Markup View

Author: jkbeta

Aug 30th 2012 at 12:57:04 PM

I went over the current FiveManBand examples for Anime, Literature, Film, Webcomic and Theatre and found one examples that may be interesting to consider here:
* KOn - from the moment Azusa joins the band. Before that, it's a four-girl ensemble.
** Foil pair 1: Mio and Ritsu. They seem to be an exercise in applying as many foil tropes as possible to a pair, namely OddCouple, AllWorkVsAllPlay (although milder than usual) or maybe a friend-based version of FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling, TomboyAndGirlyGirl, OppositesAttract and maybe others.
** Foil pair 2: Yui and Azusa. AllWorkVsAllPlay applies as above, TechnicianVersusPerformer.
** Mugi is a mediator in the sense that her TeamChef function smoothes over any conflicts that may occur, and she's always working to keep the band happy.
Why is this interesting? Because the foil pairs do not have a clear structure between them as in the leadership - tactial - mediator structure that occurs in FiveManBand, but are essentially equal. Yui may be the protagonist, but for the story, both pairs are equally important - in fact, each pair can and does play an alpha or a beta role.

Nevertheless, this fits our description quite well already. The other examples I found did not provide any essential new information either, so I think we have the main structure of the trope covered. What is still missing are possible standard roles for the mediator, but this could be its own trope - there should be mediators in other large team structures as well. It's probably a super-trope in its own right. We don't have tropes describing the interaction between the foils and the mediator either, but this is probably not important. In other words, I think we need not worry too much about these aspects before finalising this trope.

Does anybody else see any remaining things to be ironed out, or should we concentrate on finding a few good and illustrative examples and launching the trope?