 That tropes are ontologically simple can be seen as providing the trope theorist with a tie-breaker vis-à-vis states of affairs (at least if those are understood as substrates instantiating universals). Such a tie-breaker is needed because, at least prima facie, a theory positing states of affairs has the same explanatory power as does one positing tropes. But a theory of states of affairs invokes—apart from the state of affairs itself—at least two (fundamental) sorts of things (universals and substrates), whereas a theory of tropes (at least a theory of tropes according to which tropes are simple, and objects are bundles of tropes) invokes only one (tropes). From the point of view of ontological parsimony, therefore, the trope view ought to be preferred.[13]