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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted over at The Broke and the Bookish to satisfy our list-making impulse.  Each week we get a new literary topic on which to devise our own lists.  It's quite fun; check it out!

This week's list is the top ten favorite minor characters in literature.  Here are mine in no particular order.

1.  Mervyn Bunter from Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey novels.  Unflappable and correct, Bunter is like a less smug Jeeves.

2.  Ariadne Oliver from a few Agatha Christie novels.  Supposedly, Oliver is Christie's send up of herself--a large (tall) female writer with a penchant for crunching apples and a lovely ability to laugh at her own foibles.


3.  Vardaman Bundren from William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying.  This poor kid is just confused and no one ever takes the time to explain the basics to him, hence his most famous musing:  "My mother is a fish."

4.  John Watson from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.  I know Watson is theoretically a major character, but he plays the amazed sidekick so well.


5.  Aloysius from Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited.  Yup, the teddy bear, if nothing else for the magnificent quotation:  "If only it could be like this always, always alone, always summer...the fruit always ripe, and Aloysius always in a good temper."


6.  Jacob Marley from Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol  Yeah, he was a snake in life, but by the time we meet him, he's regretful and he's trying to save his business partner from the same fate.


7.  Pipkin from Richard Adams' Watership Down.  I had a debate with one of my profs about little Pipkin.  He annoys her because he's of no use to the colony.  I disagree.  He serves the function of those people who will always be with us and must always be taken care of; those we should not forget.  He also serves as a galvanizing point for the members of the warren who might otherwise fall into dissent.

8.  Dr. Prunesquallor from Melvin Peake's Gormenghast trilogy.  I admit that this probably has more to do with John Sessions' portrayal of him in the film version, but he cracks me up.


9.  Dobby from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series.  I wanted to throttle him at first when his "helpful" behavior got Harry into so much trouble, but I was sobbing by the end.

10.  Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond novels by Ian Fleming and in her re-creation by Kate Westbrook.  You know Miss Moneypenny could kick some tail if she wanted to, and I suspect she was the woman James *really* loved.