Basic Trope: A work has almost no characters but the leads.
- Straight: They Trope by Night has no characters except for their Five-Man Band Alice, Bob, Charles, Danny, and Evangeline, Big Bad Fiery Franklin, and Big Good Gabrielle the Great, and extras with no lines.
- Exaggerated:
- The cast is just Alice and Bob (or just Alice) in a room for two hours.
- There are literally no characters at all!
- Downplayed:
- The cast consists of the Five-Man Band, the Big Bad and Big Good, along with several Sixth Rangers Happy-Go-Lucky Hazel, Innocent Irene, Just-Cause Jett, and Katherine the Kind, and there are a few other minor but recurring characters.
- The work usually follows just four people, but they all have extended families who pop up occasionally.
- Other characters appear, but the focus is predominantly on Alice and/or Bob.
- Justified:
- The story covers someone (or a small group) stranded in a remote area like a desert island where they are unlikely to see anyone else and the entire struggle is about a dearth of people to interact with.
- They are all that's left.
- They is set in an area where nobody would live (e.g., a forest).
- The story is about the struggles of a Socially Awkward Hero, and so the cast consists only of the Main Character and their small social circle.
- Inverted: The cast is absolutely massive.
- Subverted:
- In season 3, Lovely Leah is introduced as a minor recurring character, and the producers mention expanding the cast with other such characters.
- The finale of season 1 suddenly kills off three main characters, and Alice, in her grief, decides to open up to other people, expanding the cast significantly.
- Double Subverted: Leah is Put on a Bus before season 4 starts and the other such minor characters are scrapped before they ever see the light of day.
- Parodied: When Maybe-Someday Mae arrives, she is quickly shooed away.
- Zig Zagged:
- Technically the show has many characters, but there are a disproportionate number of Bottle Episodes that just use the main cast.
- The main storyline follows only four characters, but any time the work shows the protagonists' pasts, there are a lot more characters.
- Averted: The show has an overall sizeable, yet manageable cast.
- Enforced:
- The show has a very small budget and doesn't have enough money for a large cast of characters.
- The author is just starting out, and chooses to keep the cast small because it's easier to write.
- Lampshaded: "Guess it's just the five of us... again..."
- Invoked: The director of the show adopts a "less is more" approach to story telling, opting for a small number of main cast members so their characters all have an equal opportunity to be fleshed out.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: The producers introduce and ultimately keep around Leah, Mae, the Sixth Rangers, and several other minor recurring characters.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Logical Extreme: Alice is the only cast member.
- Deconstructed: After three seasons with only seven notable characters, plots become stale and viewer interest in They Trope By Night decreases considerably.
- Reconstructed: Charles, Danny, and Evangeline are phased out in favor of Norman, Oscar, and Priscilla, keeping the small cast but invigorating the show.
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