Best Friends Forever
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The Most Put-Upon Best Friends in Fiction Are All the Same Character Type.
Milhouse Van Houten. Ron Weasley. Dr. John Watson.
On the surface, they seem like very different characters. A nerdy kid in Springfield. A gangly redhead at Hogwarts. A war veteran in a Baker Street flat. But they share something that goes deeper than “loyal sidekick.”
They are all Power of Love — and they are all magnificent.
The Power of Love Character Type leads with the heart. Their whole world is organized around connection, devotion, and belonging. They feel everything at full volume. They show up, again and again, for the people they love — even when those people take them completely for granted.
And that’s exactly where the drama lives.
Milhouse loves Bart with everything he has. He follows him into disaster, humiliation, and certain detention. He gets ditched. He gets used as a decoy. He persists. His longing to be seen and chosen is so naked it’s almost unbearable to watch — which is why it’s so funny, and so quietly heartbreaking.
Ron Weasley is Harry’s best friend in a world where Harry gets all the glory. Ron lives in hand-me-downs, in the shadow of his brothers, in the footnotes of someone else’s legend. His Trouble Traits flare up as jealousy and wounded pride — but underneath is a boy who simply wants to matter to the people he loves most. When he finally gets that confirmation, it cracks him open.
Watson in BBC’s Sherlock is a man of deep feeling partnered with a man who has weaponized the absence of feeling. Holmes needs Watson far more than he will ever admit. Watson knows this. He stays anyway — not out of weakness, but out of a fierce, private loyalty that is the truest thing in the show.
Here’s what makes Power of Love characters so compelling in the best friend role: their emotional needs create natural conflict without requiring them to be villains. The story doesn’t need to manufacture tension. The tension is already there, in the gap between how much they give and how rarely they are fully seen.
The best writers know that the put-upon best friend isn’t comic relief. They are the emotional glue of the story.
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Create a visual map for a character’s emotional journey. Pull stories from character rather from rote story structure beats. Some of the largest international media companies, use this in story and character development.
A clear concise guide for writers and producers to have by their side as they embark on a project. It gives a really vital reminder of what is key for story success.
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