And the Oscar for BEST supporting character goes to ….

You know how, sometimes, you read a book, or you see a TV show, or God forbid, a movie, and then there’s this perfect hero, this brilliant heroine, and they’re good, and kind and strong and you’re meant to like them, and you do like them, yet, for some bizarre reason that you can’t seem to understand, one of the minor characters comes out of NOWHERE, and bam, you’re in love. The hero and heroine are forgotten. 

Happens to the best of us.

Sometimes I think it must be on purpose. Writers create these wonderful secondary characters, so they must realize what they’re doing, right? Most often, though, I think it’s a matter of chance. You create a secondary character, and though you usually create him for a reason, he has no real arc. He just exists to create a response in your hero/heroine. But, of course, that only works for a while. Once you create him, he’s a character, on his own right. He develops feelings. Likes. Dislikes. He might even fall in love.

You didn’t ask for any of it. You didn’t plan for it. You don’t even want it. But there it is: a secondary character that refuses to stay in the background. One that demands its own story. Even if you never get to tell it, not completely.

TV has a few notable mentions (and I promise I’ll go over them sometime), but books, oh, books. There are just so many examples of this in books that it seems like a crime to only choose a few. But, since I already took like half of the planned space for this post rambling, I’ll just pick out a Top 3 of secondary characters in recent literature. The rest …well, there are always other posts.

1. Sirius Black, Harry Potter Series. The Harry Potter series has SO many secondary characters that deserve a mention, but I’ll stick with Sirius, if only because there’s so much going on behind the scenes with him. So much we STILL don’t know. So much scope for imagination. And, because, at times, you truly want him to come out of the shadows. The books are not about him, but you care, you truly care.
2. Haymitch Abernathy, The Hunger Games. He’s drunk. He’s sullen. He’s angry. He’s misunderstood. He acts like he doesn’t care, but, deep down, he cares too much. He’s just the type of secondary character you can’t help but love. And, if he has a tendency to say out loud exactly what you’re thinking while you read, well, that’s just a bonus.
3. Brienne of Tarth, Game of Thrones. She’s so seriously badass it’s hard to even describe it. If I’m reborn in a medieval time one day, I want to be like Brienne. It doesn’t matter that she’s big, and ugly. Brienne is, simply put, a woman who will not submit to stereotypes. A woman who will live her life in her own terms. And, isn’t that what we all want?