A Few of My Favorite, Not-So-Human Sidekicks

Written by Shae Rufe

I'm on a sidekick thing lately, I don't know why, but as I sit and type this, Avenger is shoving his head into my hands in order to get my attention. Which got me thinking about sidekicks of the not-so-human kind. I suppose Chewie would have fit in better here, but he is a little too bad ass for that. From Lassie to BB-8, not all sidekicks are able to talk. That's not a bad thing, we just can't always understand them, but we know they're cute.

Take Toothless for instance. A fierce dragon who happens to be one of a kind! Toothless is biologically designed to be the ultimate killing machine, yet he's still dependent upon Hiccup a bit. Due to their first meeting and Hiccup's attempt to kill the dragon, Toothless can't fly without his trusty human companion. With matched missing limbs, the two are quite the pair. But Toothless is far from helpless. While he and Hiccup are a dream team, this dragon is also the new Alpha to all the dragons of Berk. That's a pretty tall order for the beast that melted our hearts with his catlike behavior.
 
Speaking of cats and dogs, did anyone notice how BB-8 is basically a droid puppy? Center to the conflict, this little droid rolled into our lives and made us ask 'R2 who??' Yes, the new droid in town totally surpasses R2 in cuteness by far. The older droid was far more communicative and feisty, BB seems to be more dog than anything. Loyal, dedicated, and following all the orders; this little guy puts R2 and C3PO to shame. That and he literally shoves past Finn to get back to Poe. I didn't see R2 running anyone over to get to Luke...

Olaf is in a special category. I admittedly didn't want to like the little snowman at first, but those quipped one liners and brazen sense of humor shoved me over the edge. Olaf stole my heart when he declared he'd been impaled and laughed like it was nothing. In fairness, being a snow man and getting impaled, totally is funny when you can't feel it. With Olaf not fully grasping how he was able to come to life, twisted with his overall joy at everything, I was surprised to like him. He's a perfect companion in how utterly laid back, expressive, and unconditional he loves.
 
And I can't do a blog on sidekicks without mentioning the best of them all, well second best, Ant-thony. Scott Lang stumbling along to be the new Ant-Man was fun to watch but having Ant-thony there was somehow better. Scott's apprehension of the ants matched our own, except when it came to Ant-thony. With literally thousands of other ants, Ant-thony stood out among them and crawled his creepy ant-self into our hearts. Not only did Ant-thony make us love him, he made us cry when he was killed by Yellow Jacket. Whatever it was about the flying ant that made us melt it made us melt bad. Ant-thony was the best little bug out there, and you can't really argue with me on that one. Maybe it was the fact that Scott named him personally, or the cute weird noises he made. Either way, Ant-thony will live on as the best ant sidekick of all times.

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