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Basic Trope: A group of characters splits up into two (or more) smaller groups in order to simultaneously deal with different situations.

  • Straight: The Team splits up to follow two passages in the Big Bad's castle. The Leader Alice and her sidekick Bob take the first passage, while the other characters - Claire, David, Emily, Fred, George, and Henry - take the second.
  • Exaggerated: The group splits into individuals, and everyone goes a different way.
  • Downplayed: One member of the group leaves briefly.
  • Justified:
    • The group has a lot of ground to cover, and going in separate groups makes it faster.
    • The group are performing an exercise that involves endless swarms of foes; going ahead while others deal with them makes it faster.
    • The Team is big enough that after splitting up the groups are comprised of three or four members that can all handle themselves and cover each other reliably if something goes wrong.
  • Inverted: Two or more groups join.
  • Subverted: They agree to split up, but they never do.
  • Double Subverted: They agree to split up, but only do so later on.
  • Parodied: The individual body parts of one or more of the members split up as well, forming their own group.
  • Zig Zagged: The Team repeatedly separates and rejoins.
  • Averted: They don't split.
  • Enforced: The developers want to focus on various subplots within the party, and the best way to do that is to split them up.
  • Lampshaded: "We always split up in situations like this, and it always works."
  • Invoked: "Let's Split Up, Gang!! We'll cover more ground that way."
  • Exploited: Emily and Fred are a Happily Married couple, and have sex while everyone else is Exploring the Evil Lair.
  • Defied: "Let's stay together, gang. We don't want the Big Bad to capture anyone."
  • Discussed: "You know, this is an awfully big place to search..." "Don't worry, splitting up the gang should currently be unnecessary."
  • Conversed: "Why do mystery investigators always split up, that's when the monster attacks!" "To be fair, there's only so much you can learn in one room, so keeping everyone together ultimately takes longer if you're trying to solve something serious."
  • Implied: The whole team is shown, and in the next scene only some of them are. In the scene after that, it is shown that the other characters are somewhere else.
  • Deconstructed: While dividing their numbers may speed up progress, it also greatly reduces the group's survivability rating. Further, with all their talents separated, it is entirely likely one sub-group will miss or can't solve something another would of accomplished.
  • Reconstructed: Though as a group they're more likely to survive, each individual is sufficiently skilled with or knowledgeable of things relevant to their situation. Thus, the only way the sub-groups would fail is if they encounter something unexpected. Further, each sub-group is formed based on who would work best together and/or where they're supposed to go,

To save time exploring these tropes Let's Split Up, Gang!.

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