Forbes’ Fictional 15 is out, calculating the wealth of the wealthiest characters in popular fiction.
The biggest change to this year’s list comes at the very top. For the first time in the Fictional 15’s history, Santa Claus has been unseated from the number-one spot, replaced by defense contractor Oliver ”Daddy” Warbucks. We still estimate Claus’ net worth as infinite, but we excluded him from this year’s rankings after being bombarded by letters from outraged children insisting that Claus is “real.” We don’t claim to have settled the ongoing controversy concerning Claus’ existence, but after taking into account the physical evidence–toys delivered, milk and cookies devoured–we felt it was safer to remove him from consideration.
In the absence of the tubby toy titan, Oliver Warbucks now reigns as the world’s richest fictional character. The ex-U.S. Army general turned industrialist saw his net worth surge to $36.2 billion, thanks to the ongoing conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and because of a contract to provide oil-well maintenance in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
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Also making his Fictional 15 debut: spam entrepreneur Prince Abakaliki of Nigeria. Abakaliki is notable for being the only fictional character on our list who regularly e-mails real people, usually begging for assistance in recovering large sums of money. We estimate Abakaliki to be worth more than $2.8 billion.
The entire list:
