Fictional Fans

Someone else mentioned Anne of Green Gables; I'd forgotten how much that entire series was formative in my youth. Talk about memorable characters--I still remember Marilla and Rachel Lynde and Diana, and, of course, Anne.

Certain terrible D&D tie-in novels reminded me of Diana's inability to figure out how to end a story, so she'd just kill all the characters off at the end. I feel that the novel writers in question had the same problem.

Certain flavors of internet trollery reminded me of Anne retorting (when told "Don't mind Rachel, that's just her way") that "If I ran around sticking pins in people, and said, 'Don't mind me, that's just my way', would it be okay?" i.e, being habitually hurtful isn't okay just because it's a habit.

And, of course, Tolkien finally gave me the anti-death penalty rebuttal to Heinlein's pro-death penalty thesis of "they won't be repeat offenders if they're dead".