Have you ever read a novel, comic, manga, watched a movie, play, TV show etc., and you found yourself invested in a side character? Ever cared for and felt more intrigued by that side character than the mains? If so, what character was it and what are some.things that make you so interested in them?
My username is actually from a side character in Terry Gilliam’s first non-Python movie - Jabberwocky.
The protagonist, Dennis, is a cooper - a barrelmaker (actually he’s a tedious putz who can’t even manage to make a barrel, but that’s another story). Early on, he goes to make his fortune in the big city, where he meets a legendary cooper - “The Wat Dabney?! The inventor of the inverted firkin?!” - who has been reduced to begging because all of the business in the city is controlled by the guilds and they’ve shut him out.
Curiously, many years later I ran across a somewhat similar character in an entirely different medium who appealed to me the same way. This one is in a manga - The Voynich Hotel, by Dowman Sayman. They have a serious problem with the boiler in the eponymous hotel, so the protagonist sets out on a quest to track down a hermit who’s reputed to be able to fix anything - Tepes, the legendary second-rate boiler engineer.
I’m not sure what appeals to me about second-rate legendary craftsmen, but…
Have you ever heard the tale of Ea-Nasir?
No.
(A quick search later)… Ah… yeah A likely two-bit Babylonian copper hustler who through a quirk of fate is a sort of legendary historical figure almost four millennia later.
Yep - that has the same sort of appeal. Thanks for that.
It’s something about irony - the legendary nobody, famous for something mundane.