Ensembleness

[sholio]

This month's submission theme at Crossed Genres is "ensemble", and I'd really like to submit something to it, although that means writing something before the 30th -- which I'm not sure is an achievable goal, but hey, worth a try, right?

So here's a question for you guys. What would you like to see more of in ensembles -- i.e. groups of characters, and stories focused on them? One of the posts on my reading list this morning talked about how rare it is to get the viewpoint of grumpy-mentor characters in fantasy, which made me go "hmmmm" and prod my creative brain a bit.

What are some of yours? Favorite tropes? Tropes you'd like to see subverted/avoided?

Comments

[stultiloquentia]

Awesome question! (And awesome publisher, yay.)

WANT:
- female mentorship
- disability accommodation, esp. in ways that make the whole group stronger

MEH:
- token feisty tomboy warrior chick
- love triangles

Have you read Ursula Vernon's Jackalope Wives? Oh my gosh do. For the grumpy-octogenarian-mentor who solves everything.

[sholio]

Thank you so much for the suggestion, and the rec! \o/

.... though now I have a terrible urge to write an ensemble composed entirely of feisty tomboys*. >_>

*Possibly having love triangles with each other.

Actually why not go for broke and have feisty octagenarians who were tomboys in their youth. OH GOD I MIGHT ACTUALLY WRITE THAT.

[stultiloquentia]

Yes. Yes, I would read about feisty octogenarian tomboys. They had love triangles in their youth, but have since settled into a sensible polyamory. :o)

[muccamukk]

Because I want to be in ALL the threads.

Have year read Captain Marvel by Kelly Sue DeConnick? The first story arc focuses on Carol's relationship with her mentor Helen Cobb, who is a fictionalised Jerrie Cobb of the Mercury 13, and needs more love. Though pity about the art (save for a breathtaking two issue fill in by Emma Rios, who is my hero).

[sholio]

I have not! I haven't read any Captain Marvel, actually, though it's on my (extensive) list of comics to try out. :D

[muccamukk]

I love found family, but the explicit statement of team=family is rather overdone these days, and I'd rather it were implied at most.

+all the ones on mentor PoV (and if anyone has canon recs in that line...) Especially female mentors, and space for older characters generally. Wheeee mentors!

I love characters that don't get along or like each other, but neither of them is more or less in the wrong than the other, and they can still work together as needs be. I dislike stories wherein anyone who dislikes the main character automatically turns out to be an awful meanie who is wrong.

I love moments where people who sort of assume they're not really part of the team find out, usually by implication, that they are.

Also, see icon.

[sholio]

Re: your icon - is that modern-style Misty and Colleen hugging Luke Cage? And if so, what is that from? I didn't realize they'd all been in anything since the '80s?

(... if Misty & Colleen aren't in the Defenders TV series, there will be SO MUCH ANGRY FLAILING around here.)

Anyway! You know, I've been wracking my brains trying to think of mentor POV ever since seeing your post, and I'm coming up blank! The closest thing I can think of are some of the Discworld books, with the witches, though that's very arguable. I hope you get some recs; I'd love to read it, as well as having a growing urge to write it ...

Also see the above comment for a rec link!

And thank you for the other input as well! These are some of the things I like, too.

[recessional]

Night Watch, for Disc books with a mentor pov. Vimes is the grumpy old mentor. ;)

[sholio]

You know, I almost included Vimes in the above comment but then backed off, because I think (or thought) that, tropewise, he goes more into the hardboiled-detective slot than the mentor slot, inasmuch as Discworld characters can be categorized that way. But now I'm thinking about the books and I think you are probably right. :D

[recessional]

I think in every other book that's totally true, but in Night Watch specifically it's a hero origin story from the POV of the grumpy old mentor who gets killed. :D (Well, doesn't, but from the pov of the young hero does.)

[muccamukk]

It is. That is from the Civil War tie in of Heroes for Hire which had a nice start but hit super depressing super fast, AND THEN IT BROKE THEM UP!!!!!!!!!!!!(not enough exclamation marks in the world!) And they still haven't properly patched up on page. I wrote like 17k of angst fic on this topic last year. They were in an enjoyably cheesecakey book called Daughters of the Dragon about ten years ago, pre-CW, and were also in the Immortal Iron Fist book around the same time, but due to BEING BROKEN UP!!!!!!!!!!!!! haven't been in much together since. Misty's been in Heroes for Hire and Fearless Defenders, but I haven't seen Colleen around much and have fallen behind on comics. Luke's been in all kinds of things, but hasn't had a huge amount of broyay with Danny, so I'm not as invested. Also, I may at one point have read literally every book these characters were ever in, and have A LOT OF FEELINGS. APPARENTLY THERE WILL BE A TV SHOW! A tag about feelings

-coughs-

Will check out the above link. Thanks :D

[sholio]

Marvel broke them up?! Godfuckingdammit, Marvel. >_> Can't we have nice things?

Yeah, way back when I was a teenager in the '80s, Power Man & Iron Fist was one of my two absolute favorite superhero comics (the other one being X-Men). I kinda fell out of mainstream comics for a long while -- it was all indy stuff for me for a very long time -- and now that I'm catching back up again, the only one of those four I'm really up on is Luke, because of everything with the Avengers and Jessica and so forth.

I am completely over the moon about the TV series, although the only characters I'm sure about yet are Luke and Danny (because they're title characters). But they couldn't make a show about them without Misty and Colleen! CAN'T BE DONE. I ... may be practicing some heavy lurking on the casting news for this show. Not that anything's available yet for anyone except the Daredevil subcast.

I will check out your feelings!tag. :D

[muccamukk]

The '90s was actually a good run for them. Luke had his own title, which was about 80% angst about Danny being dead, then they had they had a second book called "Heroes for Hire" which was one of the highlights of the dystopia known as Volume 2. Though the art was... not very good. Misty and Colleen were mostly background. They kinda vanished for a while after that, but eventually Bendis saved Luke from the dust bin of history with Alias then Avengers (DO NOT read the Azzario stand alone!!), and Matt Fraction and Ed Brubaker picked up Danny in a book that was surprisingly good considering that I strongly dislike both authors individually, and we got the above-mentioned Misty/Colleen titles.

[recessional]

Ensembles that are actually ensembles, not "and all the other characters represent parts of Mal Reynolds' soul".

[sholio]

Ah yeah, the ensemble that is not an ensemble, but one character having adventures while everyone else gets to be support staff! (See also: my problems with Leverage.)

[muccamukk]

I don't have this problem with Leverage. I just pretend really hard that Nate doesn't exist save to occasionally pop in and provide moral support for Parker, and that fixes everything. This approach requires a certain amount of fast forwarding.

[sholio]

Someone needs to make a Nateless cut of Leverage! I would watch that. Although people tell me he gets less insufferable, or at least less central, in later seasons; I only made it about halfway through season two.

(I think it's hilarious that my entire flist/rlist is pretty much united in their feelings on Nate.)

[muccamukk]

The only reason I made it through season two was because I love Jeri Ryan a lot. I don't know if he gets better or not. Maybe I just got better at ignoring him. He was absolutely INSUFFERABLE at the start of season four. I actually stopped watching for a while, then made my wife pick out the Nate-less highlights.

[stultiloquentia]

*cackle*

[mackiedockie]

One of my favorite things about the Highlander ensemble is Joe as the grumpy mentor. Somehow, I don't think anyone is surprised by this fact :)

[sholio]

ha, yes, not entirely a shock. :D

musing on where ensembles appeal

[brightknightie]

Hmmmmmm. Your question made me think about how I interact with true ensemble stories.

In TV, I most prefer shows with a lead (or two) as focus protagonist(s) and also a very strong, well-represented and well-explored supporting cast. That's not a completely genuine ensemble, as such. True ensemble shows, where all the characters are as equal as the actors' and writers' abilities allow, almost never win my ongoing interest. For me, there's usually no real ongoing purpose to such stories; they're inevitably lacking a larger arc, development, theme... quest, even. I'm thinking the CSIs, L&Os, NCISes, etc. (Even PoI, which I'm enjoying so very much, feels relatively unfocused and unenthralling to me in this very same way, although it's the closest to an exception to this rule that I could think of.) But I'm also thinking that, for big-name examples outside the procedural structure where this is most obvious, both Dallas and The West Wing originally intended to be a "true" ensemble shows, in their different ways, but both had desires for larger, ongoing purposes that pulled them out of true ensemble into the lead focus/protagonist model (JR and President Bartlett).

Over in comics, though, I'm as pleased as punch to follow true ensembles! I don't need a lead to maintain the momentum that holds my interest and draws me back time after time. With some important exceptions (and a life-long tendency to buy anything with the Scarlet Witch or her husband* on the cover as long as my pockets aren't empty), I follow either superhero teams, fantasy families/tribes, sci-fi rebel cells/military units/etc. I have trunks full of decades of Marvel's X- and A- books.

Why the difference?

My hypothesis is that the seriality of contemporary comics allows for the continuity and ongoing momentum of plot and theme that I crave, where the episodicness of TV is, even today, too much the "reset button." An X- book can always be deeply about tolerance and identity, no matter which character takes the lead through one or another plot; an ElfQuest story can always be deeply about the unions and divisions of peoples, whether or not the current characters ever met Cutter. But in TV, the constraints of drawing eyes through a still largely free (or unnoticed charge) medium don't seem to permit developing themes/plots, only static ones, unless "towed" by a lead who can be briefly shorthanded for new viewers.

Just pondering.

Good luck!

* Don't remind me they've been separated for over a decade now. That's just in real time. In comics time, they could get back together at any moment. ANY MOMENT. ~grin~