Do you have a favorite fictional character? If you solved the trivia quiz from a few weeks back, you discovered one of mine. Portia is Shakespeare’s heroine in his comedy, The Merchant of Venice. This rich heiress of Belmont faces (what she believes to be) a miserable problem: she cannot choose whom she will marry. Her late father set up a lottery system using three chests of gold, silver, and lead. The man who discerns the meaning of each chest and chooses the right one will win Portia’s hand. But she is anything but a damsel-in-distress. When her eventual fiancé Bassanio tries to rescue his good friend from a spiteful lender, she disguises…