a few thoughts on popular character dynamics and groupings

In both times when I am flying through reading material and times when it takes multiple months to finish a book, I find myself thinking about characters a lot. (Not surprising, especially for my favorite books.) Something in particular that has stricken my fancy lately is thinking about the dynamics between characters. Based on the book genre, there are even common groupings and tropes that appear, which I get into more below, but it’s fascinating. (Side note, that concerns NO ONE—the number of names that had red scribbly lines underneath them while writing this post nearly drove me INSANE. Set up your game Google Chrome. Or read a book once in a while, why don’t you.)

• trios

For the sake of being unorthodox, I’m starting with character groupings of three. So many stories have them, and they’re all kind of iconic?? While they obviously vary, trios tend to fall into the pattern of The Main Character, The Smart One, and The Funny One. Classic examples of this would be Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley, or Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, and Han Solo. Many variations can exist as far as personalities, temperaments, and skill-sets go, but no matter what, having three main characters always seems balanced out, especially when they’re going on a quest or journey (like in Percy Jackson or Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.) But the best form of this trio will always be when it’s made up of two entirely capable characters and one really dumb one (like Padmé, Obi-Wan, and Anakin, or Baz, Penelope, and Simon from Carry On.)

• duos

Okay, now back to two. Character groupings of two are perhaps at their peak when used for romance. Lizzy Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters. Anne Shirley and Gilbert Blythe. Gilderoy Lockhart and himself. Jane Eyre and Mr. Rochester. The Doctor and his companion (although not always romantic.) Hades and Persephone. Loki and the Tesseract. Romeo and Juliet.

However, some of the most iconic duos come in the form of partners solving crimes or committing them. Holmes and Watson. Bonnie and Clyde. Scully and Mulder. Batman and Robin. Shawn and Gus. Spock and Captain Kirk. Castle and Beckett.

A few notable arch enemies also reside in this group. Magneto and Professor X. Jean Valjean and Javert. Thor and Star-Lord. (I think I’m funny.) Batman and Superman. Count Olaf and people who are nice.

Keeping the story focused on two main characters can keep the story contained, making it simpler or smaller, or setting things up nicely for an episodic series. Although, in the case of Les Mis, you may have a smaller set that you focus on, like Jean Valjean and Javert or Eponine and Marius, within a much larger cast of like ten main characters (what is even happening with this book.) Duos are also where a lot of fun things happen with dynamics. You can have the loud, obnoxious character be best friends with the quiet one, the character who is an actual ray of sunshine with the grumpy one, the believer and the skeptic, the responsible and the chaotic. The more conflicting their natures are, the better.

• solo

I had a hard time thinking about who would belong in this category. It’s not the most exciting (in my opinion), at least on the surface, because without conflict coming from a dynamic with another character, the conflict has to be mostly internal. Also, most main characters have someone. If not a sidekick or a love interest, at least an arch-nemesis? Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye was one of the only examples I could think of where the main character is truly the sole focus, but I know there has to be more cases.

• four (I’d say quartet, but that doesn’t sound right)

Groupings of four seem to be made up of a lot of families. Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy Pevensie. Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March. And the four Robins that Batman has figuratively (or literally) been a father to: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Wayne.

Of course, groups of four aren’t always related, even if they’re close-knit and fight like they could be. For example, the Three Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D’Artagnan (the name of this book really feels like it’s misrepresenting itself) or the kids from The Mysterious Benedict Society. One thing I do know is that these character dynamics make it very entertaining to sort them into Hogwarts houses, and I’ve spent too much time doing so already.

• five

If four is the ideal number for families, five is the ideal size for eccentric and unlikely friend groups. Think The Breakfast Club, the Marauders—James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew—and Lily Evans, or the Raven Boys—Gansey, Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish, Noah Czerny, and Blue Sargent. With a character group this large, there’s room enough for at least one romance (possibly two if you like awkward fifth-wheels), and there’s almost always The Popular One, The Angry One, and The Smart One, and then uhh whatever’s left in the author’s character type trail mix to move the plot along.

• six+

While I guess not exclusively true, having more than six characters in the main group of a story seems like the modus operandi for found family tropes. Almost every story that has a team in it inevitably becomes one big happy family. Whether that’s a team fighting crime (the Avengers, Justice League, the Umbrella Academy), a team committing a crime (Kaz, Inez, Jesper, Nina, Matthias, and Wylan from Six of Crows) (yay heists), or a team that’s doing a little bit of both (the Guardians of the Galaxy.) One of the best things about having this many characters in a story is that they all generally have very specific, odd, special skill-sets, and any character without said set of skills is teased mercilessly, but has 90% more brain cells than the rest of the team.

• • •

At this point, you might be wondering, “What was the point of this post?” The answer to this question is, of course, that there was none. I just wanted to write about these dumb characters. I missed them.