I think some of the examples in the list are indeed misuse and should be removed. An exception to this is the Four Swords example, since The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords really is a Me's a Crowd plot.
Yeah, Me's a Crowd does tend to get confused with Self-Duplication a lot. Self-Duplication is about the superpower of making clones, making it a supertrope to Me's a Crowd, which is more of a plot trope or a specific application of Self-Duplication.
Edited by DeadlyEspresso on Aug 27th 2024 at 5:29:33 AM
I literally cannot make out with a television the fuckExcept that's not what Me's a Crowd is about. As I already described and as the trope defines itself, it's about when a character duplicates themself to get out of doing chores (by making the clone(s) do the chores for them). Four Swords doesn't seem to have that, it's about a character being split into multiple copies by pulling out an item rather than him cloning himself to get out of or at the very least help do a certain task.
Edited by Eggy0 on Aug 27th 2024 at 3:07:00 PM
Yeah, I think this trope might have an unclear definition and might need to get its definition refined to deal with these issues if it ever goes to the Trope Repair Shop.
I literally cannot make out with a television the fuck
Continuing that, if the definition of Me's a Crowd really is as strict as "character clones themself to get a bunch of household chores done", then I think the strictness may be attracting usage issues. Either the trope name should be changed to show the more strict definition, or the trope's definition should be broadened to account for other situations where a character using clones to get a bunch of things done besides chores.
Just noting that Me's a Crowd has been in Wick Cleaning Projects for a really long time, it's even in the first edit
of the page. And it still keeps the same guidelines:
Me's a Crowd cleanup: 2717 wicks
as of 05/28/2024
- Me's a Crowd is a plot where the main character duplicates themselves. Examples of self-duplication in general should be moved to Self-Duplication.
As the wicks don't seem to decrease, a rename or redefinition in TRS is necessary.
That's... weird. The definition seemed extremely clear to me. The first sentence explicitly says: "Through magic or super-technology, a character decides to get a large number of chores done via copying themself." The rest of the article further elaborates on this. It looked to me like the title was what was attracting misuse due to implying a broader trope than it says it is. Although it does seem to end on a different concept...
If the clean-up hasn't done much this should go to TRS for a name change. Me's a Crowd has a much larger wick count than Self-Duplication despite being a much more specific situation, so there's probably considerable misuse.
^ There was, according to the discussion page. This was the last thread it had
, but apparently it never had a resolution.
It seems to me that it's the "to do chores" part of the description that's too narrow, if anything.
Do we even have a supertrope of "character creates a bunch of clones of themselves" (we've established that Self-Duplication isn't it)? If not, I feel the current trope should be broadened to match actual usage.
Edited by DoktorvonEurotrash on Aug 27th 2024 at 3:01:54 AM
To be fair, the name of Me's a Crowd doesn't really make it obvious that this is strictly for chores. It can easily be perceived as person has a large group of clones (or otherwise identical alternate selves) gathered together regardless of context, whereas Self-Duplication is more about the having the power to make clones regardless of how crowded the clones are.
Oldest Internet Archive copy
. The description, then as now, seems to indicate it's about doing chores but the examples are a bunch of ZCEs and PCEs and the ones with more context don't seem to be about chores. The archived discussion
ended up stuck with the name it had under the ptitle system, but it's mostly about what the title was trying to be in the time before we could have punctuation in titles.
This
2011 TRS thread seems to have sparked the creation of the separate Self-Duplication trope, and there's some discussion there of what the scope of the trope should be and what trope should be at what name.
Edited by MorganWick on Aug 27th 2024 at 10:53:34 AM
In conclusion, my interpretation of what's going on with Me's a Crowd is that its current definition is more strict that what its name implies. While the trope is meant to be about a plot were someone duplicates themself in order to get chores done, but it looks to have undergone trope decay into being about any plot were a character clones themself to get a bunch of things done.
I think changing the trope's definition to be more broadly about plots where a character clones themself to get a bunch of things done would be the best course of action, because I think limiting "correct" uses to chores is too strict.
I literally cannot make out with a television the fuckFinished checking just over half of my sample (I have 52 wicks to check, I checked 27). The results so far are... worrying.
Those 27 wicks I've checked so far are split between having or making clones, clones being used for anything but chores, misc. misuse, and several potholes (all of which are dubious) and ZCE cases. Every category except making clones to do chores. I haven't found one instance of correct use yet.
Either the name is too broad, or as someone already brought up, the trope is too narrow.
Here's an example of "alternate selves" I stumbled upon in a work page a while back, and another I deliberately sought out after this thread started.
- Fire Emblem Heroes: A Day in the Life: A frequent Running Gag of the comic shows the ramifications of being able to summon multiple copies of the same person. "Better Together" had Tiki upset at Bantu because Bantu kept mistaking her for other versions of Tiki present, including an evil version of her.
- Star Trek Timelines: Players can collect multiple incarnations of the same character, with major characters having dozens of iterations.
I just finished the wick check. The result is quite alarming — not a single wick from the randomly sampled wicks was correct use. Every last one is misuse, including the ones that lack context. The closest it gets to correct use is the entry from Characters.Bibliomania, and even then it's clones assisting with important work and not a chore. The wick check can be seen at SandBox.Mes A Crowd Wick Check
This is 100% taking a trip to the TRS.
Definitely queue it up then. Reminds me of Loads And Loads Of Characters, which also had 0 correct use.
I've always associated the word "chore" with "daily and often boring task that needs to be performed to maintain the dwelling/place/whatever". Such as washing the dishes, cleaning your room, vacuuming your house etc. Or generally just a task that a person might not be too enthused about due to it taking up some of your time and having to be repeated on a regular basis.
The closest to that, in terms of gameplay, was Multi-Slot Character.
The Horatio example in Characters.Endless Space contains a wick to Me's a Crowd, but this one is borderline misuse (though some of the Horatio clones can serve as Horatio the First's servants to do chores on his behalf).
Kirby is awesome.The intention does feel like a mix between Self-Duplication and Mundane Utility, so with 0 correct examples this may not be worth salvaging.
No, I think the trope is still salvageable. Most of the usage for Me's a Crowd tends to revolve around a plot where a character duplicates themself to get a bunch of things done, and that does sound tropeworthy. Unless that overlaps too much with Self-Duplication, I think the trope's definition could be refined to reflect how tropers actually use it, because the "plot where a character duplicates themself to get a bunch of things done" is still likely to be tropeworhty.

I have found Me's a Crowd, but after a quick glance at a few on-page examples I have concerns about how it's used.
It clearly defines itself as "the character clones themself so their copy/copies can do their chores instead of the original". Then I found a couple of entries that I'm familiar with, namely Steven Universe and My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic — those examples don't involve chores at all, they're just one of the characters cloning themself a bunch of times and one of them is done solely for the purpose of trying to be in multiple places at once (with this failing as there ends up being a flood of clones). I had a look at a few other examples, and they too boil down to "the character has or gets one or more clones" (which feels a lot like chairs at the base unless given significance).
Thoughts?