Favourite Male Character // 30-Day Book Challenge - Day 15

Today is the fifteenth day of the 30-day book challenge, in which I will be writing about a different book or book series every day for 30 days, with each book chosen according to the daily prompt. Today's prompt is: "favourite male character".

I know that I have complained about these challenges being difficult every day since I started (almost as if they were meant to be challenging or something), but I genuinely think this is the hardest prompt I've attempted so far. I tend to read more books by and/or about women than those which have male authors or protagonists, so I had somewhat fewer options to choose from than I will for tomorrow's prompt, "favourite female character". That said, I think I have finally settled on a character I am happy to select for this challenge. He might not be my all-time favourite male character, although I'm not sure who would be, but I think he is worthy of having a post dedicated to him all the same. The character I have chosen is Mercutio, from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

While I'm sure most of you reading are familiar with at least the basics of Romeo and Juliet's plot, you may not be familiar with how Mercutio fits into things. As you are probably aware, the story of Romeo and Juliet focuses on two teenagers who fall in love despite coming from two warring families, the Montagues and the Capulets. Mercutio appears as one of Romeo's two best friends, along with his boyfriend the significantly less-memorable Benvolio.

To me, Mercutio is without a doubt the best character in Romeo and Juliet. He's at times moody and rude, at others fun and jovial, but he's always witty and humorous, sometimes inappropriately so. This is the person who, while dying from a stab wound, took the opportunity to make a pun about being a "grave man", after all.

Mercutio has little patience with Romeo's pining or the Montague/Capulet feud, and he's often found winding his friends up with his sassy but facetious comments. However, he also has a short temper, one which ultimately leads to his death.

Mercutio brings some much-needed levity and wit to Romeo and Juliet, and his charisma and theatricality remains iconic whether he is acting grumpy or funny. It's no wonder that many of the actors who've portrayed him appear to be having such fun with his character, like Harold Perrineau in the scene below, from Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet.

More than being a great character in his own right, Mercutio represents for me some of my favourite and yet most frequently side-lined aspects of Shakespeare's plays: their wit, their humour, and their infectious, campy theatricality.