Originally Posted by
Frobisher
You're right, and both issues today expose the problem of the books having a set "team". Technically, there are a few really popular characters who have a home on a book, but in practice they're just background characters.
I don't really know how this can be solved except by producing even more books though - e.g. Mr And Mrs X. I don't think it'd be good for the books for writers to be forced to base stories about particular characters just because they are popular, but it is a problem.