everyone else. He was also intelligent, creative, and somewhat immoral in thinking of assorted villainous plans. His profession was acting, but I didn't think that was essential. He had a wierd appearance that made people shy away from him and no friends, and was powerful because he was a 'celestial warrior' with a magical fighting ability.

Next I encountered the character Severus Snape in the Harry Potter books. He isn't described that much in cannon, but he is definitely sort of 'tame villain' - his students are all scared of him because he is a powerful and weird-looking wizard who appears to be a bad guy, but really he's a spy for the good guys (sneaky and good at acting). And like Tomo he is intelligent, has no friends, and is generally angry/defensive. Fanwriters have developed his character in several ways, often speculating that he is slightly sadistic and amoral, and often adding a element of unrequited love to his story.

Now I saw Grima Wormtongue in Lord of the Rings. Again, a minor villain with a wierd appearance and no friends, motivated by unrequited love, intelligent and sneaky (advisor to a king), and angry/defensive/egotistical except toward his leader and his love object wrt whom he was pleading instead.

So combining these three characters and removing unnecessary details I had an archetype (I dubbed it the 'self-defensive sociopath). Then I added my own details to create my own character Lieann Lord Aravian:

As a beta male, he has generally been maltreated by his society, to which he has reacted by becoming sharp-tongued and sarcastic, and sneaky, creative, and immoral in trying to force the world to give him what he needs. His bitter and bitchy defensive anger combined with his attitude of superiority because of his intelligence scare off anyone who might have been willing to befriend him despite his appearance/gender. Desperate for affection and feeling that everyone hates him already and he has nothing to lose, he is thus the perfect candidate to abuse his power as a nobleman to take an extreme action such as kidnapping the object of his affection, blackmailing someone into sleeping with him, or even acquiring a slave to use as a lover (which is what I wanted to happen in the plot).