Heroic NPCs

[Tamayo]

What non-player characters have struck you as being the real heroes of your games?

In my case, it's Malborn from TESV: Skyrim. He's a Bosmer, and wood elves in Tamriel are uniformly annoying, Malborn not excepted; he's a complete wimp in any fight; and he's kind of insulting. Still, he risks his life against the Thalmor and uses his wits and his tongue to get the Last Dragonborn into place to continue the main quest of the game.

If Malborn survives the Last Dragonborn's berserk rage in which every high elf in the Thalmor Embassy dies a gruesome fiery death---don't tell me that doesn't happen, come on---Malborn runs off in terror for his life. He often gets killed by a group of [em]horkers[/em]. Yes, he's an escort quest, and everyone hates escort quests, but he deserves protection. He's the hero.

 

[The Wykydtron]

I have to mention Chrom in Fire Emblem: Awakening. He is pretty much *the* main character, you're kinda the hired lackey who makes sure people don't die in battles. Hell, the loss conditions in any battle is if either you or Chrom dies. He's equal value to you which is quite an interesting thing and I wish more games would do things like it.

He deserves the hero status. He at the very least looks the part, if I was a girl I would be all over that.

Spoiler

Ok and while not technically an NPC, does Yosuke in Persona 4 Arena count? I mean he's playable yeah but we all know boring as hell Yu Narukami is the real star of the show and his story route is inevitably going to be canon when literally every other person aside from Yukiko has a more interesting one.

Somehow they manage to make the total fucking loser of the group a hero while keeping him in character. You cannot appreciate this unless you've played Persona 4 proper, he can be judgmental, slightly sexist, homophobic, a wimpy loser and just a general dick all around. Of course, he is still the "manly fistfight next to a river" Brosuke at the end of the day but his flaws are damn heavy.

He gets a girlfriend (for like 30 minutes before getting the biggest "life hates me" letdown ever) he beats all of the top tier people, makes some (mostly) good speeches and ends up beating Shabrys just as well as if someone more conventional like Yu or Aigis fought her.