When it comes to books our favorite characters may be judged by their actions throughout the story, or by their narration if told through their POV. Maybe we just relate to the characters more than some of the others. Even a minor character in a book can seem like an important one if his or her name is mentioned enough times in the text. They may physically only appear in a single chapter but if written well it can feel like they were present throughout the entire novel. Likewise in film and television, only in those cases it is mainly dependent on the skill of the actor cast in the role. Many fans' favorite characters are only recurring roles and sometimes they become so popular they get promoted to series regulars.
The following is a list of my favorite characters that fit this description: barely present but always there.
5. Walter O' Dim (Stephen King's The Dark Tower)
The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.
And with that simple sentence began the epic 8 book series written by Stephen King (and somewhat controversially, ended it as well). The man in question was Walter O' Dim, a man of many faces and identities who traveled across time and dimensions to cause chaos and destruction. He was a master manipulator and and a master of disguise. While he appeared in Stephen King's The Stand as the central villain under the guise of Randall Flagg, I'm only considering him based on his appearances in The Dark Tower where he played a central role but appeared for only brief moments at a time. His appearances can be broken down like this:
The Gunslinger - present in flashbacks as "Marten Broadcloak," but only appears in two actual scenes.
The Drawing of the Three - mentioned in passing as "Flagg."
The Waste Lands - appears in chapter near end as "Richard Fannin."
Wizard and Glass - meets briefly with Eldred Jonas; confronts Roland briefly in final chapters.
The Wind Through the Keyhole - appears to Tim as the Covenant Man briefly.
Wolves of the Calla - revealed to have met with Callahan in a flashback.
Song of Susannah - mentioned as having made bargain with Mia to birth Mordred.
The Dark Tower - appears in only a single chapter.
While Walter has appeared in each book in some form or another, it doesn't seem like enough to consider him a prominent character. Particularly in the final book with his undoing occurring very early on, in which King reveals to us that the role we perceived O' Dim to play in the grand finale was never very important at all, and that he was never more than another underling of the ultimate villain the Crimson King. In another clever twist, it is the King's newest servant who disposes of Walter, effectively replacing him to accomplish what the former had failed to do.
Still, as little as Walter appeared, it was the mystery about the man that intrigued me and other readers I'm sure. He had so many aliases and disguises, the question we all had until his unpredictably-tragic end was: who was he, really? As was revealed in his final thoughts before death, for a time Walter had forgotten his real name too.
4. Badger (Firefly)
Badger appeared in only two episodes of the cancelled-too-soon Firefly as a criminal businessman who could be trusted as far as you could throw him. He appeared in an early scene of the series' pilot and again in the memorable episode "Shindig," both times hiring the Serenity crew for a job. While he is a minuscule man who seems more adept at delivering clever one-liners than attacking you, he is considered by the characters to be a very dangerous man.
As the series was cancelled after only 14 episodes, there was a lot of potential for the character left up in the air. Fans, however, took to the villain anyways and he is considered a fan favorite. This is largely due in part to actor Mark Sheppard's memorable portrayal of him and for how good he looked in a bowler hat. In the episodes he appeared in he wasn't even present for more than ten minutes total, yet the character came away from it all as if he had been in every episode.
3. The Man in Black (LOST)
While this character was the central villain of the entire season 6 of LOST, and while Terry O' Quinn did a damn fine job of playing him, I can't help but feel that the true Man in Black was portrayed by Titus Welliver. As was established in the episode "Across the Sea" the body we first see the Man in Black in was his actual human body before his soul was exiled from his physical form into what we came to know as the Smoke Monster. The Monster then simply possessed his former body but was no longer the same person.
We first see the Man in Black in the season 5 finale where he casually threatens his brother Jacob with murder (which he delivers on by the episode's end) and I must say that entire scene absolutely blew my mind. The audience had never seen these two before. We had heard Jacob mentioned by the Others and such as a leader-type figure, but the Man in Black was completely new to us (we didn't yet know he was the Smoke Monster we had been seeing all this time). Titus Welliver came into us Losties' lives with a vile charismatic swagger that seduced us into wanting to see more of him. Unfortunately, this was not to be, as the Man in Black assumed the form of the character John Locke for the remainder of the series. We were treated to only three total appearances of Welliver as the villain, all in flashbacks, but boy did they deliver. Welliver had a manner of speaking as the character that just made everything he said sound reasonable. You believe him when he speaks and you don't judge Richard Alpert for briefly aiding him or even when he tries to rejoin his side of the conflict years after the fact. In his origin story you feel pity for the Man as it becomes clear that all he wants is to be able to leave the island and to see what else the world has to offer while his mother and brother keep him there to rot. The Man in Black is obviously evil in how he uses others to get what he wants and kills those he has no use for, but in the end his justification does make sense. I think we as fans owe it to Welliver for making the villain's madness sound so reasonable in mere three episode presence.
2. Meg Masters (Supernatural)
Countless characters come and go throughout Supernatural, but there was always one in particular I always couldn't wait to see again until her eventual death, and that was Meg Masters. Meg was a girl possessed by a demon in the show's first season who acted as a sort of secondary antagonist to the bigger villain, the yellow-eyed demon Azazel. It seemed like she was done in for good when the Winchesters exorcised her from Meg's body but she returned in the second season to possess Sam for one episode. The brothers still referred to her as Meg and continued to do so when she reappeared in season 5 in a new body played by Rachel Miner, and this was where the character really started to take off. Maybe I'm just a sucker for brunettes, and we all know I'm a sucker for leather jackets, but this incarnation of Meg really caught my attention. It helped that she kicked the brothers' ass in the season's first episode, then returned halfway through the season in a memorable and tragic hellhound assault on the good guys. After that episode she wasn't seen again until the next season, after Lucifer's defeat and the years I like to call the "Supernatural Expanded Universe" (sorry y'all, I'm just a Kripke loyalist). Rachel Miner continued to play the flirtatious and vicious Meg to my delight and throughout the next couple of seasons the character slowly began to become an ally to the Winchester team, despite the obvious bad blood between them. Meg's story ends tragically (as all female characters on Supernatural do) when she is captured by demons during a mission and subsequently tortured for the majority of the next season, and just when we finally get to see her again she gets killed helping the brothers escape. Needless to say I was upset, as were many a fan of the show.
Now that all makes Meg seem like a pretty prominent player in the Supernatural universe, and she was, and Rachel Miner did such a phenomenal job reinterpreting the character that we just associate her with the character now, and she only appeared in 7 episodes. That's 7 episodes out of the whole 8 seasons the character was alive. I know! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat??? It may just be that she's my number 1 fandom crush, but when I think of Supernatural, she immediately comes to mind.
1. Brother Mouzone (The Wire)
When I ask fellow Wire viewers who their favorite characters were (and I do a LOT) Brother Mouzone always comes up on their lists. This character appeared only in four episodes of the second season (a season everybody but me forgets even happened) and three in the third, his final appearance. He wasn't even a native of Baltimore where the story takes place, he was a drug enforcer and hitman hired out of NYC by Avon Barksdale to ward off the Eastside dealers coming into the Westside territory. And boy did he. For a while. He got totally screwed when Stringer Bell, who wanted the Eastsiders to share in the West's territory (it's very complicated), went around his boss's back and deceived stick-up man Omar to take Mouzone out, claiming that he killed Omar's former boyfriend. Mouzone is nearly killed but Omar realizes he had been used and lets the man live. Mouzone returns the following season after leaving Baltimore for a time and forms an alliance with Omar to get revenge on Stringer for betraying both of them. And boy, do they get it.
That's it. That's all Mouzone does in the entire series. Still, we have Michael Potts to thank for playing him in such a mysterious and intriguing way. The man had beliefs that didn't falter for a second, he had traditions he followed to a T, and he wore a fucking bow tie. When he had his favorite Walther PPK in his hand you never knew what was about to happen.
So those are my five prime examples on how a character doesn't have to be seen too much for them to make an impact on a reader or viewer. Sometimes it just comes down to good writing and acting.
Thankee sai,
Tyler
P.S. Don't be afraid to like these when I post them on Facebook. Jeez, guys, you're making me feel unwanted.
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