#osc stuff

I like Fanny as a character. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise to those who know me considering the fact that this is like- my forth rant about her. She’s interesting, unique, and goes beyond being the ‘mean bully who hates everything and everyone’ character archetype that is often pretty flat and boring. Due to her continual stay on the show, she’s gained a lot of depth and personality, growing exponentially from what she originally was, being just a one trick pony of hating everything. Fanny is a good character on her own, but is also a good supporting character aswell. In this analysis, I will be diving into a few different things, including (but not limited to): what a supporting character is, why Fanny is a supporting character, and what makes her succeed where a lot of others fail.

What is a supporting character?

A supporting character can mean a few different things. In a show or movie with one titular character, a supporting character can be one of the side characters or a love interest. Supporting characters can also be less prominent, usually in tv shows, often getting very little screen time. All a character really needs in order to qualify as a supporting character is, well, to support the more focused on character(s). Supporting characters help others move along in their character arcs, be it by introducing the reader to backstory, creating conflict, foiling the main character, or helping them get closer to their ultimate goal of character development.

In the end, a supporting character’s job is to help develop the main character. It takes a very good writer to have a character change and go through an arc with no supporting characters, and because they’re so versatile, you often don’t even notice they’re there. Supporting characters can be villains, trying to stop the main character and helping them realize what they’re fighting for. Supporting characters can be morally grey, challenging the main character and making them question their own beliefs. Supporting characters can be good, guiding the main character along as they change for the better (or sometimes, for the worse). Supporting characters create change in the main character, be it physical, mental, or emotional, that pushes them further along their arc, or sometimes is the catalyst for their arc.

Supporting characters support, and even if it’s not their main reason for being in the story, it’s still a job they have nonetheless.

What makes Fanny a supporting character?

Fanny is an amazing example of how to make a good supporting character. She is a contrarian, somebody who challenges nearly everything she comes across. Fanny bounces off other characters well because she questions both them and their beliefs. In BFB, she questions Pencil and Match, helping kickstart Iance’s arc, furthering it when she continues to butt heads with Match later on in the show. In TPOT, she initiate’s Death P.A.C.T. Again’s arc by questioning and actively going against the team’s foundation, their reason for forming in the first place. Fanny makes One more interesting by becoming a threat (however minor she may be) to One’s plan, and she helps show us how One reacts to things not going her way (something that is more explored with Donut’s inclusion in the arc). Fanny is a good supporting character because she works against the other characters, often leading them to either question themselves or give the viewers a look inside their minds by explaining themselves to her.

Fanny works well with a lot of characters because she can contrast nearly anything. She’s a Swiss Army knife, able to mingle with almost any character arc and have it still feel natural. Of course, bear in mind that Fanny won’t always be the solution to a dragging character; as much as she is versatile, she had blind spots and just won’t fit into the needed role is some cases. But still, Fanny can help boost characters’ personalities and make them more three dimensional by working against them, either actively or passively. A flat character can be given lots of dimension by having them either explain their mindset and beliefs in their own words, or begin to question themselves and wonder if they’re truly as right as they think, something that Fanny can help accomplish quite easily.

Fanny creates both internal and external conflict, something that is practically essential for characters to grow and develop into becoming more interesting.

What’s the problem with supporting characters?

Supporting characters, a lot of the time, have one major flaw: they’re only supporting characters. Yes, a lot of supporting characters have good personality and careful thought put into them, but upon introduction and throughout their ‘early days’ as I’ll be calling it, most of their personality is built on supporting the main characters. A contrarian or foil character who is supposed to oppose the main character is often bland outside of being the opposite of the main character. Think villains who only exist to create conflict, or antagonists whose main personality trait is just the opposite of the main character’s main personality trait with little else built off of it. There’s also the ‘quirky best friend’ trope that we’re probably all sick of by now. You know the one; a (usually sunshiney and happy) character who’s the main character’s best friend and exists solely to put the main character on a pedestal or help them better themself that is really boring and gets old quickly once their support is no longer needed.

In order to be good, supporting characters need to have their own personalities and character arcs outside of the main character’s story focus. Usually, supporting characters end up getting their arcs in tv shows or book series’ because either A) there’s enough time in the plot for their arc to be squeezed in, or B) because they’re a fan-favourite and their arc was added in to please the readers/viewers. Now, yes, I know that not all supporting characters are like this; trust me, I know a lot of supporting characters who have interesting personalities and unique arcs, but in my experience, it takes a really good writer to make a supporting character interesting and three dimensional right off the bat.

Supporting characters, in order to be good, need to have their own character traits and actions that don’t directly affect the main character’s arc.

Why does Fanny succeed as a supporting character?

Fanny, as a supporting character, works well and does her job, but she is also her own character who changes and has her own arcs. Yes, in the beginning, she was just a joke character whose shtick gets old quickly, but most BFDI characters were upon introduction, so I’m going to give her a pass on that one. Fanny, alongside supporting others, has a rich personality, beliefs, flaws, and goes through her own arc. She has goals that she reaches, compromises she makes when she can’t fully reach those goals, and most importantly, an actual personality outside of being a contrarian.

On the surface, Fanny just seems like a brash, angry character made solely with the purpose of helping other characters along their arcs, but if you actually look at her actions across the series, you’ll find that she is consistent in her reasons for challenging others, as well as personable outside of what’s on the surface. For one, Fanny is deeply against losing, both her friends and the challenges. In BFB 1, she went against the idea of jumping to win the challenge because it wasn’t working, and clearly wasn’t going to work. Later on in BFB, Fanny continues to butt heads with Match because of her poor leadership skills. In BFB 8, Match, instead of encouraging Bubble and helping her kink out the mistakes that nearly lost them the challenge, instead criticizes her and downplays her intelligence. This strategy, if it were allowed to continue, would ultimately fail in helping them win challenges, because instead of practicing what they’re bad at and getting better, the team would just mock their flaws and move on, never actually working on and defeating those flaws. Fanny (be it intentional by the writers or not) stops this when it begins becoming a problem in order to not lead the team down the destructive path. To add onto this, in TPOT, Death P.A.C.T. Again’s major arc is all about Fanny (upon realizing the slippery slope her team is quickly falling down) going against her team’s main goal in order to not lose the challenges, and therefore lose her friends.

To just spitball some more examples, Fanny has been shown to be emotionally intelligent, able to plan and work towards a longterm goal, willing to work with near strangers to make it towards a shared vision/goal, capable of high levels of empathy and understanding, and let go of grudges in favour of having the best possible outcome for all parties involved. These all are things not directly built off of her supporting role as an (often) antagonistic character, with some even directly contrasting that idea.

Fanny is a good example of how to do a supporting character right, she has proven to be more than just what makes her such a good supporting character in the first place.

Afterthoughts