Well, enough of the political realm from August's topic. Let's discuss something a bit more fundamental in fan-fiction. They're the guys lurking in the back corner, who toss in a scene here or there, maybe give out a few dialogue bits. They hinder or help the main players, but for the most part, they're largely unexplored and undeveloped. Let's talk about one (or more) of your minor characters, whether they're one-shots or Wedge-type characters.
If you're not sure if the character is a minor character or not, here's some general tips. They're not the protagonist or antagonist. The story is not about them. The largest exposure they get is a single plot arc in a larger work. They're there to provide other people for your main characters to interact with. A good example of a minor character from canon when talking solely about the movies is Firmus Piett. Shows up, interacts with the A-listers, and then largely remains unexplored until the EU comes along.
Just like the previous ones, we're going to talk about fan-fiction (yours). The basic ground rules are the same. Please restrict this to stuff from your fan-fiction, but aside from that, no pressure. You can suggest, make observations, but no condemning other people's work and "I don't know" is a perfectly acceptable answer.
September's topic: Pick one or more of your minor characters and talk about them. What do they do in the story? What inspired them? If you feel like expanding their character or backstory more, feel free to do so as well.
If you have something you feel would be of interest for the café to discuss in a future installment, post it in the discussion section below. Atarumaster88 
(Talk page) 23:04, September 5, 2012 (UTC)
Entries[]
Atarumaster88[]
My favorite minor character in all of Force Exile has to be Taelros Bac, who appeared in Force Exile IV: Guardian. First off, if you've seen George Lucas In Love, Taelros is essentially a combination of that film's version of George Lucas and caricatures of a certain SWF admin, which made him fun to write. Taelros is the catalyst that triggers a couple of the main characters to end up on Coruscant, where they fend off some antagonists. He's also a foil for one of those main characters, with his absent-minded melodramatic outgoing flippant personality contrasting very sharply with the rigid guarded and pragmatic mannerism of Milya Kraen. The verbal and personality clash between "head in the clouds" and "down to earth" was fun to write. The other thing that made him interesting was that he proved to be quite a deep character, with an inner core of resilience and humanity under pressure that wasn't evident at first glance. I don't have a lot of utterly wacky characters in my work, so getting to write one like Taelros was pretty refreshing and helped lighten up FE IV. Collaborating with Brandon to help devise a backstory for him resulted in one of my favorite EGTFE entries to work on, because it fleshed him out and gave him some basis for that depth. There have been many times that I've looked back at the character and wondered, man, is there any way I could work Taelros back in somewhere in the story line? Sadly, that hasn't proven to be the case so far, but who knows. Atarumaster88 (Talk page) 23:04, September 5, 2012 (UTC)
- Mwhahahaha. - Brandon Rhea(talk) 23:25, September 5, 2012 (UTC)
- I will say that this admin you mention IS quite the character....I am not sure if he is too deep though.;) I'm the Chosen One 07:33, September 16, 2012 (UTC)
Solus[]
Well, as you've probably noticed, I don't tend to write like Ataru. Nothing against him or myself, different does not mean better or worse after all. I don't really write like a lot of people. I write my stories with a very focused narrative, honed on a few main characters and almost no one else. Rakata really had one developed character, everyone else was, well, a Rakata. I think I only named two or three people in the whole thing. For me, I find it hard to write stories with a wider focus - it would be very difficult for me to write a high fantasy, in other words. I don't really do epic, I don't do big battles, and I barely ever do fight scenes, and when I do, they don't last very long. Not sure why. So, naturally, my writing leaves a dearth of side characters, but they do exist. Rakata is the only one I can go into right now without giving away my supah secret novel, so I'll focus on that one first. I have the main character, an unnamed piece of space cattle (which leaves very little room for societal interactions, let me assure you). Everyone else was really a side character. There are a few kinda antagonists, but they aren't really the focus. Actually, most of the Rakata are antagonists. I didn't, however, want to be all xenophobic, after all, so I didn't want all the Rakata to be evil. Thus I came up with the nice Rakata, Aruaa. I realize the inherent sexism in making the only nice person a girl, shut up. After all, Rakata are a people, in other words, they aren't all alike. I wanted to illustrate that as best I could, even if turns out that even the good ones can be misguided and wrong. No spoilerz.
As for my secret novel lol, I can't give away too much. But I can say that there are a few more side characters. Exactly six recurring side characters, actually. I plan out almost EVERYTHING. The thing about these side characters is, while I had to be very careful in forming my main characters so they fit the themes and tone, I was free to mess around with the side characters. I got to use all sorts of races that I like, play around with personalities, things to make them really memorable. I have a crazy, antisocial, vegetarian Fosh sniper, a female Defel officer, a Cathar Jedi Master who specializes in cloaking, a heavily traditionalist Jedi Watchman Kiffar lacking in tact, another Jedi Watchman who's an Umbaran and whose race is actually narratively important, and a Murachaun officer. An interesting inspiration for that last one is his color scheme - it's the same as a Pirhanaconda. If you know what that is, you get a cheesy movie high-five bonus. ;)
As for side characters, I only have two that aren't recurring. They're both hosts of a news talk show. They're job is to make as many innuendos as possible. Because even I have a little juvenile fun making up SW-related double entendres. :p -Solus Talk to the Hand 01:50, September 15, 2012 (UTC)
- Your secret story section just makes me wish I could read the story now... :( ARGH-I'm the Chosen One 07:33, September 16, 2012 (UTC)
Brandon[]
I briefly had a character in the fourth timeline of SWRP called Saucius Bellator. He first showed up in the Jedi Temple to talk to Sarina Lightell, a Jedi who had caused a schism in the Order about 20 years earlier. This schism implicated the then-Grand Master, Banik Kelrada, in the murder of Lightell’s husband, Edo Tesu—as well as the suspicion that Kelrada murdered the Vicar of the Alsakan Union (Solus' character), who was actually assassinated by her own Alsakan advisors. However, it was Lightell who unknowingly (due to a split personality) killed her husband, and then used her dark-sided personality to manipulate Kelrada into acting like a raving lunatic. Kelrada’s actions and the belief that he killed Tesu led to half the Jedi Order leaving. They formed the Ospion Guardians, which eventually became the Dark Jedi of the Bogan and, ultimately, the Bogan Empire (an empire ironically created by the later-fallen Kelrada). Before Kelrada created the Bogan Empire, he wanted revenge against Sarina.
So Bellator goes to the Jedi Temple, where Lightell is imprisoned due to having then-recently admitted her guilt in the murder of Tesu and the schism. He tells her that Tesu is alive and waiting for her on Anaxes, and that Bellator himself works for Tesu and that he sent Bellator to tell her. She believes this and goes to Anaxes, where she meets Bellator. Bellator traps her, however, because Tesu is not alive. Bellator, it is revealed, was working for Kelrada. Lightell killed Bellator and was soon after killed by Kelrada, who successfully avenged her betrayal of him.
Interestingly, at least to me, Bellator was originally meant to be Kelrada himself acting under a hidden identity, but it didn’t seem practical that he would be able to get into the Jedi Temple and fool Lightell himself. So I ended up making Bellator a different character, but one with a vaguely similar background as Kelrada. I’ve always found this character interesting since he was such a straight up pawn but one that played Lightell really well—and was arguably played by Kelrada really well.
There are questions that Bellator’s mission leads to. For example, did he know he was going to die? If he did, why did he agree to the mission? Why was he working for Kelrada? What did he believe he was doing? And so forth. Lots of room for growth with that character, if he was to ever be explored. - Brandon Rhea(talk) 07:00, September 16, 2012 (UTC)
- Jeez there's more drama and even more twists in your RPs than a modern day soap...Wow! Anyway, this Bellator is an intriguing and mysterious character. I think that sort of open-ended...ness is perfect for a side character. It makes the character better when you don't know everything about them; it worked for Boba Fett after all.-I'm the Chosen One 07:33, September 16, 2012 (UTC)
MPK[]
I'm going through every story I have on here and kind of coming up blank when it comes to side characters, probably because most of them are about conflicts that only involve two or maybe three people. For instance, Your Weapon, Your Life is about Jedi apprentice Cos Shibatt, his Jedi Master, and a random guy whom the former comes into contact with. The Jedi Master is sort of a side-character since he isn't involved misses out on the ending confrontation, but considering how much he and Cos talk beforehand, I'm not sure that makes him qualify. Oh, there's also a guy Cos finds on the street in a city on the planet Castell. He's an organic Human male person, and he smokes a cigarette and gives Cos directions to his destination. He's a side character.
Since The Beast of Rutan takes place primarily in some remote burial grounds on the planet Rutan, there's not many characters there, either; there's just a Jedi named Morgent Kelbus, his companion Euthsia, and the titular beast which they must find. In the beginning of the story, though, there's a scene where Morgent is speaking to a planetary government official, who gives him some more information on the area. He strikes me as something of a nervous and wistful fellow. Upon being reminded of a grisly murder whose aftermath he witnessed the previous year, he brings it up, and then apologizes for being distracting. I suppose he's a minor character.
Burning Bright has quite a few more side-characters. Set within the framing device of a story told by a Mandalorian father to his son, it chronicles an ancient war that took place on the planet Malachor V between Mandalorians and a rebel army led by a man who, unknown to the legend itself, was a Jedi named Deyrus. The Mandalorian father and son are themselves minor characters. In fact, the only people who probably don't qualify as minor are the Jedi and his nemesis, Mandalore the Visionary, the latter of whom is the central character before the former is introduced (this story's structure is kind of all over the place). There's also a Mandalorian soldier named Tome Motir (which I think means something in Mando'a) who witnesses a duel between Deyrus and Mandalore. He only appears in that one scene. Acting as sort of a counterpart to him is a lesser resistance leader named Truman, whose most significant action in the story is talking to Deyrus one night after a battle. Deyrus is secretly struggling with the tempting powers of the dark side, but he is reluctant to talk about it (or even his identity as a Jedi) to Truman, and so the soldier pretty much just gets confused by his vague philosophical talk. Truman is only able to see Deyrus' contribution to the effort; in his eyes, the man is their savior and he doesn't understand why he is troubled. I don't think Truman appears again after that scene.
Through Glass is a story wherein Revan journeys into the vision-laden Tomb of Ludo Kressh seen in KotOR II, where she encounters a buncha visions of people and stuff. There's pretty much a boatload of minor characters who appear via vision there. HK-47 and T3-M4 appear once at the beginning to banter with Revan before the goes into the tomb. Vrook, Malak, and a bunch of KotOR's party members appear at one point or another. Most notable is a Jedi who appears in the first vision, where Revan argues with Malak about her reasons for entering the Mandalorian War, and the second, in which she lives through an old battle that in reality she had passed over. The dude is actually a canon character named Voren Renstaal, also known as Darth Voren. It occurs to me that in every vision the central event is Revan arguing with someone, and Voren's the one he argues with here. Basically, what happened in the battle is that she sent a bunch of Republic soldiers to serve as canon fodder to distract a Mandalorian base so that some Jedi could sabotage the place's theater shield, and then she'd just have the place leveled in planetary bombardment, killing the base and troops alike. Voren's main argument seems to be that if Revan tries to "change" history in the vision, all she will accomplish is weakening herself. Voren himself a guy I planned to have turn up as a major villain in one or more other KotOR-centered fanfics I've had planned. He would have an arc in which he eventually grows more and more disillusioned with Revan's leadership (in something of a parallel to Malak, I suppose), coming to view her as weak and erratic at best and mentally unstable at worst.
Lastly, there is River, which to put it unflatteringly is the story of how a random village on a random planet in the far Outer Rim got butt####ed by a Sith Lord because a comatose Jedi was somewhere in it. Approximately half of the story is told not from the Jedi or Sith's perspective, but from an entire brigade of side characters; as the Sith Lord embarks on what is essentially a murder spree in an attempt to draw the Jedi out, each of these characters try to go about their lives, uncovering bits and pieces of what's really going on around them. At the beginning, there are some surveyors who find the Jedi as his ship crashes, and take him to the town's hospital. There is a subsequent argument over the Jedi's fate by the city's governor, his advisor, and the leader of the surveyors who found him. The former two are originally from the Republic; the advisor is savvy enough to know that Jedi cause trouble, and that even though the dude's in a coma, the trouble he brings may in fact turn out to be someone following him (which turns out to be the case). The advisor even goes so far as to want the Jedi killed, but the governor overrules him, being a benevolent authority figure.
Other minor characters in River include a police sergeant, a journalist who witnesses one of the murders, and a detective in a dark coat and a narrow-brimmed hat who takes it upon himself to investigate the recent events. The governor actually makes two later appearances. When the early murders start to escalate, he is visited by his advisor again, and starts to secretly doubt his earlier decision; and much later, when all hell breaks loose, we see him again for the last time. After that, the story's focus shifts to the showdown between the Sith and the Jedi, as by that point the minor characters are sort of unavailable.
That's all I got. -MPK, Free Man 13:19, September 16, 2012 (UTC)
- You're right...now that you mention it, pretty much all of your stories are small and character-based. The River thing is interesting, though - I've read it, yes, I voted for it to be a FW - but I didn't quite see how teh first half was basically told by side characters. Interesting idea. And I od think you pulled it off. :) ...wait.....!!!!!!! You've made a FemRev story?!?
- ...
- That's...that's like Roger Ebert writing an exploitation flick... -Solus Talk to the Hand 17:27, September 16, 2012 (UTC)
- I wrote Revan as a she half because I think it's necessary to balance it out with the Exile being a guy, and half because it would make me (who is not used to writing she-characters) more conscious of her characterization. -MPK, Free Man 12:51, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- I can understand that. :) In general, though, girls don't think that much different, unless we're crazy or ditzy. :p Hm. I just realized that most of my main characters throughout my writings are male. I've worked to break that up in my new work, splitting about evently, and I hope I write them well. I'm sure you write FemRev well, I just haven't read Through Glass yet. I should put that on my to-do list. :) -Solus Talk to the Hand 16:51, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- Very interesting that you chose to switch the genders of the two KOTOR characters from their canon depictions. Not hating...just saying.-I'm the Chosen One 18:14, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- I wouldn't exactly call it interesting. Exile's a dude because I prefer the Handmaiden over Mical, who irritates me (probably because he gets so much adoration from the fanfic community and he's simply not as interesting). -MPK, Free Man 19:06, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- I have no idea why people would like Mical. He's just so bland and...blah. I have a soft spot in my black heart for Atton, though. :p -Solus Talk to the Hand 20:14, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- Mical IS better than Carth though.-I'm the Chosen One 05:19, September 18, 2012 (UTC)
- I have no idea why people would like Mical. He's just so bland and...blah. I have a soft spot in my black heart for Atton, though. :p -Solus Talk to the Hand 20:14, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- I wouldn't exactly call it interesting. Exile's a dude because I prefer the Handmaiden over Mical, who irritates me (probably because he gets so much adoration from the fanfic community and he's simply not as interesting). -MPK, Free Man 19:06, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
- I wrote Revan as a she half because I think it's necessary to balance it out with the Exile being a guy, and half because it would make me (who is not used to writing she-characters) more conscious of her characterization. -MPK, Free Man 12:51, September 17, 2012 (UTC)
Trak[]
Hm. I have many a minor character. Most of them tend to be moving pieces or background, redshirts when I need them, and people to fill in empty chairs. So, I asked Goodwood to help me pick, and he suggested Dokk.
Eeeeh... what's up, Dokk?
Dokk is a Lepi serial killer who was indicted on ten homicides and seven sexual assaults. He committed the majority of his crimes in the Swatara District of Coruscant and thus was dubbed by the media the Swatara Strangler. He's a big, hulking brute with a nasty temper. He desires control, and he targeted females for that control. He was originally housed in the mental observation unit of Bedlam, because his lawyer managed to net him an insanity plea. Dokk, however, does not have a mental illness. It was suspected that he may have antisocial personality disorder, but this was never proven. Dokk, however, faked symptoms of schizophrenia in order to get off on an insanity plea, which allowed him housing in a general population unit, as opposed to being sent directly to maximum security. Eventually, after being charged with assault of another inmate, Dokk was sent to Hi-Max where he belongs.
At this point in time, I don't really have any further plans for Dokk. Some day, I may get around to including him in something else, as he is in the same housing unit as Pepan Manja, now. Perhaps those two could form an alliance. Dokk also has ways of communicating with other prison gang members, so he can still influence other inmates to act on his orders. Just because he is no longer in the same housing unit doesn't mean that he lost his control and influence over other inmates. Lots of potential possibilities for Dokk. He may show up again, he may not. We'll see. Trak Nar Ramble on 05:39, September 18, 2012 (UTC)
- Lepi rapist. LEPI. RAPIST. lol. -Solus Talk to the Hand 13:56, September 18, 2012 (UTC)