Basic Trope: One person on The Team has a specialty in social skills.
- Straight: Bob is the mediator/spokesman/mission control guy for his group.
- Exaggerated: Bob knows, and is on good terms with, every muggle, villain and god in the world.
- Downplayed: Everyone in the group could represent the group as a whole but Bob usually does the talking because he likes to hear his own voice.
- Justified:
- Bob is a friendly and empathetic guy.
- Hans is both ungodly boring and often makes unwise decisions for the sake of honor, Lance is too snarky and sarcastic to even sound remotely polite, Simon is socially inept and often uses unnecessarily fancy and overcomplicated words in even the most simple sentences, Hannah is a massive loony who often talks about things not related to the topics at hand, and Bruce is a moron that Never Learned to Talk in the first place. Bob is the Face because he is the only one in the group who's reasonable, personable, and fluent.
- Because the Super Power Lottery gave Bob Telepathy, Omniglot and other communication-based powers, the rest of the group elect him for this role.
- Inverted:
- Bob is the most socially inept person in the group.
- Bob is a jerkass, and so he is never the one to talk on behalf of the group.
- Subverted: Bob seems nice but he's actually a jerkass.
- Double Subverted Bob's teammates are evil, making him more social in comparison.
- Parodied:
- The heros prepare to Storm the Castle but Bob, having the Big Bad on speed dial, calls him up and talks him out of his Evil Plan.
- Bob is eating with the Big Bad and unintentionally Talking the Monster to Death.
- Zig Zagged: Bob has mood swings where he can slide from a Shrinking Violet to The Charmer.
- Averted: All the members of Bob's group are equally socially capable.
- Invoked: Da Chief assigned Bob to his gang of Cowboy Cops to deal with the inevitable PR problems.
- Lampshaded: "Let me do the talking. I have a way with people."
- Exploited: Bob uses his social savvy to pick up chicks.
- Defied : The heroes refuse to recruit a socially capable guy because Violence is the Only Option.
- Discussed: "When we meet The Emperor, I don't want to see a Lance, laptop or hammer come out. Bob's The Social Expert here, let him do his thing."
- Conversed : "Bob needs to start Defusing the Tyke-Bomb before it kills his teammates. It'll likely happen at the end of the episode."
- Deconstructed:
- If Violence is the Only Option then Bob feels like The Load.
- If Bob is regularly successful then the others see little action.
- Reconstructed:
- After a Rousing Speech, he redefines himself from 'negotiator' to Mission Control and coordinates the group's very violent missions.
- When not negotiating, Bob can coordinate and inspire his team to perform better than they would do alone.
Back to The Face
