Adorkable/Literature

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of Adorkable characters in Literature include:

  • Audrey Wait has James, who has an endearing work ethic that results in him being socially clumsy around Audrey. Also Audrey herself, who is unafraid to dance and sing (poorly) in public to songs she likes (and she likes a lot of music).
  • Fitz, from the Doctor Who Eighth Doctor Adventures. He's every inch of the Action Survivor trope, especially the "uncommonly decent" part, The Klutz, Mr. Imagination, Genre Savvy, spends most of his run as companion alongside younger women who could kick his ass. Top it all of with the fact that he is tall and skinny with unruly hair, a long nose, and wide eyes.
    • Also, Karl Sadeghi, from The Year Of Intelligent Tigers: he's shy, bespectacled, has a stutter, and is basically the biggest music geek ever. And considering how touchy-feely he and the Doctor get with each other, it seems that the Doctor sees the appeal.
  • Discworld:
  • Klutzy, gangly and sweet Glen O'Brian in The Purple Widow.
  • This accounts for a lot of Sam's popularity in The Lord of the Rings.
  • The vampire Kostya in Night Watch is a pretty sensitive, nice guy, and there's a scene in Twilight Watch where Anton at first thinks he did a Charm Person on a woman to make her very helpful, but then realizes it was his natural dorky charm.
  • Harry Potter. He's a scrawny boy with perpetually messy hair and glasses who, for most of the series, can't talk to girls romantically without making an idiot of himself.
    • Bushy-haired Bookworm Hermione, who stutters approximately a third of everything she says.
    • Luna Lovegood. Her Cloudcuckoolander nature is a big part of it, but it was cemented by her all too brief time as a Quidditch announcer. Being played by Evanna Lynch doesn't hurt.
    • Neville does qualify. In the beginning books, He's awkward, clumsy, and can't do anything right. Then, in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, you find out Neville's parents were tortured into insanity by Bellatrix Lestrange and you can't help but love the guy. Finally, for the dorks in all of us, heloves plants.
  • Marius from Les Misérables. He's so completely shy that when he sees a pretty girl, he tries to go up and speak to her but runs out of nerve on the way.
    • Of course, his behavior towards other people (including his grandfather) kind of reduces his "adorkable" qualities.
  • Butters from The Dresden Files. "Polka will never die!" No, Butters. It won't.
  • Amelia "Mia" Thermopolis from The Princess Diaries. Especially in the film adaption where she's even more awkward and clumsy and wears glasses before getting contact lenses.
  • Evan Tolliver from The 39 Clues. It's been told that's his girlfriend's secret nickname for him.
  • Shannon Foraker from the Honor Harrington series. Socially-inept technonerd who early on has a hard time keeping track of politics that would have literally endangered her life if not for the captains who valued her wizardry with electronics. (And she still has a hard time keeping track of her wristcomm.)
  • Ella of Ella Enchanted is very clumsy and awkward, especially in the film adaption where she's played by Anne Hathaway.
  • Ed Hamner, Jr. from Stephen King's short story I Know What You Need is described to be this.
  • The titular Stargirl.
  • Melinda Sordino of Speak, is a troubled loner variety of this. It also has a film adaption.
  • Bill Denbrough of IT. It also has a film adaption.
  • Michael from the Knight and Rogue Series
  • Winnie the Pooh, Piglet, and Rabbit.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire: The squire Podrick Payne is a Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass who never fails to stumble over his own words. Self-confessed coward Sam is also quite sweet, and is about as close as you're going to get to a medieval nerd.
  • Richard Mayhew from Neverwhere has this going on, with his initial propensity to get pushed around, his collection of trolls (that got started by accident), and his tendency to look like he's only just woken up. The latter is Lampshaded as making him more attractive to the opposite sex than he'll ever understand or believe.
  • Carrie White. Especially in the movies.

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