Written by Tyler Payne. Illustration by Charity Anchors.
We all know Frodo is the main character, but Sam is the real hero. Tolkien knew what he was doing: he gave us the everyman, the last person we’d expect to do something great, and had him save the day. The person who wins wars isn’t the general. It’s the soldier, the regular guy who goes out and does something extraordinary, who comes back and becomes a gardener and gets the girl. But even after that, Sam is the same humble, soft-spoken man. He doesn’t go around saying he’s the one who destroyed the Ring. He just did what he had to do.
Sometimes we’re drawn to the side characters. Sometimes, like Sam, they steal the show, and we look forward to each time they’re on screen. Even in stories that are all about the protagonist, we can prefer the lovable sidekick or the quirky girl who’s in only one scene. But the opposite also happens. Some stories give us a colorful ensemble, and tell us to look at this character and this one and that, but we still like the main guy the most.
I thought it’d be fun to look at a few stories in which the protagonist is my favorite character (“Hot”) or loses out to a side character (“Not”) to see what makes certain characters outshine others. The important thing to remember, though, is that the main character doesn’t always have to be the most interesting. Some of these stories benefit from having a nondescript protagonist; others need the main character to be the most complex in order to work. As audiences, we shouldn’t shut ourselves off from a story just because the main character isn’t the next Indiana Jones. As writers, we need to know which characters to focus on to make our stories the best they can be.
“The Boondocks” – Not
Huey Freeman is the perfect protagonist for “The Boondocks,” a critic of the injustice in America the show satirizes, but his role as the straight man means he’s not the funniest character on screen. My pick is Riley, Huey’s vulgar, sarcastic younger brother who has a concerning level of interest in gang culture and violence. Though Riley tries to project a tough-guy demeanor, it’s repeatedly shown to be a facade. One minute he’s trafficking his school’s chocolate bars like drugs, and the next he’s whining that he can’t afford the prices at a lemonade stand.
Characters such as Uncle Ruckus and Granddad are hilarious, but the jokes with them are often the same (extreme racism and anger issues, respectively). Riley’s role as the comedic loose cannon manifests in several ways: his dream of wearing Timbs in the NBA instead of basketball shoes, his friendships with rappers which often put his life in danger, and his art lessons to improve his graffiti on people’s homes. The cherry on top is a hall-of-fame vocal performance by Regina King. Hearing a grown woman giggle as she calls people “gay” in the highest pitch she can is TV comedy gold. Huey is the audience surrogate the show needs, helping us digest the social commentary, but Riley is responsible for many of the series’ most iconic moments.
“The Crying of Lot 49” – Hot
Every Thomas Pynchon novel is chock-full of bizarre, enchanting side characters. Even here, in his shortest book, he gives us a band of weed-smoking Beatles knockoffs, a husband who thinks he can “see” music when on LSD, and a guy with the last name Fallopian. Despite this, the novel’s protagonist Oedipa Maas is the most lovable of them all. One day in ‘60s California, Oedipa learns her ex-flame, real estate mogul Pierce Inverarity, has died and, strangely, named her the executor of his estate. She goes on a quest to tie up his many, many leftover holdings and figure out why he chose her when they knew each other only briefly. She soon gets wrapped up in a centuries-old conspiracy about a secret organization with mysterious aims.
Throughout the novel, Oedipa is defined by the lack of direction in her life. Her marriage (to the aforementioned LSD husband) has lost its spark, and as she struggles to uncover the mystery of Pierce and the secret society, she’s led on and used by nearly every man she encounters. In the end, she is left with a terrifying possibility: there may not be a conspiracy at all, and every ounce of work she’s put in might have been for naught, leaving her with no hope or meaning for the future. It’s a poignant reminder that women have been tossed aside by society for much of history, even as recently as the mid-20th century in America. While every character is essential to the portrait Pynchon creates, Oedipa is the linchpin holding it all together.
“One Piece” – Hot
Pirate captain Monkey D. Luffy, the hero of the manga “One Piece,” has scored first in every character popularity poll the series has had. For me, the fans are right on this one. Every character in “One Piece” has plenty of endearing humor, but Luffy might be the funniest of all (when a zombie popped out of a grave, his response was to shove it right back in). His love for adventure and desire to befriend anyone remotely nice to him (even a disembodied pair of legs) is what defines the series’ sense of childlike wonder. No matter how complex or dark the story gets, he’s there to keep it a fun time in the end.
He does have the qualities of a stereotypical shonen hero—kind heart, low intelligence, reckless attitude—but his character goes beyond the clichés. He has no sympathy for people who can’t carry their own weight and has a surprising amount of emotional intelligence. When his friend Vivi wants a war to end without bloodshed, he’s the one to tell her how unrealistic that ideal is. And, of course, his rubber body gives every fight scene a charming cartoonishness. He defeats the lightning-powered Enel because he’s immune to electricity, and he can inflate his limbs to gargantuan size by blowing air into them. There’s just no other character quite like Luffy, in his own series or otherwise, and that’s what puts him at the top of the colorful “One Piece” cast.
“The Sopranos” – Not
Make no mistake. Tony Soprano, the protagonist of HBO’s seminal crime series, is maybe the most complex and fascinating character in television history (James Gandolfini’s performance is also an all-time great), but my personal favorite of the cast has always been Tony’s protégé, Christopher Moltisanti. Like his mentor, Christopher captures the tug-of-war between family and mob life, but the key difference is that he’s younger than Tony. His unfaithfulness to fiancée Adriana, struggle with heroin addiction and potential escape from the Mafia with his screenwriting career reflect experiences Tony might have had in his own youth. The ultimate tragedy is that, like his forebear, Christopher is unable tobreak free from the pull of the criminal lifestyle, which shows the series’s theme of generational inheritance extends beyond Tony’s family. Plus, Michael Imperioli’s comic timing gives us some of the funniest lines in the show: “The Cuban Missile Crisis was real? I saw that movie; I thought it was bullshit.” Tony brings thematic significance and comedy too, but he doesn’t pull off the combination quite as well as Christopher does.
“The Wire” – Hot
With a massive cast, “The Wire” has many candidates for my favorite character—snarky homicide detective Bunk, ruthless drug kingpin Marlo Stanfield, charismatic thief Omar Little—but protagonist Jimmy McNulty takes the top spot. A big part of it is his charm: watching him grin as he bucks the orders of superiors to pursue what he sees as the greater good is damn fun. But what really makes him work is that he’s the crux of the show’s themes. The series explores the inefficient bureaucracy in American law enforcement, and no one is more actively opposed to it than McNulty. But that doesn’t mean he’s always in the right. His dissent from assignments sometimes yields case information his by-the-book partners have already gained or nothing valuable at all.
The audience also sees McNulty’s personal life more than any other police character in the show. His desperate attempts to reconcile with his ex-wife and stay in the lives of his two young sons are painful to watch, especially as he copes with the heartbreak through alcohol and sex. Out of every character, McNulty encapsulates the essence of the series the most: he’s not perfect, but he’s trying his best to do what good he can. Much like Oedipa, he’s the most crucial piece of a big puzzle.
Some stories need a strong main character, while others succeed when the side cast shows them up. In “One Piece” and “The Wire,” Luffy and McNulty define the tone and message. In “The Boondocks,” Riley takes the comedic spotlight (along with other side characters), so the audience can understand the satire through the eyes of the more down-to-earth protagonist. So next time you binge a show on Netflix or reread a favorite book, consider why a character is your favorite and what that tells you about the story as a whole. And next time you write, consider which characters to make the most iconic and unforgettable, so the audience can take away exactly what you want them to.
