Recipe for a Good Novel: Secondary Characters

By Vitora

Dandin for Mariel. Rose for Martin. Russa Nodrey for Tammo. The list goes on and on—doesn’t every main Redwaller have a sidekick? It seems, also, that secondary characters—usually those that have easily become endeared to the reader—are killed in the final battles. Take Finnbarr Galedeep, for instance. The brave sea otter’s final deed was to destroy the evil Foxwolf Urgan Nagru, restoring peace to Southsward once more but also losing his life in the process. This pattern is repeated with Rockjaw Grang in The Long Patrol, Boar the Fighter in Mossflower, and Saro and Bragoon in Loamhedge, among many others. But why? Why doesn’t Brian Jacques write a tragic, touching death of a main character? We all know that his skill does not limit his doing this. So why not a main character?

The answer lies in emotion and development.

A Redwall novel is a journey, the voyage of the main character—usually a youngster, to represent Jacques’ readers—from immaturity to maturity. This leaves him or her vital to the plot; obviously, to kill them off would leave a rather bland and boring story. For example, Matthias, from the first page of Redwall, begins his change from the bumbling Abbey apprentice to the strong, strapping warrior he is at the conclusion. Judging by the dialogue at the very beginning, he has already gone through a significant amount of development—he was recently a whimpering orphan left at Redwall’s gates instead of an aspiring Brother-in-training.

And look at the part where Matthias is supposedly dead, swept off the roof by the Sparra king. Somehow, the dialogue, action and plot movement (or lack thereof, really) that goes on at Redwall is the most boring and seemingly forced part of the book. When Matthias is alive, his actions drive the tale forward, and, since he is quite a dynamic—not to mention hotheaded—character, he propels a story made exciting by his deeds.

Emotions can be tricky things when writing a novel. From grief to triumph to fear to joy and beyond, a writer’s first job is to make the audience feel. When a secondary character is created, the fact that he or she may end up dead at the book’s conclusion is always at the back of the author’s mind. This prevents a writer from over-emphasizing the secondary characters—and, in doing so, taking away from the shine of the main one. It also leaves plenty of room for deep, rooted traits that capture the reader quickly but need not be developed much. Arula the molemaid in Salamandastron goes through little character change compared to her companion Samkim, but she easily conjures up our affection from the moment we first meet her, eyes downcast in the picture of youthful regret. Through the novel, Arula’s character changes only the slightest, but she stays endeared throughout the book. Secondary characters—quickly liked but easily lost.

It is emotion that kills off the secondary and lets the main live. Even if we passionately hate the main character, if he or she were to be killed—dramatic as the death might be—the story would immediately sputter to a stop. And who, after reading pages upon pages of tense buildup, ready for the main character to finally show their stuff, would want to be disappointed by a swift and unsatisfactory end, no matter how well-written? But still, the author desires to stir powerful feelings inside their readers’ hearts—that’s how a novel gets high sales: by causing the reader to wipe away a tear, to laugh hysterically at a witty line (therefore scaring the nearest bus passengers). So they choose a secondary character’s lifeline to cut, and write a dramatic, tear-wrenching death. That emotion is still brought to the surface, but the main character is still alive; therefore the plot does not die with them.

Somehow, my favorite characters are always the ones that end up deceased. I used to wonder why this was, but looking at the Redwall series—where the answer is fairly clear compared to some books—I know that it’s just Brian Jacques playing for pathos. And when I’m through with a Redwall novel, I usually look back and think, “I suppose that was for the best.” Because, almost always, out of all the characters who could have died and who would have made me rush to grab a tissue instead of slam the book down in frustration, the secondary character that I loved the most will be the one—never the main one, and always a less important individual. Some have expressed their dislike of the “use a few times, and then dispose” type—but secondary characters, and their deaths, are an important ingredient for a good Redwall novel, and all other books as well.