The Lancer - Television Tropes & Idioms

This is what it feels like to be this guy.

The right-hand man and go-to guy for The Hero. He has the same well-rounded skill set as his counterpart, but lacks his pure leadership ability and team spirit. If the hero is The Captain, the Lancer is his Number Two. The Lancer will often be a rival, friendly or otherwise, to the hero, and possibly will also hold a desire for the hero's girlfriend or sister (be younger or older).

The Lancer will usually serve as a foil to the hero. If the hero is an idiot, the Lancer will be The Spock, The Stoic, or The Quiet One. If the hero is chaste or celibate, the lancer will be a Handsome Lech or Casanova. The Cape or The Messiah will have a Lancer who is an Anti Hero, Ineffectual Loner, or even a Heroic Sociopath.

This is the member of the Five Man Band who is most likely to not be a team player. He's the one who sneaks off on his own to advance the team's goals independently. He might be jealous of the leader, and think he'd be better for the job. If The Complainer Is Always Wrong and there's a chronic complainer to act as the show's Butt Monkey, it's this guy. He's also the one most likely on the team to go Turn Coat, and the last one the hero will suspect. Nevertheless, there's a strong chance that his rivalry with the hero may develop into a deep friendship. This is a frequent source of Ho Yay.

In the event that the hero of the team is unable to lead, or the team temporarily has no Hero, The Lancer steps in. Usually against his will. This plot is used to contrast the hero's leadership style against what the lancer's would be. A frequent ending for this plot is for the lancer to gladly give up the reins of power.

Powers and skills common to the lancer include:

The Hero and The Lancer may serve as Ryu And Ken, with abilities that mirror or complement each other.
However, if there's only one stealthy guy on the team, the Lancer is typically that guy. Rather than being The Ken, sneaky Lancers may fill the Fragile Speedster role in the band, being a quick and deadly opponent who relies on agility and guile rather than brute force. Alternatively, he's a Glass Cannon Straight Arrow (or Gunslinger) who relies on firepower and distance. Ninjas, Black-Ops men, and snipers are often Lancers. This may also make the Lancer a Badass Normal in a superpowered Band.
Since he's usually the hero's counterpoint, he may be the one who is willing to do dirty tricks or enter moral grey areas. If there's only one Con Man on a team full of straight-laced heroes, it's this guy.
Conversely, The Lancer on a less-than-scrupulous or less-than-intelligent team may be its Only Sane Man, trying (often futilely) to keep the chaos under control. This Lancer may resemble a more traditional Hero (or the Team Mom version of The Chick, if acting as a moral compass).

When worst comes to worst, The Lancer is the one person on the team who is likely to die for the cause. The Lancer is also an extremely common Ensemble Darkhorse or Draco In Leather Pants and vulnerable to BadassDecay in the wrong hands.

It's becoming more and more common for this character to be female, either multi-classed with, or in contrast to, The Chick. Having the character who is both most like and most in contrast to The Hero as also being the strongest woman can create romantic tension and/or UST. If not multi-classed with The Chick, she may be in a Love Triangle, acting as the Veronica to The Chick's Betty in pursuit of the object of her secret desire, The Hero. A female Lancer and The Chick may develop into an Odd Couple, and even begin to work as an ersatz Lovely Angels sub-team. A former Dark Magical Girl almost always becomes The Lancer after her Heel Face Turn.

In the event that the Lancer is straight-forwardly aggressive and not particularly sneaky, The Smart Guy may actually be a second Lancer of the sneaky type, though he may still have more of a Smart Guy personality.

Named for the tradition of yeomen, just a step below knights, in the middle ages to use lances.

Examples:

Anime and Manga

"Condor" Joe Asakura, a.k.a. G-2 from the Science Ninja Team Gatchaman. In the beginning, he's a Heroic Sociopath constantly undermining Ken's authority because he wouldn't let Joe go on the attack. But by the second half of the first series, Joe's the only one who's able to talk Ken down when he MAJORLY Freaks Out after Red Impulse, Ken's long-absent father, is killed. Joe somewhat subverts the stereotype because he actually would have led the Science Ninja Team if not for a terminal brain injury.
In the Sailor Moon anime, Rei/Sailor Mars is the Lancer of the team. The English dub exaggerated this into a running subplot of her trying to subvert Usagi's leadership. In the manga, however, the Lancer is Minako/Sailor Venus.
Rina/Green Pearl Voice from Mermaid Melody Pichi Pichi Pitch, and until Character Derailment gets her, Caren.
Minto Aizawa/Mew Mint from Tokyo Mew Mew is The Lancer to Ichigo Momomiya/Mew Ichigo.
Fate Testarossa, indeed an ex-Dark Magical Girl, in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. In StrikerS, Vita and Signum become Lancers to Nanoha and Fate, respectively.
Haruna Kisaragi/Corrector Haruna from Corrector Yui, who was also a Dark Magical Girl for a time. In the second season anime, Control and Synchro/War Wolf are Yui's Lancers when they, IR and Rescue form a Five Man Band. Also, Ai Shinozaki/Corrector Ai is sometimes Lacer-like
In Soukou No Strain, Lottie considers Sara her Lancer up until she realizes Sara's identity. She finally admits that maybe it's the other way around.
Natsumi/Shiro Loli in Saint October.
Every team on Digimon had one member who didn't get along with The Hero, escalating every season. To date: Yamato, Takeru, Ken, Ruki, Kouji, Touma.
Kai of Beyblade switched between The Lancer and The Rival. Rei/Ray also had his moments.
Vegeta from Dragonball Z played both The Lancer and The Rival to Goku after joining forces with the heroes against Frieza on Namek.
- He's not the only Z Warrior who fits, either: Piccolo can make a good case.
- Previous to that, Yamcha, Krillin, and Tien (and Chi-Chi for about five seconds) all had a run as the Lancer.
Ishida and Chad in Bleach Ishida fits the rivalry mould, hating The Hero based on his race (Shinigami) but finding him a decent person other than that. Chad acts as a good parallel with Ichigo's powers, since both have powers that stem from dark sources that they use to protect people. Chad's power is akin to that of a Hollow, which is why - like Hollows - all his abilities have Spanish names. And Ichigo's is half hollow. The difference between them is when Chad discovers this he embraces the power.
Brock plays Lancer to Ash in the Pokemon anime, though not the games (which are a different universe entirely).
The lion version of Voltron has a Lancer appropriately named Lance.
Natsuki Kuga is Mai's Lancer in Mai-HiME, being both her Foil (Mai is very straight-laced, while Natsuki's willing to break a few rules to meet her personal objective) and opposite number in the Elemental Powers department (Mai uses fire, and Natsuki uses ice).
Sasuke Uchiha from Naruto fits this in almost every possible sense.
Ironically, Lancer from Fate Stay Night does fit the lancer personality perfectly, except for one thing: he's, well, the enemy. But aside from that, he is the game's speedster, does gets along rather well with the protagonists in one route despite *not* being a team player, has his heroic pride and honor while being morally grey, declares he has a thing for Rin (the Tsundere heroine of said route), does a Heel Face Turn in many routes, etc...
Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu plays with this, in that the Lancer, Kyon, is in fact both the narrator and the main character.
Jet Link aka 002 is Joe Shimamura aka 009's Lancer in Cyborg 009. Albert Heinrich aka 004 sometimes fits in, too.
Guts filled this role in Berserk when he was still part of the Band of the Hawk.
Snagglebit in the obscure 1990s anime The Littl' Bits fit this trope to a T.

Video Games

Protoman (Blues) often fills in this role in the original Mega Man games. Zero in the X series takes it a little bit further, as his antisocial nature has led to more than one physical fight with X. Dex nails the Lancer role in the Battle Network games.
- Dex tries, but he comes off as being the would-be hero that manages to do something right...almost never. Protoman and Chaud claim the role of Lancer all over again, being a far more serious threat to both the enemy and the hero.
- Dex might actually be an inversion. He has nothing but leadership abilities. He's a fantastic leader and motivator, but lacks the competence to back it up, which is all Lan's. This would probably be why he ended up mayor of Akihara in the series ending.
Knuckles in Sonic The Hedgehog started out as a Lancer, but lately his role has been handed off to Shadow and Knuckles has been relegated to the role of The Big Guy.
Kain from Final Fantasy IV: The Hero's best friend, member of the Five Man Band, multiple-time Turn Coat, and in love with (and formerly romantically involved with) The Chick. Plus, wields a lance.
- The fact that Kain's class Dragoon, is renamed Lancer in Final Fantasy Tactics caused this troper to think this trope was actually named for Kain.
Shadow from ''Final Fantasy VI': Advances the plot independantly by joining the enemy, is very fast (able to trap Kefka behind his statues), self-sacrificing (can die if you don't wait for him), has item-based Throw ability like Edgar, a martial arts character like Sabin, with a mysterious identity like Gogo.
- Possibly also Sabin, since he is a counterpart to Edgar who leaves him and eventually rejoins after having trained separately. Both have a variety of elemental ranged attacks, use of shields.
- Celes can be the Lancer to Terra as a main character. Linked to the villain historically, she has complimenting powers (Terra's ability amplifies offensive magic, Celes' has her defend against magic). Both are rival love interests to the first male protagonist, Locke (who has a lost love). Both also have forlorn lovers interested in them that they don't return the affections of (Setzer, who also had a Lost Love, though possibly she wasn't really lost... for Celes, Edgar for Terra).
An early CRPG example: Nazim in The Magic Candle.
Though they're technically on opposite sides, the prosecutors from the Ace Attorney series often become closer to The Lancer after a few cases against the main character.
Kimahri Ronso from Final Fantasy X displays many of these characteristics, and rather appropriately wielded a lance.
Falco from Star Fox fits this trope like a glove.
Barret Wallace from Final Fantasy VII is a unique mix of Big Guy and Lancer, with bonus Token Minority points thrown in. He even founded the Well Intentioned Extremist organization you start off as part of, and sometimes seems a little too ready to think of himself as The Hero early on.
Dio from Ogre Battle 64.
In Tales Of Symphonia's initial Five Man Band, Raine plays the role of smart and cynical Lancer to Lloyd's idealistic Idiot Hero. As the plot progresses and more characters are added, though, Zelos takes on this role as a much more traditional Lancer, leaving Raine to replace her younger brother Genis as The Smart Guy.
- It could be argued that Genis plays Lancer the entire time and Raine is The Smart Guy.
Though The Lancer and not The Hero of his Three Amigos, Riku of Kingdom Hearts was the leader by virtue of being one year older and because of his natural drive. He had very clear and strong ideas about what he wanted, and Sora and Kairi followed.
In Fire Emblem 7, Hector and Lyn *both* fit as Lancers for Eliwood. Just like in FE 6, Straight Arrow Wolt and Magical Girl Lilina are sort-of Lancers for The Hero Roy.
- Hector also has his own Lancer in the figure of General Oswin, and it can be said that Marcus was Eliwood's Lancer before Hector and Lyn stepped in.
- If we're talking about Hector's Route in the game, Matthew the Thief has a short run as Hector's Lancer at the beginning, until Oswin and Serra come in.
- In "Lyndis's Tale", Lyn had Kent as her Lancer since Sain was a bit more of The Big Guy of her Troupe.
In Fire Emblem 8... The Paladin Seth is The Lancer to either Eirika or Ephraim, depending on the route you take. Innes fits more as Ephraim's Rival than Lancer.
- About Gerik and his mercenaries... Marisa the Crimson Flash fits as his Lancer since she's more of an Action Girl than Tethys, the Team Mom.
- In the case of Joshua, either Gerik, Marisa or Natasha (in a more serious, Staff Chick-y way) cane become his Lancers through supports as he rebuilds Jehanna )
- Rennac is The Lancer in L'Arachel's Power Trio.
Duke Cuan is both the best friend and The Lancer for Lord Sigurd in the first part of Fire Emblem 4 aka Seisen no Keifu. He also has his Lancer in the form of his protegé Finn.
In Halo 3, the Arbiter plays the role of Lancer to the Master Chief.
In Gears Of War, Dominic Santiago serves as Marcus Fenix's Lancer.
Junpei Iori, of Persona3. Eager to prove himself, bitter about the Protagonist (and Aigis) being chosen to lead the team over him, brash, loud, poor grades, and a girlchaser.
Felius is Clarissa's lancer in Wild ARMs XF.

Comic Books

Batman fills this role in most incarnations of the Justice League. The darker interpretations fall into the Rival/Anti-Heroic version of this trope, with Superman as The Hero.
- Nightwing is an example of how the Lancer's traits depend on who The Hero is: when he fills this role for Batman, his empathy, idealism, and approachability are played up as a contrast to Bruce.
Hawkeye of The Avengers. He tends to chafe under Captain America's leadership, but it's clear how much like Cap he is -- he even led both his own Avengers franchise and the Thunderbolts for several years.
- Iron Man has also acted as a Lancer to Captain America at times; this was used to add extra tension to their conflict in the Crisis Crossover Civil War.
Better late than never: Wolverine of the X-Men.
- Iceman was the Lancer of the original five, with an attitude bigger than Connecticutt and a constant bone to pick with The Hero, Cyclops.
- A solid case could be made for Angel as the Lancer of the original five, actually, right down to being a rival for the affections of The Chick. Not to mention that unlike Iceman, Angel has actually done the leadership thing on occasion.
- It should be noted that Wolverine (and Rogue, under similar circumstances years later) panicked and tried to refuse when ordered into a leadership position (despite proving rather competent in same). Nobody has had the nerve to try that stunt on Iceman.
  - Therefore, it of course makes perfect sense that Wolverine becomes the new leader in the upcoming animated series. Because it's not like Cyclops is right there.
Moonstone of the Thunderbolts is somewhere between this trope and The Starscream.
Speedy I/Arsenal/Red Arrow has often played this role against Robin/Nightwing in the Teen Titans (and later the Outsiders).
Namor is perhaps he MU's resident Lancer, having filled the role on every team he has ever been in, and simply filling that role for the MU heroes in general.
- Depending On The Writer, Aquaman can also be an all-purpose Lancer. Particularly on Justice League.
The Huntress was the Lancer to Black Canary's Hero in Birds of Prey, at least until the Canary left.

Western Animation

Abby Lincoln/Numbuh 5 from Codename:Kids Next Door.
Brooklyn in Gargoyles, especially when Goliath promoted him to be his Number Two. He differs that while Goliath is very physical and direct in his methods with a knack for inspiring his clan, Brooklyn is quieter and more calculating at work as a superb tactician who can organize assaults that seemingly can whup anybody. His only major weakness is that he hates Demona with a fury strong enough to attack her on sight, to the frustration of the clan. However, the trope is subverted in that Brooklyn holds Goliath in high esteem and is in no hurry to challenge his authority, much less replace him. Still, during the extended time that Goliath was absent, Brooklyn was in charge and even old veteran Hudson defered to his authority.
In Transformers: Beast Wars, when the Maximals find themselves short one Optimus Primal, it comes to a vote to determine which of the Lancers will lead in his absence - Dinobot, or Rattrap. Dinobot was the big, straight-forward warrior type, and Rattrap was the small, underhanded saboteur type. On another occasion, Rhinox started to give the orders, as he was in a Very Bad Mood.
- In the followup Beast Machines, while Primal was absent Cheetor had stepped up to fill the leadership gap, causing him to become The Lancer when Primal returned. This time, it was more the "chafes under his authority, wants to usurp and lead" variety, possibly due to the fact that Optimus had become a damn dirty hippie.
Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is one of the most perfect examples of the Lancer.
In Thundercats, Tygra doubled as Lion-O's Lancer and SmartGuy. The latter is relative since the team's Big Guy, Panthro, was a Genius Bruiser.

Literature

Ron from the Harry Potter books fits the definition perfectly.
Commander Vimes from Discworld spins this trope widdershins. He's the protagonist of Watch books, and is the cynical commanding officer of idealistic Hero Carrot. Plus, now that Vimes is Duke of Ankh, he would be Number Two to the king, if Carrot ever decided to actually take the job.
- Also as Commander of the Watch and the richest man in the city, Vimes is effectively the second most influential and powerful man in the city, and often plays the Lancer role to the Patrician, though Havelock Vetinari is hardly the traditional hero.
Marco from the Animorphs series fits into this trope in that, in his more serious moments, he presented alternative--even borderline ruthless--options to team leader Jake and helped in formulating strategies when Jake had trouble doing so.
- Which makes him more of The Smart Guy than The Lancer. Tobias would arguably fit the trope much better.

Live Action TV

Several Angel characters have Lancer qualities, but easily the best fit is Spike in Season 5.
Owen from Torchwood falls under this fairly well.
Zoe plays the cool-headed Lancer to the often impulsive Mal in Firefly

Film

Han Solo in Star Wars
Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates Of The Caribbean. He is not, contrary to what gushing fanpeople would have you believe, The Hero.

In Name Only

Lancer, the school principal/teacher in Danny Phantom, is not even close to being The Lancer.
Neither is the American B-1B bomber, despite having the same official nickname.
And neither is the Wholesome Crossdresser Lancer from Robotech Third Generation (Genesis Climber Mospeada); he was The Smart Guy of the main Five Man Band, with Rand as Scott Bernard's Lancer. (And sometimes Rook, The Chick, also was lancer-ish)

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