Top Ten Tuesday: Minor Characters Who Deserve More Love
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Top Ten Tuesday: Minor Characters Who Deserve More Love

Line @First Line Reader

“Give me your hat.”

First line in The Bone Ships by RJ Barker

It’s Tuesday. It’s a Top Ten and it’s hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl. I can very easily get on board with this week’s topic as it is secondary/minor characters who deserve more love. Of course, it’s unclear whether this love should come from readers or other characters within the book, so I’ve taken the opportunity to go with a bit of both.

  • The Queen of Attolia (The Queen’s Thief by Megan Whalen Turner)

The queen of Attolia is a character that comes off as very cold and reserved. She’s not going to waste her time being nice to people she doesn’t care for, and she isn’t even very outspoken about the love she does have for some people. Because of this, I don’t think she’s very beloved by the people she rules or the readers of the series for that matter. She should be because she’s very passionate and self-sacrificing. She just has a different way of showing it.

  • Renarin Kholin (The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson)

I don’t think any character is more fitting for this question than Renarin. Even his own father forgets he exists sometimes! It has also hurt his mental state that he has grown up in a society that highly values physical strength and the ability to fight in wars while he himself was very weak and sickly as a child and still struggles with his health. He deserves to know that there are other ways to have value!

  • The Fool (The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb)

I have only read The Farseer Trilogy so far, but based on that, The Fool definitely deserves more love! Knowing Robin Hobb, he probably still does by the end of everything. He’s a very strange character, so to avoid spoiling anything, I won’t go into too much detail. He’s just getting hurt a lot and I don’t like seeing it.

  • Jack Ellin (Onyx Court by Marie Brennan)

The love Jack Ellin deserve more of should have come in the form of more page-time within the Onyx Court series. The series is structured in such a way that each book is almost a standalone with a different male character at their center. The problem with Jack though, is that he didn’t even get an entire book for himself. He was barely there for half of In Ashes Lie, and I’m so sad about that. He was very funny and had quite a few clever one-liners that I really wish we had gotten more of.

  • Effie Trinket (The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins)

I’m going into minor spoilers here because I’m mainly thinking that it’s the Effie at the end of Mockingjay that deserve more love. From anyone, really. She’s a character that seems to have lived a very sheltered life, but probably not as sheltered as she makes it seem, so I feel for her when that little control she has is ripped away from her.

  • The crew of The Tide Child (The Tide Child by RJ Barker)

It turned out to be impossible for me to pick just one crew member of this epic ship so I went with all of them. I believe they’re all very beloved by readers of the books but probably not so much by everyone else in the quite brutal world they live in. They’re all outcasts and some of them practically have one foot in the grave when we meet them. But they’re resilient and deserve more recognition.

  • Jamshid (The Daevabad Trilogy by S. A. Chakraborty)

*pausing for a moment so that those who read this blog regularly can roll their eyes*

Jamshid deserves the world, okay. He is so kind to everyone, but he doesn’t always get the same kind of treatment in return, not even from those who love him the most, and I will not stand for it!

  • Jude St. Francis (A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara)

He’s probably not considered a minor character, but if anyone deserves more love, it’s Jude. He can actually never get enough love, so I had to include him.

  • Mrs. Silver (The Greenhollow Duology by Emily Tesh)

With quite a few amazing characters in this duology, it’s extraordinary how this minor character, Mrs. Silver, just came in and stole the spotlight. Someone who doesn’t appreciate her as much, though, is her son, and he seriously needs to wake and realize how awesome his mother is.

  • Carfax (The Betrayals by Bridget Collins)

I literally cannot say anything here without spoiling something, so you’re just going to have to trust me that Carfax definitely belongs on this list.

Those were ten characters I think deserve more love in one way or another. Do you agree with me? Do you have a favorite secondary character who gets overlooked? Tell me about it in the comments!

Published by Line @First Line Reader

31 thoughts on “Top Ten Tuesday: Minor Characters Who Deserve More Love”

    1. I agree, Renarin is getting more attention although I’m still disappointed he didn’t play a bigger role in Rhythm of War. I don’t really keep up with all the rumors and the theories with that series but what you’re saying sounds very intriguing!
      And The Betrayals might be my favorite book of the year, so I’d say it’s very good 😄 It’s a bit weird though, and very confusing so it might not fit everyone’s taste.

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  6. I’ve just started reading Assassin’s Apprentice, and Hobb does characterizations like nobody’s business, so I can see there’s a hard road ahead. But I am sure the Fool deserves a name here. And so too does Irene Queen of Attolia, an underestimated character who really deserves all of Gen’s love, and ours too. Great post!

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  9. Why did I have a feeling Jamshid would pop up on this list before even reading it? 🤔😂 But I definitely agree with you, at least for the books I’ve read! Jack was definitely more interesting than Antony – we were robbed by not getting more of him! And Henry seriously needs to start appreciating his epic mother more 😁 My favorite character on this list has got to be Carfax, though… Effie, the Fool, and Jude all come close, but Carfax just deserves way more love!
    (Also, I just got back from visiting my sister, and you know what that means? The Way of Kings is now (FINALLY!) in my possession!!! 🥰 I’m so excited to start reading!)

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    1. I really have no idea why you’d expect Jamshid to appear in this post. I don’t think it’s a character I talk about all that often 😂 And I knew you’d appreciate a Carfax mention 😁
      Also, exciting news about The Way of Kings!! I hope you can find the time to read that monster of a book because you know I’m very eagerly awaiting your thoughts on Kaladin 😉 And the rest of the book, of course.

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      1. It truly is a mystery how I ever could have forseen that. I must have amazing clairvoyance skills 😇
        I’m very optimistic about The Way of Kings, though – I have a nine-hour train ride to the Netherlands next week, so I’m counting on there being lots of reading time! 🤗

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    1. Thank you! And I did read your post. I also find it difficult to remember characters sometimes so I thought talking about books instead was a great way to twist the topic.

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  12. Omg, I couldn’t agree more that Jude deserves ALL the love 😭 My heart… I love seeing Mrs. Silver mentioned on here—she’s such a great character and I’d definitely love to know more about her. Great list!

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  14. Carfax!! I agree!! What a story though! And the Tide Child crew definitely deserve much better, I shudder to think what they’ll have to go through in the last book…

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    1. Carfax just needs so much love! And yes, I need the Tide Child crew to have a happy ending because I’m still not over what happened in the second book. Though like you, I doubt the last book is going to be all that happy.

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