Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional trios

:{{la|List of fictional trios}} ([{{fullurl:List of fictional trios|wpReason={{urlencode: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of fictional trios}}&action=delete}} delete]) – (View AfD)(View log)

There are few on this list which could even remotely be called "trios".

The following are grouped that way in their articles' names:

The Three Musketeers, The Three Stooges, The Ghostly Trio, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Huey, Dewey and Louie, and Snap, Crackle, and Pop.

The rest seem to be simply groupings of three characters. And often such "trios" are either "three adventurers" or a romantic triangle - or both. (Fairly common due to the influences of The Three Musketeers.)

Are there sources establishing that these are "trios"? And further, how would we establish that? Any grouping of individuals in which there are at any given time, three?

And consider that this is a case where we are listing groups based on the quantity of members. Look at the Charlie's Angels listings to see why this itself is a bad idea.

And do we start adding List of fictional quartets? Everyone from The Four Musketeers (and note the irony there), to the Fantastic Four (and consider how that group's membership has also changed periodically over time).

And are the Avengers a fictional sextet, based on their past bylaws?

This just seems to be rampant WP:OR gone wild.

• Delete - as nominator. - jc37 02:08, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Keep and edit. Discuss individual cases on the talk p. (The universal, correct, response for when a list article is nominated on the basis that some of the content does not belong). 6 are given by the nom as valid. That's a start. DGG (talk) 03:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. -- J^mundo 03:05, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete per nom. Too much original research involved in determining which characters to classify within a trio. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:26, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete 3 characters doing something together is found in a great many fictional works. There is no real point in listing them. Write an article on the concept itself if sources can be found.Borock (talk) 06:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Keep The idea that some entries don't belong can be solved through editing. Other than that, the nominator gave no valid reason for deletion. - Mgm|^(talk) 11:15, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• :What content does belong? This list doesn't have any sort of topic; right now, it's "List of three characters chosen more or less arbitrarily." - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 20:20, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete x 3 In this case, a trio can be any three things that you want it to be, and the article is little more than a bulletin board. Nothing gets taken off, for fear that someone's feelings will be hurt. However, when you have twenty consecutive mentions of "Charlies Angels", you've lost your bearings. There are some famous trios out there which, as the nominator points out, are so famous that their name reflects their threesomeness-- the Three Musketeers, the Three Fates, the Three Stooges, etc. And there are a few that aren't billed as trios but have adventures as a group of three-- Huey, Dewey and Louie; Alvin, Simon & Theodore; Snap, Crackle, Pop; the Powerpuff Girls; etc. But most of these seem to be on here because someone noticed that they were on the TV screen at the same moment. Even someone who watches nothing else but Nickelodeon would not say that Spongebob, Patrick and Squidward are a team of some sort. Or that Mickey, Donald and Goofy are a trio; or that a duo like "Mario and Luigi" becomes a trio when you add someone else. This is the type of list that you can't maintain without offending someone, so I don't think that it's ever going to be viable. Mandsford (talk) 14:36, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete as WP:INDISCRIMINATE unless and until reliable sources treating the concept "fictional trios" in a scholarly manner are cited. See also WP:SALAT. Deor (talk) 15:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete, the topic is way too broad for this list to become non-indiscriminate (discriminate)? JIP | Talk 17:41, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Vote changed to strong delete. After reading the article again, I have become convinced that it does not even properly define what constitutes a "trio". It appears that it accepts any three characters appearing in the same continuum. Some, like the three little pigs, or the three musketeers, or the girls in Totally Spies! I can accept, but what about "Mickey, Donald, and Goofy"? What about Daisy? Or Gladstone? Or Scrooge? Or Horace? What about "Kirk, Spock, and McCoy"? Where's Scotty? Where's Chekov? Where's Uhura? There are too many cases where "these three constitute a trio" is basically the author's own original research. JIP | Talk 19:48, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete, remove, and excise. This is completely rudderless and topicless. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 20:18, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete - Very vague topic that can cover a very wide variety of subjects, and there's nothing particularly useful about a list of trios. See WP:INDISCRIMINATE. GraYoshi2x►^talk 20:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Note: This debate has been included in the list of Fictional elements-related deletion discussions. -- • Gene93k (talk) 22:01, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. Of course the article's content is ridiculous (the Charlie's Angels permutations), but also this topic is really listcruft. I'll believe it when I see a couple of academic books about fictional trios. Drmies (talk) 22:33, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete As per WP:IINFO. And how come Yippy, Yappy and Yahooey are not on the list? :) Pastor Theo (talk) 22:51, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• Strong keep Useful start that can be expanded. Ties works together in interesting ways and is a notable subject. ChildofMidnight (talk) 23:14, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
• :If it's a notable subject, what, would you say, is the article that this list illustrates? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:01, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• ::The three little bears, the three amigos, the three stooges, three's company, ... This list of triumverates or trios of characters can be sorted by subject: literature, film, television, comedy. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see that the symbolism, psychology and sexuality involved in the subject of threesomes is loaded and important. If wikipedia chooses not to include it that will certainly not be the first time a useful and important subject is lost. Grouping the examples together serves as a useful resource for those wanting to compare the use of three lead characters in literature or comedy, to give two example. The subject can most certainly be expanded into an article, but as it's been determined that it's useless listcruft, I will divert my energies elsewhere. Three's a crowd. Here's a source [http://books.google.com/books?id=qAfCUp0Puh4C&pg=PA77&dq=main+character+triangles+trios+three&lr=#PPA71,M1]. ChildofMidnight (talk) 06:26, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• :::So what the topic? Those are random things that there are three of. How is this different from "List of fictional things which are blue"? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 07:19, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• ::::Admittedly the subject of fictional accounts with three lead characters isn't as worthwhile as Gladys the Swiss Dairy Cow or the 17th place finisher in the 400 meter bean twirling at the 1984 Olympic's, but I thought it might be nice to include anyway. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:49, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• :::::You didn't answer my question, you just compared it unfavorably to other things. This is a list of "Things which share a coincidental attribute". - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 21:24, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• ::::::You set up a straw man comparison, so I gave you one in return. I don't think there's anything coincidental about choosing to have three lead characters instead of the usual one or two (a duo). I'm not aware of any writer, screenwriter or comedian that employs an infinite number of monkeys typing away until they come up with something. So I have to believe their decisions on character development are conscious and that the use of three people involves various symbolisms and psychological concepts and social issues that are significant and interesting. This makes the subject notable and substantial. That it needs to be cleaned up and cited is obvious. ChildofMidnight (talk) 22:03, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• :::::::You can believe whatever you like. Do you have any reliable sources to back your theory, or is it just original research? - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 00:20, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• : Here's the source I already gave you [http://books.google.com/books?id=qAfCUp0Puh4C&pg=PA77&dq=main+character+triangles+trios+three&lr=#PPA71,M1]. It discusses some of the symbolism and some of the notable trios and compares them to the use of three leads in Charmed. There are also lots of sources on googlebooks discussing the history of trios and the notable ones, unfortunately many aren't available online. One of them discusses how the Three Musketeers influenced a term to refer to trios of adventurers in common language usage. One of them discusses Rudyard Kipling's use of trios. Many of them compare trios to more famous literary trios, for example here [http://books.google.com/books?id=QbY3AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA275&dq=three+characters+trio+musketeers&lr=]. Here's a source discussing Harry Potter and comparing it to other literary trios [http://books.google.com/books?id=VS2WHBipkm4C&pg=PA50&dq=three+characters+trio+musketeers&lr=]. So clearly this is a notable subject and there's plenty of sourced content for an article. You asked for examples and assuming good faith I've provided them. So I'm confident you'll change your vote and I hope you'll put some effort into improving the article, after putting quite a bit of effort into arguing extensively for its deletion. ChildofMidnight (talk) 18:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• ::The link you gave was rambling and speculative and more about the number three than any sort of insight on sets of three characters in fiction. (It's a TOTALLY UNAUTHORIZED readers' guide to a syndicated primetime soap opera, so we do need to take it for what it's worth.) The Harry Potter link mentions trios and duos as part of a discussion of equal or unequal roles of female protagonists in stories with multiple protagonists. Interesting stuff, but the only factual claim here is that there are three main characters in the Harry Potter novels and that this is the same number of characters as in Three Musketeers. I have no idea if the second source has anything, but the article you seem to imply would not be this one and would not need this list. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire - past ops) 18:52, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete. Completely useless listcruft. Doctorfluffy (robe and wizard hat) 00:44, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete: List of name-checks about non-notable subject of fictional trios, 50% of which comprises of variations of the Charlie's Angels roster. Ryan4314 (talk) 01:14, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete and make into a category per WP:CLT. This list cannot ever be complete, and has no good intrusion criteria. No prejudice against writing a better sourced article in place of this. Jclemens (talk) 05:45, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete dreck per WP:LISTCRUFT; what, every wikt:Tom, Dick or Harry gets a list entry? We discriminate per WP:IINFO. Cheers, Jack Merridew 08:10, 27 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete I suppose it is possible that there is a reason why trios are prevalent in fiction. There may even be some literary criticism somewhere that documents this, and if there were a relevant Wikipedia article, then this list could form a part of it. Until then it's just an pointless list. pablo_hablo. 13:40, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

::Aside from Charie's Angels, another indication of the crapness of this list is the permutations of characters from "Zoey 101". There are 20 permutations of the 6 main characters from Friends, and if this article is kept, they are all going in! pablo_hablo. 20:34, 27 April 2009 (UTC)

• Delete. Fails WP:NOT#INFO, no viable inclusion criteria. — sephiroth bcr ^(converse) 06:05, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete - Indiscriminate collections of groups of 3. Surprised it doesn't include combinations of 3 from larger groups. Anyhow, no concrete inclusion criteria; it's list cruft. --EEMIV (talk) 16:28, 28 April 2009 (UTC)
• Delete, indiscriminate, fuzzy criteria for inclusion, etc etc. Basically everything that has been said above. Lankiveil ^{(speak to me)} 05:09, 1 May 2009 (UTC).

:The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.