My 1 June feature on the Supernatural Underground discusses the sidekick in Science Fiction and Fantasy, particularly the part the sidekick often plays in the traditional “hero’s journey”:

“Often it’s the sidekicks who ground the heroine or hero, like the “Scooby Gang” in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

And like Samwise Gamgee in The Lord Of The Rings, and Zuzana in the Daughter Of Smoke and Bone series, the sidekick has the heroine or hero’s back…”

To read the full post click on:

Fantastic Sidekicks

But wait, there’s more…

UK/AU/NZ Cover

The post also references my own novels, particularly Thornspell and The Gathering Of The Lost, which got me thinking abut how “sidekicks” can also be major characters in their own right, and whether there is anything at all that distinguishes a supporting character from the “main character” (or characters).

It occurred to me that one rule of thumb might be that, in general, a sidekick is not a point of view character, whereas the ‘lead’ is…

And then I almost immediately thought of one book, Pat Conroy’s The Prince Of Tides, where this is arguably not the case. The main character, the one who lies at the “heart” of the story, is not the narrator but someone whose point of view we, as readers, never enter. (Note: The book differs significantly from the film, which changed what was the “heart” of the novel to a romantic love story between the narrator and a psychiatrist, which is also part of the book but not its core.)

So what do you think? Can the rule of thumb about point of view still hold as a “principle”? And/or can the sidekick/main character differentiation solely rely on relative page time in the story?