Four Lessons from Game of Thrones about Secondary Characters

As my editor can attest, I’m a big fan of secondary characters. I’m currently working to pare down my character list in One Tempting Proposal, my second novel for Avon Impulse. But while I love to populate my stories with lots of characters, I sometimes lose perspective on their purpose in terms of driving the plot, reflecting or challenging my protagonist, and making my story better.

Whatever your feelings about Game of Thrones, it’s difficult to deny that George R. R. Martin is a masterful builder of characters and worlds, and he's peopled his Ice and Fire world with a plethora of complex main characters. Game of Thrones is glutted with secondary characters too, and with so many to keep track of, I was forced to take note of how they’re used in the story. Here’s what I gleaned from GoT about the power of secondary characters.

Reveal Aspects of your Main Character

Something as simple as a secondary character’s reaction to your protagonist can deliver crucial information to your reader, while allowing you to avoid telling and get down to showing. Is your protagonist trustworthy? Show their best friend, employee, neighbor, enemy, ex-lover, etc. reacting to that aspect of their personality.

While watching GoT, I have to admit that I spent a lot of time feeling lukewarm about Stannis Baratheon, a cold, seemingly humorless contender for the iron throne, but Davos Seaworth won me over to Stannis’s side for a while. Davos is, in essence, Stannis’s right-hand man, which is ironic because Stannis had several of Davos’s fingers removed from his left hand as punishment for past crimes. The fact that Davos remained loyal to Stannis despite the harshness of his punishment told me that Stannis might just be a man worthy of loyalty.

Mance Rayder, leader of the Free Folk, is another key secondary character who serves to reveal more about a main character than he does about himself. Namely, Jon Snow. Jon's relationship with Mance is fraught with tension, but how he interacts with this character gives readers/viewers a glimpse into Jon's cunning, fairness, and bravery, not to mention his tendency to act honorably, regardless of the consequences.

Provide Motivation for Your Main Character

Likeable protagonists and heroic characters often act altruistically, and when they act altruistically on a personal level, because of someone they care about, the effect is even more powerful. We instantly connect with Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, for instance, because of her desire to protect her sister. That desire ignites the entire plot.

In GoT, Gilly, a wildling who captures the heart of Night’s Watch steward, Samwell Tarly, provides consistent motivation for Sam. He takes action and makes choices in order to protect Gilly and her infant son. Others perceive Sam as weak, but he always digs deep and finds the courage to behave heroically where Gilly is concerned.

On the other hand, the motivation your secondary characters provide needn’t always be of a positive nature. Is there any greater motivating force than a compelling antagonist or villain? Game of Thrones provides a bevy of bad guys (and gals) that motivate other characters. Arya Stark is a highly motivated character and thoroughly propelled by her desire to avenge her family. She even recites a hit list of characters who have caused her pain and loss, and against whom she aches to seek revenge.

Reveal Information Your Main Character Doesn’t Know

What your character doesn’t know can help build tension. Secrets, mysteries, missing pieces can haunt, preoccupy, and shape your MC’s behaviors, but there may come a point when you need him or her to learn the facts. Delivering crucial information via a secondary character can have more impact than overhearing a conversation, reading a document, or some other inventive way you might convey the information.

In the fifth season of Game of Thrones, Sansa Stark re-encounters Theon Greyjoy, who she knew as a child and believes to be responsible for the death of her younger brothers. Theon is more of a major character than minor one, but he conveys a vital detail to Sansa that seems to change her perspective and give her an injection of energy and motivation when she sorely needs it. Without that bit of information at that moment, her character might have gone in a different direction. The scene and interaction served as a reminder of how effective secondary characters can be at providing missing puzzle pieces of information.

Challenge or Abet Your Main Character
My favorite aspect of Martin's characters is their ambiguity. None of his characters are all good or all bad. It's sometimes hard to separate the protagonists and antagonists, the heroes and the villains. To me, his most appealing characters are those who complicate such definitions completely.

The Hound, Sandor Clegane, is an example of one of Martin's most memorable and love 'em-hate 'em characters. At various points, he assists the very same characters he menaces. His actions steer the story line of major characters like Arya Stark, who he abducts in order to claim a reward for delivering her to her family. He's cruel, carrying out the decrees of his king without emotion, but then exhibits flashes of, perhaps selfish, heroism, as when he saves Sansa Stark from an attack.

Not only does he motivate main characters with rage, spark fights, and add a bit of comic relief with his quips, the Hound moves essential characters along on their journey by either posing a challenge to their objectives or abetting them in their quest.

Of course, many secondary characters in GoT and your manuscript will serve multiple functions in your story. What are some of the ways you use secondary characters in your books?