Hestia is one of my favorite goddesses because she, and all other important yet quiet background characters, reminds me of something really important. People have ripples. Some people’s are obvious. They’re boulders thrown into the stream with a big splash. They draw attention and it’s easy to attribute their ripples to them because they’re so obvious.

But some people are pebbles. They slip quietly into the stream in the boulder’s wake and they aren’t noticed but they still alter the stream. Their ripples keep going and going and going. This quiet little thing you never would have noticed impacts the whole pond. Hestia is a reminder that everyone matters, no matter how inconsequential you think you are, your ripples have reach.

Hestia is remarkable in Greek mythology for a few reasons. She was worshipped by all, given bits of every offering, in theory if power = worship, she was raking it in. But she was also the quietest, least dramatic god in the pantheon. But she’s not the only figure like that in stories. Those really important, ever-present background characters are all over the place if you know where to look. Here are a few that I can remember.

The Teacher in Charley Brown

Everyone who watched the show or read the comics remembers her. She was in pretty much every episode, and she played a role pretty important to children (you’re stuck with your teacher all year after all) yet no one would consider her a main or even a particularly important character. She’s the epitome of an always present background character.

Kathy Santoni From Full House

Kathy Santoni was only known by name for entire seasons of Full House before she finally got screen time but she had a pretty significant impact on D.J Tanner. Anytime Danny said she couldn’t do something, Kathy Santoni was allowed to. She stole D.J’s first boyfriend, caused all kinds of drama, and became pregnant as a teenager, freaking Danny out to no end. Influencial, yet otherwise unmemorable.

Ponch from So You Want to be a Wizard

I…can’t go in to why this character counts in this list without major spoilers, but if you haven’t read this series, do.

Literally every background character in Chrono Trigger or the Sword of Truth series at all.

Owen from Gargoyles

Owen is a perfect example of that always present, actually super important, background character who is just *there.* He’s there, he matters, but as Owen, he doesn’t get a lot of screen time.

Bill Turner

Let’s ignore the fact that anything exists past Pirates of the Caribbean 1 for just a minute. Bill Turner in movie one is a perfect example of what Hestia is like in Greek Mythology. He’s referenced a lot. He matters to the other characters, he influences the motivations of others just by being named. As a concept he’s important, as a character he isn’t actually there.

The Naked Guy From Friends

Referenced throughout the entire show, Naked Guy added a layer of illicit entertainment to Friends. Viewers were aware of him, but until close to the end never saw him. Here’s a whole string of Naked Guy Gifs from Tumblr.

Can you think of any background characters who were actually really important to the story?

Dreamwalking was a thing long before I wrote Persephone. Here’s a few examples of Dreamwalking that I grew up with. Can you think of any to add to the list?

Roswell

Roswell was my very first introduction to the concept of dream walking, so I’m sure it heavily inspired my idea of what dreamscapes looked like. One of the characters, Isabel could walk into people’s dreams if she had a picture of them. She pretty much could only observe and wasn’t noticed by the dreamer.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

Creepiest horror concept ever. Definitely inspired the darker side of my dream walking.

The Wheel of Time series

The Wheel of Time series had a pretty interesting concept for dream walking. There was a neutral dreamscape called a dream world that most dream walkers hung out in. But if someone dreaming felt intensely about the dream walker they could be pulled into dreams, and within those dreams they were vulnerable to the dreamers.

 Hades pulled an old iron coin out of his pocket. It was about the size of a dime, but thicker and more misshapen and lumpy. Like it was trying really hard to be round but couldn’t quite succeed. A centurion was stamped on one side of the coin, and a bird with huge talons was stamped on the other.

“What is that?”

“An obol. Just a knickknack from one of the shops. A demigod walked out of the Underworld with one of these once, and suddenly all of Greece was using them for currency. They had this crazy idea they could use them to bribe Charon.” 

~@~

People are terrified of death. Always have been. Because of this fear, we cling to stories, real and otherwise. But we also do something else, something really interesting that transcends every culture and unites us into this deeply human trend.

We try to bribe death.

Every single culture, every single religion, every single subset of people have a similar story. Whether we’re bribing death with deeds or commitments or coins, the idea is still there. If we provide our ferryman with enough incentive, he’ll take us right up to the gate instead of losing us somewhere along the way.

It’s an interesting universal fear and one that spawned the existence of ghost stories. We’re terrified of getting lost. Of being stuck. We don’t know what comes after death and in most stories these bribes don’t even guarantee you a spot in the good afterlife. They just convince your ferryman to take you to the gate. Why is that? Being stuck on the wrong side of the river wouldn’t seem like a fate worse than Tartarus. Being a restless spirit able to see the loved ones you’ve left behind seems like a step up from the great, gaping, unknown. Does it go back to our fear of being a Cassandra figure? Unheard, unseen, but there, helpless to do anything to alter event? Is it really better to be gone all together than reduced to an observer?

Why is ever ghost story ultimately about moving on and letting go? Why do we need to bribe death to make sure he takes us with him?