Misused: Loads And Loads Of Characters

So, the wick check has no checked wicks being accurate to the current definition.

Other than Game of Thrones and Kirby, what other works would we want to place in the new trope? And maybe what "having context" would look like for them?

Trying to define this by looking at the similarities between examples. Such as the two works I listed, are both franchises?

Bleach and One Piece?

comment 9: The Wire, The Walking Dead sprawling epics, most TV shows don't feature more than 6 mains (like Friends)
[...]
books and serialized works to have more mains, especially as people die, defect, join, etc. Consider X Men or One Piece

Hmm, medium dependent?

Edited by Malady on Feb 9th 2022 at 9:05:24 AM

Well, what are you defining the "new trope" as, Malady? That's the first question to ask, before we start comparing random works.

I thought you guys had an idea, I was just gathering what you guys thought would count.

Thinking more, it seems to me that there's too many ways that the idea of "a lot of characters" could work, and can't be encapsulated in one trope. If we want to have minimal change / least work, we'd leave this as is, maybe turn it into an index, and decide what Sub Tropes we already have, then clean things up before deciding if we actually have a problem?

Such as Cast of Snowflakes. It says it "Tends to go [[Sister Trope hand-in-hand]]" with this, but maybe we should turn that into a Super-Sub-Trope relationship, because it's not hard to make a Minimalist Cast visually different?

For example, because I made the entry, So uh, a spaceship crashed in my yard. has ~6 characters. Is being a Cast of Snowflakes really important / difficult / notable / whatever in that case? I'd say that Only Six Faces would be more of a valid entry, with such small numbers of people.

But, then the question is "How many characters does it take for a Cast of Snowflakes to be noteworthy?

Edited by Malady on Feb 9th 2022 at 9:28:34 AM

The issue is, there's been multiple ideas tossed out, which is why I had to ask.

I also don't know why Minimalist Cast keeps coming up right now, because it's not what this thread is about and we're not redefining that one.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 9th 2022 at 12:28:28 PM

- Yep. If no one posts anything, gonna turn this short response into a new comment.

I'm using Minimalist Cast to mean "Very Few Characters", basically the opposite of Loads And Loads Of Characters?

It means a cast so small that all the characters are main characters.

When stated like that, it sounds like a function of cast size, but in practice, it's not?

One monologing protagonist, with an Inciting Incident due to a Posthumous Character that never appears again, has a cast size of 2, but a main character count of 1?

I mean... maybe?

Again though, this is us talking about a trope that isn't actually relevant to the discussion topic. We can't worry about Minimalist Cast unless there's either a wick check done for it, or an entire spin-off thread, or even just a trope talk discussion... my point is, here and now, is not the right time and place. It's only relevant insofar as it pertains to Loads And Loads Of Characters.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 9th 2022 at 12:48:25 PM

Well, let’s see, some possible ways to define this:

• Has side characters designed to flesh out and deepen the world
• Has so many characters several important ones miss entire arcs/chapters/plot-lines/installments
• Has more than X number of point of view characters (this one feels a bit arbitrary)

Yeah, my personal take on this trope has been option 1- the side characters exist as a deliberate world-building and presentation choice, at the cost of development for most of them.

If we go with that option, how do we differentiate a work that uses side characters to deepen the world from a work that just has side characters?

Backstory? Side quests? Are they just functional, like Merchant, Quest Giver, etc?

Or do they have their own lives separate from the plot, like...

That's not that deep, but as the minimum, a.k.a Downplayed?

Or would the minimum just be that they're animated but don't have lines?

Edited by Malady on Feb 10th 2022 at 5:33:54 AM

This has been my main concern. "the side characters exist as a deliberate world-building and presentation choice" technically all side characters are created as part of world building.

If I have the protagonist of my novel visit "Mr. Po's Pharmacy" once in a story and have them have a convo with the eponymous Mr. Po through which it is revealed through their familiarity that the protag has lived on this block for their entire lives and is a bit of a rascal, would Mr.Po count even if he never shows up in the story again? Would that one interaction be enough because he is a minor character used for world building purposes?

how frequent/central to a story must they be? Would NPCs (named or not) that mill about in a town in a video game count? Again, I can't help feel that this is just "a cast has many people" which is pretty chairsy to me.

Maybe the trope can be broadened to focus on the world rather than the characters. Like "Maximalist Worldbuilding: the creative choice in which equal amounts of focus is given to the development and explanation of characters, histories, relationships, and institutions that may only indirectly interact with the main character/s." This would help differentiate works like Friends from A Song of Ice and Fire, I think. You wouldn't need to judge the significance of a side character in of itself, but whether or not their existence (and the greater world more broadly) is shaped around the actions/existence of the MCs or if the reverse is true.

Edited by amathieu13 on Feb 10th 2022 at 10:15:02 AM

See, the "equal amount of focus" part is giving me pause because I can't think of a work that does give equal focus. It's why I keep pointing out the lack of development as a consequence of making so many characters in the first place; because using a large cast tends to doom most of them from getting any screentime beyond just being recurring background characters.

That's why I suggested expanding it to not be character-centric. I agree, unless they are also protags, most side characters will not get equal focus. But if we include the broader world, how much focus a singular side character gets matters less than the fact that they exist as part of the world. If Minimalist Cast's point is to hyperfocus on the main characters by removing everything from the world that doesn't directly impact the characters or the narrative, then the opposite would be to add in a range of things (from characters, to systems, to histories) that may impact the character only indirectly or perhaps not at all.

The shift would mean reworking the trope to be not about the number of characters per se, but more about the expansive worldbuilding. That's the best way I can think of to push the trope away from being chairs, tbh

Edited by amathieu13 on Feb 10th 2022 at 2:27:42 PM

I don't mind the expansive worldbuilding concept, more than I think we really need to hammer out the details because the laconic you gave didn't seem like... well... a thing I've ever seen before. And maybe it was just my interpretation of it, but I'm struggling to think of a work that fits.

Edited by WarJay77 on Feb 10th 2022 at 2:33:59 PM

"Named characters that exist primarily as set dressing"?

My mistake people, Game of Thrones is an example of Economy Cast

I have read the entire thread, but I want to go back to this post...

It does feel like that thread is touching on something that is worth capturing and does seem quite common. When you are dealing with such works (one that I'm familiar with that got mentioned is Bleach), the extra characters may be "side" characters or "secondary" characters, ranging from regularly appearing with significant roles, or minor recurring characters who appear to help fill out the gaps (be it in plot or setting). Something is added to, or fleshed out in, the events, setting, plot, or world at large, which is why they exist as a named character within the work (be it a significant or minor character).

It feels a lot like a sort of Large Cast Shapes The Story type of situation, where the shaping/defining of the "story" encompasses characterisation, plot, setting, worldbuilding, character development — any or all of these elements tend to be covered by this larger cast, and different parts of the cast might be addressing different elements. For example, the introduction of the Shinigami characters help define how Soul Society functions, in addition to providing allies, opponents, and opportunities for character development on top of helping to shape and develop the plot. The introduction of Hueco Mundo characters did the same, as did the introduction of Fullbringers and the Vandenreich. Yes, there were loads of characters, but each group that was introduced came along with setting expansion, character development opportunities for the main cast and regular secondary characters, along with developing the plot itself. All of that together becomes "the story".

This tends to happen to a greater or lesser degree in many tales. It can even involve characters as minor as background characters telling a story in the background with their repeated background appearances that tie into the main plot somehow to show how the setting is responding or developing in response to what the main cast and the plot are doing — all helping to shape the world, characters, plot and — ultimately — the story itself. An example of this happening is the Atlas Arc in RWBY; while the main cast despair over stopping Big Bad's fear and division to save the Big Picture, they completely miss the Little Picture unfolding around them, where background characters are overcoming it to help each other survive). I mention this because it sounds a bit like how WarJay describes what's going on in the background of Warrior Cats (albeit with named characters instead of nameless ones).

All these examples share the idea of using a large amount of characters to develop different layers or pieces of the overall story, so every character — or group of characters — aren't simply there, they're playing a role to achieve that goal. They're not simply fleshing out the setting, they're fleshing out the story.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 10th 2022 at 11:40:57 AM

So, are we able to make a crowner yet, or is more discussion needed first?

To make the crowner there needs to be crowner options. Do we have concrete suggestions besides giving some arbitrary head count of "primary characters" (needs concrete number first) or appending "every character is important for Worldbuilding" or something like that to the description?

Here's what I have heard thus far:

• Disambiguate between other tropes
• Redefine to match the misuse of "work has large cast of characters"
• Yard the concept of works needing to swap out characters due to a large cast (not exclusive with 1 and 2)

If I missed anything, or if what I suggested was wrong, let me know.

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Feb 14th 2022 at 11:18:38 AM

For option two, have we agreed on what exactly that new definition will be?

How do we define "large"?

nope.

has yet to be decided