To-do list:

Move the wicks to one of the tropes on the Loads And Loads Of Characters disambiguation if they fit, and delete them if they don't. For reference purposes, here's the disambiguation page's trope list:
- Cast Calculus: Choosing the right cast size and splitting traits between them.
- Cast Herd: Large cast split into groups.
- Cast of Snowflakes: All characters are visually distinctive, even minor ones.
- A Day in the Limelight: An episode focused on a secondary character.
- Ensemble Cast: The story spends a roughly equal amount of time on all or most of the characters rather than having a single protagonist.
- Four Lines, All Waiting: A large cast means that there are multiple simultaneous plots in a single episode/work.
- Girl of the Week: A new Love Interest shows up every week, and is usually gone by the end.
- Massive Multiplayer Crossover: A Crossover between three or more continuities you'd never think would ever meet. Ever.
- Monster of the Week: Facing an unrelated monstrous threat once per weekly episode.
- Rotating Protagonist: Each character (supporting or minor) has equal or significant screentime as with the main characters.
- Victim of the Week: Someone gets killed or otherwise messed with every episode.

Original post

Loads And Loads Of Characters is supposed to be about when a work has such a massive cast of characters, that all of them cannot be fit into one episode. Per the description:

A show that has so many regulars that you can't fit them all into one episode. Therefore, one week some characters will appear, while some different characters will appear in another. You'll rarely get the same combination twice.

A Trope Talk discussion several months back, however, raised concerns that the usage of the trope didn't match the description, and that the trope was actually being used as "any large cast of characters". Furthermore, as Rust Beard pointed out in the thread, everyone seemed to have their own version of what they believed the trope was.

I decided to start a collaborative wick check, which was done by me, War Jay 77, Rust Beard, and Orbiting, to see what kinds of use the trope got. The results were, to put it mildly, not very good. Here's the quick results:

0/84 wicks, or 0%, were used correctly
64/84 wicks, or 76.19%, were just "any large cast of characters"
3/84 wicks, or 3.57%, were other kinds of misuse
16/84 wicks, or 19.05%, were ZCEs, and
1/84 wicks, or 1.19%, were unsorted

Yes, that is correct. There were 0 correct uses of this trope in the wick check. Evidently this trope is suffering much worse than was initially thought.

As for possible solutions, Crossover-Enthusiast pointed out in the Wick Check Project thread that while "work has large cast of characters" could be People Sit on Chairs, the idea of, in their words, "work has large cast, so the perspective switches frequently" might be worth sending to the Trope Idea Salvage Yard. I am personally in favor of doing that, and disambiguating Loads And Loads Of Characters into other tropes about large casts of characters. What does everyone else think?

Edited by GastonRabbit on May 16th 2022 at 5:43:03 AM

MacronNotes (she/her) (Captain) Relationship Status: Less than three

(she/her)

#176: Jun 5th 2022 at 7:11:20 PM

Yeah, seems like all of the work is done otherwise. I'll lock this as resolved.

Wick Check Archive

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Correct use (large cast number leads to rotating character usage (0/84)

Any large cast of characters (64/84)

World of Muscle Men: An overwhelming majority of male characters in King's Raid have remarkably muscular physiques. Unlike most examples, their muscular builds are surprisingly diverse. As a result, despite the series having an ever-expanding cast, the number of male characters who aren't built like professional athletes can be counted on one hand.
World of Snark: Avengers: Infinity War loses Whedon, but given it combines everyone from the previous movies, there are enough personality clashes for non-stop snark.
FullmetalAlchemist.Tropes G To P: Several main characters, each with their own supporting casts, the villainous organizations, and the minor characters in every location visited adds up to a healthy number of characters.
GoneWithTheWind.Gone With The Wind Tropes I To L: In the book especially, with Rhett, Scarlett, Ashley, Melanie, and Mammy as main characters, but then with lots of lots of smaller characters, like Gerald, Ellen, Pittypat, Suellen, Will, India, etc., etc.
Horrible.Video Game Generations Fifth To Sixth: On top of that, if you are playing single player, you have to defeat every single character in the roster on three continues! Did we mention there are a total of 18 playable characters? A snippet from the Rise 2: Resurrection example
JustForFun.Toy Story 32025: The film keeps trying to introduce characters on the fly without giving them the screentime they need. Most of the development time likely went into the 90-minute-long pink elephant scene. The monsters played by Billy Goodman and John Crystal are the primary example of this, though other examples include Dodger and Tamatoa.
LightNovel.Amagi Brilliant Park: The anime tries to show them off a few at a time, but the sheer amount of them can overwhelm anyone who's not pausing every few minutes to write down a new character's name. Many of them also suffer from Green Rooming, so they only show up once or twice, then don't really have much screen time again.
Literature.American Girls Collection:
- Each series has multiple notable characters across the series. As for released dolls, there are 17 total historical dolls, 5 historical best friend dolls, 18 GOTY dolls^note and counting, three Contemporary characters, and over eighty Truly Me/modern dolls. Most fans focus on characters they really like or are drawn to instead of getting them all.
- Taken Up To Eleven with the Create Your Own line, where purchasers can create a nearly bespoke doll with over a million possible combinations according to American Girl.
Literature.Chalet School: Over the years, there are many characters added to the alumni, including the children of the main characters in the first books.
Manga.Nagasarete Airantou: You've got Ikuto, the main haremettes (about 6-7), side female characters, including most of the girl's mothers (another 20-30), and all the talking animals...yeah, let's just say there are a lot of names to remember.
Manga.Nintama Rantarou: Becomes this as the story progresses on, as more characters from different levels appear.
Manga.Soil: Each book has a list of main characters along with their status. Low context, but implies there's a lot of characters.
Manga.Thou Shalt Not Die: The story features a pretty big roster of characters, with several introduced in just the opening chapters. Don't get too attached.
MenageA3.Tropes G To L: Though the comic has, by definition, a primary cast of three, the writers have never been entirely averse to adding supporting characters, and it has been running for long enough to accumulate a fair-sized secondary cast, some of whom have ascended from bit-part status quite dramatically. Even members of the core trio can drop out of sight for many weeks of strips sometimes as the viewpoint focuses elsewhere.
Manga.Big Windup: Justified in the fact that this is baseball, and baseball clubs in Japanese high school (as pointed out by one character) can have more than one hundred members who didn't get a number. Considering that, the author lets us off easy with just ten players on the main team.
Manga.City: Three pages worth of characters, in fact.
Radio.Monitor: Seriously, there were a lot of Communicators, although the number used each weekend was thinned out as Monitor's hours were cut down. From Spring 1974 through the end, there were just two Communicators doing the 12 hours the show had been cut down to.
Recap.Arrow S 5 E 23 Lian Yu: The Hero and the Big Bad each have their Badass Crew plus the captured members of the former's real team.
Recap.ERS 1 E 10 Blizzard: Every main and supporting character of importance from the past nine episodes (and others, including Team Mascot Patrick, Mookie and others) rally together to get County through the disaster protocol.
Recap.Secret Wars 2015: Because this will have Loads And Loads Of Characters, Marvel has set up a virtual map of Battleworld to show you who is all involved. The folder below will cover all universes and characters described there.
Roleplay.Dorf Quest: At first we just had Beardbeard and Sunbeard. Then Garrelf, Musclebeard, and Satan. And then Aldwin and Lily. And then Finlay, Cultist, Arialla, Fate, Nemelex, Glittergold, Goldmoon, Nevada, Mado, Kav, Nana, Mace, Yami, Presley, Mah-Mee, Coco, Djinn, King, British, Jeeves, Krann... And we will likely meet more.
Roleplay.Mythril Aces: At least 28 major characters thus far, not counting the minor characters, one-shot villains, the characters only appearing in the backstory... The Bannikberg family alone might qualify for this.
Roleplay.Pokemon Knight University: Over 100 characters were registered. By the time the game was closed, less than 25 were active.
PlayingWith.Lonely Funeral: Inverted: There are Loads And Loads Of Characters, and they all attend Bob's funeral. This includes ghosts of deceased characters, villains, and one-time characters who never met Bob.
Podcast.The Adventure Zone Amnesty: The character roster is growing so quickly that it might actually reach the population of a small town before the campaign is done. This is mainly due to the improvisatory and collaborative nature of the game system which allows the boys to literally make up characters on the spot.
Podcast.Zero To Chaos: Along with a large cast of supporting characters, the Abbott brothers deal with situations ranging from everyday problems to far more sinister things happening within the town...
Series.Deus Salve O Rei: It wouldn't be a Brazilian soap opera without a huge cast with several storylines running simultaneously.
Series.Dr Quinn Medicine Woman: Besides Dr. Mike, Sully, and the Cooper children, the show featured well over 20 townsfolk, relatives, and recurring guest characters. Most of these characters had A Day in the Limelight at least once.
TabletopGame.Axiom Campaign: Multiple PC's and several kingdom's worth of 'em!
TabletopGame.Out Of The Abyss: The players start out with ten other fellow captives, and each settlement has its own assortment of fascinating individuals, some of which may join the party during their travels. Cranked Up To Eleven during the return trip to the Underdark, where the party's expeditionary force can number as high as twenty-four without counting player characters and their retinue.
VideoGame.My Little Pony Gameloft: Not only does the game have all the primary and secondary characters from the show, but practically every background pony you can think of is available as well (nearly 300 in total as of the December 2016 update).
VideoGame.Yandere Simulator: There are 78 students attending the school, plus ten rivals and the protagonist, and that's not counting the staff^note. In addition, there are many characters who figure heavily in the game's backstory, but don't appear in-game.
VisualNovel.Shinza Banso Series: Due to the series scope, it has managed to amass quite the roster of characters. The canceled Pantheon was planned feature over 170 alone.
WebOriginal.Civ Battle Royale: There were 42 competing civs in Mark I, and 61 in Mark II.
WebVideo.Mission 404: The ISA, the civilians, the bad guys, the websites... and all that in less than 15 minutes.
BoxOfficeBomb.K Through M: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997) — Budget, $30 million. Box office, $35 million (domestic), $51 million (worldwide). While the first Mortal Kombat film was a financial success and generally regarded as one of the better video game movies, this sequel bombed both with critics and audiences, with both sides criticizing its Loads And Loads Of Characters (most of whom show up for just one fight scene and are never mentioned again), awful visual effects and its nonsensical story. Plans for a sequel were crippled by its failure and the film franchise would be rebooted in 2021 to much better results. First-time director John R. Leonetti would return to his day job as a cinematographer, though after second attempt The Butterfly Effect 2, he finally had a break in 2014.
Blog.The Tyrannosaur Chronicles: The cast list is growing rather quickly. So much so that Traumador is working on a character page to help keep track of the more notable ones.
Characters.Kitten Academy: Momcat: Verse ^note
FanWorks.Crisis Crossover: The Ultimate Crossover Crisis Brawl is a crossover story that features characters from TV shows, video games and webcomics uniting for a stand after their worlds are attacked and wiped out one by one by a Big Bad with a personal grudge and an unknown motivation. Together, the big cast which contains characters from Keeping Up Appearances, My Name Is Earl, Deer Me, Night in the Woods, Seinfeld, Digger'' and many more planned out for the future fight not just to save and restore one world, but all worlds.
Headscratchers.Spectacular Spider Man: Why is it that Hammerhead's female chauffeur was never given a name or had any lines? Seriously, she was technically a recurring character and antagonist through both seasons and yet I never once heard her say anything or be addressed by name. I know that since the show has Loads And Loads Of Characters she probably wasn't going get much, if any, development, but c'mon, no name or even a line. Really?
Characters.Get Backers: Like most other Shōnen series, Get Backers contains Loads And Loads Of Characters. This page is an attempt to try and get all the information under control.
Creator.Zoe Saldana: Mainstream Obscurity:invoked She's appeared in some of the biggest franchises of all time, but your parents probably couldn't pick her out of a lineup. Perhaps due to her frequent Green-Skinned Space Babe getup, or said franchises' Loads And Loads Of Characters or maybe being Hollywood's reigning "Queen of Space" gives her little recognition outside the sci-fi crowd. The fact that she bears a striking resemblence to Thandie Newton doesn't help. She's complained that even her own mother gets them confused.
Webcomic.Suppression: Suppression has a sizeable amount of characters distributed among all the various factions, and they keep throwing more characters in them.
VideoGame.WWF No Mercy: The game features an impressive roster that's bolstered by unlockable characters like Vince McMahon and even André the Giant. Headshots and create-a-wrestler pieces were included for a few characters who didn't get included in the game, including Raven.
New Job as the Plot Demands: With Loads And Loads Of Characters, The Simpsons has a sizable subset in this role, each for a different kind of job.
WebComic.Doge Lore: Considering that only a few quick edits of a PNG file are needed to make a completely new character derived from Doge alone, this is a given. This isn't even getting into the characters that aren't based on Doge.
Literature.Land Of Flatwater: Has at least a dozen major characters, and numerous secondary characters.
ComicBook.The Simpsons: Parodied with the Z-Men, who have multiple titles for sale, including the aptly titled Another Bunch of Z-Men.
Characters.Zoophobia: And knowing all the characters Vivienne has created solely for this comic and shown us already, yet have not appeared in the comic so far, this page will be ever-growing in content.
Literature.The Wild Ones Great Escape: With the cast of zoo animals added to the plot and some old characters returning, there's no less than twenty-five characters spread throughout the book.
Creator's Pest: Mortal Kombat: Amongst many many kombatants featured in the series, Hsu Hao is the one hated the most by the developers, and the fans also agreed.
Fanfic.Luminosity: Luminosity's website has a well-updated page to keep track of the Loads And Loads Of Characters. It also has information not stated in the fic, such as that David's last name is Baxter (although this information later showed up in the "Flashes" section of the novel also).
Characters.Summer Wars: The family has twenty plus members in the film.
WesternAnimation.Star Trek Lower Decks: Besides the four mains and the senior staff, there are more than a dozen regular crewmembers aboard the Cerritos, most of whom easily qualify as Mauve Shirts with their own distinct personalities and voice actors.
Roleplay.Death Of The Multiverse: At least 30 different major characters are involved.
Continuity Cavalcade: Medaka Box has had the various one off characters or defeated villains show up every so often in a neat example of the creator remembering the entirety of the story, but chapter 187-189 have every single named character, no matter how small, show up. Chapter 190 goes a step further and shows each one of them left individualized well wishes for Medaka. A true accomplishment for the creator, to have made and juggled the personalities, no matter how shallow, of all of these characters. For those not in the know, this totals to a stupendous one hundred individual and easily recognizable characters.
Fanfic.Littlest Pet Shop Fan Novelization: There are at least 20 named characters so far, and about three quarters of those are either main or recurring.
Fanfic.Arthur Goes Fourth: The already-large established Arthur cast, alongside a multitude of original characters.
Roleplay.Three WSR: There are over 1300 colormen, and an equal amount of colormen. Plus all the Colorfolk ancestors, although thankfully only a small fraction will ever appear. There's probably close to 100 named characters in VEC, and at least 30 in SOM, and another 30+ in GOD/PIC. Then there's 3000 Presuisoltians...
Named After Somebody Famous: There are a lot of characters in anime and manga named after Sengoku and Meiji era personalities. For a specific example, Gintamas characters keep the surnames, but their given names are changed a little. You get Sakata Gintoki (Kintoki), Okita Sougo (Souji), Hattori Senzo (Hanzo) just to name three of them.
Film.Prince Of The City: It has a large cast (126 speaking roles) led by Treat Williams.
VideoGame.Monster Crown: The main draw of the game. You can combine just about any pair of monsters you wish, evolve them, use items on them, breed them, and so on, potentially creating a totally unique monster to you.
Pantheon.Siblings: Heralds: Shuri, Shinbashi, Yato and many others
Characters.The Flower Princess And The Alchemist: The list of the various characters pertaining to this fanfic.
Undermined By Reality: Two of the overarching messages in Pokémon is that you should befriend the Pokemon you like and become strong together rather than just using Pokemon as tools or going exclusively for powerful Pokemon just because they are and not catching Pokemon just for the sake of having them without using them. The first message however ended up severely underminded by the removal of the National Pokedex in recent titles like Pokémon Sword and Shield meaning that if your favorite Pokemon just so happens to not be part of a region's Pokedex, you won't be able to bring it with you into your next adventure as you could before.

Other misuse (3/84)

Music.Mushroomhead: Counting former, current, and touring band members, the total number is 21. Real-life people
Music.Yoko Kanno: The Seatbelts has 37 Japanese members, 19 American members, 7 French members, and featured 18 guest vocalists. On the Seatbelts Live 2001@Shibuya AX disc included in the CD box set, 15 musicians and 6 vocalists are credited. Putting it here because these are real people, not characters.
Music.E Girls: Loads And Loads Of Characters: Not as bad as AKB48 or Trans Siberan Orchestra, but twenty members is quite a lot. Real-life people

ZCEs (16/84)

Literature.Dragons In Our Midst: Trope-Name Only
Literature.Lonely Werewolf Girl: Trope-Name Only
Literature.Masters Of Rome: Trope-Name Only
Literature.Stand On Zanzibar: Trope-Name Only
Literature.The Dark Sea Annals: Trope-Name Only
Literature.You Killed Wesley Payne: There’s a handy chart and index included.
Roleplay.AGENTS: Trope-Name Only
Literature.The Passage: Trope-Name Only
Fanfic.Crew Of The Axe: Trope-Name Only
Fanfic.The Battle Of New Mombasa: Looking that way already...
ComicBook.Stuck In The Middle: Trope-Name Only
Creator.Doug Ten Napel: Trope-Name Only
DarthWiki.Acht Sunden: And expect everyone with a name to pop up in at least two of the 'Parts'.
Series.Lark Rise To Candleford: Trope-Name Only
Roleplay.Behind The Veil: Trope-Name Only
Literature.As One Star Sets Another Rises: Due to its nature as a fleshed-out alternate history timeline rather than a simple story.

Other or unsorted (1/84)

JustForFun.Lousy Alternate Titles: Loads And Loads Of Characters is far shorter than Alice and Bob and Claire and Dave and Elaine and Fred and Gina and Harold and Irene and Jacob and Kelly and Lloyd and Marlene and Nathan and Olivia and Peter and Quincy and Robert and Sara and Tom and Ursula and Vincent and Wendy and Xavier and Yvonne and Zachary. JFF page

Edited by MacronNotes on Jun 5th 2022 at 10:34:18 AM

Macron's notes

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Trope Repair Shop: Loads and Loads of Characters

22nd Feb '22 10:23:00 AM

Crown Description:

What should be done with Loads And Loads Of Characters? The previous crowner led to an impasse.