What's the minimum standard to be considered Loads and Loads of Characters?

I noticed that American Beauty is listed as an example of Loads And Loads Of Characters, despite having ten main characters. The justification is that they all play a role in the plot. Community is also listed as having LALOC with nine main characters and a healthy supporting cast. The justification is the supporting cast has a lot of Character Development.

Are these valid examples? Can a work with a cast of ten people be considered LALOC if they're well developed?

Sound like misplaced Ensemble Cast examples.

Well is there a lower limit for how many characters are needed to qualify for Loads And Loads Of Characters?

I'd actually consider how many Character Sheets the work has here to be a decent measurement, though of course that runs into the issue of how size is more a function of troper interest than anything else.

I'll give the Community example the benefit of the doubt because nine characters is a lot for a main cast and they have a bunch of supporting characters. However, ten seems a little low, even if they all play a role in the plot.

The thing is not the number, but the consequence: there are so many characters that each episode change the focus from ones to others to cover them all. Either that, or have a small group of "core" characters and then secondary characters who get the focus in each episode.

For example, compare The Simpsons and Modern Family. The Simpsons is always the family of 5 and a story about a secondary character (Apu, Krusty, Moe, etc), and so an example. Modern Family has a larger family but the plots are always contained within this family, so no.

I don't know if that's a fair comparison, because The Simpson's has a cast that dwarves Moser Family's cast.

I'm pretty sure that the point was to illustrate a larger family, but smaller cast.

Right and this comes back to cast size. It seems to me like there isn't a standard for what constitutes a large cast.

I've admittedly always found this trope confusing. The title implies it'd just be about any massive cast.

The description confuses me a bit, because I can't think of a single proper example of what's being described, and if the examples on the page don't help illustrate it, then I'm even more baffled.

As said exact numbers for these kind of tropes are counter intuitive, people focus on reaching a threshold over the function of the characters. You could have a cast of nine but absolutely no notable supporting characters and would likely not qualify, conversely there could be a cast of four with five additional characters with nearly equal importance and falls more in line with the trope.

The thing is it's not unusual for a show to have a supporting/reoccurring cast of about four or five characters. If we say a show with four main characters and five supporting characters counts as Loads And Loads Of Characters, we're going to have to say most tv shows also count as Loads And Loads Of Characters.

That's why we are saying it's not about numbers, but about the complexity of character relationships. Gunther from Friends was the most notable recurring character but never had A Day in the Limelight or even really a subplot that was his, he's barely more than a Running Gag. In contrast Scrubs has at least one supporting cast member for each of the main cast, each have a fairly significant impact on the characters and the stories.

A show could introduce a new character every episode for ten years but if they don't have much to do outside that one episode it's not Loads And Loads Of Characters.

It's sounding like Loads And Loads Of Characters needs TRS eventually. Anyone object to me adding it to Tropes Needing TRS?

The thing is it's hard to quantify cast complexity. To a lot of people it's a subjective thing.

My personal standard is when a novel includes a character glossary at the end. I'm not sure how that would apply to purely visual works.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 18th 2021 at 1:56:45 PM

If we're going to go into subjectivity, consider the length of the work as well. Fifteen main characters is a lot for a two-hour film, not so much for a three-season hourlong drama. And complexity: Dark (2017) was a three-season hourlong drama with like two dozen major characters, but because of all the time travel and Timeshifted Actor the cast often felt larger than it was.

That said, I don't think this is the kind of trope that needs to be too subjective, but tossing up a hardline number isn't the answer either.

Looking at the examples in the OP, I don't think American Pie counts. Lots of movies can have ten major characters.

I think the scale of the story should play a part too. Fifteen characters can be a lot for a contemporary, down-to-earth story, but for a epic sci-fi story that spans multiple worlds, fifteen characters can feel like nothing.

I'll push back against that; Loads And Loads Of Characters is a way to make a work feel epic, so it is natural that the epic may contain a lot of characters. LALOC shouldn't have to "feel odd" or misplaced.

I guess if cast complexity is going to be how we judge this trope, we should find a way to gauge how complex a cast is. At this point, it seems like everyone has a different opinion on what constitutes Loads And Loads Of Characters.

Sorry to ask again, but I did not get a response.

Should I add Loads And Loads Of Characters to Tropes Needing TRS, based on this discussion?

We should also do a wick check first.

Alright, I added it to the Administrivia page. Here is the entry:

• Loads And Loads Of Characters: A Trope Talk discussion raised concerns about the description being unclear as to the purpose of the trope and the name misleading people into believing it's about any large cast of characters, even if irrelevant to the plot/gameplay. One troper remarked in the discussion that it seemed like each troper had a different idea of what the trope is.

(Rust Beard, are you OK with your remarks being cited as "one troper"?)

Edited by themayorofsimpleton on Aug 19th 2021 at 11:37:16 AM

Sure.