You could gather a bunch of kids around a campfire and tell them how the Earth turns and the Sun rises in the morning when we rotate into its light, then it becomes dark as we spin away from it. If the kids didn't know this, they would probably be fascinated by it. This would have nothing to do with a character putting their life in order.
Did you actually do this experiment in reality?
I also think that the kids would treat the Earth and the Sun as protagonists.
Some of the kids might do that out of habit, but the value of the story is independent of whether or not they do that, thus protagonists, while very common and very useful in storytelling, are not required.
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: