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?
When I was playing Resident Evil 2 as a kid, I was really invested in Sherry, the kind of annoying, little girl side character that you have to escort around.
The fact that this zombie apocalypse game trojan-horsed a family drama into its plot was fun, and 12 year old me, who always picked the boy character when playing Pokemon, because I felt like I had to, was confronted with a lot of confusing feelings when RE2 made me play as Sherry.
Anyway, I’m Transgender now.
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.
Alex Louis Armstrong in Full Metal Alchemist. He was such a kind soul in a cruel world. He gets treated like shit fairly often and he is very earnest in his affection towards Elric Brothers, maybe too earnest.
✨️🤝✨️
Hell yeah - FMA has so many good side characters!
I’ll keep an eye for him. I just started FMA last night. I’m a whopping two episodes in.
It’s an incredible anime. One of the best, imo.
Four Weddings and a Funeral is a movie I adore entirely for the side characters, and pretty much ignore the two main characters and storyline completely.
The main friend group feels so real and alive and lovely, they’re charming and funny, and watching them be friends at their weddings and funeral feels like optimistic slice-of-life escapism. And beyond that, pretty much every other side character is memorable and funny and a joy to watch, especially Rowan Atkinson as the anxious priest. Great movie, 10/10, can’t remember the main characters at all.dammit. now i have to watch it. ive been avoiding it for awhile.
Astrid from Fringe. She’s just the nicest person in the show and cool and smart. It’s hard to pinpoint what exactly, she’s just an extremely likeable character. And watching it more than once, it’s actually sad how little she really got to do in the show. She barely gets a backstory.
Also, I don’t know if it counts but in Walking Dead it felt like all of my favourites were side characters because all of my favourites died. I actually stopped watching after season 5 because both of my top favourite characters got killed within episodes of each other and I just didn’t really have a reason to keep watching. Everyone that was left was an asshole.
I love Asterisk!
Radagast the Brown. Such a beautiful if crusty soul.
At the moment I am hard pressed to think of a minor character who’s story arc has hit me as hard as My Hero Academia’s Jin Bubaigawara, also known as Twice. It’s probably because I wasn’t paying attention to him, his screw ups, and how those mistakes must have been affecting him. Selfless through and through.
Sad man’s parade.
