Where Did You Go? I Want To Know More About You.

This week The Broke and The Bookish want to know who are our Top Ten Minor Characters. How minor are we talking here? A flash in the pan or a secondary character? Something in between? Here are my top ten in no particular order.

1. Ofglen from The Handmaid’s Tale – Ofglen’s influence on Offred is important. I think it impacts her behaviour greatly. I wish Ofglen could have won.

2. Lady Pole from Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell – Though not one of the main characters, Lady Pole does play a major role in the lives of Strange, Norrell and their friends. Lady Pole is the catalyst for so much of what happens.

3. Thresh from The Hunger Games – Who is Thresh? We don’t really know. He’s big and strong and a good representative of his District. He’s seen as a threat. The careers want him on their side, but he wants nothing to do with them. He shows feeling for Rue that the reader didn’t necessarily expect. Without him, the Hunger Games would have ended differently for Katniss and Peeta.

4. Claudine from the Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampires series – Claudine is Sookie’s fairy godmother. She looks out for Sookie. We learn her lineage, what she wants to become and it is sad when she is no longer part of the story.

5. Patrick Danville from The Dark Tower and Insomnia – Patrick is a child when we first meet him in Insomnia. He must be saved because without him, Roland, the Gunslinger, can not fulfill his quest in The Dark Tower. What happened to Patrick, though, between his childhood as a promising artist and his task helping the last gunslinger?

6. Nicholas Temelcoff from In The Skin of a Lion – Without Nicholas we would have no Alice. Without Alice, Patrick Lewis would be a very different man. Nicholas is a catalyst. I wouldn’t have minded if we could have known his family better.

7. Charlotte Lucas from Pride and Prejudice / Pride and Prejudice and Zombies – Charlotte is a good friend to Lizzy. I wish I could have known more about her motivations in marring Collins. I have to say, I love the role they gave her in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies! It’s crazy and she becomes even more of a motivating force for the zombie slayer, Lizzy Bennet.

8. Ruth from Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister – Ruth sneaks up on you. You think she’s just the mentally challenged stepsister, but she’s so much more.

9. Zeb from The Year Of The Flood – Who is Zeb really? Where did he come from? How did he hook up with the Gardeners? I think he was just using them as a cover for his rebel behaviour. I also think he really cared about Ren, Toby and Amanda.

10. Tina from the Undead series – I’ve always wondered how Tina became subservient to the vampire she created. Was it because of prophecy or was it something else?

Honourable mention to Mary Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. While the other sisters’ lives are paramount to the plot, Mary (the middle sister) gets forgotten. Shouldn’t the mother be trying to marry her off too?

Who are you favourite minor characters?