Hmm. Maybe I'm the only crazy person that is a fan of sidekicks.
Wednesday, December 9, 2015
Heroes vs Sidekicks
So I am going to be talking about heroes vs sidekicks. Not like as in superheroes, but just the main character and the supporting characters in a story. Discussing just a bit of Star Wars and class and watching the new movie trailer got me thinking. I don't think I've ever really read a book or watched a movie and found that the main protagonist was my favorite character. For example in all of the Star Wars movies neither Anakin nor Luke were my favorite. I liked Obi-wan and C3PO.
In the Harry Potter books, George and Fred were always my favorite and I also loved Hermione and Ron. But Harry? I mean I did like him but he definitely wasn't the best character in the book.
In Coraline I liked Wybie. In The Lord of the Rings I liked Sam and Faramir. There might be a few movies in which I really do love the main characters the most, but not many. I wonder why that might be? I feel like we are supposed to connect most with the main character - feel their plight so that we want them to succeed in overcoming whatever it is they must overcome. All the movies/books I've mentioned do a good job at that, Harry, Frodo, Coraline, and Luke are all admirable characters.
Hmm. Maybe I'm the only crazy person that is a fan of sidekicks.
Hmm. Maybe I'm the only crazy person that is a fan of sidekicks.
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I think lots of people experience the same thing. The main character always tends to be very generic while the supporting characters have much more interesting personalities. I have two theories for why that is. 1) creators want the main character to be relatable to everyone so they tend portray him as perfectly "normal" and relegate unique character quirks to the supporting cast, or 2) the hero is defined by his plot arc and doesn't seem to need a personality to make him interesting, while minor characters have nothing BESIDES their personalities with which to draw interest.
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