Imagine you are Bruno Heller. You created The Mentalist.
You know that people will talk about the show for many years to come after it's finished.
The whole Red John saga will be written down in the wikipedia, everywhere..
I'm sure you would want to make Red John someone worthy, a cult figure, who won't be easily forgotten.
I'm sorry but Haffner, Smith and Bertram are quite insignificant characters, in 10 years we won't even remember their names.
Now the sheriff and Stiles are a different story.
I can easily see this sentence in the wiki for example: "Red John, who was revealed as Bret Stiles, head of the cult Visualize (portrayed by Malcolm McDowell)..."
Or : "Red John, who was revealed in season 6 as the sheriff of Napa county, Sheriff McAllister, portrayed by Xander Berkeley, blablabla..."
Just think about other shows, we always just remember the important characters. (Like from Lost I can only remember Jack, Sawyer and Locke).
Red John supposed to be someone very charismatic and memorable. Stiles is very charismatic, and the sheriff is different, more of a loner, and we will always remember him as 'the sheriff'..The other 3 are all the same, we wouldn't remember them in 10 years..
(Partridge is a good one too, he's already a cult figure, but I'm only looking at the 5 now.)
Lol, I know it's a crazy way to look at things, but at least it's something different..:D
