Draco Malfoy
The privileged, snobby and snivelling son of influential and powerful Lucius Malfoy, he is sent to the best schools but still grows up to be a cowardly bully. Sees the world in simple black-and-white terms (wizard/muggle) and is desperate to please his father at any cost. An insecure boy who lets himself be controlled by others. Represents the worst of his generation. Into torture. But, in the end, surprisingly sympathetic in spite of himself.
Aragorn
Originated in 1954 when The Fellowship of the Ring was released, but he became a cultural icon in this decade thanks to Viggo Mortensen's quietly heroic portrayal of him in Peter Jackson's three Lord of the Rings movies (2001, 2002 and 2003). Lean, dark and tall (with a pale face), according to J.R.R. Tolkien's description, he begins his journey to king and commander-in-chief as something of a community organizer, protecting the hobbits and creating a band of brave souls to ferry Frodo Baggins on his fateful journey. Humble, strong, brave, smart enough to be wary of his own power and married to a hot woman who sacrifices everything to be with him, Aragorn was the kind of leader many spent the decade wishing they could follow.
Edward Mayhew
The hapless male character in Ian McEwan's minor masterpiece, On Chesil Beach, whose narcissistic obsession with his sexual performance on his honeymoon night loses him the woman he loves. Like all modern liberals, he is desperate to appear hip but is hopelessly stuck in an idealized past, pining for the woman he lost. What he's really doing, but can't admit to, is pining for the 1950s, before the freedoms created by the sexual revolution turned everyone into self-centred pseudo-adults who crave society's endorsement and constantly seek it via the updates on their Twitter and Facebook accounts. But it's too late to go back: All Edward Mayhew can do is leap from one adventure (status update) to the next, never stopping to enjoy the moment lest he fall out of step with the constant demands of personal freedom.
Mackenzie Philips
Yes, that was the name of the male main character in The Shack, the religious potboiler about a bereaved man (his young daughter was murdered by a serial killer and her body never found) who has a vision of himself spending time with the Holy Trinity in a rundown shack in the woods. “Mack's” story mirrors the evolution of both books and politics in this decade. The Shack sold more than 10-million copies but was self-published and marketed only on the Internet – the dream scenario of every wannabe writer who has embraced the Web as the liberator of literary genius heretofore held hostage by the “traditional” publishing model. But it wasn't just the Internet that made Mack famous: It was the evangelical Christian right that rocketed The Shack to No. 1 on Canadian and American bestseller lists through word of mouth. Mack unwittingly anticipated both Lulu.com and Sarah Palin.
