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10 characters so real, readers wanted them to exist

Literature has given us characters that transcend the page, capturing imaginations and defining genres. From heroic adventurers to beloved childhood icons and cunning antiheroes, these 10 figures have left an indelible mark on readers worldwide. Each has a unique story and a lasting legacy that continues to shape culture and fiction.

Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, Sherlock Holmes is a consulting detective known for his astute logical reasoning, use of forensic science, and keen observation skills.

Holmes first appeared in A Study in Scarlet, setting the gold standard for detective fiction. His iconic deerstalker hat, pipe, and razor-sharp mind have made him a lasting symbol of intellectual prowess in literature and media.

From Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813), the beloved Elizabeth Bennet navigates the complex social expectations and romantic entanglements of Regency-era England in her pursuit of love and self-discovery.

Austen’s sharp observations challenged the societal norms of early 19th-century England, and her brilliantly crafted heroines remain enduring models of wit, independence, and strength.

From Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), Atticus Finch stands as one of literature’s most enduring symbols of integrity and justice. As a small-town lawyer in 1930s Alabama, he defends a Black man wrongly accused of assaulting a white woman, facing social backlash for upholding equality before the law.

Finch was inspired in part by Lee’s own father, Amasa Coleman Lee, a lawyer who once defended two Black men in a similar case.

From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), Jay Gatsby embodies the allure and tragedy of the American Dream. A self-made millionaire who rises from poverty, Gatsby devotes his life to winning back his lost love, Daisy Buchanan, through wealth, charm, and lavish parties on Long Island.

Fitzgerald based Gatsby’s world on the excesses of the Jazz Age, drawing inspiration from real figures of the Roaring Twenties.

First appearing in Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and later starring in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), Huck became an icon of youthful independence and moral awakening.

Rejecting the constraints of "civilized" society, he embarks on a journey down the Mississippi River with the runaway slave Jim. Often called the first true American novel, Huckleberry Finn broke literary conventions and helped shape modern realism in fiction.

From J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye (1951), Holden Caulfield became the voice of postwar teenage alienation. Disillusioned by the "phoniness" of the adult world, he wanders New York City after being expelled from prep school, searching for meaning and authenticity in a world that to him feels hollow.

Salinger’s use of colloquial language and raw introspection was groundbreaking, influencing generations of writers and readers to this day.

Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847) introduced one of literature’s first truly modern heroines. Orphaned and mistreated, Jane rises through hardship to become a governess and falls in love with the mysterious Mr. Rochester, but refuses to sacrifice her integrity or independence even for love.

Brontë’s portrayal of a woman asserting both moral and emotional autonomy was groundbreaking for its time and helped redefine the role of the heroine in English literature.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897) introduced the world’s most famous vampire—a sophisticated aristocrat who conceals a monstrous thirst for blood.

Inspired by Eastern European folklore and possibly the real-life Vlad the Impaler, Stoker’s creation redefined the vampire myth. Count Dracula became a lasting symbol of fear, desire, and immortality, influencing countless adaptations and shaping an entire genre of horror.

From J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954–1955), Frodo Baggins embodies the quiet courage of the ordinary person thrust into extraordinary circumstances. Tasked with destroying the One Ring, he journeys from the peaceful Shire into the heart of darkness to save Middle-earth.

Unlike traditional epic heroes, Frodo’s power lies in humility and persistence, making him a timeless symbol of inner strength and the cost of doing what’s right.

Homer’s Odyssey, composed around the 8th century BCE, presents Odysseus as the archetype of the clever hero. After the fall of Troy, his ten-year journey home to Ithaca becomes a test of endurance, intellect, and will as he faces gods, monsters, and temptation.

Renowned for his wit and adaptability, Odysseus embodies the Greek ideal of metis—strategic intelligence. His story also helped define the hero’s journey narrative that shaped Western literature, influencing countless tales of adventure and human struggle against fate.

DO YOU STILL REMEMBER YOUR GRANDPARENT'S PHONE NUMBER?

Remember these 10 things you don’t need to remember anymore?

Image: Eric Rothermel

If you were born more than 25 years ago you probably recall a time when you had to remember things like a phone number, an address, directions for going somewhere, birthdays, and many more things you don’t need to remember anymore. Technology helps us in a million different ways in our daily lives and one of the most frequent examples is the amount of things that it "memorizes" for us. Listed below you will find ten things that were once stored in our brains and have now been transferred to technological devices. Do you remember them?

Image: Wesley Hilario

There was a time when everybody knew the telephone numbers they used the most.

It was the most common thing, knowing your close family members, friends, or even work telephone numbers. Maybe you even remember some of those numbers to this day.

Nowadays, since cell phones have become a universal and integral part of our world, nobody knows anybody’s phone number. We just trade contacts and look for their names whenever we need to make a call.

Image: Blessing Ri

Back in an age where with no social media, like Facebook, birthdays and anniversaries were dates usually remembered, or at least, marked in paper calendars. And, while we still remember the birthdays of our closest relatives and friends, most people rely on social media platforms like Facebook, to remind them of everybody else’s birthdays, or push notifications that simply pop up on our cell phone screens with the relevant information.

Image: Eric Prouzet

Knowing an address number was a common thing back in the day when contact information was not a standardized thing readily accessible on our cell phones. It may be hard to understand in a day and age when most addresses are forwarded to us on WhatsApp messages, sometimes with a location pin even, but it was very normal to have to write down addresses on a piece of paper until you remembered them.

Image: Anna Pascale

Since we just mentioned addresses, there is no sense in beating around the bush with this and we must talk about another item on this list that is intrinsically connected with the former: directions.

There was a time when it was normal to carry around a city map if one was unfamiliar with the area or ask a stranger for directions. And, while some people still do those same things, most of us rely on the Maps location on our smartphone to guide us anywhere we go.

Who needs to memorize streets and corners beforehand when they can simply take their phone and ask to be guided with whichever voice they prefer?

Image: BENCE BOROS

Some people still use them. Maybe you do too. Do you remember schedule diaries? People wrote their appointments in those books or maybe used little Post-it notes on their freezer doors and bathroom mirrors to remind them. And, when the day of the appointment came, they had to remain vigilant of the time and remember what was that they had to do and where.

These days, your smartphone will send you one or more reminders during the day, with directions if needed, possible departure times, and several recommendations.

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Granted, it was much more simpler to remember one or two passwords a couple of decades ago than the million ones we are required to create and remember these days. Back in the day, unless you were a spy or something of the sort, there weren’t that many passwords to recall. But the ones that we had, were usually stored in our heads, or maybe written down in little papers and folded into our wallets.

Nowadays, Google will recommend a password and offer the remember it, and auto-complete any instance when it is needed, so you don’t have to worry about it.

Image: Torbjørn Helgesen

Those crumpled pieces of paper stored in our pockets, containing shopping lists and things to do were an ubiquitous item in our lives. And, if the list was tragically forgotten at home, we had to try and remember whatever was on that list.

Once again, smartphones have replaced such lists with a very convenient notepad application that even reminds us to check it once in a while.

Image: Debby Hudson

Browsing through cookbooks, asking people for recipes, storing handwritten papers and magazine pages with recipes in notebooks, asking for the advice of more experienced cooks, and remembering quantities and procedures were common practices in an age before the internet and even more so, in an age before smartphones.

These days, all you have to do if you want to cook anything is look it up on your phone and a million different recipes, with detailed videos will pop up immediately. And, if you don’t have a kitchen timer, you can set up multiple simultaneous alarms on, again, your phone.

Image: Jordan Ladikos

Waiting for the weatherman on the TV, or looking up the forecast in the newspaper, or asking somebody for a rain prediction were pretty much the only ways to know how the weather was going to behave in the following days.

It seems like the smartphone has come to solve this situation too, since all you have to do now is look into its permanently updated forecast to know how the weather is going to be in the next 10 days.

Image: Alexander Andrews

In a day and age when a photographic camera was a separate device from a telephone, certain skills were necessary to handle it. Even an amateur aficionado needed to learn a thing or two about the focus, aperture, exposure, and a few other things before he or she was ready to go out into the world and take decent pictures.

These days, almost nobody owns a camera anymore. Most people just use the camera on their phones which requires a simple point-and-shoot attitude to the whole endeavor. Forget the ISO, composition, white balance, and all that. Your phone knows the procedure and will make sure all your pictures are perfect.