User blog comment:Your Highness, Mo/Protagonist Elimination Game/@comment-26986696-20161110155200/@comment-26910203-20161111023803

A supporting protagonist still = protagonist under modern formal definition. We usually use protagonist to describe the main one (which would definitely be Gwen) but as stated it can refer to the other majors (and for the purposes of this elimination game it makes more sense because there is technically only one protagonist in any given work hence if one is going to complain about LeShawna they might as well complain about the majority of these).

Yes, with the exception of maybe If You Can't Take the Heat and Not So Happy Campers she doesn't do as much as the "big four" (Gwen, Owen, Duncan and Heather) in the first half but as you said yourself, LeShawna becomes much more prominent from the merge beyond which I believe solidifies her role as a "protagonist" when you consider the season overall. There is also no written rule that (especially when we're talking TD) that the protagonist must have a major, developmental plot (just look at Owen) and even so it is arguable that her "plot" consists of her relationship with Gwen and Heather.