The Problem with Main Character Worship

 

 

When I was younger, so much younger than today…

…I read an interview with the late Larry DiTillio, a writer who wrote or co-wrote a lot of films, TV series and even TTRPGs. He’s probably most known for having worked on the original He-Man and She-Ra cartoons and the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game… and, of course, Beast Wars, the second best Transformers cartoon of all time. (The ABSOLUTE best is Transformers Animated… and that is NOT up for debate… but Larry DiTillio wrote for that cartoon too!)

The interview was about his work on Beast Wars, and while I don’t remember much of it — or really anything at all — there was ONE thing he said that has stuck with me ever since. I forget the exact phrasing, but BOY do I remember the message.

When asked who his favourite characters were, Larry DiTillio went into this little speech about how he hardly ever gravitated towards the main characters, the big “hero” or “villain” characters. He much preferred the side characters. The “little guy,” the “weirdo,” the “loner,” the “comic relief.” The character actor, as it were.

I was astonished when I read this because… those were my EXACT thoughts. I almost never go for the main character in a series or movie or book. I can count on one hand the times the main character of ANYTHING has been my favourite. I’m not entirely sure why, but it probably has something to do with how,. especially in professionally produced works, the main character tends to be saddled with being “relatable” to the audience… and this all too often leads to them either becoming bland and uninteresting because the writers can’t make them too off-putting, OR them turning into annoying power fantasies who get away with everything because they’re just that much more SPECIAL than everyone else. Or both at the same time.

It was definitely a relief to discover that someone else shared my preference for side characters, because I often seemed to be in the minority in fandom. Everyone else just liked the main character, wanted to identify with the main character, wanted to talk about and write about and spend ages debating just why the main character deserved everything and anyone who didn’t worship the ground the main character walked on was a terrible person.

Yes, I know I sound bitter here. But the thing is… I think my preference for side characters actually ties into this over-focus.

Let me explain.

Anyone who’s paid any amount of attention to me over the years have probably caught onto how if there’s ONE thing I hate it’s elitism. The idea that some people are just SUPERIOR to others because of their status, or gender, or IQ level, or race, or wealth, or nationality, or being able-bodied, or whatever, and that these SUPERIOR people don’t have to follow the same rules or laws as everyone else because they just DESERVE BETTER than everyone else. (Or, of course, on the flipside, that some people are just inferior and deserve less.)

And I think that this type of “main character worship” is kind of a form of very specific, limited-to-one-person, elitism. Because it frames the main character as the only one who MATTERS, while everyone else just exists to support them. The main character is the Chosen One, the only one who can do something, the only one who deserves good things happen to them. Never has anyone suffered as the main character has suffered. Never has anyone sacrificed as much as the main character has sacrificed. Yeah, whatever.

And once more we have to talk about that paragon of unthinking cruelty and bigotry disguised as tolerance, Harry Potter.

 

 

Harry James Potter is not just the main character of the Harry Potter series. He’s its pinnacle, its entire reason for being. This is why any official HP projects that try to focus on anyone other than Harry fall flat; the world of the books and movies exist to tell the story of Harry going to Hogwarts and defeating Voldemort… and ONLY that story. The wizarding world is SUPPOSEDLY an entire society with centuries of history, its own government, schools, cultures, prejudices, conflicts and thousands upon thousands of people living their own lives…. but in practice? All of it exists only for Harry’s benefit. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING in that world, leads back to Harry.

Voldemort’s rise leads to Harry. Dumbledore’s plans lead to Harry. Snape’s entire adult life leads to Harry. The Marauders, the fact that wizards live in secrecy, the school system, the central political conflicts… ALL OF IT leads to Harry. The world simply bends over backwards in order to set things up for Harry to be the hero, the main character, the Chosen One. Aside from some unimportant side stories that ultimately don’t matter, nobody really has any real agency outside either helping or hindering Harry. Ironically, the one person who TRIES to is Ron, and he ends up demonized and spurned by the fandom for it.

The first HP book sets things up carefully so that the readers will both feel immensely sorry for Harry for living with his ugly, mean, inferior relatives, and also realize how incredibly superior Harry is to those ugly, mean, inferior relatives.  The first chapter is essentially almost five thousand words’ worth of “The Dursleys suck, the Dursleys suck, oh, and by the way this is Harry and he is extra-super-special”. For the rest of the series, the Dursley scenes swing beween “here is why you should feel sorry for Harry” and “here is why Harry is superior” all at once because the Dursleys manage to be abusive in such an exaggerated way that it becomes surreal, and at the same time so ineffective in their abuse that it doesn’t truly touch the very superior Harry. The Dursleys try to make Harry miserable and usually just end up looking like pathetic idiots while Harry makes sarcastic remarks at their expense.

Until the narrative wants us to feel sorry for Harry. THEN suddenly the Dursleys are effective abusers who can make his life absolutely miserable and thwart him at every turn.

Because the Dursleys aren’t really characters. They’re barely even caricatures. They exist to perform one of two functions: make Harry look better, or make Harry suffer. They don’t have lives that matter outside Harry. Their relationship with each other barely matters except insofar as it affects Harry. Dudley’s friends don’t matter. Vernon’s work doesn’t matter. Petunia’s history matters only where it intersects with Harry’s family. Their entire fictional existence revolves around the protagonist.

And fandom, somehow, manages to make this tendency even stronger.

I’ve mentioned before that ever since JKR went full-on TERF, the only HP material I consume is LGBTQ-friendly fan works. But since I’m not a romance reader, find “Dramione” insulting,  and am not interested in the Marauders, I tend to encounter a LOT of fan works that essentially turn Harry into an even bigger power fantasy: Harry should be the most magically powerful person alive, Harry should inherit fifteen ancient fortunes and twelve lordships, Harry should be politically powerful, Harry should be the smartest person in the room, Harry should have a harem of all the hottest girls in the franchise, Harry should tell everyone who ever wronged him exactly how terrible they are while they stand there looking ashamed.

And if I dare to suggest that maybe Harry doesn’t need to get EVERYTHING, or that another character might deserve something too, or that Harry might not always be the perfect paragon of virtue, or that he DOES tend to get an AWFUL lot of advantages for free, or that having gone through hard times doesn’t entitle him to treating other people like crap… I get called a hater, usually with a side order of “but can you blame him after everything he’s been through?” and long rants about how AWFUL everyone has been to Harry with the Dursleys abusing him or Dumbledore using him as a pawn. When I try to counter with how other characters in the franchise have also struggled, that’s when we get the DON’T I KNOW THAT NO ONE HAS EVER SUFFFERED AS HARRY HAS SUFFERED?

Thing is, having experienced bad things isn’t a licence to be a bad person. And there’s a frustrating double standard involved here when Harry’s bad behaviour can always be contextualized (“Can you blame him? Look what happened to him! Look how people treated him! Of course he’s angry!”) but when another character behaves badly, suddenly context doesn’t matter.

Harry as a person is… kind of given a lot of excuses for flaws he possesses, but also given a lot of credit for virtues he doesn’t actually possess. When Dumbledore in the last book calls him a remarkably selfless person, I just have to roll my eyes because Harry is anything BUT selfless. He’s self-centred, entitled and often selfish. Not in a malicious way; he’s not mean or cruel, he just tends not to think of other people a whole lot. He is a far less supportive friend than either Ron or Hermione… prime example: When Harry’s hand is hurt in the fifth book, Ron and Hermione wait up for him with soothing Murtlap essence and comfort. When Hermione’s hand is hurt in the fourth book, Harry says “you’d better go to the hospital wing,” finishes his breakfast and goes off to class.

And yet Ron and Hermione’s support is taken for granted; only if they on occasion fail to provide that support they’ll be treated as bad people for it. Harry, though, will not; ANY support he deems to show is hailed as fantastically selfless, noble and heroic, and any selfish or thoughtless action is ignored and swept under the rug. Because he’s the main character and the same rules don’t apply to him.

And that’s exactly the sort of main character exceptionalism that drives me nuts.

But that’s not the only kind of main character worship that is. Looking at a couple more examples, you have Steven Universe Future and Sailor Moon… both of whom focus overly much on the main character to the detriment of the othersm but they do so in different ways and to different degrees.

 

 

 

Now,  the original Steven Universe series, while essentially being all about Steven all the time, at least was pretty good about giving the supporting cast their due… at least until the series got cut short, which also cut a lot of those characters’ development short. Like, seriously, I’m looking forward to that Lars of the Stars spin-off, because Lars actually had some damn cool character developments and while Steven was a catalyst for that development, Lars became a badass space warrior all on his own. And I think Rebecca Sugar can do something JKR never did: make a spin-off where the focus isn’t on the main character, and the series still feels like it has a point to it.

Also unlike Harry, Steven truly IS a selfless person. Sure, he’ll have some moments where he’s childishly selfish or self-centred, like being overly-dramatic and sulky about not getting a donut when he wants one, but for the most part he thinks of other people before he thinks of himself, he goes out of his way to help anyone even if that means he ignores his own needs or problems, and one of the central ideas of Steven Universe Future is that his selflessness has become unhealthy. He’s spent so much of his childhood helping other people, solving their problems and taking responsibility for things that shouldn’t have been his responsibility in the first place, that he doesn’t know what to do when people stop needing him.

And that’s a perfectly good idea for a story. The problem is that Future becomes so relentlessly focused on Steven that the entire universe seems to shrink around him. Nearly every episode becomes another “poor Steven” episode. Characters who once had their own problems, relationships and conflicts increasingly exist to react to Steven’s problems. The huge cast and fascinating world of the original series start to feel smaller and smaller because almost nothing is allowed to matter unless it matters to Steven.

But the problem I have with it is that, well… honestly? Everything has always been about Steven. ALL THE TIME. In the original show nothing happened that didn’t involve him, and he was essentially the centre of, and solution to, everything. It’s not unlike hearing someone talk about themselves for five hours straight, and then spend an extra 20 minutes afterwards complaining how always thinking about everyone else and never ever about themselves has ruined their lives.

And then there’s Sailor Moon. Especially the original manga by Naoko Takeuchi.

The premise seems tailor-made for me: It’s a TEAM of magical girls! They have different personalities! Different powers! Different histories! Different relationships! …except none of them really matter at all unless it’s in relation to Usagi, or to a lesser extent Chibi-Usa. Because Usagi is the centre of absolutely everything. She’s the most important, the most powerful, she gets the most important relationships, she biggest emotional moments, and th ultimate victories… and really the only victories that actually matter.

Everyone else gets crumbs. Sure, the other Senshi get power-ups. They get attacks. They get occasional side stories that may be cute… but who who cares about Sailor Jupiter getting a cool-looking new power if I know Sailor Moon is going to be the one who actually resolves the conflict anyway?

The one-shot sequel manga Parallel Sailor Moon almost feels like an exaggerated demonstration of everything that bothers me about the Sailor Moon manga. If you haven’t read it, it’s a very short alternate universe thing where the Inner Senshi are all grown up, married and have daughters that are essentially clones of themselves.  Since Usagi already has Chibi-Usa, she in this story has two daughters: Chibi-Usa here has a younger sister named Kousagi, who briefly becomes the new Sailor Moon, with the other daughters becoming the new Inner Senshi.. it’s really just an extremely short and extremely stupid story that’s really built around a “cats eat rabbits” joke.

Just one problem. The other Inner Senshi aren’t characters. They’re more like a group of cardbord cutouts who have one real character trait: They hate Kousagi. Why do they hate Kousagi? I dunno, they just do. They bully her, try to ditch her, call her names, make her carry all their stuff. No reason for it whatsoever, except, well, the manga clearly wants me to go “POOR LITTLE KOUSAGI SHE’S ALL ALONE!” And then she becomes the new Sailor Moon and saves the day… the other daughters become Senshi and do absolutely nothing except bitch about everything. Why are they even in the story at all?!

This is REALLY typical of the Sailor Moon manga. Whenever there’s a character focus, the main character has to be all alone and everyone else just becomes part of a crowd whose main function is to be mean or at least dismissive, no matter if that fits their characters or not. And because Usagi is the main character of the overall story, Usagi is always the poor misunderstood one that nobody gets and everyone dismisses, but is somehow the only one who actually DOES anything.

Or, hell, another example I thought of: The Kung Fu Panda franchise. Can you remember any instance where any of the Furious Five did ANYTHING useful? These guys are supposed to be an elite team of warriors and all they ever do is get their asses kicked so Po can save the day. Even Tigress, the only one of them who gets a LITTLE more focus, ultimately doesn’t accomplish anything.

And here is where everyone choruses: “But Dina! The name of the franchise is Harry Potter/Sailor Moon/Steven Universe/Kung Fu Panda! Why are you complaining that the main character gets the most attention?!”

I’m not. I’m complaining that the main character is the ONLY ONE who matters. It’s when the story goes from “this is the character whose story we’re following” to “this is the only character who’s worthy of your attention”.

 

 

On a somewhat related note, you may remember a little post I wrote ages ago about what I call “The Dishonest Final Battle”.  You know… it’s the Big Final Battle, everyone is there, the entire cast has assembled, the music is swelling, everyone participates and everyone gets to do something cool, the good guys are winning through teamwork… Nope! PSYCH! The Big Bad gets a second wind or reveals that’s he’s EVEN MORE POWERFUL THAN ANYONE THOUGHT, and defeats the entire cast, leaving only the main hero, and MAYBE another character, to save the day. It’s a perfect example of the “main character worship” thing because… well, it’s so dishonest.

Look! Everyone gets to do something awesome! Your fave minor character did something really cool! Yeah, and it didn’t matter at all in the end.

This is one of the reason I CAN’T STAND Kingdom Hearts 3. I mean… the entire Kingdom Hearts series is supposed to be about Disney and Square Enix characters, but increasingly the Disney characters feel like decorations around a Sora and a collection of angsty anime boys. Donald Duck and Goofy, ostensibly major characters, get shoved out of focus as the series go on and don’t do anything… and then Kingdom Hearts 3 is supposed to be their return to form and it isn’t. Fans absolutely LOVE to point to that Kingdom Hearts 3 turned Donald into the most powerful mage in the entire Square Enix multiverse because he casts Zettaflare, the (at the time) most powerful spell ever, in this game.

And  okay, it’s a moment that looks kinda cool. But what does it actually accomplish? Absolutely nothing. Oh, yeah, he roasted Terra-Xehanort, but then the victory is immediately overturned when the Heartless tornado kills all the good guys anyway and the good guys lose, leaving Sora (of course) to go through the whole weird void sequence and bring everyone back.

In other words, Donald supposedly just performed one of the most astonishing magical feats in the history of Square Enix and it ultimately made NO difference. If he hadn’t cast Zettaflare and had instead done a little disco dance, the ultimate result would have been exactly the same.

Actually, the disco dance would probably have been more fun.

And it all comes back to not actually letting the side characters do anything meaningful. Because, well, call me picky, but if you’re setting up for them to do something AWESOME, then it should mean something. It shouldn’t just be a few minutes of doing something that LOOKS cool but doesn’t accomplish anything.

Because then I’m just wondering what the point of that character being there at all is. If the Chosen One does everything and is the only one who accomplishes stuff and the only one who matters… why should the rest of the cast even show up at all?

And I suppose that’s why Larry DiTillio’s words stuck with me for all these years.

It’s not that I want the little guy, the weirdo, the loner or the comic relief to take over the story and become the new super-special centre of the universe. I just want them to MATTER. Let them accomplish something. Let them have victories that don’t immediately get overturned so the hero can have the REAL victory. Let them have lives and problems and relationships that don’t exist solely for the protagonist’s benefit. Because sometimes that weird little side character standing three places behind the hero is the character I’m actually watching for.