These are the 100-ish most well-known fictional characters by number of Wikipedia languages, in descending order. Can you name them and the franchises/media they are from?
Mythical, legendary, religious and folk characters not included
Some characters are missing due to being synonymous with their franchise (e.g. James Bond)
Confused as to why James Bond isn't included but characters like Mario are. Loads on this list share their name with their franchise so surely shouldn't be included if James Bond isn't.
I agree that it can sometimes seem arbitrary, but it's the only way to keep the list objective. The Mario franchise is under "Mario (franchise)" and "Super Mario" on the English Wikipedia, but many other languages that don't distinguish only have the article for Mario. For James Bond, on the other hand, the character is under "James Bond (literary character)" and only has 33 languages, while the franchise "James Bond" has 82.
Most of these make sense, but it seems pretty crazy to me that Lara Croft is popular enough to have made the cut. I guess it must be the bump from all those awful movies? I would've thought video game franchises like Halo, Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter would have made the cut before Tomb Raider.