Obligatory shirtless, sweaty photo/painting? of the #1 character
I think it's safe to say...we were both right. :)
Here's the top ten!
1. Sawyer
2. Ben
3. Locke
4. Hurley
5. Desmond
6. Faraday
7. Jack
8. Juliet
9. Tie: Charlie & Kate
10. Sayid
Does that represent your top ten? Do Sawyer, Ben, Locke, Hurley & Desmond represent your top 5? Notably absent? Jin & Sun. Although if I had kept them as one character (which, when you share flashbacks/forwards/inevitably sideways and your entire character growth and storyline is intertwined with the person AND YOU SHARE A GOD DAMN NUMBER, seems like the best & most accurate way to categorize them) they would safely come in at #11, tied with Miles. Which brings me to the rest!
11. Miles
12. Richard
13. Eko
14. Jin
15. Sun
16. Rose/Bernard
17. Tie: Jacob & Frank
18. Tie: Ana Lucia, Dogen & Claire
19. Smokey
20. Tie: Christian Shephard/Rousseau
Those who got some love, but not enough to make the top 20, are: Penny, Charlotte, Boone, Shannon, Frogurt, Caeser (really? who voted for him? really?), & Roger Linus. Those who only got one vote: Widmore, Ethan, Friendly, Michael, Libby, Lennon, Arzt, Eloise Hawking & Ilana.
People I forgot to put on the list? Marvin Candle, Nikki/Paolo, Mikhail, Alex, Karl, Keamy, Naomi & Matthew Abaddon
But my favorite part of all of this was reading your actual top fives in the comments. Only about a third chose both Locke & Ben, while most selected one or the other, but not both. Overall, each top five was incredibly distinct & specific, proving that Lost is so well-written, so diverse and represents so many different types of people, that you never know which five a given person is going to say. How many TV shows can you say that about? Not to mention the love bestowed upon characters we only got for a season or so (Faraday), characters meant to foil the ones we're supposed to love (Juliet), & characters who we only really learned something about last night (Richard).
I love Lost.
Check out the original poll here See full post