Side Characters over main characters

[Nara]

A lot of the time when someone talks about the character they like or relate too the most its a side character and not a main character. Do you think that's true? If so why?

A friend and I were talking about it recently and we thought that maybe since unlike the main protagonist who's flaws and characteristics are in the spotlight, people like side characters because their personalities are more hidden and therefore can be shaped to your own liking to a certain extent.

What do you think?

 

[.matthew.]

The exact same as you to the point I was getting Deja Vu when reading the second paragraph

It's sort of like being able to relate better to a person you've just met - before all their irritable traits are known...

 

[HareBrain]

I think it's because they feel less constrained. The main characters have the responsibility for driving the plot, and because most plots are mostly based on logic, this gives them less freedom to behave colourfully or creatively. Secondary characters don't suffer so much from this.

 

[Toby Frost]

I think that, especially in the past, lead characters were often a bit bland compared to their sidekicks. The hero was a competent, fairly likeable guy who the reader was meant to like, and who never became too extreme (clever but not nerdy, strong but not brutish etc). Hence the wackier "specialist" secondary characters could be more bizarre and entertaining.

There's also the factor that, as you say, they're generally not seen as much, and hence it's possible for them to be very entertaining whenever they show up, so readers won't get bored of them.

 

[.matthew.]

Hence the wackier "specialist" secondary characters could be more bizarre and entertaining.

That immediately made me think of Wainscott

 

[Toby Frost]

Well that post is getting a like! Glad to see you've encountered him!

Actually I did start thinking about Space Captain Smith halfway through typing that post. It's like when they make a spin-off comedy about a beloved secondary character, and it's nowhere near as funny because he has to be on-screen all the time. (Although I do think that the Wainscott war memoirs would be quite good: either "War Pawn" or "Death Patrol From Hell" would be good titles.)

 

[.matthew.]

Well that post is getting a like! Glad to see you've encountered him!

Encountered every inch of him!

Although the bit I most remember is the Taken monologue. That whole desert campaign arc was just very very funny

I think a spin-off with him would be pushing it for the same reasons you mentioned above but I'd definitely read the war memoirs.

 

[Toby Frost]

That bit was a lot of fun to write!

 

[.matthew.]

Yea, and comedy is hard to write well. Somehow that speech was actually way more terrifying than the 'real' one, purely because it was delivered by an unhinged maniac with an aversion to trousers.

 

[tinkerdan]

I think there is a bit more to it than that they are not under the spotlight.
When I think of memorable side characters I think of all the side characters from Dickens and many of those get fleshed out quite a bit.
Granted, you don't see much of that in todays fiction; however they are memorable for being placed under microscope and described down to details that go further than just the outside appearance.

The flip side to this is that some of those characters in todays fiction can end up being stereotypes or cliche and yet somehow more memorable to the reader.

 

[Saiyali]

I wonder .. is Frodo anybody's favourite character from Middle Earth? Is Luke Skywalker, from A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away? Side-characters are what make those two particular stories such classics, I think some really good stories have main characters to essentially provide a narrative, for secondary characters to be interesting / funny / memorable / relatable in. Maybe a main character doesn't have to be interesting because they get the interesting events, choices etc.

IRL I'm not a hero, I'm just someone who Does Stuff for a Living. Main characters are heroes (or anti-heroes) and very very often they give up their Normal Life (whatever that was) for The Quest (whatever drives them to it). Side characters mainly still Do Stuff for a Living, and basically, we like them because of that. We don't really want to be heroes, but we want to be in their entourage