History Main / SatelliteCharacter

* In the ''Fanfic/TheArianaBlackSeries'', Harry and the others are reduced to pretty much having nothing to do but orbit around Ariana until they graduate, and even then they keep popping back to visit her all the time even though they should have jobs and, you know, lives.

** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemEchoesShadowsOfValentia'' has a couple of {{Canon Foreigner}}s who were newly added to the story of ''Gaiden'', both revolving around their relationship with one individual:

*** Rinea, Berkut's fiancée, exists purely to signify Berkut's morality at the moment. She has no impact on the plot, doesn't speak to anybody who isn't her fiancé, has no ambitions of her own and the only time she does anything of importance [[spoiler: it wasn't even her choice, Berkut sacrifices her and transforms her into a Witch in a desperate bid for the power to defeat Alm.]]

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem:''
** Geoffrey of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'' and its sequel ''VideoGame/FireEmblemRadiantDawn'' is ''heavily'' defined by his UndyingLoyalty to his ChildhoodFriend Elincia, Princess (and later Queen) of Crimea. Other than his painfully obvious BodyguardCrush on her and his being a bog-standard straightlaced and morally upright knight, there's not much more development from him. His sister Lucia has far more influence on the plot.
** Giffca, the [[{{Animorphism}} black lion laguz]], in ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'' serves as the [[UndyingLoyalty extremely loyal vassal]] to the king of the cat, tiger and lion laguz, Caineghis, even though in the laguz tribes AsskickingLeadsToLeadership and his strength is said to be comparable to his king's. What does he do other than being "The Lion King's Shadow"? Nothing.
** The purple tiger laguz Kyza of ''Radiant Dawn'' serves as the subordinate to the lion laguz [[LeeroyJenkins Skrimir's]] aide [[OnlySaneMan Ranulf]], and in-game all of his development revolves around him vying for Ranulf's attention and approval alongside his subordinate Lyre. Other than him being uptight and bureaucratic, there's not much else that's developed about him.
** Faye, who was [[CanonForeigner added for the]] [[VideoGameRemake remake]] of ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'', has very little personality outside of her [[AllLoveIsUnrequited unrequited crush]] on Alm. Her one support chain outside of Alm's is with Silque, who Faye refuses to speak to at first because Silque wants to talk about things besides him. One of her base conversations also has her mention that her family wishes she would write to them about things besides Alm every once in a while. She ''is'' excited to see Celica again if you [[DevelopersForesight wait until Act 2 to recruit her]], implying she still likes her despite Celica's own feelings for Alm, but this is ''very'' easy to miss, and something that players have little reason to do.
** Rinea, Berkut's fiancée, exists purely to signify Berkut's morality at the moment. She has no impact on the plot, doesn't speak to anybody who isn't her fiancé, has no ambitions of her own and the only time she does anything of importance [[spoiler: it wasn't even her choice, Berkut sacrifices her and transforms her into a Witch in a desperate bid for the power to defeat Alm.]]

* ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'':

** Lisa Basil of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations'', is the boss of the victim, Glen Elg, and only exists to give some exposition about Elg's gambling debts. As a result of her lack of importance, she ends up being AdaptedOut of [[Anime/AceAttorney the anime adaptation]].

* Panacea from ''ComicBook/{{Asterix}}''. The character appears only to exist so Obelix can have a crush on somebody. She rarely ever had lines that waren't responding to other characters. Most of the time she just "[[MsFanservice stands there and looks pretty]]". She also doesn't have any comical traits to make her stand out from the rest of the cast.

* ''WebAnimation/HelluvaBoss'': While it has gotten better by "The Harvest Moon Festival", but Millie is heavily defined as this to Moxxie. By the start especially Millie was ''very'' heavily defined as this: Her interactions would mainly be with Moxxie, or ''about'' Moxxie in some way. For example, in the pilot, any insults towards her would never be about her, but her choice in husband. Even more damning, "The Harvest Moon Festival" still orients more about Moxxie's acceptance to Millie's family, her role in "Truth Seekers" is mostly about him being abducted, her biggest act in "OZZIE'S" is about defending him being able to sing his song, and her role in "Seeing Stars" is being dragged along with Moxxie after he gets hooked on supporting street performers (to where they disappear until the episode's end). As Blitzo himself puts it, she's always five feet away from him. This trend continues in "Exes and Oohs" - it's established in the opener that she's furious after bumping into an ex. It later turns out the ex is Chaz, who also dated Moxxie. While Moxxie's relationship with Chaz gets a whole flashback, Millie's doesn't, and from then on her hostility towards Chaz in the episode pivots to being primarily driven by how he treated Moxxie.

** Luigi himself is a major {{Deconstruction}} of this trope. He originally started out like this with him merely serving as Player 2 to Mario's Player 1 with no distinguishing characteristics, but he then eventually devolved away from this and became a much more fleshed out character. He was then given a higher, floatier jump but wasn't shown in the video games to be anything more than Mario's most frequent sidekick and his abilities defined as variants of Mario's until ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', where he got to be in his own game and was portrayed as cowardly and in need of confidence. Since then, Mario and Luigi have diverged in personalities and abilities. Luigi's behavior was even [[FreudianExcuse given a reason]] as a direct cause of Mario always [[SuccessfulSiblingSyndrome overshadowing him].

* Ayano from ''Anime/LuckyStar'' is characterized as "That one girl who hangs out with [[{{Tsundere}} Kagami]] and [[EnsembleDarkhorse Misao]]". In fact, she's so non-present, she's the only one of the ten main girls to have a boyfriend!

** [[TomboyPrincess Princess Daisy]] first started out as being mostly defined by being Peach's gal pal and a [[ImpliedLoveInterest possible love interest]] to Luigi. After a while, she did get a more energetic personality, her own flower motif, and a louder voice to go with during the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube games, which is an improvement from her first few playable appearances, where there was little to really differentiate her from Peach. In later games such as ''VideoGame/MarioTennis: Ultra Smash'' and ''VideoGame/MarioStrikers Charged'', she doesn't even share the same gameplay type and statistics as Peach, and is fully playable without Peach's involvement, and the two don't even show up in the same events in the 3DS version of ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndSonicAtTheOlympicGames Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games]]''.
** Luigi himself originally started out like this with him merely serving as Player 2 to Mario's Player 1 with no distinguishing characteristics, but he then eventually devolved away from this and became a much more fleshed out character. He was then given a higher, floatier jump but wasn't shown in the video games to be anything more than Mario's most frequent sidekick and his abilities defined as variants of Mario's until ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', where he got to be in his own game and was portrayed as cowardly and in need of confidence. Since then, Mario and Luigi have diverged in personalities and abilities. Luigi's behavior was even [[FreudianExcuse given a reason]] as a direct cause of Mario always [[SuccessfulSiblingSyndrome overshadowing him]], making Luigi a {{Deconstruction}} of this trope.

** Superintendent Chalmers is this for Skinner, although he got an episode of his own in a recent season.

** Luigi himself originally started out like this with him merely serving as Player 2 to Mario's Player 1 with no distinguishing characteristics, but then eventually devolved away from this and became a much more fleshed out character. He was then given a higher, floatier jump but wasn't shown in the video games to be anything more than Mario's most frequent sidekick and his abilities defined as variants of Mario's until ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', where he got to be in his own game and was portrayed as cowardly and in need of confidence. Since then, Mario and Luigi have diverged in personalities and abilities. Luigi's behavior was even [[FreudianExcuse given a reason]] as a direct cause of Mario always [[SuccessfulSiblingSyndrome overshadowing him]], making Luigi a {{Deconstruction}} of this trope.

** Luigi himself began as this, serving as Player 2 to Mario's Player 1 with no distinguishing characteristics. He was then given a higher, floatier jump but wasn't shown in the video games to be anything more than Mario's most frequent sidekick and his abilities defined as variants of Mario's until ''VideoGame/LuigisMansion'', where he got to be in his own game and was portrayed as cowardly and in need of confidence. Since then, Mario and Luigi have diverged in personalities and abilities. Luigi's behavior was even [[FreudianExcuse given a reason]] as a direct cause of Mario always [[SuccessfulSiblingSyndrome overshadowing him]], making Luigi a {{Deconstruction}} of this trope.

** [[TomboyPrincess Princess Daisy]] is mostly defined by being Peach's gal pal and a [[ImpliedLoveInterest possible love interest]] to Luigi. After a while she did get a more energetic personality, her own flower motif, and a louder voice to go with during the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube games, which is an improvement from her first few playable appearances, where there was little to really differentiate her from Peach. In later games such as ''VideoGame/MarioTennis: Ultra Smash'' and ''VideoGame/MarioStrikers Charged'' she doesn't even share the same gameplay type and statistics as Peach, and is fully playable without Peach's involvement, and the two don't even show up in the same events in the 3DS version of ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndSonicAtTheOlympicGames Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games]]''.

** [[TomboyPrincess Princess Daisy]] is mostly defined by being Peach's gal pal and a [[ImpliedLoveInterest possible love interest]] to Luigi. After a while she did get a more energetic personality, her own flower motif, and a louder voice to go with during the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube games, which is an improvement from her first few playable appearances, where there was little to differentiate her from Peach. In later games such as ''VideoGame/MarioTennis: Ultra Smash'' and ''VideoGame/MarioStrikers Charged'' she doesn't even share the same gameplay type and statistics as Peach, and is fully playable without Peach's involvement, and the two don't even show up in the same events in the 3DS version of ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndSonicAtTheOlympicGames Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games]]''.

** [[TomboyPrincess Princess Daisy]] is mostly defined by being Peach's gal pal and a [[ImpliedLoveInterest possible love interest]] to Luigi. After a while she did get a more energetic personality, her own flower motif, and a louder voice to go with during the UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube games, which is an improvement from her first few playable appearances, where was there was little to differentiate her from Peach. In later games such as ''VideoGame/MarioTennis: Ultra Smash'' and ''VideoGame/MarioStrikers Charged'' she doesn't even share the same gameplay type and statistics as Peach, and is fully playable without Peach's involvement, and the two don't even show up in the same events in the 3DS version of ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndSonicAtTheOlympicGames Mario & Sonic at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games]]''.

** Angry variant: While Wario's main characteristic is his greed, Waluigi used to be defined primarily by his hatred of Luigi. Later games have given him an trickster and bitter cheater personality, but only once has he featured without Wario (''VideoGame/MarioTennis: Power Tour'') and is never not seen competing with Luigi. He has never appeared in his own (official) game. He was created for ''Mario Tennis'' and has since only appeared in the [[GoKartingWithBowser multi-player party and sports games]]. He's had a cameo in the Paper Mario and a loose reference in ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'', but that's about it.
** After a while, Waluigi became defined by his crazy and jerkish behaviour and self-pity.

* No one knows what's up with Emiri Kimidori from ''LightNovel/HaruhiSuzumiya''. The only things she ever does is have "silent conversations" with Yuki and play the nice girl for other people.

* ''LightNovel/TheUnexploredSummonBloodSign'' has an unusual example of the main character and the BigBad being this to each other, simultaneously. [[TheHero Kyousuke]] is driven to save anyone in need because of his perceived failure to [[spoiler:control the White Queen, causing her to kill many people]]. His main goal in life is to find some way of permanently destroying her. Conversely, [[spoiler:the White Queen wants nothing more than for Kyousuke to love her again]], and is involved in every story arc solely for this reason.

Contrast TheFriendsWhoNeverHang, where a character has developed interaction with a much larger number of characters except for one or two significant exceptions. Similar to FlatCharacter, in that their characterization/role in the story revolves around one thing, in this case being another character. The romantic-only variant of this trope is SatelliteLoveInterest.

** Tara played this trope straight for a while until it was subverted. Originally there to just be a love interest to Willow and also someone to help her magic growth, she soon became efficient to the Scoobies. Aside from being Willow's girlfriend, she proved to be the moral center of the Scooby Gang. After [[spoiler: Buffy's death at the end of Season 5]] she and Willow [[spoiler: grew to be [[HasTwoMommies surrogate parents]] to Dawn]] and during the 6th season [[spoiler: she was the the only person to know of Spike and Buffy's affair and helped Buffy deal with it]]. Plus [[spoiler: her and Willow's breakup also allowed the character to expand more]].

* Among the [[LivingMacGuffin Bracelet Girls]] in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', the main heroine Yuzu and her Fusion Dimension counterpart Serena get decent development, but the other two girls Rin and Ruri spend most of the series in captivity and are defined by their relationship with the people trying to save them; the former's childhood friend Yugo and the latter's older brother Shun Kurosaki and his friend Yuto who she started dating. Ruri suffers slightly less from this trope, as flashbacks show other facets of her character, like her admiration of the protagonist Yuya's father and his entertainment dueling, her friendship with a minor character (Sayaka), and implications that she was getting fed up with the aforementioned KnightTemplarBigBrother Kurosaki controlling who she's around. Rin has no meaningful interaction with anyone besides Yugo, which becomes even more evident when she's the only one of the four who has no connection with any of the Lancers who are trying to save them all. It also doesn't help that Yugo and Rin have no friends besides each other, whereas Yuya & Yuzu and Yuto and Ruri have friends, while Yuri and Serena have comrades they know even if they aren't close to them. By the final season, Yuzu herself became little more than "the girl Yuya's trying to save" once the antagonists keep kidnapping her and depriving her of more meaningful moments.

* Among the [[LivingMacGuffin Bracelet Girls]] in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', the main heroine Yuzu and her Fusion Dimension counterpart Serena get decent development, but the other two girls Rin and Ruri spend most of the series in captivity and are defined by their relationship with the people trying to save them; the former's childhood friend Yugo and the latter's older brother Shun Kurosaki and his friend Yuto who she started dating. Ruri suffers slightly less from this trope, as flashbacks show other facets of her character, like her admiration of the protagonist Yuya's father and his entertainment dueling, her friendship with a minor character (Sayaka), and implications that she was getting fed up with the aforementioned KnightTemplarBigBrother Kurosaki controlling who she's around. Rin has no meaningful interaction with anyone besides Yugo, which becomes even more evident when she's the only one of the four who has no connection with any of the Lancers who are trying to save them all. By the final season, Yuzu herself became little more than "the girl Yuya's trying to save" once the antagonists keep kidnapping her and depriving her of more meaningful moments.

* Among the [[LivingMacGuffin Bracelet Girls]] in ''Anime/YuGiOhArcV'', the main heroine Yuzu and her Fusion Dimension counterpart Serena get decent development, but the other two girls Rin and Ruri spend most of the series in captivity and are defined by their relationship with the people trying to save them; the former's childhood friend Yugo and the latter's older brother Shun Kurosaki and his friend Yuto who she started dating. Ruri suffers slightly less from this trope, as flashbacks show other facets of her character like her admiration of the protagonist Yuya's father and his entertainment dueling, friendship with a minor character, and implications that she was getting fed up with the aforementioned KnightTemplarBigBrother Kurosaki controlling who she's around. Rin has no meaningful interaction with anyone besides Yugo. By the final season, Yuzu herself became little more than "the girl Yuya's trying to save" once the antagonists keep kidnapping her and depriving her of more meaningful moments.

** Giffca, the [[{{Animorphism}} black lion laguz]], in ''Path of Radiance'' and ''Radiant Dawn'' serves as the [[UndyingLoyalty extremely loyal vassal]] to the king of the cat, tiger and lion laguz, Caineghis, even though in the laguz tribes AsskickingEqualsAuthority and his strength is said to be comparable to his king's. What does he do other than being "The Lion King's Shadow"? Nothing.

* The various ''Franchise/{{Digimon}}'' series occasionally fall into this with the partner Digimon.
** Sometimes (like in ''Anime/DigimonTamers'') they're well-developed and have actual independent characterization and importance, whereas other times (like in ''Anime/DigimonDataSquad'' and most other anime in the franchise) they simply don't. Probably the most extreme example is [=MailBirdramon=] in ''Anime/DigimonFusion''; he has practically zero characterization and a handful of lines early in the series, and seems to exist solely to be a MechaExpansionPack for the much more fleshed-out Greymon, to the point that when they're merged into [=MetalGreymon=]/[=ZekeGreymon=], said merger is almost always treated as just Greymon.

** Also Kyon's Other Friend (Kunikida, according to [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} The Other Wiki]]), at least in the anime series, who is mostly characterized as "That guy who hangs out with [[DeadpanSnarker Kyon]] and [[EnsembleDarkhorse Taniguchi]]" (to the point that in the novels he says he mostly hangs out with Taniguchi so he will ''have'' some in-universe characterization). Taniguchi is a lesser example, being [[OnlySaneMan Kyon's]] Only Sane Friend.