The mother alien in the movie "Aliens". Or is this restricted to human characters?

Also Drake Douay, in the book "The Walrus and the Warwolf". He's not someone that can be learned from, but he does survive numerous tribulations.

+1 to the Howard Family

Hell Tanner--Damnation Alley.

Any bum on Philedelphia streets.

i have to say Burt Gummer(though the fact that he calls lifeboat rations MREs bugs me every time.) food for five years, a thousand gallons of gas, air filtration, water filtration, Geiger counter, bomb shelter. Underground, God**** monsters.

and Indiana Jones. booby traps, hostile natives, Nazis, snakes, spiders, evil priests, women, mobsters, mercenaries, aliens, commies; he always comes out a bit worse for wear, but alive. and he does it all without a GPS.

Ok. I totally blew it on Indiana Jones. Damn. One of my all time fav movies

I'd have to say "The man" and his son, "the boy", from Cormac McCarthy's "The Road". For those of you who have never read the book no specific names, dates, or even what caused the end of the world is mentioned.

No matter what these two kept trying and moving forward through countless little triumphs and setbacks. And they stuck together and stood up for each other with a lot of love and compassion. Like the book mentioned in the beginning, each was "the other world's entire".

I tell people every single time when post-apocalyptic/survival fiction is discussed: anyone can write a good or even great post-apocalyptic story. But it takes a brilliant writer, IMHO, to make readers understand there's something more important than the protagonist's stuggle to just stay alive, and that's the struggle to retain one's humanity.

The Road, Lord of the Flies, Alas Babylon, The Old Man and the Sea, Robinson Crusoe, and others - all are earmarks above your standard survival fiction because the characters are people that we can all relate to and have empathy towards. Not only do they have to conquer the elements and the adversities they face, but they have to better themselves by staring into the dark side of human nature. The heroes sometimes have to take an introspective look to do this as well.

The first time I finished "Lord of the Flies" I was just floored. Same with "Crusoe", "The Old Man and the Sea" and "The Road", and that's the reason why. Writers that want to shoot for punching out a brilliant story have just GOT to focus on the human element, and not just a slam-bang survival story.

The Road was a great book. I read it when my son was about a year old and man did it really affect me.

What a good topic! These come to mind from my youth:

Julie of the Wolves
the gal from Z is for Zachariah. I don't remember if she ever gives her name.

What? No Macgyver fans?

oh man, I totally skipped over that. +1 and then some to Macgyver. Not only survive but take out the bad guys with nothing more than a SAK and what ever happens to be laying around. I'll change mine to Macgyver and Hazel Stone.

-Eric