Talk: Minor Fictional Characters in Crosstime Traffic

No complaints, just seeking clarification. I notice this is for named minor characters. Looking through the character lists for the Crosstime books, I see there are no unnamed characters so all well and good. However, in TL-191 at least, we have unnamed minor characters. Is it your intention to do a separate list for such, if and when, or will it be a combined list for both and a different description within the article? ML4E (talk) 16:06, August 25, 2012 (UTC)

I've been avoiding thinking about TL-191, to be honest, as it's going to be huge. We may even need to split the list up into separate articles focusing on each subseries.

Indeed. I recall a discussion on a talk page a few weeks ago where TF suggested "Minor Characters in:" HFR, GW, AE & RE as individual lists. That seems to be a reasonable way to break them down. ML4E (talk) 19:44, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

Anyway, nothing requires the unnamed be set apart from the named, so we'll probably just clump them altogether. We've already been doing that with TWPE's minor characters, I think. TR (talk) 16:36, August 25, 2012 (UTC)

I see you changed the description to reflect it can include minor unnamed characters too. I agree and think that is for the best. There really isn't any reason to keep them separate, just wanted to verify you didn't have anything else in mind. ML4E (talk) 19:44, August 28, 2012 (UTC)

The Gladiator

"Luigi" and "Mario" were added as characters. However, they are non-existent, cover story individuals who are fictional within the story. What do you think, are they still legitimate characters? ML4E (talk) 17:57, October 17, 2015 (UTC)

Probably not, though I do wonder whether it might be worthwhile to do something for characters in fictional stories within HT's own stories. Turtle Fan (talk) 01:24, October 18, 2015 (UTC)

We could do something similar to Category:Characters From Non-Turtledove Works but I can't think of any in-universe fictional characters worth doing. We already have a Category:Literature (Fictional Work) that covers it, as far as I can see. ML4E (talk) 17:50, October 18, 2015 (UTC)

Huh, now that I look at that category, you're right. I really thought there'd be more, that an author of HT's scope would have plenty of stories-within-the-stories. But most of that category is characters' memoirs, with titles that are literal to the point of the ridiculous. As far as fiction goes, there's usually not much more than a title. There are name-dropped characters here and there, like Aunt Clarissa or the Phantom of the Catacombs, but even then no substantive information (apart from the fact that they're obviously Uncle Tom and Erik, respectively). I guess HT likes to confine his characters to reading real-world literature. Turtle Fan (talk) 23:47, October 18, 2015 (UTC)

It's enough to have them at the literary references page, IMHO. I didn't even remember that joke, to be honest. They certainly aren't characters in the conventional sense. TR (talk) 02:20, October 18, 2015 (UTC)

I have a vague recollection of the truckers carrying mushrooms as a cover story for how Gianfranco got back to Milan but the reference went over my head. I didn't think of whether including them as characters was appropriate until I tried to create character redirects the way we do for minor characters and realized all I could catalog them as was The Gladiator characters. ML4E (talk) 17:50, October 18, 2015 (UTC)

So what should we do with "Luigi" and "Mario"? ML4E (talk) 20:39, October 19, 2015 (UTC)

Delete and move to the Literary Allusions page. That's my vote. TR (talk) 20:55, October 19, 2015 (UTC)

It already is in Literary Allusions in Turtledove's Work#Shigeru Miyamoto. I agree with deleting the two entries. Turtle Fan? ML4E (talk) 21:08, October 19, 2015 (UTC)

I don't know that I'd call the SMB franchise literature, but it's a better fit than this. Turtle Fan (talk) 21:38, October 19, 2015 (UTC)