Markup View

Author: ArsThaumaturgis

Jan 30th 2012 at 3:38:36 PM

At the moment my intuitive division is more or less "does it seem as though the story is about or is centred on them?" - so I'd call Merry and Pippin from The Lord of the Rings part of the main cast.  If, for example, we had a chapter following Saruman and Wormtongue after they [[spoiler: escape from Orthanc]], then they would probably be considered to be a {{Secondary Cast}}.  I forget whether we had much insight on Faramir or Denethor; if so, then they too would be considered "secondary", I think.

In the case of The Lord of the Rings, I tend to sort most of the Fellowship into the main cast - while Frodo and Sam may logically have the central and most important roles, but the others still "feel" to me like main characters, or at least as part of the core set of characters, as poor a divisor as such intuition may be.  (The only exception to that inclusion would be Boromir, I think.)

The story seems to me to be "about" the entire Fellowship (perhaps sans Boromir) as much as it is "about" anyone (I would argue that it's less about characters than events, perhaps).