The Sidekicks

[Takuya]

(Not related to the movie with Chuck Norris as main character)

"The heroes of popular series are memorable, but quick: Who’s the most unforgettable sidekick in contemporary fiction? Takes some thought, doesn’t it? Dr. Watson comes easily to mind; perhaps also Sancho Panza or Paul Drake? After that it’s easier to think of sidekicks from movies or comic books.

Same question for femmes fatales. Not so easy, is it? Conjuring up the names of Brigid O’Shaughnessy in Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon (1930) or Carmen Sternwood in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep (1939) tests the depth of your trivia knowledge. Maybe you thought of Justine in Lawrence Durrell’sAlexandria Quartet (1957–1960)? Points to you—but what about contemporary fiction? Do you recall the name of Lyra Belacqua’s mother in Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass (1995)? (It’s Mrs. Coulter.) Other femmes fatales?

We could issue the same challenge with respect to the great villains of contemporary literature. After Hannibal Lecter, who is there?

Come to that, how many secondary characters of any type stick in your mind from the fiction you’ve read in the last year? Do you read chic lit? Have you ever felt that the gaggle of sassy girlfriends in one is pretty much the same as in the rest? How about killers and assassins? Do many of them seem to you stamped from the same mold? How about children? Do precocious kids in novels make you want to gag?"

- Fire in Fiction, Donald Maassey


Who are the sidekicks, secondary characters, in literature, movies, comics, video games, TV shows, that you remember or automatically come to mind when you think of a main character or even a title? Who are those characters that are special to the protagonist?