I been thinking about this for a while. First with a the significant other of a hero without powers or a helping role, where we see their day to day life and how they feel insignificant next to the hero and all the action that take place away from them for the most. See different relations, ones where the hero over compensates for short-comings, one where they are toxic or even abuse panther in their. Mentors for heroes, who start the story with as mentors, mother/parents of heroes. Also when i mean full story, i don’t mean a single episode in a series or a poltline in a book, but a fully completed story centered around them alone.
some archs i thought of:
-the comedic relief -the powerhouse(usually written as dumb) -the villain(that is not just a serial killer) -the future seer/oracle
Feel free to add media/stories use the arch for the full stories
I’ve searched far and wide, and there are only a scant few books that do the classic wizard’s tower. POV of the master wizard that is retiring to do research and really dig into the limits of magic. Maybe pick up the hero of the world as his apprentice, but not from his pov at all. The wizard sees the aftermath of his misadventures and offers words of wisdom and the occasional spell he might be ready for. Sure there’s a romantic intrest with his other apprentice, but he ignores that too. They do a fine job at cleaning, cooking, and local monster removal.
He occasionally gets together with other retired wizards and they chew the fat and complain about their apprentices and how often they end up in the news or jail.
Comedy/ slice of life fantasy. No high stakes, if an apprentice brings back a problem it’s big in their eyes, but fixed with a wave of his hand, and a warning. Or they’re taught a lesson and have to fix it themselves by researching before the wizard has to intervene, because then it’s chamberpot duty with no magic cleaning for a month.
If you’re into anime you might like “I’ve Been Killing Slimes for 300 Years and Maxed Out My Level”. Not really what you’re talking about here but there are some parallels
The research and limits of magic parts especially. The chinese cultivation novel genre get somewhat close but they still need to have new conflicts from time to time.
Tho for games I still have noita.
First few runs go somewhat far but game is hard and dying resets every single stat so once you realize your knowledge is the only persisting upgrade it just becomes research game.
Game still autosaves on exit despite permadeath. I seen runs where people visit paraller words just to gather resources for alchemy materials.
Knowledge is actually OP in the game because you can use it for alchemy or modifying wands or alchemy.
But yeah I really want a book equivalent where I can just see someone who is messing around with the fantasy world and trying to learn it.
Henchmen.
The best example I can give is 21 and 24 in The Venture Bros. Just two grunts following their supervillain boss and surviving through their knowledge of tropes. It’s fun to look into the lives of the faceless goons of villains. See what they do in downtime, or what they talk about during an operation, or how they respond to their boss’s insane demands.
I want more Dune, and by that I mean I wanna see more “prophet assaulted by their visions and without a hopeful monotheistic background (in which God fills in for the lack of competence and faith in it keeps you going)/the potentially inhuman wisdom required to deal with them and do something positive with them”. The problem is that you don’t just have to be a competent writer to create something like that, but you also have to be cultured, existentialist/philosophical and genuinely bright, and that reduces the potential pool of writers to like 6 people worldwide at any given time. 😔🤷
I would guess that most or all have already been done in some way, although I would like to see more from the comedy relief and villains minion point of view.
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog is along these lines. Warning: Musical.
