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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 [[
▲* 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.
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== 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.
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== 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 [[
* 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.
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== Literature ==
* Ishmael in ''[[Moby Dick]]''. He's arguably the least interesting character in the book, we're given much more information about almost every other characters' backstory, and he stops participating in any of the events in the story entirely half way through the book, describing scenes that he couldn't possibly have been present to witness, and only becomes involved with things again in the book's epilogue.
** In his defense, [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|he occasionally gets nearly uncontrollable urges to go around knocking people's hats off.]] That's quite interesting.
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* Weirdly, Lockwood and Nelly in ''[[Wuthering Heights (novel)|Wuthering Heights]]''. The main story (about Cathy, Heathcliff, Edgar and that lot) is being told to Lockwood - an outsider to the area - by Nelly, a servant whose active role in the story varies a lot.
** Even more weirdly in the same novel, by Isabella, who writes a note about her time with Heathcliff later found by Nelly and recited from memory to Lockwood. Also, the contents of the entire novel are really Lockwood's diary. That's right—the reader reads a diary of a man who faithfully records lengthy monologues by a character who in turn faithfully relates a pages-long letter she herself read years ago. [[Lampshade Hanging]]?
* There are two main viewpoint characters in ''[[
** Originally Carrot was going to be the viewpoint character, but then Pratchett decided it would be more interesting to leave his thoughts out of the narrative, and shifted the viewpoint to Vimes. This ended up having [[Ensemble Darkhorse|very interesting results]]. In fact, in the entire series, there is exactly one page written from Carrot's point of view, even if the story is revolving around him. Sometimes the book spends some time on other characters' thoughts on what Carrot is thinking, because he's like a well: both extremely simple, and extremely deep.
* ''[[John Dies at the End]]'' is narrated by the titular John's best friend David, who, while quite interesting and conflicted and well-designed in general, is nothing compared to John's utter insanity. John is generally considered the protagonist.
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* ''[[Fried Green Tomatoes|Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe]]'' and its film version (simply called ''Fried Green Tomatoes'') has two perspectives; a woman at a nursing home, and the old lady who tells the woman her story. The old lady's stories are mostly about her adoptive sister and her relationship with another girl.
* The [[H. G. Wells]] novel ''[[The Time Machine]]'' is set up as a frame tale narrated by another, who relates what the time traveler has told him about his adventures.
** Similarly, his short story ''[[The Door In The Wall]]'' is told by someone
* Professor Arronax from [[Jules Verne]] novel ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]]''. He is placed in the position of the First-Person Peripheral Narrator against his will by the main character (Captain Nemo) and escapes in the end.
* In ''[[The Mad
* Captain [[Alatriste]]'s squire Íñigo de Balboa, although Íñigo sometimes furthers some plots himself.
* Richard MacDuff in ''[[Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency]]'', whose main purpose is to be completely bewildered by title-character Dirk. In the second book, this device is abandoned, and it turns out Dirk himself is a lot more bewildered than he lets on.
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* Phineas is the First-Person Peripheral Narrator in ''John Halifax, Gentleman'', a Victorian novel by Dinah Craik.
* In ''[[The Master Of Ballantrae]]'', the story is told after all the important characters are dead by Mr. McKellar, the steward of the Durrisdeer estate, because he wants to set the record straight and clear the reputation of the late Lord Durrisdeer. McKelllar narrates the events he was present at in the first person, and his actions have some influence on the course of events, but he's not central.
* Tim Wynne Jones' short story [http://www.hapon.com/9pdf/kerdydickussty.pdf ''Save The Moon For Kerdy Dickus'']{{Dead link}} begins with the line "This is Ky's story."—Ky being a friend of the young narrator, and her story being about a Stranger who came to Ky's family's house one evening {{spoiler|and thought that they were aliens}}. The friend telling the story was not there for the main events of the story at all. The First-Person Peripheral Narrator perspective is effective here because, as the narrator says flat out in the first paragraph, "In this story, the way things look is really important," and the fact that the narrator is neither as familiar with those things as Ky nor as unfamiliar with them as the Stranger emphasizes the fact that this story is all about the perspective from which it's told.
* The ''[[Silverwing (novel)|Silverwing]]'' series' third book actually ''has'' a character named Ishmael, though he appears near the end of the story, isn't given much characterization, and [[Red Shirt|dies during the climactic battle]].
* Just about all of H.G. Wells' books, including the above-mentioned ''Island of Dr. Moreau'' and ''The Time Machine,'' fall prey to this. Perhaps the only novel to avert this is ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]],'' where the unnamed narrator is the protagonist by default because no other major characters last for more than a handful of chapters or have any real motives or character development.
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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.
== Live
* 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.
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== New Media ==
* 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.
==
* In the musical ''[[Rent]]'', Mark is an aspiring filmmaker who passively observes the dramas and adventures of the rest of the cast while he films them. His role is to narrate to the audience and reflect on their situations.
* The Stage Manager from ''[[Our Town]]''.
== Troper Works ==
* [[White Mage]] Hermea from ''[[Our Paradise (Darth Wiki)|Our Paradise]]'' is the viewpoint character, but she's clearly [[The Lancer]]. It seems the the whole point of it all is to keep the [[Silent Protagonist]] silent. Even his thoughts.
* The Student in ''[[Museum of Idiots]]'', doubling as [[The Straight Man]]. Mostly, his role is to observe [[Bunny Ears Lawyer|Chickensuit McChickensuit]] and stop him from getting too out-of-hand. He usually fails.
== Video Games ==
* Crono from ''[[Chrono Trigger]]''. While he is certainly the protagonist, for the whole game he is a silent protagonist who simply is there to observe the decisions of his party and go along with them. The 'real' characters and character development happens to those around him.
** Well, minus ...{{spoiler|Vainly attempting to stop Lavos from killing all his friends [[And Zoidberg|and Magus]] and dying in a [[Heroic Sacrifice]]}}. That scene alone basically gives him some kind of characterization even if he's Silent, not unlike the Persona MCs.
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* 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.
==
* [[No Name Given|{...}]] from ''[[Hanna Is Not a Boy's Name]],'' natch. [[The Pollyanna|Hanna]] himself is [[Ambiguously Human]] and is implied to have a [[Dark and Troubled Past]], which remains mysterious as {...} himself doesn't know anything about it. (Heck, [[Ghost Amnesia|he doesn't even know his own past]], for that matter.)
== Western Animation ==
* Pvt. Robert "Paperboy" Higgins from ''[[Starship Troopers|Roughnecks: Starship Trooper Chronicles]]'' is a FedNet reporter, basically embedded with the Mobile Infantry (except he's an enlisted man, not a non-combatant). Most of the show's narration is him speaking in the past tense, as though writing his memoirs, and he states in the first episode, regarding his comrade and the obvious male lead [[One-Man Army|Johnny Rico]], "I know he doesn't look like much now, but trust me, this guy's gonna be a legend."
* The Narrator (a pudgy snowman) in the famous Rankin/Bass animated adaptation of ''Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer''. Apparently, his only ''raison d'etre'' besides telling the audience the story is to sing and perform on the guitar songs that are only tangentially related to the plot. The story's ''real'' protagonist, of course, is Rudolph - but since we are viewing ''everything'' through the Narrator's perspective, Herbie the Elf and the Misfit Toys also are depicted as well-rounded characters, and arguably alternate protagonists themselves.
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{{reflist}}
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[[Category:Narrator Tropes]]
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