On Five Man Band

Well, since you guys were discussing about it so I figured that I might as well launch a thread on it.

So, do you have a Five-Man Band or Four-Philosophy Ensemble in your work? IF there are, how are they like?

My main cast is made of five members but I'm not sure if they fit FMB*

• Ji-Ho is the one who comes up with all the in(s)ane ideas and is the driving force of the team. He is, however, not the main character.

• An-Mi is the most rational one in the group. She always intially objects JH's ideas.

• Hyun-Soo is the most stoic yet nutty individual. He persuades AM that JH's idea might be not as bad as it sounds. He is the main character.

• Ma-ree is the most cheerful one. However, she's a very cheerful snarker who points out why everything JH suggested doesn't make any sense. Then she proceeds to agree with because of it.

• Then An-Mi just sighs, calls everyone idiot, and follows along the plan. Then she takes charge in the whole plan and makes sure that it goes right, and ends up putting much more effort than necessary. Once the plan begins, she basically becomes the leader.

• Eun-A just tags along with whatever everyone else does.

edited 30th Dec '11 10:34:34 PM by dRoy

I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.

Hardly ever as an actual way to create characters. If anything, they just sort of form themselves. One of my stories is a bit more obvious about it, and Ricky even lampshades a bit that it's awkward having five people around, but I'd reckon it works.

• Ricky is the main character. Definitely The Hero but he really doesn't want to be.
• Tina is The Chick almost by default. Her powers as a cheerleader are to change emotions, which basically means she uses her looks to encourage/dissuade people.
• Ripasaur is The Smart Guy as a security robot, but could easily be The Big Guy if he wasn't so uppity about safety.
• Saxy Foxy is The Lancer, since she was a literal hero in her city and joined Ricky since she knows what's going on a bit.
• Dallas, despite being Ricky's best friend, would be The Big Guy due to his headfirst nature.

Ah... As much as I love the Five-Man Band, I only ever go out of my way to use it in impromptu storytelling. It's an easy way of classifying characters and gives me a bunch of tropes to work with.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

I don't care if my characters conform to any of the ensemble cast tropes, I don't go out of my way to use them, and so long as the character dynamics are good and the characters themselves are compelling, I don't worry about it.

"Shit, our candidate is a psychopath. Better replace him with Newt Gingrich."

As I've already said in Writer's Block Daily, I don't see any of the appeal that the Five-Man Band apparently has for a lot of people. I don't actively dislike it, but I don't get it, and I certainly would never want to base my characters off of it or shoehorn existing ones into its roles.

At first, I thought the Five-Man Band trope only applied to Sentai or Power Ranger-ish stuff. Reading further, the overarching philosophy seemed to be that action hero ensemble casts (like superhero teams) just naturally fall into these broad 5 to 6 categories, or any cohesive cast of characters could be shoved into them, really. I guess this is supposed to happen via the pressure of Conservation of Detail and writers not wanting to repeat character types and personalities.

I'm kinda leery of using the trope to design a cast.

I didn't think of the trope when writing, but my main cast is made up of two groups that could arguably fall into it.

I don't think it's ever a good idea to design an entire plot, character, band of characters, or setting on a trope, the same way you don't build an entire house of bricks and nothing but bricks.

So let's get past this phase of the discussion.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

Basing things off it is really a secondary issue to me - I don't see why people like the Five-Man Band so much in the first place.

It's fun to mix-and-match the typical tropes the Five-Man Band has. And it's also very even. You cover a lot of bases while also dividing up personalities, techniques, and other traits between a fairly large cast of five characters. Just like any other trope, people are familiar with it, it's an easy tool to establish, it doesn't really get old, etc.

I'm pretty sure the concept of Law having limits was a translation error. -Wanderlustwarrior

I'd contest this one to some degree, but it's probably a personal thing.

I think a Five-Man Band is good in that it gives you enough characters with differing viewpoints to let them clash against each other and generate plot. The problem with them — or any ensemble, really — is that they do such a good job at that that it's easy to leave characters as only a part of the ensemble and not develop them as an actual people, but still have them "work" plot wise.

Nemo enim fere saltat sobrius, nisi forte insanit Deviantart.

I favor 2-4 protagonists rather than 5, so I tend to hit the smaller tropes (Light Feminine and Dark Feminine, Comic Trio, Four-Philosophy Ensemble*

, etc.)

(For what it's worth, all the setups I've intentionally used have been based off my own concepts rather than tropes. I only recognized the tropes in hindsight, and the setup I'm most proud of*

is one I don't know a trope for.)

Edit: I'll also add that I agree with Clive Barker's assertion that a story can only have three truly central characters—add any more, and either some will get shafted, or none will be prominent. In my more recent works, groups larger than three tend to divide into Cast Herds of two or three, each important to their own subplots.)

edited 31st Dec '11 1:45:38 AM by feotakahari

That's Feo . . . He's a disgusting, mysoginistic, paedophilic asshat who moonlights as a shitty writer—Something Awful

I maintain what I said in Writer's Block Daily - the Five-Man Band does not involve any kind of character dynamics. It carries the potential for them, but the roles in it, unlike something such as the Four-Philosophy Ensemble, aren't associated with the different types of personalities as much as specific plot roles.

Anything more than two people is a huge crowd, so I don't tend to have more than two characters tagging along with each other (my stories always have several of these pairs.)

When it comes to other people's stories, I don't really care. All I want is interesting character dynamics.

Yes, most tropes in my own work I'll only notice in hindsight, if ever, and I'm fine with that.

I wouldn't disagree with Clive Barker, but the way I think of it is: It's not that most stories have 3 primary characters, but rather most scenes only need 3 or fewer primary characters. As you said, a larger cast would require the extras to find their own subplots and story arcs to act as primary characters within. Or one might write a novel where each POV is its own story, requiring its own cast of characters, like one sees in many fat fantasy and sci-fi novels. Hell, that's often one of the reasons they're fat.

Or maybe bit characters take turns slipping into one of the primary roles throughout the same story arc, then recede back into their minor status once their turn is over.

And I'm guessing the 3 primary characters are protagonist, antagonist, and relationship/sidekick? I hear different labels for these thrown around.

I do find myself thinking about the Five-Man Band trope sometimes, since I enjoy larger casts. I probably shouldn't, but I do. The reason I get leery of it, as someone else stated upthread, is that a writer, through carelessness or during a hurry, might stuff a character into the role of Smart Guy or Big Guy, and neglect to make the character a person. The role defines them as a person, instead of being one trait among many. That's also how sexist or racist Unfortunate Implications can slip in, even if the writer intended no such thing. The Chick, the Magical Negro, stuff like that.

Agreed with nrjxll. Five-Man Band doesn't have anything to do with viewpoints or personalities, it has to do with jobs in the groups. For viewpoints you want Four-Philosophy Ensemble, for personality you want Four-Temperament Ensemble.

edited 31st Dec '11 3:33:46 PM by NoirGrimoir

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

I do not use it. I think the archetype it represents is simplistic and silly.

The Revolution Will Not Be Tropeable

I never tried to make one, nor do I intend to, since I associate it with bad archetype television shows.

oddly

I'm fond of Four Philosophy Ensemble partly because it brings you a larger main cast and a better balanced team. The main reason behind it, however, is that I love TMNT and other animal superhero bands. The turtles carried the trope forward.

Still working on my team whose members include a snarky living dead and a quiet frankenstein.

╮(╯_╰)╭

I have one for my work, The Raven Prince as well as a Five Bad Band:

• Raven is The Hero, due to being the main protagonist with the highest bounty on his head.
• Ayaka is The Lancer, due to being the red oni to Raven's blue and his Love Interest.
• Nero is The Smart Guy, because he's a court scholar for Raven's family and as such acts as Mr. Exposition.
• Octavia is The Big Guy, because while she's clever, she usually acts before thinking and is a powerful knight who provides the weapons and armory for the group.
• Max is The Chick, because while no one is sure of his/her gender, s/he is the most cheery and energetic of the group. Also turns out to be a bit of a Token Evil Teammate, though s/he's more Cute and Psycho than all out evil.

As for the villains:

• Empress Talon is The Big Bad, having manipulated everyone in Avitopia and caused almost every bad thing that happened to the cast just to obtain her "messiah", Raven. She leads The Nightbirds.
• The Gull is The Dragon, being Talon's loyal lapdog, obsessed with doing anything to please her.
• Professor Owl-Eye is The Evil Genius, an immortal Mad Scientist who loves the idea of dissecting Raven.
• Commander Falconclaw is The Brute, an old but brutally strong Lightning Bruiser who enjoys using brute force on his enemies and leads the Nightbird army.
• The Witch is The Dark Chick, um...You Do Not Want To Know.
• The mysterious white haired girl is the Token Good Teammate, always keeping a cheery attitude and being very kind to people. Later turns out to be Max's kidnapped sister.

edited 4th Mar '12 7:14:21 AM by CJCroen1393

I sort of use it. But it's 7 people. I've got two Big Guys, and either two Heroes or two Lancers (one of the characters could really fit into either role). I've also got a mentor and an extra character who doesn't go into combat on account of being in a wheelchair.

I've got no problem with the Five Man Band. It works.

X-Men X-Pert, my blog where I talk about X-Men comics.

I've never felt any need or inclination to write a Five-Man Band. I'm another of those writers who has a small main cast (very rarely as many as four), and mostly they're going to be in different places, doing different things. I'm completely neutral to the concept of Five Man Bands.

I think the Five Man Band is an okay trope to use as long as you either only use it as a guide for creating characters, or if your characters just happen to fit the archetypes, with no deliberate intention on your part. One of my stories has a team of five characters, and they do mostly fit the archetypes (there's no Big Guy and there are two Lancers), but I didn't intend for that to happen. I just came up with the characters on my own and they just happened to fit.

But, yes, creating a Five Man Band just because you want a Five Man Band is a bad idea.

Do loafing!

I have one, kind of, in a not-particularly-developed work (they don't actually have names yet). Doesn't really fit the archetype, but it is a band of five protagonists. There's a definite single Big Guy, which is the one who tends to use physical super-strength rather than the blasting-oriented powers of the others; the actual role of the hero is kind of split between two of them; one is a definite sort of snarky lancer-type, but he's also the one who's most like the smart guy. I don't really see the point of having a band of five protagonists fit the mold exactly; it seems as if you're including character archetypes based on a checklist.

Shinigan (Naruto fanfic)

Five-Man Band is broad enough that you can fit essentially any group to the roles (a bit like horoscopes in that respect).

I've got a seven-person cast that's an actual band that can break down into The Hero (guitarist), The Lancer (bassist), The Smart Guy (vocalist), The Big Guy (a friend), The Chick (the vocalist's girlfriend), The Sixth Ranger (drummer), and Cool Big Sis (another friend). But it wasn't created to fit the trope; it doesn't even have the right number of people.