What we are far less sure how to do is to take seriously a public figure's seemingly admirable character and professions of higher purpose.

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The drama's title character is a notorious figure from Greek mythology, a sorceress whose main claim to fame is the event that brings down the curtain on Cherubini's opera: She murders her own children.

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With his newly svelte figure, Cheney would be the perfect father figure for Dakota Fanning's vampire character in the Twilight Series.

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Here Mr Murakami's best-known character, a typically smiley child figure named Mr DOB, has morphed into something darker and dystopian, spewing liquids and sprouting mutated versions of himself.

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He is but a man who, through a combination of ambition, talent, character and luck, became the central figure in the left's crisis of authority.

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That acquittal, and Traficant's flamboyant character, has made him something of a folk figure in his home district.

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Most chapters hinge on an idea or character, beginning with Mr. Hitchens's mother, an emotionally volatile figure who hid her Jewish identity from her family, and his father, a commander in Britain's Royal Navy.

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