The Allure of Using Tropes for Groups of Four or Five Characters

After years of reading TV Tropes, when creating a group or team of four or five characters, do you now find yourself always consciously or unconsciously trying to fit them into any or all of the following tropes:

Four-Temperament Ensemble, Four-Philosophy Ensemble, Four-Element Ensemble, Four-Man Band, Four-Girl Ensemble, Five-Man Band, Five Bad Band, Five Races, Fantasy Axis of Evil, Fantasy Character Classes, and/or Competitive Balance?

I know I do, a habit that I've been trying to kick for a while now yet still I always find that I end up molding my groups/teams into the aforementioned trope patterns.

So how about you? Do you find yourself frequently doing the same thing when making a group or team of four or five characters?

edited 1st May '12 8:41:17 PM by Otakuma

I don't think my group of four really fits any of those tropes, but I do remember trying very hard to balance them.

Drat. I thought this was going to be a thread describing this "allure", because I've never remotely felt it and am genuinely curious why so many people are obsessed with the Five-Man Band (in particular) and deliberately using ensemble tropes (in general).

In writing there's a strong urge against redundancy, because unlike real life writing is streamlined and has to make sense. Therefore if you have a group of characters pursuing some goal, you don't want to make the characters redundant. These ensemble tropes give a formulaic way (again, Tropes Are Not Bad) to avoid redundancy by having the characters have different roles in the team, different perspectives on life, different personalities, etc.

Still doesn't really explain the attraction to me, honestly, although this part certainly explains why I don't do it:

I've never liked that kind of streamlining in writing.

I am not sure if you're telling the truth or if you're just being contrary right now, nrj.

About what? I think I've said repeatedly on here that I like my writing to reflect the messiness of real life; things in fiction that seem as though they were specifically designed for the convenience of readers annoy me as both reader and author. I could go into much more detail, but I'd rather not start a derail.

Or do you mean about not getting the appeal?

edited 1st May '12 9:38:46 PM by nrjxll

Can you give me an example of a story that does reflect this?

I think a lot of stories do, actually. But it's more of a writing attitude then something I can necessarily spot in other works - and, as I think I say on my troper page, I'm willing to read stories that don't follow my personal rules of writing.

Again, this is really a subject for a different thread, since it extends to far more then simply ensemble tropes. And note that I'm not necessarily saying those are bad/unrealistic, either - I don't see the OP's "allure" and I am honestly baffled by the appeal of the Five-Man Band, but I'm hardly going to make a general statement about ensemble tropes, or even claim I don't use them. I'm just not drawn to them, and I expect that's at least partially because of this belief about the "messiness" of fiction.

edited 1st May '12 9:48:54 PM by nrjxll

I want some specific examples. I do not think we are on the same page.

Then you're out of luck, I guess. I honestly don't feel like another long online writing argument after that "making characters from tropes" thread, and I'd rather not take the time to come up with examples in existing fiction of what is, again, primarily a writing method on my part. Not to mention that (again) this is pretty much a derail.

Although the more "sprawling" a work, the better it tends to be at this, as a general rule.

By sprawling, I mean "large cast, multiple plot threads". The kind of thing that normally makes for Doorstoppers, although they can certainly be smaller in actual length.

edited 1st May '12 10:01:23 PM by nrjxll

So you don't believe in editing?

Characters still get combined in doorstoppers. Events still get streamlined in doorstoppers so they don't get repetitive. Any time you axe anything you're streamlining.

edited 1st May '12 10:03:23 PM by ohsointocats

I'm going to post my response in Writer's Block Daily, because I meant it when I said I don't want to derail this thread any further.

Well, to answer the question as to why these ensemble tropes appeal to me, it's partially what Oh So Into Cats has already said about redundancy. The other thing is a compulsion on my part to have things be (or at least feel) neatly organized, and in the case of writing a group or team it means to have some kind of nicely fitting balance amongst each character's personality, beliefs, powers/abilities, role, etc. that both complement and contrast each other. This often thus ends up coming back to fitting into the above mentioned four and five people tropes.

I don't conciously try to use ensembple tropes or anything, but I do sometimes look back at what I've established and see if it fits any tropes ensembles at all, just for fun. Does that count? (They rarely match very well, by the way. The main characters from my current project are like hero/smart guy, lancer/big guy and three chicks ಠ_ಠ)

Also, it's not like every example of five man bands listed on the page were done consciously. I mean, we're tropers, so we see tropes in everything. We kind of make the five man bands, even when they don't perfectly fit. The problem is that you don't want all of the characters filling the same roles, even if they don't have the same personalities. It's not so much using tropes as making them viable, so you can differentiate characters by what role they play as well as how they act.

On at least three occasions, I did consciously try to set up a five-man band. To be fair, in one case it was a parody fantasy and I was trying to make it a 'basic' sort of plot intentionally, but in the other instances, I needed a decent-sized group and I decided to just go with a well-established template. I later regretted it, though; it felt a little forced, and I ended up having unecessary characters that I didn't really know what to do with. So, basically, imo, I get the appeal, but it's a bad idea.

Let's see...

Keli is the leader, so she's kind of the Hero, Karix is pretty much her oposite so we have a Lancer, Azzie is a bit of a nerd, so he's the Smart One, Treia is the quiet type and one of the best fighters, so she's the Big Guy (Girl), and Corra is the Chick (Despite the fact that she acts kind of evil, she's the only reason they all haven't killed each other.) Five-Man Band works.

The other ones don't really fit.

I don't make my characters around the Five Man Band or anything, rather, I will make the characters first with what I have in mind, and then see if the Five Man Band could be used to describe them. I write my characters as a writer, I view my characters as a troper. Two different bodies.

For example, I wrote a story using a psychic/alien kid, a punk-rock-gangster, a cheerleader, a robot, and a super heroine. I didn't make them to fit the Five Man Band, but I still accept that people can see them fitting the proper tropes as the Hero, the Big Guy, the Chick, the Smart Guy, and the Lancer respectively. However, when you look at them, they don't even fit the tropes word-for-word. The Hero is a coward, the Big Guy is technically one of the weakest of the bunch, the Chick is... OK, she fits right in, but the Smart Guy doesn't do anything smart except be a robot, and the Lancer only gets the name for having at least a clue of what's all going on.

I think it's important to be able to switch from being a writer and a troper. Otherwise, you end up becoming a bad mesh of both; a writer that forces tropes into their writing, or a troper that doesn't believe in ever using tropes.

Anyway. I think a lot of people like the Five Man Band and other such ensembles because they're fitting. They're a comfortable way of giving your characters niches to fit. If done wrong, you end up with a bunch of bland, cookie-cutter characters that obviously seem forced into their position. If done right, you have a diverse group that have clear strengths and weaknesses that the reader easily understands.