However, I think over the years I've come to loathe Drizzt Do'Urden of R.A. Salvatore's soulless cash cow. The character, while a bit of a contrived Sue, used to have a bit of depth to him, and also was accompanied by solid popcorn writing, but I think after his origin trilogy, things just went way the fuck downhill. He's gone from being unrealistically awesome, to just plain unrealistic, especially in the new series. Apparently he needed to be more "gritty" so now a 200 year old man who has lost hundreds of friends before is now an upset and angry teen because a bearded one finally kicked the bucket? And he has a girlfriend/fuckbuddy, Dhalia, who was obviously written with the intent to be sympathetic but edgy, and is instead written as a self absorbed *****. NOT TO MENTION that an actually interesting protagonist of his own series, Artemis Entreri, is turned into a one dimensional douche around Drizzt. I mean, Artemis IS a douche, but at least he's a douche with some intriguing characteristics, a bit of heart, and observable character development. But once he sees those lavender eyes, taut muscles and ebon skin he gets a raging hate boner and forgets everything that makes him not suck. On top of this, he's part of a stupid, Stupid, STUPID fucking "love triangle" with Drizzt and Dhalia in the latest book I've read, because Drizzt is now apparently as good at romance and basic human interaction as a child raised by Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanami and the physical manifestation of schizophrenia. Because for some reason, he's also all "wise and introspective" one day, and is threatening to cut people who don't really deserve it because they looked at him funny the next. His "wisdom" is also garden variety common sense at best, and pointlessly spelling out the subtext of the story at worst.
And my final grievance is, despite his almost constant downward spiral after the first two trilogies, Drizzt still seems to be more popular than an actually interesting and fairly well written character who was very much like him, except having had all but the obligatory levels of Sueness that most all high fantasy protagonists tend to possess removed, Liriel Baenre. I mean, I'm glad that Elaine Cunningham didn't try and milk the girl's life to death, but goddamn, that girl is essentially the only dark elf in the Forgotten Realms who isn't a complete tosser or as badly written as Drizzt and Jarlaxle (another, though much less severe, one of Salvatore's abominations)
Okay, so maybe I'm a bit hateful after all.