Main Characters

Protagonists! Antagonists! Heroes! Leads! Main Characters—they're who the story's about!

There is one lead character per story (not necessarily per franchise, but per story): the Protagonist. The second main character - the person who the story also revolves around to a lesser extent - is the Deuteragonist. Other characters' main character status tends to be defined by how close they are to the protagonist.

Note that the Protagonist and (if present) the Deuteragonist do not need to be The Hero! They just need to drive the story. See Villain Protagonist for a discussion of this.

Basically, a main character is any character who has a major purpose or role in the plot and/or interacts regularly with main characters. In many series, a name indicates that this character will be a main character, if only for one episode. Without these people, the series would not be the same, and sometimes would be entirely different. If the person has an effect on the plot, but is not affecting it by his or her own merit, this is a MacGuffin.

If the story is from first person, then the person speaking will almost always be a main character, though there are exceptions. If the story isn't from first person, then the characters you see around the most will generally be main characters, though, once again, there are exceptions. If a character is in the title, then he or she will be a main character.