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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30144
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/30144
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I think you have to start with understanding the role of a subplot. Artistically, I think it is fair to say that a subplot exists to provide a counterpoint to the theme of the main plot. If a short story is a singer accompanying themselves on a guitar, a novel is an choral symphony with complex harmony and counterpoint, all of which serves to reinforce and support the main theme and the central plot of the story.

As I have noted before, LOTR is about temptation. The central plot deals with Frodo and his resisting and ultimately succumbing to the temptation to keep and to attempt to wield the ring rather than to destroy it. But if you look at the subplots, you find that they echo and provide counterpoint to this theme of temptation:

- Bombadil is not tempted by the ring. This is the central mystery of Bombadil and helps to define the nature of the temptation that the ring presents. 

- Boromir succumbs to the temptation. 

- Sam, through love, is immune to the temptation, or at least is able to overcome it. 

- Gandalf and Galadriel are both aware enough of the temptation that they will not dare touch the ring. 

- Pippin succumbs to the temptation of the palantir. 

- Saruman also succumbs to temptation.

- The ring is ultimately undone by its own temptation of Gollum, who becomes the final agent of its destruction.

Because these subplots exist to harmonize with or provide counterpoint to the main plot and its theme, they don't necessarily require a complete arc in themselves. Their role is to direct our attention toward the central theme, or to refine our appreciation of it, and they don't necessarily have to complete their arcs in order to do that.

Harry Potter is (as far as I can tell from the first three books, after which I lost interest) basically a maturation plot. For a young man, learning to court a young woman is a part of maturation, and doubtless it does something to support or counterpoint the learn-to-face-Voldemort plot that is the main plot of every volume. It is counterpoint, not point, and therefore does not need to come to a climax, does not need to face the moment of moral crisis, and therefore does not need conflict beyond the ordinary conflict that every young man faces when asking a pretty girl out for the first time.

So, a subplot is not inherently based on either conflict or tension (though it may introduce either one -- another function of a subplot being to introduce complications into the main plot -- it is based on the author's desire to provide a harmony or a counterpoint to the main theme of the novel in order to enhance and refine what the novel has to say about that theme.

Original score: 8