Protagonist

Character Role Analysis

David Bowman

Bowman is the guy who gets to race out to the stars, overcome adversity, and transcend this drab human corporeal form. So that makes him the protagonist, pretty much. (You could also argue that the human race itself is the protagonist, and that Bowman is the stand-in for humanity's quest for evolution—which is maybe why he's so blah as a character in his own right.)