I've had a few characters that I've really enjoyed. My first D&D was a half-orc fighter with 18(00) strength named Gorash (waaaaaaaaaay back in the 1st ed days). Dumb as a box of hammers (broken hammers) but more than willing to stick up for his friends, on our first adventure we worked as caravan guards. When bandits surrounded our caravan and demanded we surrender, Gorash turned to the caravan master and asked "What do you want me to do?" The master replied (very exasperatedly) "I don't know! Do you think you can beat all of them?"
So Gorash thought about it for a second, turned and hit the leader of the bandits. I rolled a critical strike and killed him in one shot.
Gorash turned back to the caravan master and said, "Yes." The bandits' morale failed and they ran for it.
One of my very first characters was a VERY cowardly thief. His idea of hand to hand combat was using a shortbow from the next hill over. However, the group was very enthusiastic when it came to getting into fights and this left him a nervous wreck. Especially when they gave their call to suicide: "We can take it!" That is not a joke, whenever the group said that in unison, they all would get killed in very short order.
For example, one adventure the group got split up while we were investigating some goblin caves. No one thought to draw a map, so each person got lost. While my thief was on his own, he stumbled across the goblin treasury and managed to obtain so many gemstones, that he emptied everything out of his backpack (all of his rations, rope, etc) in order to carry it all. Shortly afterwards, he managed to find the party again, but we were still lost deep in the tunnels. However, we DID find an alcove with some peepholes right at a goblin's height looking into a natural cave where we could spy some sunlight streaming in.
Now, seeing as we had all read the Hobbit, we immediately KNEW exactly what this alcove had to be and tried to find the secret door. There wasn't one (or we were too dim to find it), so the fighter pulled out his war maul and we bashed our way into the cavern . . . . . . to find ourselves facing a VERY awake and VERY irritated red dragon lying on his treasure pile.
The dragon asked us, "What are you doing here?" The group, in unison, yelled out "We can take it!"
My thief dumped the contents of his backpack on the treasure pile and said "I'm just making a delivery", and ran for the cave entrance like my ass was on fire (or was about to be)
It took less than two full melees for the rest of the party to die. The DM later told me that the reason the dragon didn't hunt me down as well was that he thought at least I had been properly respectful.
When the campaign ended, my character was given a wish, but he didn't realize it at the time. While complaining about how his life was unfair, he said out-loud "I wish I could just retire happily and in peace somewhere, you know?" When we got back to the city, he discovered that an uncle he never knew he had had died, leaving the thief his tavern in the will. He got his wish!