All cheap and debonair

[sovay]

Talk to me about supporting characters. When you're supposed to fall for the heroine, and instead it's the second spear-carrier from the left who turns out to have the thorniest moral dilemma or the most fascinating backstory. This happens to me all the time; I can't be the only one. So who are your scene-stealers? Movies, books, operas—your own work—which character roles do you remember long after you've forgotten who played the protagonist?

(This post brought to you courtesy of Eleanor Cameron and L.M. Montgomery.)

Comments

[gwynnega]

Mercutio!!! So much more interesting than those crazy kids Romeo & Juliet.

[setsuled.livejournal.com]

The only thing that comes to mind right now is Van Heflin's character in Johnny Eager (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033774/). Though Robert Taylor's wooden acting actually worked in that movie.

Maybe Kikuchiyo in Seven Samurai. Definitely Lady Kaede in Ran.

The trouble is, when I try to think of any such character, it's easy to see how they would become less interesting if more attention was given to them.

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

Every single one of the supporting characters of Clive Barker's Abarat books, as well as the (immensely cool) setting itself, is infinitely more interesting than the protagonist. She's a Lost Princess, and we've all seen it before, but she travels with a version of the Horned Man who has a separate and separately conscious head on each antler spine, and is being courted by the King of Pain as he chases her through an archipelago in which each island is literally a personification of an hour of the day (as well as one for the Mysterious Twenty-Fifth Hour).

Unfortunately, she is so awful, so truly fucking flat and boring, and the plot is so lousy that I can't possibly recommend the books. It's a damn shame.

[spectre-general.livejournal.com]

I'm trying to think of one, but I'm totally a protag-man. I loved Luke more than Han, I love Superman, John Carter and Taran of Prydain...

Oh, I know. Reepicheep. Totally steals the show.

[kraada.livejournal.com]

I'd like to add a few names that pop into my head:
Silk (from the Belgariad/Malloreon),
Bester (Babylon 5 -- Londo and G'kar seem too main cast to count),
Harvey (Farscape)
Saffron (Firefly)

I may think of more and double post. But that's a start :)

[scanner-darkly.livejournal.com]

Hot Pie and Dolorous Edd from A Song of Ice and Fire.

I can probably think of a few more, but those are ones that immediately come to mind.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Matthew Maddox, A Swiftly Tilting Planet.

[zdenka]

Oh, yes, indeed. Especially with my loyal retainer obsession. In Bujold's The Curse of Chalion, I became obsessed with dy Lutez, a character who is mentioned briefly and is dead before the story begins. When the sequel came out in bookstores, I flipped through the first few pages for a mention of dy Lutez: Yup, still dead. Then there's Hozuki, who appears in one chapter of Volume 7 in Lone Wolf & Cub, a 28-volume manga series. Sir Gareth has always been my favorite in the Arthurian legend. I'm sure I'll think of more later . . .

[strange-selkie.livejournal.com]

Floria/Florian Del Guiz.
Badger, from The Wind in the Willows.
From my own work, I think Violeta stuck with me far longer than I thought she would. Sticks. Muh. Very sleepy.

[schreibergasse.livejournal.com]

The thing is, not uncommonly writers REALIZE that they're more interested in the secondary characters, and wind up pushing them INTO starring (or at least co-starring) roles. Hence Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the multiple plotlines of LOTR, Death in Terry Pratchett, and so on.

That said: Inigo and Fezig from Princess Bride.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Hours after I complete this, I will remember hundreds or thousands of supporting characters that fired my imgaination way more than the main ones, but for now, I'll go with what I can remember.

From the books I can remember, we have the Fool in Hobb's Farseer series, Mr. Flay from Gormenghast, Hermione and Ron (and the rest of the Weasley Family, esp. Fred and George) in Potter. Those are all obvious and easy.

For movies I draw a blank. Most of them I have seen recently are pretty sparse with characters, though I would have rather seen the sisters in The Descent escape than Juno or Ms. Crazy-covered-in-blood, even though she looked all cool and haggish.

Because I played a lot of video games the last couple of weeks, Auron, who was in Kingdom Hearts 2 and (apparently) Final Fantasy 10 was an interesting seeming dead fellow.

Finally, in my own work, my dearest darling that I had to murder out of Blue Vervain Quoholloi, the graveyard goblin, who could do almost anything you told him to do, up to and including get smarter and was every bit the hero the rest of his companions really were not.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Who from L. M. Montgomery?

From Laurel K. Hamilton's series (which I don't recommend, though it might be fun to watch your head exploding in horror), Asher.
From Robert Jordan, Min.
Jack from The Blue Sword. As far as I'm concerned, the only interesting hero from Robin McKinley's Damar books was Tor. Luth and Corlath had their points, I suppose, but I never appreciated them as much as I was supposed to.

[clarionj.livejournal.com]

I wonder sometimes if this happens when the writer's subconscious lets something loose, what had been restrained by the more natural, habitual main character. Maybe I'm reflecting on my own work, how in one of my novels a character came about unexpectedly and ended up running the show, though he was never the main character. I remember at a reading once an author said, well of course she loved such and such the most too, just as the readers did, because that character was who she'd like to be, but the main character was who she was.

Now, I have to think about your question a bit longer, think about what side characters I fell for (well, obviously, in the book I'd just read, the antagonist is the one who stole my heart). But I'm sure there's more. So, who came to mind for you?

[oddmonster.livejournal.com]

Books:

--Crack from Martha Wells' excellent "Death of a Necromancer"
--Jessica Sorrow from Simon Green's Nightside books
--Bobbi Yee from Elizabeth Bear's "Hammered"

TV:
The only one who springs readily to mind is Angelo from "The Pretender". C'mon! He lived in the crawlspace! There had to be a great backstory there!

[naomichana.livejournal.com]

Which L.M. Montgomery? I would have rather read a novel about Phil and Jonas than about Anne and Gilbert, personally. But, then, I'm also a chronic supporting-character person.

I am more interested in virtually any non-Fellowship character in LOTR than in the Fellowship ones. I liked Cordelia, Giles, and Anya best on Buffy. One of my favorite things about Madeleine L'Engle's books is the way her cast of supporting characters keep wandering in and out of multiple books. Virtually every Agatha Christie had more interesting supporting characters than the detective(s), but I think that was usually intentional. And I have to admit, I sort of wonder what became of Catherine Darcy and Charlotte Collins, but not enough to read godawful contemporary continuations of Pride and Prejudice.

scene stealers

[dethbird.livejournal.com]

EDWIN NEAL, the hitchiker from the original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. For my money, his scene is the climax of that film. Everything either leads up to or tapers away from that plot point.

and Tars Tarkus, the Thark from the Martian novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Rick