5 Minor Characters that Steal the Show – #Top5Tuesday

While a lot of love in the bookish community goes to MCs and mortal enemies, the minor characters don’t get enough love. These are some of my favorite characters.  They make the books shine, and honestly?  Some of them FLAT OUT steal the show.  These underappreciated, underloved, small character are what this week’s Top 5 Tuesday is all about!  Shanah @ The Bionic Bookworm hosts this super fun weekly feature.  This week, she encouraged everyone to pick ten characters, but I’m going to stick with five, because I’m a REBEL.

There are much spoilers here, guys.

I’m serious.  If you see a title on here you haven’t read but you want to, you may want to skip that one.  The exception being number 3, but that’s only because H2G2 is SUCH CHAOS that it’s difficult to know what is connected and what isn’t – like Arthur Dent, you’re just along for the ride.

All images are from DeviantArt, and will link back to their original page.  Not all of it is ACTUAL fan art, but it’s all lovely art….  Go give the artists some love!

1.  Tik Tok from Tiger Lily.

 

Overview

I JUST finished this book last week and while overall, I wasn’t crazy about it… I LOVED this character.  Tik Tok is the wise shaman of the Sky Eater tribe and Tiger Lily’s adoptive father.  He brings his medicine to the ill and shares his advice with those who seek it.  He is wise, and does not assume to tell anyone what to think or feel, not even his adoptive daughter.

Why Does He Steal the Show?

Where a lot of the characters in this book are running around trying to find themselves, fighting against their natures, or easily persuaded to change their path – Tik Tok knows who he is.  He is a man who cares about people.  He wears dresses and takes pride in plaiting his long hair in beautiful ways.  His hair and his ticking clock (his namesake) are his two favorite things.  When these are taken from him by those too blind and too selfish to realize they were tearing away places of his soul, he begins to fade away.  My heart broke for him.

2. The Weasley Twins from Harry Potter.

Overview

Fred and George Weasley are inseparable.  These two finish each other’s sentences, work together, prank together, and fly together.  We first meet the twins in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone at Platform 9 3/4 where they are teasing their mother about not being able to tell them apart.  If you don’t fall in love with them right there, it won’t take long.

Why Do They Steal the Show?

There are two moments in which the twins really shine in this series.  The first is in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix when they set off fireworks through Hogwarts’ corridors, then summon their brooms and take off from Hogwarts.  They leave the castle behind yelling, “Give her hell, Peeves!” It is one of the high points in the series, part of the transition from characters hiding in the shadows to the entire Wizarding World beginning to stand up and see the truth.

The second moment is in the last book, the moment when Fred dies.  The moment when you are staring at the book, the television screen, and feel that horrible rotten feeling in your chest when you know that one has to go on without the other and then you know that nothing will ever be the same again.

3. The Rain God from The Hitchhiker’s Trilogy.

Overview

First appearing in So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, The rain loves Rob McKenna.  It follows him everywhere and he has catalogued several hundred forms of it.  What the rain knows, and what Rob McKenna doesn’t know, is that he is a Rain God.

Why Does He Steal the Show?

Being honest here?  He doesn’t.  But this very minor, mostly insignificant character from this series amuses the heck out of me.  He’s so grumpy, which I guess you WOULD be, if you were in the rain all the time!  BUT IT LOVES HIM.

An equal but more widely appreciated character in this series that doesn’t matter but is really awesome, is Bowerick Wowbagger.  He’s immortal and his whole purpose in life is to travel through time in his high tech space ship and insult every being that has every lived in every dimension until the end of time… in alphabetical order.

4. Auri from The Name of the Wind.

Overview

Auri is sweet and shy.  She lives in the sewers beneath the University but emerges to listen to Kvothe practicing his lute, which is how he meets her.  Auri is described as thin, with fine whisky hair.  While she is quite adept, she is not well, the reasons for which Kvothe has not entirely uncovered.

Why Does She Steal the Show?

There is something about Auri that charms everyone.  Like the Weasley twins, but in a more subtle way, she attaches herself firmly to your heartstrings IMMEDIATELY and you cannot help but to love her.  On top of all this, Auri is shrouded in mystery.  When we meet her in The Name of the Wind, she is little more than a shadow until Kvothe finally earns her trust.  After that, it’s a delight every time we see Auri.  We wonder if she’ll appear, what she’ll do or say, and what trinkets she’ll bring Kvothe today.

While I’m a MAJOR SLACKER and I haven’t read The Wise Man’s Fear yet, I do know that there’s speculation in the fan community that Auri may be more important to the story than she appears on the surface.  Fan theories include questions about her lineage and the importance of the gifts she brings Kvothe.  Either way, she’s a character to watch.

5. The Faeries in Théâtre Illuminata.

Overview

Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed are four quarters of one whole, hilarious character.  They are the essence of the faeries from William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and they follow Beatrice Shakespeare Smith wherever she goes.  We meet them at the very beginning of Eyes Like Stars and they are featured on the cover of all three books in the trilogy.  They try to be helpful, but often get caught in their own agendas of: food, food, food, and most importantly, food.

Why Do They Steal the Show?

Without the faeries, this trilogy would not be half as entertaining as it is. I know that’s not a particularly nice thing about a book trilogy that I praise regularly, but the fun and entertainment comes from the faeries.  They are the part of Bertie that still laughs and plays pranks.  They are fun and silliness rolled up into one and it’s marvelous.

In addition, all the bits that will make you laugh out loud about this trilogy feature the faeries.  Their constant conquests for gumdrops and candy corn ought to soften even the more cantankerous of readers.

So I guess when you count them out properly, there are 9 minor characters here, so I’ve nearly done the proper 10 that Shanah asked for!  YAY ME.

There are a lot more books with really stellar side characters, so naturally you can disagree with any of my choices and sub in your own, BUT if you haven’t read any of the books mentioned about, they’re worth a read if JUST for the characters I’ve mentioned.

Um, except Harry Potter?  If you haven’t read Harry Potter WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE SILLY PERSON GO READ IT.

Who are your favorite minor characters in books or film?  Why are they so awesome?  Do you have favorite fan art of characters from books?  Share it with me, my sweets!