Ok, for this weeks poll lets take a look at magic. Specifically, who is the greatest, most memorable and/ or most influential magic user in fiction. Now, we are only looking at magic users in the sense of wizards, witches, warlocks and mages, so no gods or magicians (so people who perform magic tricks but have no magical power), and fiction can cover any of the following; Books, TV, Film and Comics/ Manga, so no real life magicians (who wouldn't count anyway because they don't have any actual magical power).
As usual, I've given you 10 examples to start with, you can add your own, but please make sure you put the series the character is from in brackets next to your submission, otherwise they won't get added to the poll.
Merlin is the gold standard to which all other magic users will always be compared.
Yes, but he isn’t listed in the Chicago Phone book, now is he? Jim Butcher’s Harry Dresden may not have the raw magical Oomph of some of these guys, but he’s a lot easier to relate to, and his adventures aren’t hundreds of years old… 😉
I’d have to say Gandalf, since he is the quintessential interpretation of the classic wizard. Merlin is a fuzzy archetype that was only brought into focus by Tolkien’s Gandalf. Since Gandalf came onto the scene, seemingly everyone making a wizard character has either tried to copy him or tried to specifically avoid any similarities with the character. But that’s just my opinion. ;-]
I’m going to vote for Milamber/Pug of Crydee, from the Riftwar Saga by Raymond E. Feist. Those books blew my mind when I read them a few years ago, and the character is a personal favourite wizard.
I think Merlin is probably the most influential character from the list, being the OG of wizards, but Gandalf, Dumbledore, etc. are all great and memorable in their own ways.