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A token character is a character in a story, myth, or legend, that only exists to achieve the minimum compliance with assumed normality for the environment described in the story. For example, a token wife is a wife who has no depth of character, or identity of her own, but only exists because the character, that she is married to, is expected to have a wife.
A token character can also be used by writers to pay lip service to rules or standards, when they otherwise have no intention of doing so, such as by obeying anti-racism policies by including a token black character, who, despite being present a large amount, nethertheless does nothing, and has no function in the plot. In this situation the creation of such characters is referred to as Tokenism.
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