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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40059
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

A character need not have any impact on the plot, in terms of making things happen, to be an active player in the narrative as a whole. Take S.M. Stirling's Odard Liu; he spends three books as a minor character who serves as a reminder of where he comes from and something of a punching bag of fate, being at the mercy of the unscrupulous actions of his mother who is hundreds or more miles away, then he dies. His plot impact is zero, he doesn't _make anything happen_, though he could be said to help in several cases he's not necessary. So what does he do? He serves to illustrate two points:

- no man is all or one thing.

- people can and do change.

Both of which are important themes in the work and his progress as a character parallels, but is also rather different to, the journey of the protagonist.

Odard comes to mind with this question particularly because he does not get along with the main character of the tale for most of his personal story as is in fact generally not a particularly nice, or good, human being.

Characters are only _necessary_ to the plot when they carry out a task, or tasks, that cannot be completed by another character _and_ those tasks and the events around them drive the plot forward **_and_** they are essential to the continuing progress of the narrative. Particular individual characters are very rarely necessary to the plot; most times there are other ways to resolve events either by using a different character, or changing the details of how events play out, to get the same result. At best you can say that _a_ character was necessary in a given role.

Original score: 1