Five-Man Band cleanup

I'm pretty sure someone just saw the trope and said "hey, this work has five people who fit these component tropes" and didn't realize that for it to count those people have to actually work together as a team.

Thanks for removing it.

The two Survivor examples (FiveManBand.Live Action TVN To S) are dubious. Not only are they Zero Context Examples, but the merge list has non-FMB roles and too many members; and the pre-merge list may have too many females, depending on whether Cirie is male or female. Neither list offers any evidence of the required team dynamic, and there's also the question of whether FMB is even compatible with the Dwindling Party dynamic of an elimination game.

Survivor: Cirie is female. I'd say that there's no reason that a tribe couldn't possibly establish a temporary Five-Man Band in the form of an alliance. It almost certainly won't hold up for more than a couple of episodes, though.

In that case, the pre-merge list has three females.

I have a query about an entry I found on the Stargate SG-1 character pages.

The entry does not appear on the Five Man Band trope pages as far as I can tell.

Either it needs to be removed from the character pages or added to the Five Man Band trope pages. My suggestion is to get rid of it.

The example as written is:

• Five-Man Band: After Vala officially joins the team:
  • The Leader: Lt. Col. Cameron Mitchell, of the headstrong variety. At least nominally in charge, though his inexperience and recklessness occasionally exasperate the other team members. Responsible for Putting the Band Back Together after the original team briefly disbanded.
  • The Lancer: Dr. Daniel Jackson, civilian archaeologist and The Face of the team. Often acts as a more jaded Foil to newcomer Mitchell's enthusiasm, and the most likely to clash with him. Sometimes overlaps with The Smart Guy.
  • The Smart Guy: Lt. Col. Samantha Carter, resident astrophysicist, Omnidisciplinary Scientist and certified genius. Usually responsible for coming up with the solution to whatever the problem of the week is. Sometimes overlaps with The Lancer.
  • The Big Guy: Teal'c, token Proud Warrior Race Guy and the most combat-proficient member of the team, as well as being physically the biggest. Mostly a Class 2 with occasional Class 1 leanings.
  • The Chick: Vala Mal Doran, the newest addition to the team. More overtly feminine than Carter and neither a soldier nor a scientist by trade, though she's both highly intelligent and more than capable of holding her own in a fight.

Problems:

Cameron is The Leader and Teal'c is The Big Guy, but that's all that fits. Daniel and Sam both have The Lancer or The Smart Guy roles, sometimes at the same time, and Daniel is officially the 'heart' of the team. Vala is a thief/rogue type character, not the The Chick. As an ex-Goa'uld, she can give Sam and Daniel a run for their money at their specialities. The first episode she was in, she single-handedly takes over the Prometheus, ejects the entire crew, repeatedly defeats Daniel in combat (he only gains the upper hand via trickery). At the end, she escapes prison, single-handedly taking out the military guarding her cell. After she joins the team, her antics only get crazier and more roguish from there.

edited 5th Mar '15 1:13:01 PM by Wyldchyld

Yeah, no. Another case of mistaking a five-person team for a Five-Man Band, plus SG-1 was a foursome for nine out of ten seasons anyway.

Well, eight out of ten. In Series 8, they were a three-man team. :)

I would like two examples deleted.

film - A Knights Tale The Leader William The Lancer Wat The Smart Guy Chaucer The Big Guy Roland The Chick Kate, Jocelyn Sixth Ranger Prince William

The biggest problem is that Roland is always gentle, not the strongman.

literature - The Babysitters Club The Leader Kristy Thomas (founder and president of the BSC) The Lancer Claudia Kishi (vice-president of the BSC; her room is club headquarters) The Big Guy Dawn Schafer (due to her outgoing and passionate nature) The Smart Guy Stacey Mc Gill (ultra-sophisticated math whiz) The Chick Mary Anne Spier (most emotional and sensitive member)

The biggest problem is that Dawn is a strong opponent of guns and violence.

Also, the Baby-Sitters Club is all female, and the rules for that trope state that the group has to have only 2 girls at most (The Chick and possibly one other). So that's another reason they wouldn't count as the Five-Man Band trope.

edited 10th Mar '15 4:14:14 AM by Rainbow

When namespacing the Live-Action subpages, I came across the following entries:

The Mentalist

NCIS

The Suite Life on Deck

I would like to object to all three entries:

• The Mentalist Sixth Ranger seems wrong; they aren't part of the team. And I am not convinced on The Chick or The Smart Guy at all.
• NCIS I don't remember Tony as The Lancer much, and Ducky is a core part of the team there but doesn't fit any of the FMB roles.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody: Not a team most of the time, and London Tipton is not The Chick.

All three can go for lack of context and in The Suite Life Woody Fink is not the powerhouse at all.

All three of those examples are crap; too many members, non-FMB tropes, shoehorning...

edited 31st Mar '15 12:09:45 AM by MyTimingIsOff

From Predators:

• Five-Man Band: They might not want to work together, but at the same time they form the standard team dynamic...
  • The Hero: Royce
  • The Lancer: Stans
  • The Smart Guy: Edwin
  • The Big Guy: Nickolai
  • The Chick: Isabelle

Listing these five characers requires ignoring part of the Dwindling Party (Hanzo, Mombasa, and Cuchillo). Stans is shoehorned into The Lancer in place of Isabelle so she can fill the slot of The Chick.

edited 31st Mar '15 3:18:25 PM by Morgenthaler

I've deleted the examples I brought up before, as well as the crosswicks. I would also like to remove the other entries on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody for too many characters and lack of The Chick respectively.

I am also fine with removing the example ^.

^ Go for it.

And ^^ as well.

Examples that I think are not this trope:

Western Animation A-M:

• Adventures Of The Gummi Bears: 6 members.
• All Grown Up: 6 members.
• Aladdin The Series: The Carpet as The Smart Guy, 'nuff said.
• Angelina Ballerina: 7 and 8 members. More than 2 women.
• Bionic Six: 6 members.
• Captain Planet And The Planeteers: No Chick, neither of 2 girls is a Chick.
• Danger Rangers: 6 members.
• Darkwing Duck: "Darkwing's normal troop" actually consists of 2 ducks (DW and Launchpad), the rest are one-time allies at most.
• Drawn Together: 8 members. More than 2 women.
• Dungeons And Dragons: 6 members.
• Fosters Home For Imaginary Friends: 7 members.
• Gargoyles: 8 members.
• Horseland: 7 members and more than 2 women in both cases.
• Josie And The Pussycats: Either 6 or 3 members. More than 2 women.
• Metalocalypse: No women.

Western Animation N-Z:

• Next Avengers: Either make Torunn The Chick, or it's not this trope.
• Recess: 6 characters. No Chick, neither of 2 girls is a Chick. The teachers have more than 2 women.
• Sabrina The Animated Series: Too many characters and women.
• The Simpsons: No Chick.
• Sky Dancers: All women.
• Sonic Sat AM: 6 members. No Chick, neither of 2 girls is a Chick.
• Tale Spin: Louie isn't a member of Baloo's "team".
• Trollz: All women.
• The Wild Thornberrys: More than 2 women.
• Winnie The Pooh: No Chick.
• Winx Club: All women.
• WITCH: All women.
• Young Justice: 6 members.

Also, I'm not sure that in works that feature 2 women, one of them can be called The Chick. The trope page for The Chick specifically says that it's only applicable when she's the only woman on the team (basically, The Chick is when the only woman is automatically relegated to the role of The Heart). In many examples featuring 2 women, The Chick feels like a shoehorn.

edited 12th Apr '15 11:55:14 AM by Rjinswand

So Young Justice did have a decent Five-Man Band for a while.

• The Leader: Aqualad, leader of the team.
• The Lancer: Kid Flash, like Aqualad a sidekick, but more impetuous and unfit to lead. He's a Red Oni to Aqualad's stoic blue
• The Big Guy: Superboy. He's a clone of Superman. Of course he's The Big Guy.
• The Smart Guy: Badass Normal Playful Hacker Robin.
• The Chick: Miss Martian. The sole female for a time, and she does try to get everyone to play nice.

There's just a few issues with this: A: The team only has five members for 3 episodes (Miss Martian joins in the third, and Artemis in the 6th), and B: Lancer is a biiiiit forced. The trope is broad enough that it can apply, but I do feel like it's really easy to slap a "FOIL" label on almost any character if you look hard enough.

Good catch! I think the 5-member team can fit this trope, but I'd like to hear more opinions. If we leave it as an example, it should probably go with a note saying that it's only valid for episodes 3-5.

edited 13th Apr '15 2:11:38 PM by Rjinswand

On the YKTTW presently known as Sailor Moon Squad pending any agreement on the title, there's been some debate going on lately. Not about it being The Same But More Specific in regards to FMB, I'm not worried about that anymore, but something involving the setup. Here are the two main candidates so far:

• Rjinswand advocates a setup consisting of The Main Girl (the main character), The Tomboy (often the most tomboyish on the team), The Shy/Smart Girl (the brainiac or the resident timid character), The Posh/Bitchy Girl (the rich kid), and The Cheerful/Idol Girl (the Genki Girl type), with The Loner (the lone wolf) able to be substituted in place of any except The Main Girl.
• Giorgio Daneri advocates a setup consisting of The Leader (the main character), The Lancer (an opposite of the main character), The Smart Girl (the brainiac), The Popular Girl (the most popular on the team, for a variety of reasons), and The Wild Card (whoever doesn't fit in the other four categories). The Popular Girl and The Wild Card are exclusive to the five-girl config.

Personally, I'm wanting to go for a setup flexible enough to support a three-girl config in addition to a five-girl config.

Alright, I've cut Predators.

@ 891: Yeah, that all looks like clear misuse. Honestly, anything with more than 5 examples should be cut anyway.

To continue that with probable cuts for Film. For the moment I've left out some of the more ambiguous Sixth Ranger cases, which may still qualify in the periods before that.

• The A-Team: I think Murdock is shoehorned into The Smart Guy, and isn't the A-Team more of a four-man band anyway?
• Air Buddies: It lists 7 additional characters as the Sixth Ranger.
• Alpha and Omega: 2 characters are listed as The Chick.
• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: The Chick is a guy.
• Cars 2: 2 characters are listed as The Big Guy.
• Conan the Destroyer: 6 characters.
• Dinosaur: 9 characters.
• Dumbo: 7 characters.
• The Fall: 9 characters.
• Flash Gordon: 6 characters.
• Grease: The Chick is a guy.
• Inception: No, too many people. Saito and even Robert Fisher (who joins halfway through) can't just be ignored to force the remaining 5 into the mold.
• Kung Fu Panda: 9 characters.
• Kung Fu Panda 2: 7 characters.
• The Little Mermaid: Ariel's Beginning: 7 characters.
• Mystery Men: 7 characters.
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Too many characters, and the team-ups switch so constantly throughout the movies that there's really no way to speak of a Five-Man Band at any point.
• The Princess And The Frog: 7 characters.
• Robin Hood: 6 characters.
• Star Wars: Special case, obviously. Keep, but just cut the additional three characters.
• The Phantom Menace: Shoehorns Captain Panaka into The Big Guy, when the two Jedis in the group are obviously the most physically dangerous. He's just Amidala's phaser-wielding right-hand man, not even particularely strong or formidable like Chewie.
• Still Waiting: 13 (!) characters in 10 different roles.
• Wet Hot American Summer: 8 characters.

edited 16th Apr '15 7:32:05 AM by Morgenthaler

Go ahead on any that have more than five characters spread over the the main five slots.

Having a Sixth character isn't necessarily the kiss of death to a FMB, but those characters should be evaluated to see if they are fully members of the team. Lots of examples listed as a Sixth Ranger are more a sidekick or occasional team member; those don't eliminate the team as a possible FMB, but the sixth character needs to be removed from the listing for FMB or put in the proper category (eg Team Pet, Tagalong Kid, etc.)

Also remove The Marx Brothers. Harpo was not the Big Guy, and Margaret Dumont was not The Chick. Ever.

Regarding Inception: I actually think it's fine.

Saito really isn't part of the group proper. In the same way you can't force people who aren't part of the team to buff the numbers up to five, you can't consider characters who really aren't part of the team to get it over five.

The Heist is planned entirely by the five. Saito's contribution is clearly as an outsider. He finances it, he even goes on the mission as well, but he's not part of the crew. Ditto (especially) Fischer. He joins the team, but he's even more an outsider who doesn't even know what's going on.

Now, in Kung Fu Panda, there is The Furious Five as they are before Po joins them at the end. They're definitely five, and they act as a team. The question is whether they actually fit the roles. Tigress seems to be The Leader, so that works. But there really doesn't seem to be much of a Lancer or Smart Guy. Monkey as The Lancer seems like shoehorning, ditto Crane as The Smart Guy. I'll give Viper as The Chick given she is the nicest to Po, and Mantis as the Pintsized Powerhouse.

edited 16th Apr '15 10:56:03 AM by Larkmarn

Pintsized Powerhouse isn't one of the core five. He may be The Big Guy, though, since FMB is about the roles they play in the group dynamic; if Mantis is the one who is the go-to for physical, strength-based stuff — moreso than the others — he's the Big Guy, even if he isn't the biggest one.

edited 16th Apr '15 1:27:46 PM by Madrugada

Er, yes. I mean that he'd count for The Big Guy because his strength gets played up because the movie likes the joke that the tiny guy is super strong.

edited 16th Apr '15 1:50:06 PM by Larkmarn