[alansplace]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Yes, I realized after your first post that many of the characters were being pulled from the fairy tales of old. I just thought it would be cool to mention the ones that reside in both Dresden's world and The Iron King's.

From Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream there is also Puck and Oberon - Titania's husband and King of the Seelie Court.

Originally Posted by Nyssa

Just wanted to point out that it really wasn't mushy at all. Sure, the main character is/was developing a crush, but it doesn't really go much further than that...yet.

I was reacting to

Originally Posted by Nyssa

I'm about a quarter of the way through, not much has happened as yet - a lot of teenage, "my life sucks" and "ignoring the obvious" angst.

but since then I've thought about it a bit, it's the first book in a series and the main character probably has quite a learning curve to live through. Also here's some info on Puck (who is also known as Robin Goodfellow [the used car salesman in Rob Thurman's Cal Leandros series]).

Quoted from Wikipedia.

In English folklore, Puck is a mythological fairy or mischievous nature sprite. Puck is also a generalized personification of land spirits. In more recent times, the figure of Robin Goodfellow is identified as a puck. The Old English "puca" is a kind of half-tamed woodland sprite, leading folk astray with echoes and lights in nighttime woodlands (like the German and Dutch "Weisse Frauen" and "Witte Wieven" and the French "Dames Blanches," all "White Ladies"), or coming into the farmstead and souring milk in the churn. Puck has appeared many times in popular culture.



Examples

Puck's most famous appearance is in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.

As Robin Goodfellow, Puck appears in a roughly contemporaneous Elizabethan play, Grim the Collier of Croydon (1600). It is unknown how Shakespeare's Puck appeared on the stage; but the figure in Grim was costumed "in a suit of leather close to his body; his face and hands coloured russet-coloured, with a flail."

Puck is the story-framer in Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling, 1906.

Contemporary fantasy author Rob Thurman writes the puck Robin Goodfellow as a major (albeit secondary) character in the Cal Leandros series.

In Susanna Clarke's short story "The Ladies of Grace Adieu," Robin Goodfellow appears as a mischievous yet caring servant to Auberon.

In Orson Scott Card's novel Magic Street, and in his short film, Remind me Again, we meet Puck, Queen Titania, and Oberon in a modern, urban setting. Rob Thurman's novels Nightlife and Moonshine, portray Robin Goodfellow and Hobgoblin as separate beings, both remnants of the near-extinct race of pucks. In the novels, they are reimagined in a modern setting, the former as the slick owner of a car dealership, the latter as the owner of a seedy nightclub. In Raymond E. Feist's novel Faerie Tale, Puck is a fey being in the faerie court and is portrayed as a jester of sorts, and stays true to the mythology of him as a trickster. At times throughout the novel he is referred to as Puck, Putz, and Aerial, and assists the main characters to prevent evil King Oberon from seizing global power over humanity. In Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (a modern retelling of the Scottish faerie ballad), the character of Robin Armin is implied to be Puck; he used a similar name while performing as a singer and actor for The King's Men, and had been the inspiration for the Shakespearean Puck and several other comic characters, but he and the others of his troupe were unsuccessful in luring the Bard off to the Fair Lands.

In Mercedes Lackey's novel The Wizard of London Robin Goodfellow/Puck steps in to play himself in a boarding school's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream when no one suitable can be found for the part. He reappears throughout the novel mainly in his friendlier aspect, but becomes extremely dangerous when crossed.

The Puck who appears in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman is a trickster and maker of mischief.

Puck was an American and then British humour magazine, somewhat similar to Punch.

In the animated series Gargoyles, Puck is a traditional trickster and an important supporting character. During the long exile from Avalon, Puck comes across Queen Titania in the human guise of Anastasia Renard, the wife of David Xanatos' business rival Halcyon Renard. He also meets a nearly emotionless businessman named Preston Vogel, working in Halcyon's employ. Amused with the "wooden behavior" of the mortal, Puck decides play the straight man for a while, and reinvents himself as Owen Burnett, who becomes Xanatos' business manager.

In the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, one of the main characters, Neil Perry, plays the part of Puck in a secondary school rendition of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

In Michael Buckley's The Sisters Grimm series, Puck is an Everafter who takes on the form of an 11 year-old boy. He is described as rude, selfish, and immature, and occasionally plays pranks on the Grimm Family. He helps them solve most of their cases, and lives with them in their house.

Puck plays a central role in Mark Chadbourn's fantasy trilogy, Kingdom of the Serpent, comprising the novels Jack of Ravens, The Burning Man, and Destroyer of Worlds. Puck manipulates the heroes in an epic battle between good and evil over two thousand years of human history.

The children's theater play Robin Goodfellow by Aurand Harris is a retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream from Puck's point of view.

In Kentaro Miura's dark fantasy manga Berserk, Puck is one of the main character's earliest companions. He is a fairy-like elf of the Pisky race, and serves as comedy relief.

Puck, the faerie dragon, is the name of a hero in the game mod Defense of the Ancients and its sequel Dota 2.

Puck is a small rat-boy in Final Fantasy 9 who messes around with other people.

Puck is also one of the lead characters of Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series. When the series begins, he hovers around as the lead character's bodyguard but as it progresses, he reveals himself to be one of the love interests of the heroine.

In the Nightside series by Simon R. Green Puck is only imperfect elf. Born as son of queen Mab and Camelot knight, Puck is only hunchback fairy. He is mischieves and usually deceives main character for long time. Later in serie he ends elf civil war between Oberon and Mab by deceiving and killing his own mother, when she wouldn´t give up her revenge.