Story Lab: Tricksters and Those Two Guys

The first thing I looked up on TVTropes was Tricksters, as that's the topic of my project, and I wanted to read more about the character archetype. I really liked the description of Trickster characters used in the article; they're usually cunning or foolish (or both, as in the case of Wile E. Coyote), but they're rarely malicious, merely characters working in their own self-interest. Something that I noticed while reading this page (specifically the "Myths and Religion" tab) is that multiple tricksters often appear in the same mythology, often with one being far better liked than the others; examples include Loki and Odin in Norse Mythology, Hermes and his various descendants in Greek Myths, and the not one, not two, but three different races/species of tricksters in Japanese Mythology. Some characters that I didn't expect to be classified as tricksters were Bart Simpson and Figaro from the operas The Marriage of Figaro and The Barber of Seville.

From the Tricksters page, I followed some links and ended up at the Those Two Guys page. I feel like this trope could be worked into the frame story of my project. The basic idea is that two characters who exist almost as one characterized being act as comic relief and a sounding board for the more important characters. I could picture a pair of Those Two Guys sitting with the tricksters as they tell their stories and providing useless commentary- it would add to the already humorous idea of tricksters bragging to each other about tricks they've pulled.

At this point, I had already spent close to an hour reading TVTropes, and I couldn't let it suck up anymore of my time. But I think the ideas I read about will really help me with my project.

How much time I spent on TVTropes without even noticing. Source