Group Countdown

18 August 2010 | Filed Under Countdown 


Picking teams

If you’ve read a fantasy story, and I mean any, chances are you’ve run into The Group – a splattering of main characters who team up to defeat evil. Authors can pick how many characters to have in The Group based on the story’s needs, but in my experience, some group numbers are more prevalent than others.

5. The lone hero.
The favorite of old tales, but the lone hero model has gone out of style. Even Frodo had good ol’ Sam to depend on. Stories today like to emphasize the need for friendship, rather than the power of one individual.

4. Dynamic duos.
Also not very popular, since it can be a bit flat character development-wise. An example would be, as mentioned above, Frodo and Sam as they trek toward Mordor.

3. Adventurers, party of five.
Used more in sword and sorcery novels, where quests reign supreme. Each character in The Group fills a vital role in adventuring: fighter, mage, rogue, priest, girl. Yes. “Girl” is usually the fifth role in a Five Man Band.

2. The symbolism of four.
Used in fantasy when you want each character to represent a balanced set, usually the classic elements. Think of Aang (air), Katara (water), Sokka (non-bending, fire is the enemy here), and Toph (earth) from Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Sandry (non-element), Daja (fire), Tris (air and water), and Briar (earth) from Tamora Pierce’s Circle of Magic books.

And the most common grouping?

1. The power of three.
Harry Potter‘s Harry, Ron, and Hermione are a [new] classic example. Three main characters provides a good dynamic, and has a lot of room to play around with conflict.

Comments

5 Responses to “Group Countdown”

  1. Will on August 21st, 2010 4:37 pm

    Hm. I’m gonna say that 6 is probably the 6th most common, but the 7th? 12 or 13, for various astrological and zodiarchical reasons.

  2. Jenn on August 21st, 2010 5:18 pm

    oh true, I forgot about groups of 12 or 13. Jane Lindskold’s Thirteen Orphans is based on the zodiac, but since most of them are dead/missing, the Group’s actually a lot smaller.

  3. Dan on August 26th, 2010 11:08 am

    The one novel I started was somewhat heavily affected by the fact that it grew out of an attempt at developing a Final Fantasy-style RPG (and that I was playing FFIV and FFVI a lot at the time), so it was going to end up with a huge party at the end. It was essentially groups of four or five acting separately to defeat the same evil, and then they were all going to meet up in the end.

  4. Jenn on August 26th, 2010 11:11 am

    Wow. So the villain was going to be defeated by sheer force of numbers, eh?

  5. Dan on August 26th, 2010 9:01 pm

    Something like that… or maybe it was going to end up being a tale of warring nations joining to defeat a common enemy. I have no idea, I only got through the first of five subsections and I usually write stream-of-consciousness so I find out how the story’s going to end when it ends :p

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