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Sally: Why am I "The Woman"? Dick: [after a beat] Because you lost.
The "feminine" or "heart" aspect of the Five Man Band; traditionally the token female, and usually the most emotional or innocent member of the group.
Their functional role will often be the moral compass, social skills and influence of the group. Ideally, they'll serve as the Team Mom, taking care of the smaller details, both within the group and in the world outside. They look after innocents, deliver The Aesop, get The Smart Guy and The Big Guy to get over their argument, talk The Lancer out of getting too dark, and convince the Obstructive Bureaucrat to let them continue their quest. It's not the coolest job in the world, but it's helpful.
Powers and skills common to the chick are:
- The Chick will often be the band's "healer"; a Squishy Wizard who has contemporary medical training, or uses White Magic to heal and protect her friends. In settings of a futuristic bent, her Healing Hands may be due to Nanomachines. Being The Medic is virtually guaranteed if she's also a Mysterious Waif.
- Alternatively or additionally, the Chick can be a healer of emotional hurts, through an exceptional ability to understand people and reach out to them. This might be due to psychological training, social skills, and/or telepathy. These skills also helps her to solve problems and gain resources for the team through diplomacy.
- In fact, she often has other traits that help her influence other people, such as royal authority and/or being distractingly gorgeous. Being pretty and wholesome-looking can also help win people's trust.
- Chicks tend to be supporting figures in combat rather than straight-up fighters. But if forced to fight directly, she may defend herself with a Simple Staff, or sometimes a bow or other ranged weapon. Subversions of the typical Chick may be given greater combat ability than this to allow her to keep up more with her bandmates. With enough awesome, she could be a Cute Bruiser or Lady Of War. If a spellcaster, she might branch out from Staff Chick enough to double as a Black Magician Girl.
- When required, The Chick can sometimes get things accomplished with the patented Armor Piercing Slap, or even the Megaton Punch (though this is mostly for comic effect).
Unfortunately, if badly written (and there are many examples), The Chick is just some token girl who tags along, a useless deadweight who is ditzy, constantly getting herself into trouble, and whining at the uncaring other members. Fortunately, however, better writers can portray even these relatively "useless" Chicks sympathetically — at least so long as these characters do have agreeable attitudes and acceptable reasons for being part of the band, and/or develop them as the story advances.
If the Five Man Band is a Hero Secret Service protecting a character who is not the protagonist and/or is a liability most of time, typically the protected character is The Chick.
Note it is entirely possible for a male character to be The Chick, especially very young ones or those with bad health/no self-defense training (these go more for Non Action Guy). Paradoxically, it's also possible to be The Chick on teams that have several females.
For The Chick who used to be a genuine Action Girl, see Chickification.
Examples:
Examples of The Chick who doubles as another member:
- Mira Nova from Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command: A princess, so definitely The Chick, but a well-rounded heroic type who contrasts Buzz, so also The Lancer.
- Gadget from Chip And Dale Rescue Rangers: As implied by her name, The Smart Guy. It can even be said that, since Gadget very rarely acts girly, the team has a woman, but no Chick.
- Sailor Moon: Ami, aka Sailor Mercury, is sweet, shy, bookish and has defensive abilities based on water, so you'd expect her to be a secondary Chick after Moon. Instead, she's The Smart Guy, since she also happens to be a Teen Genius.
- Cyborg009, 003 generally senses danger so the big strong men can deal with it, holds the baby, and is usually the one who bemoans the fact that their duty as cyborgs keeps herself and the others from living peaceful lives. Yet she always joins the team in battle, and when necessary, proves that she is fully capable of defending herself and even occasionally saving the day singlehandedly.
- Katara, the Team Mom of and the original Messiah of Avatar The Last Airbender, combines the roles of The Chick and of The Lancer.
Examples of a female as a different member of the Band:
Examples of a male member holding The Chick role:
- Kotashi, the Non Action Guy and love interest of the (female) Smart Guy in Sailor Nothing.
- Xander of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, despite his attempts to change this, has pretty much always been The Chick of the team.
- In fact, in shows with a lot of supernatural or unusual goings-on — particularly if there are a lot of Action Girls - any token ordinary human with no special expertise, usually a male, becomes The Chick.
- Kyohei, the official team chef, on Bakuretsu Tenshi.
- Ma-Ti on Captain Planet And The Planeteers. Even he knew that what he was best at was getting rescued from danger... in the second episode!
- Stargate SG-1's Daniel Jackson. Carter doesn't fit, though they're both The Smart Guy.
- Elan, from Order Of The Stick: Clueless, but concerned for the rest of the group, and skilled in
Social-Fu Trope-Fu.
- Much, in Robin Hood: The character identifies himself as the "one who deals with little things".
- Antoine in the ABC ("SatAM") Sonic The Hedgehog cartoon. While he's supposedly Sally's bodyguard, he's also an ineffectual coward, the comic relief, and often needs rescuing by Sonic. Being stereotypically French doesn't help matters either.
- Rock from Black Lagoon. He isn't much for violence like Revy and Dutch are, but he makes up for it by being the Lagoon Company's negotiator and "Villain in Training". He's also the most idealistic of the crew, which occasionally puts him at odds with the more cynical Revy.
- Slick Giovanni from Last Resort. Yes, we know that almost all the prisoners were in some sort of bondage apparel when they brought them to the space station. Yes, we know being in prison equals lots of opportunities to look cute in restraints. But come on, man, pulling out the sympathy card so you'd get picked by Adharia after Jigsaw turned you down? Please tell us that's not your special ability.
- Kenneth Robbins aka Ken from Kaleido Star. He has a weak heart, so he can't perform (unless it's malabarism or comic routines, in which case he is Anna's Chew Toy). Therefore, he helps out the all-or-mostly-female acrobats of the Kaleido Stage.
- Shuuichirou Oishi from The Prince Of Tennis. He's also the Team Mom and The Medic, but sometimes acts as The Lancer to either Tezuka or Kikumaru.
- Another one could be little cute Taichi Dan from Yamabuki, who isn't a regular because he's much shorter than the other players, so he acts like the team manager.
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