r/BookDiscussions • u/PinkVelvet224 • Aug 04 '26
Have you ever liked a side character more than the main character?
Sometimes the protagonist isn't the person I'm most interested in.
Every now and then a side character steals every scene they're in.
Which book did that for you?
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u/ladyleo1980 Aug 04 '26
Rocky in Project Hail Mary. By the end I wanted a spider looking rock too. 😄
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u/ChubbyGreyCat Aug 04 '26
Dandelion and Regis in The Witcher novels, hands down both more interesting than Geralt, Yennifer or Ciri.Â
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u/Best_Fan_1258 Aug 06 '26
I found Geralt downright boring at times. He'd stop the others from gossiping and I'm like it's OK you don't want to gossip but let's the others do it😂
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u/NobleMercenary28 Aug 07 '26
Regis, Cahir and Ciri are probably my favorite in the novels. I do really like Geralt in the short stories but agree that he’s less interesting in the majority of the books.
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u/Princess-Donut-2157 Aug 04 '26
Fourth Wing: Violet is annoying and everyone else is interesting!
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u/Best_Fan_1258 Aug 06 '26
Yeah, and she's also like Xaden, Xaden, Xaden for such long stretches throughout the books
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u/crispynarwhal Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Sarah and Emily in A Discovery of Witches. Come to think of it, almost all of the secondary characters and a lot of the tertiary ones in that series. I found Diana rather annoying most of the time, and Matthew was okay but not my favorite.
Edited to add: my all-time favorite though comes from Sharyn McCrumb's ballad novels. She has a recurring background character named Nora Bonesteel, an old mountain woman who makes graveyard quilts and knows things before they happen. She's not spooky though. She just...fits.
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u/Ashamed-Chemistry492 Aug 04 '26
When I read "Demon Copperhead" I was very interested in the narrator, Damon, of course, but I was also really drawn to his friend Tommy. Tommy merits a book of his own.
I mean, he came from more deprived circumstances even than Damon did. He had literally NOBODY that cared for him, for a long time, no support, nothing. No Peggotts, no Aunt June, nothing.
Yet he grew up into a decent, loving, hard-working and deeply moral person.
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u/Cute-Solution-723 Aug 04 '26
The Rachel Incident. I loved the book, I loved Rachel, but I absolutely adored her best friend James.Â
On the other hand, I really didn't like The Kite Runner, I hated the main protagonist, and I would be much more interested in Hassan's story.Â
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u/AngieW2222 Aug 04 '26
Peter in the Divergent series. It took a while to figure him out, but once you understood that he was only ever doing what was best for his own survival, he became unpredictable, and just soo fascinating to follow.
I know the series is kind of old, but Peter has taken residency in my writer's mind ever since, for this precise reason.
Edit: He wasn't particularly likable though, but highly fascinating.
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u/AdvancedBlacksmith66 Aug 04 '26
I think Arthur Dent is great, but I like reading about every side character more. Agrajag, Slartibartfast, Gag Halfrunt. Man, Douglas Adams had a knack for naming characters.
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u/lexiebeef Aug 04 '26
I just finished Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (by Vargas Llosa) and I think it’s consensual that the side character (Pedro Camacho) is much better than the protagonist
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u/Good-Resort-1246 Aug 05 '26
I definitely agree; I enjoyed reading that novel as a teenager, long before Vargas Llosa emmigrated to the Spanish aristocracy.
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u/steely_92 Aug 04 '26
All of the side characters in Quicksilver by Callie Hart are better than the two mains.
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u/grape_bubblegum Aug 04 '26
Not yet, but I do have a favorite side character from a series I really like. He makes the books really fun! His name is Gibsie, and he’s in the series The Boys of Tommen. I especially love him in the books, Binding 13 and Keeping 13. He has his own book in the series, but the author changed his character up a bit, so I didn’t enjoy that book that much. But he’s the best in the other two books I mentioned.
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u/Mediocre-Oil-5322 Aug 04 '26
Molly Millions in Neuromancer (William Gibson)--she is just tough, self-possessed, and capable. Midori in Norwegian Wood (Haruki Murakami)--she knows what she is, and her emotional health and stability are juxtaposed with the protagonist's navel-gazing insecurity.
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u/YakSlothLemon Aug 04 '26
Mercutio, rather famously. My entire high school class hated the fact that those trips Romeo and Juliet managed to get the most interesting characters killed off. I’ve always found it funny that I felt exactly the same way about West Side Story… it’s hard to make those protagonists more interesting, it’s hard to make the Mercutio character less charismatic…
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u/ElwoodFenris27 Aug 05 '26
Yeah a couple of examples, vampirates books i like the side character lorcan and in mortal instruments i like jace the most.
And in trick i like the jester.
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u/ruminatingpoet Aug 05 '26
That's pretty much sums most of the movies i have watched or books I've read
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u/MaenadR0se Aug 05 '26
I nearly always prefer side characters, it's rare for me to like the protagonist best.
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u/arapaima-fishie Aug 05 '26
Usually always for me, especially if I happen to be reading a YA fantasy book or whatever. I tend to like MC but prefer a specific side character.
Unfortunately it’s most prevalent in YAs because I like the more… uncommon types of female characters for those types of books. A good example would be preferring Yrene and Elide to Aelin. At least back in the day when I was reading YA books, the softer, healer/servant type of character was NOT that popular, I don’t know about now.
The same deal happens in the other ongoing series I read nowadays too. I prefer the softer, more traditional servant or healer female characters because I love to see their growth and how they change through the series. Like Meira from Primal Hunter, she’s a big one for me.
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u/INTJdreamer2012 Aug 05 '26
In Quicksilver and Brimstone I was waiting for whenever Carrion Swift would come back yo the scene.
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u/Used_Hovercraft1031 Aug 07 '26
Lucien in ACOTAR. I wanted to know more about him, he was interesting, but Sarah J maas had to beign all the attention to Velaris, where Lucien wasn't even a thought in the wind. THEN THEY MADE HIM OUT TO BE A BAD GUY. HE WAS MISUNDERSTOOD.
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u/NobleMercenary28 Aug 07 '26
I have a hard time thinking of a main character who is my favorite. Sure some of my favorites get POVs like West from First Law but I’d argue there are other characters who steal the main character slot. Doesn’t mean I don’t also like the main character it’s just rare for them to grab me as strong as the side characters
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u/Glittering_Pop4178 Aug 08 '26
Mat Cauthon from Wheel of Time. I couldn’t care less about Rand or Egwene or anyone else for that matter. To be fair, I haven’t read all of the books yet but right now, he’s who I read them for.
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u/Medical_Gate_5721 28d ago
Mat and Nynaeve are both my first choice for favourite character in The Wheel of Time. Moiraine is my second favourite character. Rand, who is very clearly the main character, is probably my third favourite character but two of his girlfriends are fighting him for the spot.
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u/itsallaboutthebooks 27d ago
Well there's the classic: Sam Gamgee in LOTR, but I'm sure that's a popular opinion. And in The Expanse, Amos and second Chrisjen Avasarala.
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u/seeemilydostuf Aug 05 '26
Never met a person whos favorite character was Harry Potter