My Science School

If you are bookworm, you might be familiar with the term protagonist. It is used to describe the leading character in a story. But have you heard of deuteragonists, and tritagonists?

From the protagonist's perspective

A protagonist is usually easily recognisable as the main character of the story. Generally, the story is written from the protagonist's perspective. However, often a novel has multiple storylines and characters, each with their own storyline or role. For example, in "The Lord of the Rings" series, although Frodo is considered the main character as he has the Ring, Aragorn and Sam are equally significant. So are they protagonists too? No. That's where the concept of deuteragonists, and tritagonists comes in.

A dependable deuteragonist

Usually, deuteragonists are sidekicks, who support the protagonist. They are often (but not always) the second-most important character. So in "The Lord of the Rings" series, Sam can be called a deuteragonist Similarly, Rowley Jefferson is the deuteragonist in "The Diary of the Wimpy Kid" series. He is the well-meaning and helpful companion of Greg Heffley. However, Rowley also has his own spin-off series "Diary of an Awesomely Friendly Kid" in which he is the protagonist.

But not all sidekicks are deuteragonists. For example, Snowy from "Tintin" is not important enough to be a deuteragonist, but Captain Haddock is.

The tricky third

The third main character in a story can be called a tritagonist. It is generally a secondary side-kick character. The role of the tritagonist depends on the story. For example, Hermione is a tritagonist in the "Harry Potter" series. (However, fans are divided over this as they consider Hermione to be closer to Harry than Ron and hence, she is regarded more as a deuteragonist.) Other popular examples of tritagonists are Jessie from "Toy Story" with both Woody and Buzz, and both Princess Leia and Han Solo from "Star Wars".

On the dark side

Another important thing to remember is that not all deuteragonists and tritagonists are supportive of or helpful to the main character. They can also be evil and cause harm to the character. Yes, that's right, they can also be antagonists. For example, Prince Hans from the animated film "Frozen" reveals himself as an antagonist towards the end. Antagonists are the villains of the story, they are characters that bring harm upon the main character.

However, remember that these are only broad definitions, and depend on the story.

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In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series, a Muggle, is a person who lacks any sort of magical ability and was not born in a magical family. Muggles can also be described as people who do not have any magical blood inside them. It differs from the term Squib, which refers to a person with one or more magical parents yet without any magical power or ability, and from the term Muggle-born (or the derogatory and offensive term mudblood, which is used to imply the supposed impurity of Muggle blood), which refers to a person with magical abilities but with non-magical parents.

The term Muggle is sometimes used in a pejorative manner in the novels. Since Muggle refers to a person who is a member of the non-magical community, Muggles are simply ordinary human beings without any magical abilities and almost always with no awareness of the existence of magic. Witches and wizards with non-magical parents are called Muggle-borns. There have also been some children known to have been born to one magical and one non-magical parent. People of this mixed parentage are called half-bloods; magical people with any Muggle ancestry on the one side or the other are half-bloods as well. The most prominent Muggle-born in the Harry Potter series is Hermione Granger, who was born to Muggles of undisclosed names. Witches and wizards with all-magical heritage are called pure bloods.

Picture Credit : Google