Oh, and he’s a hot elf who gets freaky in the sheets. Becoming a vampire spawn is never an easy experience, and so the quest to aid Asterion face his past and former master is one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s most rewarding journeys. But as the journey progresses you discover that hoity-toity surface is the deflective armour that guards a tragic, traumatised heart.

His charms begin with flamboyant mannerisms and a wicked sense of humour – there’s never a time when Astarion doesn’t have a barbed punchline ready. Despite literally trying to kill you instead of saying ‘hello’ at the start of the adventure, Astarion quickly wins the entire party over. Astarion, played to high-camp perfection by Neil Newbon, has instantly secured himself as one of the all-time RPG greats. Quite honestly we could have shortlisted any of Baldur’s Gate 3’s companion characters and they’d all be worthy winners, but only one has truly taken the world by storm. In a year where creatives stood up to the Hollywood studio system, Gunn’s message was loud and clear. Here we see a creative worker exploited by his corporate master, the High Evolutionary, who plans to gobble up Rocket’s brain and grow fat on his success.

A childhood of imprisonment is enough to make even the hardest fan well up, but the genius of Rocket’s story is in the allegory. We saw the early years of everyone’s favourite gun-toting trash panda, voiced by Bradley Cooper, in which Rocket is the subject of cruel animal experiments. 3, in which writer and director James Gunn made sure we were all a little damp around the eyes with the raw tale of Rocket Raccoon. But emotional pain is the key to Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. The MCU is many things, but rarely is it genuinely heartbreaking. Runner-Up: Rocket Raccoon - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. This growth was conveyed beautifully by Hiddleston, who has never failed to carry Loki’s sense of glorious purpose with both the demanded gravity and levity. Selfishness has been one of Loki’s most defining characteristics, and so to take on such a position is the ultimate signifier of how his time with the TVA has shifted his values and perspectives. Loki displayed great growth and maturity as he left behind his role as the God of Mischief and instead became the God of Stories, dedicating himself to guarding the branches of time until the end of everything. Long considered one of Marvel’s MVPs, this year’s second season of Loki really cemented the Asgardian god as being up there with the likes of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man. The first of three characters each claiming 8.7% of the vote is Tom Hiddleston’s Loki.

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