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 Leia, not quite a perfect example, but the closest one we got.
Sally: Why am I "The Woman"? Dick: [after a beat] Because you lost.
The " feminine", " spiritual", " heart", and/or sometimes " useless" aspect of the Five Man Band. This heroine (though guys can be The Chick too) is inches away from being a Distressed Damsel. She's probably at the bottom of the Super Weight scale, and is almost incapable of action on her own even when unopposed. So why exactly do we feel so sympathetic towards her and drawn in? She's not an Anti Sue loaded with flaws in order to elicit compassion; what she is is capable of bringing people together and encouraging the best in them.
It's the people she gathers and keeps at her side who'll do a lot of the heavy lifting. She'll encourage loyalty and teamwork, give them the courage or hope to unlock their true potential, be a Token Good Teammate that keeps her friends from Jumping Off The Slippery Slope, or basically act as the Kevin Bacon that unites La Resistance. She's usually a Nice Girl, but her demeanor can go anywhere from shy and demure, to brave and adventurous. Though she is rarely The Heroine of a story, there are a lot of heroines who are The Chick. Usually they're out to complete an Impossible Task, defeat the Big Bad, or maybe she just wants to go home.
Their functional role will often be The Heart and social influence of the group. Sometimes this means 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, mediate the argument between The Smart Guy / The Spock and The Big Guy / The Mc Coy, slap some sanity into The Lancer before he ends up getting too dark, and convincing the Obstructive Bureaucrat to let them continue their quest. It's not the coolest job in the world, but it's helpful.
Of course, someone who is essentially the beneficiary of a Sidekick Ex Machina spread out over several people will end up on her own at a crucial juncture. Expect her to surprise the Big Bad, her friends, and herself by finding a way to win on her own.
As a trope The Chick can end up out of place if the show doesn't play to her natural strengths, especially if it's a highly violent action story or debunks them. If badly written, she's in danger of becoming a Damsel Scrappy: a whiny, ditzy deadweight whose only purpose is serving as the Distressed Damsel, Token Girl, and/or Love Interest. Fortunately though, better writers can portray even these "useless" Chicks effectively — 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.
It is possible for The Chick to become an Action Girl or be one from the start, but there is a fine balance being "feminine" and aggressive. Often, an Action Girl will be a girl with a guy's personality, though sometimes they DO express a wish to be a bit more chicky without losing their fighting skills. If they take a level in badass without losing their core personality, then they've effectively upgraded to an Action Girl. Conversely (and unsurprisingly), it's WAY too common to have fans unfairly label Chickification to an Action Girl if she shows any sort of "female emotion".
Powers and skills common to the chick are:
- They will usually be The Medic, the one with the Healing Hands. In magical settings, they'll be a Squishy Wizard who has contemporary medical training, uses White Magic to heal and protect her friends, or becomes a Black Magician Girl in the course of the story. In other situations, a Dark Magical Girl or a Barrier Warrior (more fight-active than the Staff Chick, but still geared more towards defense than attack) are also common.
- On the flip side, the Chick can be a healer of mental and emotional hurts, through an exceptional ability to understand people and reach out to them. This might be due to psychological training, social skills, empathy, and sometimes even chess mastery. These skills also helps her to gain resources for the team through diplomacy and manipulation, or work her way through different problems without lifting a hand against anyone when times are hard and not suit for fighting.
- In fact, The Chick 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, and sometimes having ability to convince others to do things for her or the group. The Chick is also the most likely to have Psychic Powers (especially of the foreshadowing variety).
- Chicks tend to be supporting figures in combat. Often they'll have a Simple Staff, or a bow or other ranged weapon. Subversions of the archetypal Chick may be given greater fighting ability than this to allow her to keep up more with her bandmates. Even more of a subversion may make her a Cute Bruiser or Lady Of War, a Black Magician Girl or a Hot Amazon.
- In comedies, The Chick can sometimes get things accomplished with the patented Armor Piercing Slap, or even the Megaton Punch, specially against unruly teammates of The Lancer or The Hero type. Bonus point if said Chick has mood swings or also possesses verbal wits.
Examples
Anime and Manga
- Sakura of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle is both a straight example and a subversion, since that character had already appeared in another work by the same authors, where she was The Hero. She kept exactly the same personality, but with a serious downgrade in magic abilities and three fighting experts as companions she transformed into a Chick. She also regularly lampshades the fact that she feels useless in the group because of her inability to fight. Later she upgrades to being an Action Girl once she gets her hands on some guns and A Day In The Limelight. She also doubles as The Empath, the Oracular Urchin and The Messiah. Later, in Infinity country, once a certain member of the group has left, she arguably becomes The Hero and (literally) The Chess Master.
- Likewise, Sakura from Naruto.
- Not just Sakura, there's Ino from Team 10, Hinata from Team 8, Tenten from Team 9, Temari of the Sand Siblings, Tsunade from the Sannin, Rin from Kakashi's original team, Konan from Akatsuki, Tayuya from the Souns Four, Kin from the three Sound Genin, Karin from Hebi, Kurenai as a Team Leader, even the 5th Mizukage at the meeting of the Kages in the manga is the only female Kage at that point. It seems Masashi Kishimoto will put major characters into comas to maintain his ratio of exactly one female in every major group in Naruto
- Nami of One Piece, though she too has Taken A Level In Badass as of late.
- Nami and Robin seem to share this role as of the formers acceptance in the crew. Both carry secondary roles as well.
- "G-3" Jun the Swan from Gatchaman. A Trope Codifier for Anime/Manga characters. Primarily, the Token Girl from being on an all male team. She can be seen as either an Action Girl who is self-sufficient from owning and running her own snack bar and a skilled fighter that can knock thugs unconscious with the same ease of her male companions, or a victim of Chickification and occasional Distressed Damsel when the story calls for it to give Ken/Joe some hero spotlight moments.
- Also, since she's the technical and demolitions expert of the team, she is arguably better at being The Smart Guy than the show's actual smart guy.
- A rare male example in a show with mostly male characters, China from Axis Powers Hetalia is often seen as the chick in the Allied Forces five man band for being the most bishonen and kinda artsy. He's also The Woobie of the group getting hassle even from the allies until he changes out of his traditional robes into a mao suit.
- Total inversion: The Aasu sisters from Puni Puni Poemi are all Chicks, all five of them. Their powers also suck.
- Outlaw Star makes two other bandmates women in order to counterbalance The Chick Melfina; specifically, The Big Guy (Aisha) and The Sixth Ranger (Suzuka).
- Inoue Orihime from Bleach. She heals and build barriers, is sensitive and nurturing, cries the name of the main hero, she gets saved, she's part of a five-man band made up of Ichigo, Uryu, Chad, herself, and Rukia (Yes, Rukia is also a girl - but while she can be pretty girly sometimes, she's quite more action-oriented). So Yeah.
- Botan, Keiko, Yukina, Shizuru and Atsuko from Yu Yu Hakusho. All five have needed to be saved at some point (manga-only, in Atsuko's case), but are generally side characters just outside of the Competence Zone. They're all tougher than the normal Chick (Botan, Yukina and Shizuru have more-or-less useful powers too) and can hold their own against humans, but they still can't reach Badass Normal level when facing demons. Or can they?
- Anzu/Tea of Yu Gi Oh, and Shizuka when she was around.
- Caro in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, who manages to fit this role in a mostly female cast by being a ten-year old who has Status Buffing as one of her specialties and is generally less action-oriented compared to everyone else. Of course, since this is Nanoha, where small and female are traits you should run away from, her other specialty is summoning dragons. Big dragons. Approach chick with caution.
- Azmaria in Chrono Crusade, the Token Loli with spiritual powers that allow her to heal others and fly...and not much else. In the anime she's mostly there to look cute and get in trouble, although she does serve as a peacemaker of the group. In the manga she behaves this way at first, but through Character Development she slowly becomes stronger and more determined—enough that, during the final battle, her ability to stay calm under pressure holds the rest of the team together during a crisis and her spiritual knowledge serves a key part in stopping the Big Bad and his plans.
- Mikuru from The Melancholy Of Haruhi Suzumiya, the only member of the Five Man Band that Haruhi gets right.
- Go Lion's Princess Fala takes the role of both this, and the Blue lion Pilot after the demise of Takashi.
- Scheza from Wolfs Rain may be an example of this trope carried out well.
- Shannon in Umineko No Naku Koro Ni.
Comic Books
Film
Literature
- While Animorphs fans have had some trouble agreeing on who's actually The Chick, Rachel has never been a contender. She's beautiful, her hobby is gymnastics, and she loves both shopping and her boyfriend, but she's The Big Guy, an Action Girl who becomes a Blood Knight.
- Cassie, the animal-loving pacifist and girlfriend to "the Hero", Jake, is a more likely suspect.
- Being The Chick may be all that is consistent in Trillian across all versions of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Douglas Adams admitted that he didn't write her as a well-rounded character because he never really understood women.
- In Enid Blyton's Famous Five books Anne is so much of The Chick she verges on a Yamato Nadeshiko. Oddly though it is Dick though that takes the role of The Heart.
- Journey To The West features a very... odd subversion of this trope - the monk Xuangzang is so perfect an example of The Chick he's (note the masculine) sometimes even portrayed as such. This, of course, leads to tons of Ho Yay with the other main character of the story, Sun Wukong. Given his overall uselessness, stupidity, and propensity to be captured by anything under the sun, it's no wonder why most everyone who reads the story kinda really hates him. In a double subversion, it's also as become common to protray Wukong as the girl, just to make him (her?) seem more awesome.
- There are a variety of psychology/morality puzzles that involve four people who get themselves into a situation where a series of events occur, usually culminating in tragedy, and the listener is charged with putting the characters in order from who acted the most "right" and who acted the most "wrong". Of the four, only one will ever be female, she will always be The Chick, and usually she's the one who suffers the tragedy. Where the listener places her in the morality spectrum represents their views on women, regardless of what she does in the puzzle story; the other three usually represent specific virtues or behaviors, but the female represents only women as a whole. With most of these puzzles, putting the female character at anything lower than the Most Right (or, less often, Second Most Right) will label you a misogynist.
Live Action TV
- Princess Deirdre of The Mystic Knights Of Tir Na Nog
- Gwen from Torchwood
- A lot of The Doctor's companions.
- Kimberly from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is the typical Valley Girl with a crush on the Sixth Ranger. In the pilot episode she teased that she didn't want to join the group because of "helmet hair." Trini on the other hand, despite having a few chick-like elements, has more in common with The Lancer and The Big Guy.
- Sweet Dee from Its Always Sunny In Philadelphia is "the useless chick" according to Mac's breakdown of the Five Man Band. She certainly seems to be the most emotional member of the Gang, but that may be because she's also the Butt Monkey.
- Detective Irene Daniels of The Closer, who isn't seen in too much physical combat (although she can certainly hold her own), and is much more girly than the rest of the all-male Priority Homicide Squad (besides, of course, Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson). However, she is apparently brilliant at forensic accounting - tracking down relevant documents relating to murder victims and suspects.
- Detective Judy Hoffs(Holly Robinson) on 21 Jump Street.
Video Games
- Princess Peach from the Super Mario Bros games. Even in her solo game, Super Princess Peach, her abilities are very stereotypically feminine.
- More evident in Super Smash Bros - in The Subspace Emissary she makes herself useful by breaking up fights and turning potential enemies into friends, mysteriously producing tea, in contrast with the Action Girls Samus and Sheik.
- Rika of Phantasy Star IV is The Chick for most of the game once all of the permanent, non-optional members are in— she's even briefly The Chick in a Power Trio. However, she's much more well-balanced than the typical RPG example: all of her magic— all of it— is healing or status magic, but she's a powerful melee fighter and her physical attacks are second only in damage output to Chaz once he gets the Elsydeon. Before that, they're about equal.
- Flonne plays this trope straight. Yukimaru subverts it by having better combat skill than most chicks.
Webcomics
Western Animation
Web Animation
- Shandala, the one main female character from Broken Saints. And yet it still doesn't come off as ridiculous, silly, or sexist.
- Jenny in Park Bench, although she's not part of a Five Man Band.
Examples of The Chick who doubles as another member
Anime and Manga
- Hiro in Wa ga na wa Umishi. Technically a full member of Nanba Salvage, her main duties seem to be cooking, bitching at the guys, walking around in her underwear and, occasionally, data collection.
- Sailor Moon: Sailor Moon herself is pretty firmly The Chick, despite being the main character and The Messiah. She acts as the team's moral and emotional pillar, and is least often the one to take frontal assault duties when fighting various enemies, generally doing her best to simply survive until she has a chance to whip out a Finishing Move.
- Also, Ami aka Sailor Mercury, is sweet, shy, bookish and has defensive abilities based on water and ice, 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, Francoise aka 003 generally senses danger so the big strong men can deal with it, holds the psychic 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 when they need her abilities no matter what horrible things she has to see or sense to aid them, keeps her cool when it's needed, gives the bratty Lancer of the group verbal beatdowns more than once without flinching, is Dr. Gilmore's most reliable assistant, and when necessary she proves that she is fully capable of defending herself and even occasionally saving the day singlehandedly. Thus, she doubles as The Chick and The Smart Guy, with some dashes of The Lancer when on her boldest.
Video Games
Western Animation
- 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.
- Katara, the Team Mom of and the original Messiah of Avatar The Last Airbender, combines the roles of The Chick and of The Lancer.
- Emily Hart, A.K.A Steelhart, is somewhere between The Big Guy (Boisterous Bruiser), and The Smart Guy (she's somewhat smarter then her brother).
Examples of a male member holding The Chick role
Anime and Manga
- Kyohei, the official team chef, on Bakuretsu Tenshi.
- 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.
- 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 Butt Monkey). Therefore, he helps out the all-or-mostly-female acrobats of the Kaleido Stage.
- Shuuichirou Oishi from The Prince Of Tennis. He's 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.
- In the context of The Allied Forces, The Chick is the artsy and sensitive Woobie of the Five Man Band, Wang Yao aka China.
- When the Nordic group is viewed through similar dynamics, the one more liable to end up as The Chick is Iceland, the youngest.
- Male example: Andromeda Shun of Saint Seiya. Enough so that people get confused.
- In the original Go Lion roster, Isamu Kurogane was this rather then The Lancer. . . until Takashi died.
Comic Books
- Angel in the original X-Men line-up, mostly because his powers were the least combat-effective. Multiple attempts have been made to power him up over the last 45 years; most of them haven't worked.
- Archangel and the mid-80's would like to have a word with you.
Literature
- Fiver of Watership Down. Doubles as The Lancer along with Bigwig, as the two of them are the only ones who will ever call Hazel out after they reach Watership Down.
Live Action TV
- 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.
- Stargate SG-1's Daniel Jackson. Carter doesn't fit, she's The Lancer. The catch is both of them share the role of The Smart Guy.
- Much, in Robin Hood: The character identifies himself as the "one who deals with little things".
- Djaq could also be considered The Chick, since she's the resident healer and occasionally counsels the guys on their problems (especially Allan)
- Timothy McGee in NCIS. All the women in the series take other roles (e.g. Ziva is The Big Guy, and Abby is The Smart Guy).
- Darren, of the Sketch Comedy team The Whitest Kids U Know. He will invariably play any female character (though sometimes Timmy will crossdress when it's Played For Laughs).
Video Games
- In Suikoden I, one could claim that Gremio plays this role for Tir and company, particularly as Team Mom.
Webcomics
- Elan, from Order Of The Stick: Clueless, but concerned for the rest of the group, and skilled in
Social-Fu Trope-Fu.
- 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.
- The Sorrow in The Cobra Days, especially in his early appearances. He's not much of a fighter unless he's being possessed by a dead ninja, but he can be very emotionally insightful, although it doesn't necessarily do him much good.
 He develops more Smart Guy qualities later in the comic.
- Subverted in the webcomic Narbonic — Artie the gerbil who transforms into a 6-foot-2 muscular Big Guy is super-intelligent vegan, and pacifist; Mell is an attractive young college intern who loves explosives, firearms, and other typical Big Guy stuff.
Web Original
Western Animation
- 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!
- 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.
- Cheetor, The Bumblebee of Beast Wars, got relatively few action moments compared with his compatriots. This is somewhat understandable, since his role as the Fragile Speedster was usually to act as scout, but the poor kid did get captured or injured with alarming frequency.
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