A collection of eleven men, one woman, a vampire, a dragon and a duck make up the world’s 15 wealthiest fictional characters.
There’s always room for a little fun, even when you’re dealing with the super-serious subject of mind-bogglingly rich people. Forbes, which puts together a list of the richest people in America each year, has also assembled a list of the richest people in fiction, which includes the likes of Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne, and the dragon Smaug from The Hobbit.
Forbes’ list draws from movies, books, comics, TV shows, cartoons, and even board games, and everyone on it is valued at $1 billion or more, with an average net worth of around $9 billion. Topping the list is Scrooge McDuck, from Duck Tales, thought to be worth about $44.1 billion. According to Forbes, increases in the value of gold has seen McDuck’s worth soar recently. Taking the silver is Twilight’s Carlisle Cullen, who harnessed the power of compound interest and prophetic visions, and the bronze goes to Artemis Fowl II, the titular hero of the Artemis Fowl novels. Iron Man, Smaug, and Batman make up numbers six, seven and eight on the list, just ahead of Mr. Monopoly.
The best part about the list is how much effort went into its preparation. To work out what Smaug was worth, for example, Forbes took cues from Tolkien’s description of the dragon – “vast,” “centuries-old” and of a “red-golden color” – and then cross referenced it with Dungeons & Dragons dragon age tables to get an approximate size for Smaug. Using that information as a base, Forbes estimated the volume of the mound of gold and silver coins that the dragon sleeps on, deducting around 30% to account for the space between coins and the bones of past victims. It also used the size information to calculate the value of the diamonds embedded in Smaug’s scales. By Forbes’ calculations, the dragon is worth at least $8.6 billion, and possibly more.
You can read the full list for yourself here. There are short biographies for everyone on the list, as well more articles about how the list was put together.
Source: via Collider
Published: Apr 8, 2011 01:29 pm