Published on The Huffington Post on 1.18.2013

10. Watson – Sherlock Holmes Series

The best possible case scenario of a random roomie pairing. Though Watson does not possess Holmes’ uncanny ability to problem solve, he patiently listens to him ranting, which is really all we can ask of a best friend. He is the wind beneath Holmes’ brilliant, intellectually-detached, misunderstood psyche’s wings. Watson is selflessly angered that Holmes doesn’t get credit for the first cases he solves and, as a result, writes a biography about his best friend. That takes a long time. What a Holmie. (Sorry.)

9. Sancho Panza – Don Quijote

Talk about patience. This guy deals with a friend who’s convinced windmills are ravenous monsters. Panza leaves his family just to road trip with his buddy, and then ends up having to save his friend from all the shenanigans he gets into, with nothing but a mule to as a means of transportation. He doesn’t even get a cool side-kick-mobile. He is Quijote’s rock.

8. Enkidu – Epic of Gilgamesh

Enkidu shows us that whenever a dictator is too oppressive towards his empire, he just needs a hug! After acknowledging Enkidu as a true friend, Gilgamesh loosens up, and together they defeat evil in the form of monstrous guardians of mountains, etc. Upon Enkidu’s death, Gilgamesh’s heart is finally open to love.

But I know I am who I am today…because I knew youuu.

7. Chris Chambers – The Body/ Stand by Me

Chris Chambers is the classic “strong, light-hearted character-struggling-to-defy- deeply-rooted-family-problems-and-reputations.” Endowed with wisdom sparking from unfortunate life experience, he takes the role of a father figure for Gordie:

“Kids lose everything unless there’s someone there to look out for them. And if your parents are too fucked up to do it, then maybe I should” (film – Stand By Me, 1986)

He is Gordie’s muse – it’s actually Chris’s heroic death (breaking between two men who got in a fight), that catalyzes Gordie to write this story of friendship and love. If this relationship doesn’t make you go home and hug your friends, we don’t know what will.

It may well be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me’s made from what I learned from you…
(See what we mean?!)

6. Jim – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

You know the saying “a best friend sticks with you through the good times and bad?” Yeah, Jim sticks with Huck and Tom when his life is at stake…so…we have a lot to live up to.

5. Horatio – Hamlet

Though Hamlet’s self-centered crisis puts him in the limelight, Horatio is always there to support him. He is there to support Hamlet when he:

Sees a terrifying ghost of his dad
Plots to prove Claudius’ guilt in the mousetrap play
Finds out his long time love who he is currently bickering is dead
Has a breakdown when he finds out that his childhood clown, Yorick, can’t tell
jokes anymore because he is dead
Is poisoned to death

-

And after all that, Horatio is compliant with only being referred to as “friend to Hamlet” throughout the whole play. He even offers to drink Hamlet’s poisoned goblet! Instead, Hamlet tells him to stay alive, and “put things right” in Denmark.

Well that’s a lot of pressure.

4. Phineas – A Separate Peace

Finny takes ‘forgive and forget” to the next level. Even after Gene very intentionally pushes him out of a tree, he sees goodness in him. Let this be an example next time we’re upset that our friend doesn’t text us back.

3. Buck – Call of the Wild

The quintessential: “dog is man’s best friend.” He pulls like 3 ton sleighs uphill for Thornton, saves his life on multiple occasions, and literally almost jumps off of a cliff when Thornton tests his loyalty.

…Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun…

2. Hassan – The Kite Runner

“For you, a thousand times over.”

Hassan suffers a scarring beating in order to get the kite tale that boosts Amir’s reputation with his father. To repay him, Amir chooses not to intervene – and to deal with his guilt, further frames Hassan into looking like he stole a watch for him to get fired from being his servant. Even after all that, Amir loves and forgives Hassan. We can’t even try to poke fun at this one. That is just a beautiful friend.

1. Drumroll, please….

Samwise Gamgee – The Lord of The Rings

Frodo: I can’t do this, Sam.

Sam: I know. It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger, they were. And sometimes you didn’t want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo… and it’s worth fighting for.

….Does anything more really need to be said?

Because I knew you…I have been changed forrrr good.

What pairs are we missing?