Top Ten Favorite Sidekick Best Friends

hosted by The Broke and Bookish

Technically, this week's Top Ten Tuesday is meant to be Top Ten Favorite Characters in X Genre, but I honestly stared at that topic for like five solid minutes, and not one thing came into my dense little brain. I have so many favorite characters and so many favorite genres. I'll read anything. I'm a genre hopper. A genre slut, if you will. And I had a feeling if I FORCED myself to choose just one genre, I'd end up saying all the same characters I've been blabbing about for weeks. And there are only so many times I can drool over Warner before you have me committed.

So this week, I'm bending the rules. Instead of favorite characters in X genre, I'm doing favorite X type of characters. And the x stands for... sidekicks! Slash best friends! Otherwise known as the awesome supporting players who deserve a moment in the spotlight for being so awesome.

Of course, I'm sure I've forgotten about a million of them, because these are just the ones coming off the top of my aforementioned dense head, but let's get to it.

1. Ron Weasley from Harry Potter



The ultimate sidekick with the ultimate hero best friend. Seriously, this guy is best friends with HARRY FREAKING POTTER (all the coolest people reading this just got AVPM earworms): Quidditch sensation, Defense Against the Dark Arts prodigy, and oh, yeah, casually that dude who defeated Voldemort before he could walk. Despite the fact that Ron sometimes feels overshadowed by his glorious best friend (and makes hideous decisions like that whole sulky chapter of his in GoF and DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED on what he did in DH), Ron is truly, deeply loyal. He's risked his life countless times for his best bud, and he'd do it countless more times. He's afraid a good ninety percent of the time, but in the end his sense of friendship always sparks his bravery, and then he's willing to do anything for the people he loves.

This is arguably my FAVORITE RON WEASLEY LINE. All the feels.

Shout outs to Hedwig, Crookshanks, and Fawkes for being awesome beastly besties.

2. Kenji from Shatter Me/Unravel Me

I will keep this short, as I have raved about him at length on this blog countless times. He's brave, loyal, and dedicated to his cause. But best of all, he's hilarious, honest, and always willing to pull both Adam and Juliette out of the depths of their emo doldrums (which is no small task, I assure you. Those two are like the emo king and queen). Yes, Kenji, you are completely right. There are MANY girls who want to see you naked, you handsome, devilish thing, you.

3. Angela from Unspoken

Unspoken was hands down one of my favorite reads of 2012. In the hands of someone other than Sarah Rees Brennan, Angela would be the main character and Kami, the actual protagonist, would be the sidekick. Kami is plucky, plump, and always prepared to thrust herself into certain peril in search of the truth. Angela is darkly beautiful and much admired by the opposite sex. She disdains all of humanity (except for Kami... and Holly, naturally) and hates people almost as much as she loves a good nap. She is openly rude to basically everybody, and oh, do I love her for it.

Despite her complete laziness, she's fiercely protective of Kami, which means she's willing to do all sorts of things she loathes in order to help her friend. She will also definitely physically accost anybody who messes with her or her girls. Rusty has trained her well, after all.

4. Iko from Cinder and Scarlet

Iko is the best sidekick in history who is not actually technically alive, nor has she ever been. She's an android who somehow ended up with the most distinct personality in all of New Asia. She's bright, bubbly and girly. She loves to swoon over hot princes and worries that temporarily being a spaceship makes her look fat. She and the levelheaded Cinder are a wonderful pair, and for the first fifty pages of Scarlet, I spent a lot of time going, "Yes, yes, interesting stuff, BUT WHERE IS IKO, EXACTLY?" I missed that little glitchy android.

5. Samwise Gamgee from The Lord of the Rings



OH, SAM. I already talked about how often Frodo done you wrong. It's safe to say, if they'd just given you the dang ring in the first place, those books would have been significantly shorter. Sam is the ultimate sidekick of unwavering loyalty, willing to sacrifice life, limb, happiness, and dignity to help his Mister Frodo.

 

6. Bess Marvin and George Fayne from Nancy Drew

These guys are like the quintessential sidekicks. They're brave-ish, and they're loyal, but they're not supposed to be nearly as awesome as Nancy Drew. But who even is, really? She's Nancy Drew. She, like, routinely saves herself and random heiresses from kidnapping, foils jewelry heists, and catches murders, all before jaunting off to have a romantic picnic with boyfriend, Ned, with not one strawberry blonde hair out of place. (Undoubtedly, though, something nefarious will occur at said picnic, requiring her to leave poor Ned in the lurch for the millionth time. Ned is long-suffering.) Bess and George are total opposites, with Bess being flirty, flighty, and blonde, and George being tough, tomboyish, and dark haired. Bess also, strangely, wants ice cream one hundred percent of the time. They balance out practically perfect Nancy really well, I feel.

7. Zero from Holes



ZERO. I love him. He was so underrated by everybody except for Stanley because he couldn't read, but he was absolutely brilliant. He was the one who seemed to figure out nearly every secret in this magnificently secret-laden book. He'd been through a lot, but he was willing to go through a lot more for his best bud Stanley Yelnats. You just can't help but love this kid.




8. Kitten from The Immortals

I talked about Tamora Pierce's glorious series last week, focusing on Daine and Numair's swoony romance, but this week I'm going to talk about Kitten, otherwise known as Skysong, who happens to be Daine's dragon ward. Yup, she's a tiny baby dragon who doesn't know how to talk or fly yet, but she's got a fearsome temper and scales that change color with her mood. That is basically the best kind of animal sidekick you could ask for, really. Except for possibly...

9. Saphira from Eragon



Full confession: I haven't read the last book in this series, and I'm not sure if I will. I totally loved Eragon, liked Eldest, and enjoyed Brisingr, but the books burnt me out, to be honest. They're a lot of work. BUT my absolute FAVORITE PART of the series was Saphira and Eragon's unique relationship. She's a dragon, and he's her rider, but they're equals who love and rely on each other so fiercely that you can barely even call Saphira a sidekick. She's brilliant and definitely can be very scary and they can communicate WITH THEIR MINDS. I would trade my dopey dog in for a Saphira in a heartbeat, who can barely understand me when I communicate the word sit.

Okay, I'm wrapping up here. Do you have any favorite sidekicks I forgot (and I forgot a lot... oh crap, I'm just remembering Hana from Delirium and Kim from If I Stay and so many others and oops. But I must stop here. Can't include them all)? Did you actually do the Top Ten Tuesday question that was posed to you? Leave me your links so I can come visit, please!