Louis Wu is the main character in
Larry Niven's "
Ringworld" and "
The Ringworld Engineers".
If he were something other than himself, he would be the following:
1) If Louis Wu were a small frightening bug, he’d be an arachnid. Like a trapdoor spider; waiting for the right moment to do anything, be it strike at a passerby, or make a decision, and battling when threatened.
2) As a bird, he’d be most suited to being one of those little songbirds from the Galapagos Islands. They use twigs to stab into otherwise unreachable places in trees to stab at grubs, getting their meals this way. They show others how to do this also, and this is like Louis inventing new ways to fix things, and showing others how to fix things (such as water condensers). Smart.
3) If he were an organ, he’d be a liver. The liver takes in all sorts of goo, filters it, and supplies bile to other parts of the body. Louis takes in information, filters out all the unimportant stuff, and relays the rest back to his superior/captor.
4) He’d be one of those guys that lives in his apartment, never comes out. Or at least know one could figure out how he got out. At his workplace, no one would know anything about him. The cops would get tips about his alleged illegal activity, but no one would ever catch him.
5) If I were going to the hardware store to get some flooring, Louis Wu would be a big role of patterned linoleum. The lines one it would not make a repeating pattern unless you carefully inspected great lengths of the role. Louis is like that. If I were around him enough, I could anticipate what path he’d take, what answers he’d give, what he’d do next.
6) He would definitely be a contestant on “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.” Like any of the other contestants, he’d make a decision on what he thinks the answer should be. It might not be the right decision, but he’d stick with it. There are many decisions that have to be made by him in the book. He looks over his options, and chooses the best one.
7) Louis as a high school student! Intelligent, but illiterate. Good in math. He’d refrain from alcohol and substance abuse until the end of grade 10. Then, he’d loose himself in a dream world as he did in the book with his current addiction.
8) He’d be a cool high school teacher. For English or Psychology, he’d be free and easy going. He’d do things like take his classes to a televised court battle so that we could later discuss it and pose debates.
9) In Vegas, he’d be the only sign that didn’t have neon in it. He doesn’t draw attention to himself.
10) On the beach, he’d be a hermit crab, out of his shell, in search of a bigger one. Very vulnerable to all the other creatures around him. But the tender mollusk body would camouflage him well, and he is good of staying out of the way. That’s what he’s like! Vulnerable because he’s very low down in the chain of command, but well equipped to stay out of harms way. He just takes risk a lot.