History Main / WeWereYourTeam

If the hero comes {{back from the dead}}, expect {{putting the band back together}}. Compare TheFellowshipHasEnded, when the team was held together by a unifying purpose rather than a particular member, and LosingTheTeamSpirit.

* ''{{Manga/Berserk}}'': Griffith's Band of the Hawk has just won a decades-long war for their employer the king of Midland, who gratefully promotes Griffith and his top followers to the peerage. Guts decides at this point to leave on a one-man journey to discover his own dream, but Griffith forbids it, willing to kill him before he'll let him go. Guts easily beats Griffith, causing a mental breakdown that leads to him sleeping with the Midland princess, who had a crush on him. He is found out and arrested, while the Hawks barely escape a massacre by the army: many members subsequently desert, while Griffith’s deputy Casca takes over those who remain. About a year later, Guts hears about the Hawks' plight and shows up to join their mission to rescue Griffith. They succeed, but it turns out that Griffith has been crippled and tortured to the point where he can't speak, walk, or move his arms, let alone lead a mercenary company to victory. Casca is too worn out from the past year’s ordeals to continue leading them, and everyone including her was only able to make it that far because they thought Griffith was going to return as their charismatic, genius leader. The Band of the Hawk ceases to exist, and its members start splitting up into different groups to go their separate ways, until everything is rendered moot by the horror of the Eclipse.

* 2017 ''ComicBook/{{Runaways}}'' treats Gert this way, with Chase claiming she was TheHeart of the group and after she [[spoiler: was killed]] the team started to crumble. In reality, the group held together for a quite long time after that event and it was a series of other events (often in completely different books) that broke the group, so he is clearly biased.

* Quite a few ''Manga/OnePiece'' ones had the Straw Hats disbanding once their captain Luffy was gone.
* In ''Fanfic/OneYear'', this is averted with [[VideoGame/Persona4 the Investigation Team]], which remains close after Yu returns home. It's played straight, though, with Yu's [[OriginalCharacter old group of friends]], who drifted apart in the year that he was gone. Yu, who hadn't been much for making deep friendships before coming to Inaba, is surprised and somewhat upset to find out that he'd been the glue holding the group together, as he'd hoped that they would have been able to go on without him.
* Also happens to a number of ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' fanfics that have Usagi gone or killed off.

** Also happens to a number of ''Franchise/SailorMoon'' fanfics that have Usagi gone or killed off.
* In ''Fanfic/FallenKing'', Yugi kept his friends together. Tea points out at the end that if he were there, he wouldn't have let them split apart.

* Happens between the second and third seasons of ''Series/RobinOfSherwood'' - the merry men disbanded after the death of the original Robin (Michael Praed) and it takes the coming of the new one (Jason Connery) to pull them back together.
* Discussed in the sixth-season premiere of Series/{{Bones}}: After Brennan left on a field expedition to Indonesia at the end of the previous season, most of Jeffersonian Crime Lab broke up and drifted apart, while Cam was left overwhelmed by the workload.

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]]'s sheer [[MagneticHero magnetism]] kept the [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits very mixed]] ''Normandy'' crew together even after the Saren crisis. When s/he was killed, however, they fell apart... [[TropeNamer See Joker's quote on that above]]. Shepard's return eventually draws almost all of them back together, aside from those who have other obligations [[spoiler: like Wrex reforming the krogan or Liara being the Shadow Broker]]. The bulk of Shepard's crew [[spoiler: and whichever squadmate you chose to save on Virmire]] however left on other Alliance business and invoke WhatTheHellHero for Shepard working for Cerberus.
** This is lampshaded late in the game, when Miranda points out that Shepard must have a magnetic personality and gobs of charisma to get so many people not just working together, but working together well, despite their misgivings about each other. In short, Shepard's superpower is their ability to engender trust and rally people.
** Happens again in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', albeit for different reasons. After the events of the ''Arrival'', Shepard turned themselves and the ''Normandy'' over to the Alliance and spent the next six months under house-arrest on Earth awaiting trial for [[spoiler: causing the [[RememberWhenYouBlewUpASun destruction of the Bahak System]] (or ties with Cerberus if you didn't play ''The Arrival'' DLC)]]. The survivors of the Suicide Mission have again been scattered across the galaxy, with only Garrus, the Virmire Survivor, Liara, and Tali able to rejoin your squad, while everyone else appears [[HeroOfAnotherStory during side-quests]] or as playing important roles in the conflict at large.

* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', [[spoiler:after the PlayerCharacter ventures alone into Unknown Space after the events of the game]], the ''Ebon Hawk'' crew drift apart. Canderous sets out to reform the Mandelorians, Carth helps rebuild the Republic military, and Bastila (and possibly the other Jedi) rebuild the shattered Jedi order in secret.
* In ''VideoGame/Persona3: [[ExpansionPack FES]]'', the SEES members admit they've fallen apart, despite being dorm mates, after the events of the main campaign [[spoiler:in which the main character died. This is partially due to the general grief of not really knowing ''why'' he died as from their perspective, he just suddenly fell into a coma before passing away. After they learn the truth, their fellowship seems to become stronger, as they all go on to work together on a team dedicated to stopping shadows wherever they appear, even though they each have their own lives otherwise]].
** Subverted with ''VideoGame/Persona4''. The group of heroes all stay together in spite of the protagonist leaving the town for awhile at the end of the game. And when he returns in ''Arena'', and in ''The Golden'''s epilogue they all fall in as if he'd never left.
** Both teams are contrasted with each other in ''VideoGame/PersonaQShadowOfTheLabyrinth'', where [[spoiler: the P3 cast has to deal with realizing how much closer the P4 cast is as a group than they are, suggesting the only reason most of these people are even in the same team is that their leader is the glue keeping them together]].
** Also subverted in ''VideoGame/Persona5''. At the end of the game, [[spoiler:Morgana disappears and the protagonist is forced to turn himself in to ensure that Shido, the head of the conspiracy the Phantom Thieves had been fighting, is convicted of his crimes]]. The Phantom Thieves waste little time before setting out to [[spoiler:find the woman the protagonist had saved from Shido (resulting in him being unjustly accused of assault)]], even without their leader.
* ''VideoGame/{{Bugsnax}}'': After Elizabert Megafig disappears, most of the other Grumpuses on the island end up avoiding each other and doing their own thing without her drive and charisma holding them together.

* In ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', Captain Garland was charismatic and magnetic enough to keep the incredibly diverse folk of the Unity together. When he dies before the game starts, all the factions fall apart.
* Several of the party members that the Nameless One can recruit in ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'' turn out to have accompanied at least one of his previous incarnations. Over the course of the game, they are drawn to him once again.

* Four years before the events of ''VideoGame/{{Omori}}'', [[spoiler:Mari [[NeverSuicide "killed herself"]]. This caused the rest of the group to split apart: by the time the game starts, Sunny and Basil are suicidal shut-ins, Hero is at college trying to get his act together, Aubrey has become the leader of the town's delinquents, and Kel, having took up basketball, has to encourage Sunny to engage in PuttingTheBandBackTogether]].

* ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'': In the BadFuture episode "How Long Is Forever", Starfire [[GoneToTheFuture had disappeared]], leading the team to break apart. While not the leader, she was the [[TheHeart most good-natured and optimistic]]. The rest of the team are actually in disbelief that their friendships were so weak to allow that to happen, resolving to become closer as a result.

[[folder: Films -- Live-Action]]

* In ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', [[PlayerCharacter Commander Shepard]]'s sheer [[MagneticHero magnetism]] kept the [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits very mixed]] ''Normandy'' crew together even after the Saren crisis. When s/he was killed, however, they fell apart... [[TropeNamer See Joker's quote on that above]]. Shepard's return eventually draws almost all of them back together, aside from those who have other obligations [[spoiler: like Wrex reforming the Krogan or Liara being the Shadow Broker]]. The bulk of Shepard's crew [[spoiler: and whichever squadmate you chose to save on Virmire]] however left on other Alliance business and invoke WhatTheHellHero for Shepard working for Cerberus.

* In ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'', [[spoiler:after the PlayerCharacter ventures alone into Unknown Space after the events of the game]], the ''Ebon Hawk'' crew likewise falls apart, with only a few reappearing in the sequel.
** They didn't just fall apart; they were assigned to different tasks. Canderous was assigned to reform the Mandelorians, Carth is rebuilding the Republic military, and Bastila (and possibly the other Jedi) are rebuilding the shattered Jedi order in secret.

* Toxic Attraction was the most dominant women's stable in [[Wrestling/{{WWENXT}} NXT]] history, having held both the NXT Women's Champion and Women's Tag Team Championship simultaneously. However, once leader Wrestling/MandyRose [[RealLifeWritesThePlot was released from her contract in December 2022 the day after dropping the NXT Women's Championship to Roxanne Perez]] [[RoleEndingMisdemeanor due to explicit content produced and sold on her fan page]], [[WeAreStrugglingTogether remaining members Gigi Dolan and Jacy Jayne barely held together]] before the latter finally turning on the former in February 2023.

* ''LightNovel/AccelWorld'': It's pointed out in Volume 20 that if Kuroyukihime lost all her points, thereby losing Brain Burst and all memory of the Accelerated World, Nega Nebulus, the Legion she founded and spent the last few months reuniting, would fall apart.

* ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'': When Taichi was dragged back to the real world, the [[YearInsideHourOutside time inconsistency]] meant that the remaining Chosen slowly split apart over the course of a month or so, partially of their own devices and partially because of the influence of [[TheTrickster PicoDevimon]], to the point that Takeru and [[BondCreature Tokomon]], formerly very close, even got mad at and left each other. When he makes his way back, much of the next arc is him (and Sora, acting as a MysteriousProtector) trying to regroup the Chosen even as [=PicoDevimon=] continues trying to tear them apart.
* ''Manga/OnePiece'': The Sun pirates were a RagtagBunchOfMisfits under [[TechnicalPacifist Fisher Tiger]] who managed to keep different factions like the Arlong pirates and the Macro pirates under his control despite a precarious AHouseDivided situation. After Tiger's death, Jinbe became a new captain who was able to gain command of the crew for a while, but eventually the Sun pirates were disbanded.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'': When it seems that {{Superman}} has been killed, the League briefly considers disbandment. Subverted twice: in the original timeline, they recruit Aquaman and stick around (but don't last long before being wiped out); and when [[spoiler:Vandal Savage]] fixes the timeline, and Superman returns to his time, the League proceeds like they did before.

* Wrestling/WorldWonderRingStardom: Tokyo Cyber Squad was one of the most known and beloved factions of STARDOM lead by Wrestling/HanaKimura. After her AuthorExistenceFailure in 2020, the stable broke up a couple of months later, with their members went to Stars and Oedo Tai after the end of TCS.

* When Taichi was dragged back to the real world in ''Anime/DigimonAdventure'', the [[YearInsideHourOutside time inconsistency]] meant that the remaining Chosen slowly split apart over the course of a month or so, partially of their own devices and partially because of the influence of [[TheTrickster PicoDevimon]], to the point that Takeru and [[BondCreature Tokomon]], formerly very close, even got mad at and left each other. When he makes his way back, much of the next arc is him (and Sora, acting as a MysteriousProtector) trying to regroup the Chosen even as [=PicoDevimon=] continues trying to tear them apart.
* Pretty much the entire plot of ''Anime/AnoHanaTheFlowerWeSawThatDay''. A group of childhood friends drifted apart when they were young because one of them died, and now are slowly getting together after the appearance of the ghost of their dead friend.
* This, combined with other incidents, is what leads to most of Tenchi's gathering of girls to go off halfway through ''Anime/TenchiInTokyo''. Once Washu figures out what's going on and Tenchi [[spoiler:and Sasami]] end up in trouble, they start to return.
* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', the Sun pirates were a RagtagBunchOfMisfits under [[TechnicalPacifist Fisher Tiger]] who managed to keep different factions like the Arlong pirates and the Macro pirates under his control despite a precarious AHouseDivided situation. After Tiger's death, Jinbe became a new captain who was able to gain command of the crew for a while, but eventually the Sun pirates were disbanded.

* In ''Anime/ThePlacePromisedInOurEarlyDays'', Sayuri's disappearance causes Hiroki and Takuya to drift apart. Reuniting to finish the Vielaciela for her sake brings them together again.
* This is discussed in ''LightNovel/AccelWorld''. It's pointed out in Volume 20 that if Kuroyukihime lost all her points, thereby losing Brain Burst and all memory of the Accelerated World, Nega Nebulus, the Legion she founded and spent the last few months reuniting, would fall apart.

* In the "Breakdowns" arc of ''ComicBook/JusticeLeagueInternational'', it was the ultimately unsuccessful assassination attempt on Maxwell Lord, which nevertheless left him in a coma, that broke up the team. The apparent[[note]]he was actually just sent to the distant past[[/note]] death of ComicBook/CaptainAtom, the field commander of the JLE, probably didn't help either. An interesting case, because neither man was particularly beloved by the team, but they were the ones who could impose some discipline and organization on a gang of super-powered egomaniacs.
* In ''ComicBook/AstroCity'', it's briefly mentioned that the Crossbreed, the Biblical-themed superhero team from the "Confessions" story arc, broke up after their leader Noah passed away.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Persona 3}}: [[ExpansionPack FES]]'', the SEES members admit they've fallen apart, despite being dorm mates, after the events of the main campaign [[spoiler:in which the main character died. This is partially due to the general grief of not really knowing ''why'' he died as from their perspective, he just suddenly fell into a coma before passing away. After they learn the truth, their fellowship seems to become stronger, as they all go on to work together on a team dedicated to stopping shadows wherever they appear, even though they each have their own lives otherwise]].
** Subverted with ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}''. The group of heroes all stay together in spite of the protagonist leaving the town for awhile at the end of the game. And when he returns in ''Arena'', and in ''The Golden'''s epilogue they all fall in as if he'd never left.

** Also subverted in ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}''. At the end of the game, [[spoiler:Morgana disappears and the protagonist is forced to turn himself in to ensure that Shido, the head of the conspiracy the Phantom Thieves had been fighting, is convicted of his crimes]]. The Phantom Thieves waste little time before setting out to [[spoiler:find the woman the protagonist had saved from Shido (resulting in him being unjustly accused of assault)]], even without their leader.

* In the BadFuture of the ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' episode "How Long Is Forever", Starfire [[GoneToTheFuture had disappeared]], leading the team to break apart. While not the leader, she was the [[TheHeart most good-natured and optimistic]]. The rest of the team are actually in disbelief that their friendships were so weak to allow that to happen, resolving to become closer as a result.

* In the one episode of ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'', when it seems that {{Superman}} has been killed, the League briefly considers disbandment. Subverted twice: in the original timeline, they recruit Aquaman and stick around (but don't last long before being wiped out); and when [[spoiler:Vandal Savage]] fixes the timeline, and Superman returns to his time, the League proceeds like they did before.
* In ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', as more about Shego's heroic past in Team Go with her brothers is disclosed, it is revealed that she was basically the one who kept the team coordinated when they were all heroes; after Shego became a villain, her brothers couldn't operate as an actual team because their respective egos or impulsiveness got in the way.
* In ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra'', Korra was poisoned by Zaheer and needed to leave the team to recover. When it was clear Korra would be gone much longer than they expected, Team Avatar disbanded and all except for Bolin gave up their heroism and led regular lifestyles. By the time Korra returned, the team is back together for one last mission against Kuvira, and with more members that time around.
* In ''WesternAnimation/SpiderManTheAnimatedSeries'', the Six Forgotten Heroes were implied to have been like this - after Captain America did a HeroicSacrifice, they each went their separate ways, and most of them gave up superheroism eventually. Although the team is put back together by Spider-Man, not Captain America.
* Done in an... interesting way in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyEquestriaGirls''. In [[WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic the show proper,]] while it's implied that the rest of the Mane 6 knew each other prior to Twilight Sparkle's arrival, they didn't really get to know each other and become friends until Twilight pulled them all together. When Twilight enters the HighSchoolAU in ''Equestria Girls'', she finds out that the human versions of the Mane 5 were friends until AlphaBitch Sunset Shimmer manipulated them into breaking apart. Not two days after Twilight's arrival, the Humane 5 are once again friends.

* Wrestling/WorldWonderRingStardom: Tokyo Cyber Squad was one of the most known and beloved stables of STARDOM lead by Wrestling/HanaKimura. After her AuthorExistenceFailure in 2020, the stable broke up a couple of months later, with their members went to Stars and Oedo Tai stables after the end of TCS.