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First-Person Peripheral Narrator: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Rock in ''[[Black Lagoon]]''. The story is told from his point of view but it's pretty obvious the protagonist is Revy. As if the opening and ending animations being all about her wasn't enough to tip you off. The [[UST|"Why is he watching her so closely?"]] angle is played deliberately.
** Later chapters though are more focused on Rock and he becomes quite an interesting character himself.
* ''[[The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya]]'': her name is stamped on the product and her face is everywhere in the opening, closing, and promotional material, but the story is told from the point of view of [[Unreliable Narrator]] Kyon.
* Einar after the prologue in ''[[Vinland Saga]]''.
* Saji Crossroad becomes this during the second season of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam 00]]''. The main character is obviously Setsuna F. Seiei. {{spoiler|Saji also pilots the support machine for Setsuna's eponymous mobile suit which acts as its catalyst.}}
* Tylor in ''[[The Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'' is inscrutable, as no one can tell whether he's a lucky idiot or a [[Obfuscating Stupidity|genius.]] Yuriko and Yamamoto tend to be the viewpoint characters.
* For the first few eps. of ''[[Trigun]]'' we mostly see Vash from Meryl's point of view, and don't even get confirmation he is Vash for some time. This doesn't last- we get very deep in Vash's psyche by the end.
* Simon takes this role in the first third of ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]'', up until {{spoiler|Kamina dies}}. In this case, however, it's not a viewpoint shift, but the viewpoint character becoming the protagonist as he comes into his own.
* Souryo Fuyumi's manga ''Cesare'' is about a sixteen-year-old Cesare Borgia, his servant Miguel, and the games of [[Xanatos Speed Chess]] the two are playing with various historical figures. It's actually told by Angelo, some kid who's at school with them (readers usually ''hate'' Angelo, which may or may not be intentional). This is one of those uses where it starts to seem like the Ishmael is a little [[Ho Yay|too fascinated]], though this too may be deliberate.
* Rachel from ''[[Baccano!]]'' We mostly find out about the events aboard the Flying Pussyfoot from her report to the President of the Daily Days.
** Subverted in ''The Rolling Bootlegs'': while it appears that Maiza relating the story about his friend and subordinate Firo to a Japanese tourist, {{spoiler|it's actually [[Actually, I Am Him|Firo himself]] telling the tale, and the tourist just assumed otherwise because Firo never properly introduced himself and was wearing glasses like Maiza's.}}
* Sakuno Ryuzaki, and the Freshmen Trio from ''[[Prince of Tennis]]'' (at least initially). Ryoma Echizen's undeniably the focus of the story, but his personality and development are mostly viewed through other characters due to his aloof nature.
* ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' is undeniably Lucy's story. Lucy's story about Natsu and Fairy Tail.
== Comic Books ==
* Eva Procorpio has become this in ''[[Shakara]]'' - while Shakara is undoubtedly the protagonist, the story was primarily told through Eva's narration shortly after she was introduced. Then she started getting more screentime than Shakara.
* Evey Hammond in ''[[V for Vendetta]]'' - V is certainly the lead character, but the story follows Evey as exposure to V changes her.
* [[Unfortunate Names|Sexton Furnival]] in ''[[The Sandman|Death: The High Cost of Living]]''. Death/Didi is the axis around which the story revolves, with Sexton just having been dragged in after her. But he's the one with real [[Character Development]]; hanging out with Death for the day renews his interest in living, rather than committing suicide out of sheer ennui like he wanted to do at the beginning.
* Lois Lane in ''[[Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?]]''.
* Dilios telling the story of ''[[300]]''.
* Johnny Frost in the graphic novel ''Joker'', who follows around the title character for a while. Funny thing is {{spoiler|he dies at the end going against what an First-Person Peripheral Narrator is.}}
== Film ==
* ''[[Stalag 17]]''. The real protagonist of the movie is the [[Anti-Hero]] Sefton. The story is narrated and seen through the eyes of his "sidekick" Cookie, a character so bland that his name appears ''dead last'' in the IMDb cast list for this movie.
* Paco (Edward James Olmos) in ''[[My Family Mi Familia]]'', who spends most of the film in the Navy.
* Red from ''[[The Shawshank Redemption]]''.
* Traudl Junge fulfills this role in ''[[Downfall (film)|Downfall]]'' in regards to Hitler, which makes sense, since she was one of the few people in Hitler's bunker to survive and tell her story. [[Driven to Suicide|The movie]] [[Cyanide Pill|portrays this]] [[Ate His Gun|very blatantly.]] [[Herr Doktor|Dr. Schenck]] also falls into this to an extent, except in regards to the general [[Endofthe World As We Know It|chaos]] and [[Scenery Gorn|destruction]] of besieged Berlin.
* The hospitalized old lady with the diary in ''[[The Curious Case of Benjamin Button]]''. (She turns out to be {{spoiler|Benjamin's love interest from long ago}}, but Benjamin is the main character, of course.)
* Mr. Hundert in ''The Emperor's Club''—he's the narrator and gets quite a bit of character development in his own scenes, but he spends more time observing Sedgewick Bell than doing anything else.
* Captain Greville in ''[[The Madness of King George]]''.
* Kim and Peg in ''[[Edward Scissorhands]]''.
* Walter in ''[[Secondhand Lions]]'' and Uncle Garth in some of the in-film stories about his adventures with Uncle Hub.
* Henry Burton in ''[[Primary Colors]]''.
* [[David Cronenberg]] is fond of this trope, often telling his stories from the perspective of the romantic interest of the real lead.
** Frank Carveth in ''[[The Brood]]''. The actor, Art Hindle, isn't even mentioned on the cover, while Samantha Eggar and [[Oliver Reed]] (who were both bigger-name actors and play more interesting characters) get top billing.
** Veronica Quaife (Gina Davis) in ''[[The Fly]]''.
** Hart Read in ''Rabid''.
** Doctor St. Luc in ''Shivers''.
** To some extent, Cameron Vale of ''[[Scanners]]'', who has literally no personality, while Michael Ironside and Patrick MacGoohan get much less screen time but are far more memorable and interesting.
* Thomas, Marquis d'Apcher in ''[[Brotherhood of the Wolf]]''.
* The unnamed narrator in ''[[Withnail and I]]''.
* ''300'' has Herodotus as the narrator, despite the main character being Leonidas.
* {{spoiler|Sweet Pea}} in ''[[Sucker Punch]]''.
== Literature ==
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* The narrator of many of [[Damon Runyon]]'s stories—such as "Butch Minds the Baby"—is clearly present for all of the action, but rarely ''does'' anything more than relate what everyone else did around him.
==
* The new series of ''[[Doctor Who]]'' starts with the episode "Rose", which has the title character as [[The Watson]] and First-Person Peripheral Narrator to ease the audience into the series.
** In fact, the first few episodes featuring any new companion do a bit of this, as the Doctor has to re-explain who he is and what he does. A change in companions is a much better time for new viewers to get into the show than a change in Doctors.
** Unless, of course, both changes happen at once, like with the Eleventh Doctor.
** The [[Doctor Who Expanded Universe]] novels are typically all written from the perspective of the companions, or the random characters trying to work out what these weirdos are about. [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]] in one novel set in the Land of Fiction, where the Master of the Land of Fiction laments ([[Meta Fiction|in the descriptive text]]) that even in Omniscient Narrator mode, he ''still'' doesn't know what the Doctor is thinking.
== New Media ==
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* The viewpoint character in the archaeology segment of the [[Interactive Fiction]] work ''The Beetmonger's Journal'' is a textbook First-Person Peripheral Narrator; they're largely a complete cipher, and present primarily to chronicle the exploits of the more dynamic Lapot, and the ''other'' viewpoint character—the eponymous beetmonger—as dictated to them by Lapot from a journal they discovered.
==
*
* The Stage Manager from ''[[Our Town]]''.
== Troper Works ==
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* ''[[Ar tonelico II: Melody of Metafalica]]'s'' main characters are Luca and Cloche. The player, Croix Bartel, is a supporting character who acts as their mental therapist and love interest.
* Keiichi in ''[[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni]]'' is actually only the second most important character. He's certainly [[The Hero]], but the story isn't about [[The Hero]]. {{spoiler|The story is actually about the often overshadowed Furude Rika, which is kept a secret until the end because the only thing she doesn't know about the plot is the reason it's even necessary.}} This makes for an interesting case where Keiichi is not actually a ''full'' example of the trope because the actual protagonist is incredibly passive while undeniably being the focus of the story.
== Webcomics ==
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