This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Lale: About the Five-Man Band roles...
From Chickification:
Yumi originally fit the profile of The Lancer, but she is also the love interest of The Hero, and it just wouldn't be right if he didn't constantly have to rescue her. So, despite her seasonal power upgrade with the rest of the team, Yumi has become more and more incompetent in combat, and always the first to lose all her Life Points. At the same time, the original Chick Aelita has acquired energy blasts, wings, and gotten quite proficient at flying the Overboard to the point where Jeremy claims she's got the best stats of all the Lyoko Warriors. This shift in status is most likely due to the unique status quo of the Five-Man Band — Aelita is the love interest of The Smart Guy Jeremy, who, rather than The Hero Ulrich, is also the team leader.
Aside from being the tallest, Yumi has no qualities of The Big Guy. Odd, on the other hand, has a textbook The Big Guy personality and approach to combat, and he's the antithesis of Jeremie, The Smart Guy. In debates about who is the team leader, those noted to have traits of the leader include Ulrich, Jeremie, Aelita, or Yumi... that's everyone but Odd, so he's obviously not The Lancer.
St Fan: This is getting ridiculous.
Yumi has plenty qualities as The Big Guy. She shows impressive feats of strength in the series (breaking a glass between her hand, tearing open a metal grate to save Odd from drowning, lifting Hiroki with one hand). On Lyoko, her telekinesis made her the heavy hitter of the group, and she even killed Creepers barehanded.
As for the Chickification and Faux Action Girl aspect, they are shades of them, but frankly those are not the most extreme example of these tropes. Not enough to change her role in the Five-Man Band, as she is still one of the best fighters on Lyoko. And she is too similar in temperament to Ulrich to ever have been The Lancer, anyway.
And Odd is definitively The Lancer. I’ve read and reread the description of this trope. The Lancer is a foil to The Hero, complementary with his strength and weakness, and opposed in demeanor. Odd is a long-range fighter opposed to Ulrich’s close-range, less reliant on superpowers and strength and more on agility and skill, etc. He’s an extravert in opposition to Ulrich’s introversion, a KidAnova opposed to Ulrich’s shyness, etc. Frankly, they are the two parts of a comedic duo, Ulrich being the Straight Man and Odd the oddball. Odd fits about every detail of the trope.
It is useless to base the character role on the “chain-of-command”, since this band is unusual anyway with the Smart Guy being the leader. But for Odd’s leadership qualities, we do see them, when he commands monsters in “Marabounta”.
The Chickification page certainly needs a rewrite.
Lale: I changed it once; how is that ridiculous?
No, this is one of the most egregious, blatant examples of Chickification if only because another girl is simultaneously developed the opposite way. Yumi's two feats of strength don't outweigh Odd's personality and fighting style (charge in head first, no questions asked) from every episode. Remember, the leader in this case is not The Hero, so The Hero's foil is not automatically The Lancer. The Smart Guy's and The Big Guy's descriptions state they're best friends; by that logic, Aelita is The Big Guy.
St Fan: I'll stick to my opinion. Your arguments are plain unconvincing.
Odd fits perfectly as The Lancer. Yumi has enough qualities as The Big Guy to fill that role in the Five-Man Band.
Freezair For A Limited Time: Sorry, but I definitely agree with Lale here. Odd's battle tactics, lack of general intelligence, and loud brash qualities make him far more of a Big Guy than Yumi ever was. Roles in the Five-Man Band are about personality, not strength. While strength IS a defining characteristic of The Big Guy, general personality is even more so. And Odd is definitely a Dumb Muscle kind of guy.
Lale: Thanks. And I just remembered — that thing with the glass was part of a XANA attack; that's why Yumi was so suprirsed that it happened, because she wasn't squeezing the glass like she was trying to break it.
Odd's been listed as The Big Guy and Yumi as The Lancer then The Chick ever since Code Lyoko was added to the Five-Man Band list... until now. Anyone besides St Fan see Yumi as The Big Guy? There is absolutely no discussion on any pages about why the change was made, apparently so randomly. In any case, it's 2-1 now.
Later: No more insight? On that note, it seems natural to want to deny that a female character is The Chick, and especially to deny when Chickification takes place, but in this case, a boy has the personality traits of The Big Guy, and the girl in question has none.
St Fan: About William: You can be both the Sixth Ranger and Sixth Column when mind control is involved.
About Yumi: See main article discussion.
Lale: Yumi isn't accused of having girly tastes or acting too much like a girl. She just gets less and less time to shine as the series goes on. She doesn't go through a "geuinely hard time." She doesn't go into a Heroic BSoD because her parents die or something, which causes her to lose her mojo in battle. She just... gets more and more incompetent in combat, with no explanation, no acknowledgement. It's just taken for granted that she gets devirtualized first or causes the least amount of damage to monsters, and it happens more and more frequently as the series goes on. And the Designated Victim aspect is in nobody's imagination.
And if this was just Bad Writing, why does Aelita get more skilled in combat, which is acknowledged by the other characters? And if this is just overreaction, why does nobody accuse Aelita of being a Faux Action Girl in the earlier seasons? Because she wasn't supposed to be a warrior; it's obvious that Yumi was.
IMHO, this is a case of people thinking every example of tropes like Chickification is an exaggeration or Fan Wank. If we wanted to peg every girl who acts like a girl as a Faux Action Girl, Aelita would have been the first accused, not Yumi.
St Fan: I have recently watched the whole series... and as I see it, Yumi NEVER "gets more and more incompetent in combat, with no explanation, no acknowledgement". You're seeing things that aren't here. We would need a very specific statistic of every episode to show whether or not she get devirtualized more or kill less monsters as the show go on, but it without such specific statistics it is nowhere evident — and such Character Derailement is supposed to be obvious. In Season 4 she beats William at the very least 3 times... do the others even do as much?
I don't contest the Designated Victim aspect... though even the "Pick on Yumi Week" is a bit of fan exageration. This, however, has nothing to do with the Action Girl status. On the contrary, it shows that she goes through plenty hard times and survive.
The same way, Aelita getting more powerful as the show went on did nothing to reduce Yumi's status as an Action Girl. For that matter the position of The Chick in the Five-Man Band say nothing about her fighting prowess... The Chick is not necessarily the weakest fighter.
I see neither a Chickification or Faux Action Girl case in the whole series, but plainly a Flanderization of both tropes as explained by the quote above.
St Fan: I am wondering if Fun Personified is a trope applying to Odd. He has some element of it, but the trope seems to be more applicable to secondary characters than to a main one...
Odd is also mentionned on The Berserker page. He might give this impression (especially in Season 1), though he's certainly not moody between fights...
St Fan: To Orihime, please stop adding that Ulrich and his dad's relationship did/might get better. It never did. "Zero Gravity Zone" is a Season 1 episode. If any, the relationship is getting WORST in the latter seasons.
