Do we like them?

Do we like Alice?

A character from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

Our score: 8 out of 10. Yes, we'd back her. She's polite, brave and endlessly curious, and she keeps her head in a world with none. She does talk too much about her cat.

Alice is a young girl sitting bored beside her sister on a riverbank. She sees a White Rabbit in a waistcoat hurry past, muttering about being late, and follows him down a rabbit hole. She lands in a hall of locked doors and starts drinking and eating odd things that make her shrink and grow. The book follows her through a world of talking animals, strange rules and bad-tempered royalty.

What makes Alice easy to back is her mix of good manners and stubborn logic. She tries to be polite to everyone, even a rude Caterpillar and a pack of unreasonable creatures. She is also quick to point out when something doesn't add up. She is no saint. She can be a bit prim, she sometimes lectures, and she keeps scaring off new friends by bringing up her cat Dinah. But her mistakes are small and honest, and she really does want to get along.

Alice scores well because she keeps her curiosity, courage and common sense in a place built to wear them down. She is a good guide through the chaos, and she is the one sane person we'd want next to us.

At the end, she is put on trial in the Queen's court. Alice finally stops being polite and calls the whole thing nonsense. The court collapses, and she wakes up on the riverbank, which shows the adventure was a dream. That moment of standing up to a ridiculous authority is why she ends up well above average.