Video game: Mog
Anime: Werdna, from Wizardry(the Anime).
I’m not evil, but I identify with him very much based on his attribute of being constantly thwarted. His failures come from being evil. I’m more mundane and benign.
Sai from Hikaru no Go. I don’t know about identifying with him as far as identical personalities, but he has the attributes I strive to have mainly passion/hard work/selflessness/fun.
For games: Thomas from Suikoden III mainly because I can identify with how much he gets bothered by other people, but also for some of the same reasons above.
I don’t identify per se with any videogame character, but I like “blank slate” characters. Picturing Samus contemplating possible tuna recipes for her dinner while she’s exploring Zebes/SR3(88?) is kinda fun.
I also like Guybrash Threepwood’s attitude.
If I had to pick… hmmmmmm…
In RPG terms, I’m probably a lot like Ike from Fire Emblem. Quiet and strong leader but needs somebody else to really do the thinking.
In Anime, either Bakura from Yugioh or Majin Buu from DBZ. There are just times that I want to go crazy and eat a lot :p. I’m a softy at heart but in the right moment I can seem like I’m totally different.
To answer my own question, it would probably be Cloud from FF7. For some reason, he really resonated with me. It probably had something to do with the whole idea that he was crazy and fragile, but was capable of being strong, and had to get his act together. I really identified with that when I was 16. Heck, I still do, to an extent.
Game: Grimgrim, the Guardian Legend. I’m pretty sure if anyone ever damaged me (and it would take an advanced human/machine hybrid capable of interstellar flight and high-speed combat), I would start fissioning eyeballs like nobody’s business. And the smile.
http://shmups.classicgaming.gamespy.com/guardianlegend/area4.htm#bgrim
Anime: No one character, but a couple brief bits of writing made me think of me.
His and Her Circumstances: When what’s-her-name spent the first minute or so of the first episode describing her total self-absorption and cynical deception of the outside world I thought “wow, whoever wrote this thinks like I do!” I never act like that, though.
Slayers: For a briefest moment in Slayers, in the episode with the Drag-on and Goury in drag, when they finally pushed Goury to the limit and he just went insane, started laughing, stripped down and jumped off the boat to attack the dragon. I can respect that.
Hare+Guu: When Guu started pulling wrestling moves on a bear. I could totally do that.
Yes.
What I find interesting about Cloud is that he <i>deluded</i> himself into believing he was someone special – a SOLDIER, a skilled swordsman, and so on. As a result of that delusion, it rocks his psyche whenever he fails. It threatens the special (delusional) self-identity he’d developed. So to “prove” to himself his own specialness, he forces himself into one challenging situation after another. Even though he fails time and time again (failing to make SOLDIER, not being Tifa’s initial boyfriend, being overwhelmed by Sephiroth, going into the coma, etc.), eventually he emerges as the brilliant swordsman he’d always believed himself to be. He deluded himself to greatness, and (barely) survived and kept his sanity in the process. Ultimately, he recognizes his situation: “So it was my weakness, Sephiroth’s strong will and the Mako that made me who I am today.” It’s interesting to speculate what Sephiroth and the Mako could represent; I’d suggest pride and pleasure.
Anyway, that’s kind of the ongoing dynamic of my life.
Honestly, I’m a cross between Delita Hyral and Yuri Lowell.
Emerald WEAPON
Vincent Valentine. Because I know how embarrassing it is to suddenly transform into a hideous hellbeast. 
Hey, catch me later, I’ll buy you a beer! 
Yeah, it was that whole dichotomy of being both weak and strong at the same time that made me identify with the character. And constantly trying to mold yourself into some kind of idealized hero form, which is what I spent most of my teens wasting my time on. But then realizing you were strong all along, and you didn’t need to do anything to ‘become’ strong… Oh man, I love FF7.
I think the Mako was simply a metaphor for oil and other natural resources, and also a plot device to explain why Cloud was able to have the physical skills of a SOLDIER despite not being trained in the program. As for Sephiroth… I’m honestly not sure. I’ve read all kinds of theories, such that Sephiroth is a metaphor for the concept of Christ or the logos, Jenova being God, and that somehow FF7 has a strongly anti-Judeo-Christian view… “sefira” is the Hebrew word for the logos(connection between God and man), I believe(feel free to jump in here, Cidolfas).
I think the major difference between Sephiroth and Cloud is that Sephiroth never really let go of his hero delusion, believing himself to be some kind of weird savior of the Cetra, and as a result became this horrible destructive force. But this could be reading too much into it; for all its glory, FF7 didn’t really develop Sephiroth as a character.
What’s your theory about Sephiroth and Mako representing Pride and Pleasure?
Ocelot. We have the same moustache and cowboy fetish, and then other reasons I’m not really comfortable explaining.
Hey X-Wing, where’s that theory? 
Sorry, =) been busy with law school homework that I can’t do while I’m in Boston this weekend. It’s not so much a theory of what went through the plot writer’s head. It’s more a way of mapping the experiences of a fantasy character (Cloud) onto real life experiences.
Like I was describing, Cloud had delusions of his own specialness. He tried to act like he was something special: He disdains the other AVALANCHE members. He “rests on the laurels” of having everyone believe he was in SOLDIER, and never tries to break down the barrier that creates between him and his companions. He enjoys acting as though he has a better grasp on the “real” situation than his companions (e.g., when he sets the reactor to self-destruct, or when he explains the history of Sephiroth and Jenova). And when he collapses into comas, he acts as though he’s undergoing deep, supernatural crises that no one else could understand, when they are really just manifestations of his “weakness” (basically just nervous breakdowns).
So we understand 1) the weakness: it’s a natural part of him. The need to be special, and therefore distinct from everyone around him, I call 2) pride. Pride is somewhat natural to his character. Notice how his mom asks him why he doesn’t go out and play with the other kids very often. Lack of interest in associating with others shows pride. But his tendency toward pride is terribly exacerbated by witnessing Sephiroth. Sephiroth is detached from those around him, interested in what runs through his own mind, and – this is the key – <i>actually</i> superior to them in everything he does. Sephiroth thus embodies what Cloud has (vaguely) dreamt of becoming: a self-contained greatness. More importantly, Sephiroth <i>confirms</i> for Cloud that his hero-vision is <i>real</i> and attainable, and not just a childish dream. This is perhaps why Cloud does not “let himself go” like so many late teenagers do when they realize they’re not going to accomplish anything memorable: Sephiroth prevents Cloud from realizing that. So Sephiroth serves as a catalyst for all the strange changes that Cloud undergoes thereafter. That’s why I link Sephiroth to pride.
But that’s not <i>all</i> there is to Cloud. Characters constantly refer to his eyes, that look like they’ve “seen something others haven’t.” That’s literally true, since he’s seen Mako up close. Shinra exposes its SOLDIERs and other creations to Mako. Cloud looks inside a vat and sees a monstrous thing inside, which is monstrous because it was (according to Sephiroth) exposed to extreme amounts of Mako. The implication is that being exposed a little bit, makes you just a little bit monstrous. Or less human. The intensity of the Mako experience removes you from other humans to a certain degree, depending on your exposure. It overwhelms the observer and desensitizes him to everyday experiences. That’s great for Shinra, in that it callouses Shinra troops to the killing they do. But the effect on Cloud is that, when he goes back and tries to deal with ordinary, deeply-feeling people, he strikes them as unusually callous. Meanwhile, he can’t grasp why they <i>care</i> so much about things like the inequalities in the social structure. After beholding the monstrous and the sublime in its essence (in the form of Mako) – remember, his eyes look like they’ve “seen something other people haven’t” – he has less interest in the things ordinary people see.
I equate the Mako experience with 3) pleasure. I could say something like “intense aesthetic and/or visceral stimulation,” but I think “pleasure” captures it just as well. The experience of intense pleasure callouses against feeling and enjoying ordinary pleasures. As a side note, I think a comparison of Mako to hard drugs is warranted.
So it was Cloud’s 1) natural weakness, 2) the pride-justifying experience of witnessing Sephiroth, and 3) the intense pleasure at beholding the Mako up close, that made Cloud who he is today. That’s my theory, anyway. I doubt any of this ran explicitly through the plot-writer’s head. But the goal of analysis is not to extract what the writer was thinking. Creative writers write more based on their aesthetic instinct than on conscious predeliberation. Rather, I think what this theory does is make <i>explicit</i> why FF7 is so relevant to real life, and hence why it is real art.
Yes to the second point, but intense pleasure isn’t incompatible with feeling. Example (heh, he even talks about that at the end of the poem).
Hmm…I can’t think about who I’d identify most with.
But I do look like Gordon Freeman (without the glasses!).
I’ve been told that I could pass as Jeigan of Lupin the III fame (I’m a bit overweight though in my opinion).
As for an anime character that I identify with the most (assuming physical appearance doesn’t count) would be Konota of Lucky Star (due to my nerdy habits of course)…
(also procrastination).
You didn’t think we were going to get through this thread without someone bringing her up, didn’t you!? <_<
Thanks, XWing. I kinda made this thread to get people to really open, so I really appreciated your ideas.
Probably Sai from Naruto, mainly for personality reasons.
Since someone might say something along the lines of ‘narutard’, I only read the manga and have been since I was 16.
Kimahri, for some reason