Giving Ferns some Light

I am reading Anne of Green Gables at the moment and I was thinking about Diana, Anne's best friend. It has been a while since I have read them all but in the first one at least Diana is portrayed as kind of boring and a little slow but still endearing. It made me think of some other familiar ferns. Samwise Gamgee and Ron Weasley are both often portrayed in a similar light (especially in the beginning of the series). It seems a little sad though. Why must ferns appear in an unflattering light. Occasionally I listen to a podcast called Writing Excuses. In one of their episodes they talked about how each character should act and be written as though they are the main character in their own story, even if it is not the current story. I've always thought it would be cool to write a story like that, one where the main character is really the supporting character. In my short story Anchors I played with the idea a bit. I remember in the writing class I wrote it for one of the other students said I should have written part of the story from Nate's point of view about what he had learned in his travels (perhaps how it wasn't as glamorous as he'd hoped). I didn't do it. It would have defeated the point of the story (at least how I saw it). In Legend Speaker my main characters are definitely not ferns but I still tried to give my ferns some good scenes and character development. Maybe that is why I like stories where the main characters don't do everything because that just isn't reasonable. There is a fairly common saying "Behind every great man is a great woman." It suggests that woman throughout history have played the role of ferns, which is awesome... I just wish people would stop portraying ferns as a little dumb. Let ferns act in their own story. Sam Gamgee certainly finds his own place.