When the Sidekicks Tell the Story: Introduction

We like our heroes to be awesome. That’s what makes them heroes. They’re smarter, stronger, faster, better looking, and can zip off witty one-liners while dueling the villain. We enjoy these things vicariously through the heroes, knowing all too well that we are average Joes who tend to think of the best comeback after the confrontation is over. 

But sometimes writers are just too good at their jobs. They make the heroes so awesome that it’s beyond the readers’ ability to relate to them. So the writers have no recourse but to have a sidekick who is just as average—and maybe more buffoonish—than we are.

Another useful thing about the sidekick is the writer can use him or her as the narrator if they want to use first-person perspective. Otherwise they’re stuck with third person because it would not be as awesome for the overly-awesome hero to relate how awesome and heroic they were. That would be bragging, and no matter what other faults the hero can have, bragging is just not cool.

 
So this series of blog posts is dedicated to the sidekicks who tell the story. And obviously the first person that came to your mind—either because he’s the most well-known or because his name is in the title of the next entry—is Doctor John H. Watson of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventures. So that’s where I’ll start.