Example drift: Five Man Band

Snapshot:

• Remove all examples that split one character over multiple roles (e.g. "Jack is both The Lancer and The Big Guy") because those are incorrect.
• Allow some variation but no less than 4 members and no more than 6 (not including the Sixth Ranger), with all 5 of the character types being in use. Special Efforts to clean up any examples that shoehorn in characters or violate the numerical parameters.

Are the only items with consensus so far.

And they're mutually exclusive options.

I don't think we will ever get a consensus about the more precise definition of the trope, but we can still work on cleaning it up to a certain extent. If we can get a special efforts going where we take out characters who just don't fit and/or don't form an actual team, well it's a start.

Even with a broad definition we can be pretty ruthless if we want to, the trope is popular enough that if we really hack away at it like a bush it can recover and hopefully grow more properly. That means if you find an example that is halfway decent but still stretching it you can just delete the example right out. I'm looking at The Expendables page and you can make an argument for a few of the roles (they don't have a really well defined smart-guy or big guy), but Sandra is not a part of the team and is not The Chick and thus I would take the entire example out rather than trying to "fix" it.

Well, looking at the poll, all green-voted options say that all five bases must be covered (and by extension not shoehorned), or it's not this trope. That is agreed upon, so I don't see a problem with weeding any incomplete Five-Man Band out of the list.

edited 17th Jun '12 11:26:29 AM by Feather7603

No, these two are clearly compatible.

If you're going to allow four characters, you by default have to allow one character to cover more than one role, as there's five roles.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:37:32 PM by Nocturna

But it still allows for six characters, so there's more of a half-way compatibility.

edited 17th Jun '12 12:51:28 PM by Feather7603

Calling crowner:

• Remove examples that have a single character fulfill multiple roles.
• Allow examples with 4-6 individuals, but all the roles must be in use.

Well, shouldn't we say "Allow for 5-6 characters", since 4 characters in a 5MB means, by definition, one character (or more) has multiple roles.

That's a reasonable compromise, yes. The trope still has leeway in that it allows multiple characters that share one role.

I don't think we can just reinterpret a crowner like that, quite simply I think the crowner got excessively convoluted and it wasn't a balanced voting system showing the genuine opinions of the community. We can try and make a compromise but the truth is the two are irreconcilable.

That's why I think we should start with a clean-up based on what we can all agree on, remove any examples where they aren't an actual team (most any sitcom examples) and where there is shoehorning of roles (the whole "he is taller than the others so he must be The Big Guy"). It won't be a matter of arguing exactly how many characters form a band or how flexible the trope is, and we'll go with the current description that says at least 4 characters and 4 roles. If we take out the worst examples that is the actual cause of the problems then we can better assess if we need to go more narrow and specific.

Your proposed solution contradicts both winning options. And no, I don't believe they're incompatible. There is one minor detail (the possibility of having four) which leads to a logical contradiction. But the possibility of having six remains.

As someone who upvoted both options, I certainly realized that four might not end up working if they both won, but still considered the overall option worth supporting.

Okay, I'll start a Special Efforts thread for this. I'm not sure how much help I'll be in actual cleaning, as I have other things I'm working on, but I can certainly help keep things organized.

EDIT: And the thread is here.

I also went ahead and submitted a request in the edit requests for a locked page thread to have the sentence that states that "at least four" roles must be present changed to "all five".

edited 19th Jun '12 1:11:02 PM by Nocturna

A contradiction is a contradiction, you're reinterpreting the definition of one option so it can fit another.

Regardless of the crowner, there is a unanimous agreement that the trope misuse is that people are misinterpreting characters into certain roles. My suggestion will benefit both options if we can lock down one of the key problems. It would be nice if we had completely revised parameters of the trope to do it all at once, but evidently that is not going to happen in our current state.

Not at all. Four isn't a requirement, it's an option. You must have at least four, but no more than six. Of course, you can't have four and also meet the other requirement, but that's ok, because four isn't required! It's an option. Five and six are both at least four.

ETA: the other option is to have a run-off, but simply ignoring one of the winning options is not acceptable.

edited 19th Jun '12 2:03:54 PM by Xtifr

But if you are cleaning up the trope based on the criteria of what is agreed upon, you can't eliminate teams of 4 because the agreement of that specific crowner is that a team of 4 individuals is optional.

Accidentally posted this in the discussion about The Hero but realized it shouldve gone here.

This is the problem with the Five-Man Band definition as I see it.

I think the main confusion about the Five-Man Band is the relationship between archetypical appearances of the members, and the roles they play in the story. Really the problem is that there are really two tropes at play that get mixed and matched, and the trope doesn't do a good job of distinguishing that because there is a lot of asymmetric naming going on.

The typical roles of the team are

• The person in charge - The Leader
• The person who directly interacts with The Leader either by supporting or challenging them - Number Two / Side Kick
• A person who solves problems directly - A Tough Guy or Strongman
• A person who solves problems indirectly or through careful planning - A Smart, Clever, Tricky guy (note: simply using technology/being an engineer doesn't make you into a Smart/Clever/Tricky guy, even though they usually go together. Its more about work style than specific methodology)
• A person either mediates the four previous members, or provides a different perspective from the norm - The Heart or The Mediator

The typical appearances of the team are

• A heroic looking person who is either the face of the team or the main character with the most screen time (The Hero usually but not necessarily The Leader)
• An anti-heroic looking guy (The Lancer but not necessarily the Number Two or Side Kick)
• A large, tall, fat or older person (larger but not necessarily the aforementioned tough guy)
• A small, short, skinny or younger person (smaller but not necessarily the aforementioned smart/clever/tricky guy)
• A heroic looking female (if the rest of the team is mostly male) or someone who is more stereotypically feminine than the other females, or less intimidating than the other members in general.

So in short

Trope 1 Roles: The Leader, Number Two, a Tough Guy, a Clever Guy and a Mediator

Trope 2 Appearance: Heroic, Anti-Heroic, Large, Small, and Feminine.

Current Names: The Leader - The Lancer - The Big Guy - The Smart Guy - The Chick

Referencing: Role, Appearance, Appearance, Role, Appearance.

But if you read the entries it actually references: Role, Appearance, Role, Role, Appearance

For instance, if you take Avatar TLA - which just about everyone on the Wiki knows even though its somewhat complicated

• Aang - heroic - and The Leader with spiritual matters
• Zuko - anti heroic
• Sokka - The Large Guy (tall and tied for oldest), and the Smart/Clever/Tricky guy, and The Leader with practical matters
• Toph - The Small Guy (short and tied for youngest), and the Tough guy
• Katara - feminine and the Mediator and Number Two with both spiritual and practical matters

or Thunder Cats which is very clean

• Lion O - heroic looking and The Leader
• Tygra - anti-heroic looking and Number Two
• Panthro - Large (tallest, biggest and oldest) and Tough
• Wily Cats - Small (youngest) and Clever
• Cheetara - Feminine and Mediator

or Teen Titans which is also complicated

• Robin - Heroic looking The Leader and The Mediator
• Raven - anti-heroic looking
• Cyborg - The Large Guy (tall and big) and the Tough Guy and The Number Two
• Beast Boy - The Small Guy (short and skinny) and sometimes the Clever Guy
• Starfire - Feminine and sometimes shares The Mediator role

or Digimon Frontier which is simple but there is no Smart / Clever guy

• Takuya - Heroic looking and The Leader
• Koji - anti-heroic looking and Number Two
• JP - The Large Guy (older, taller, fat) and sometimes the Tough Guy
• Tommy - The Small Guy (younger, smaller)
• Zoe - Feminine and Mediator

or Naruto for a really confusing four person mix and match that has 9 of the 10 attributes (5 roles, 4 appearances) represented somehow

• Naruto - Heroic looking and Tough
• Sasuke - anti-heroic looking and The Number Two as the most direct Sidekick to Kakashi
• Kakashi - The Large Guy (older, taller) Mediator, The Leader
• Sakura - Feminine and Smart

or Naruto Shippuden which is a bit cleaner but theres no clear Tough or Clever member

• Naruto - Heroic looking
• Sai - anti-heroic looking
• Kakashi - The Small Guy (looks skinny) Mediator, The Leader
• Yamato - The Large Guy (looks built) Mediator, Number Two
• Sakura - Feminine

or Young Justice but no one looks particularly more heroic or antiheroic than anyone else

• Aqualad - The Leader and Mediator
• Robin - The Small Guy, The Clever / Tricky guy (being agile, stealthy and physically weakest) and The Number Two
• Kid Flash - The Smart guy (being hyper intelligent)
• Super Boy - Large and Tough
• Miss Martian - feminine

So yeah. Really what needs to happen if you want to change anything is either a clearer defining of terms so that you know when you're talking about appearances or roles, or to split into two tropes, one for appearances and one for roles.

IMO

Two questions here:

• Are we going to lock up Five-Man Band subpages after we've gone through them, to prevent shoehorned examples from going back in?
• Should we disallow examples in example sections if they aren't on one of the Five-Man Band pages already? It's easier to check subpages than wicks.

You can't eliminate the ones with four just because there's four, but you can eliminate them because they don't meet the other criteria. Yes, that's a bit of a Mathematician's Answer, but I'm a programmer. We think that way.

Yes, that works. The two consensual options on the crowner both describe a subset of the current page, and what we're looking for is the intersection of these two subsets. It would only be a contradiction if this intersection was empty.

For instance, given a group of animals that we're trying to limit, you could agree on two subsets: (1) only mammals, and (2) only Australian species. That's no contradiction, it just means you end up with the set of all Australian mammals. If insteaad of #2 you use (3) only birds, then it is a contradiction since there aren't any mammalian birds.

By definition if there is only four members of the group but still covers the five character types it contradicts the other crowner. It is like saying "Only mammals" and then you start taking away any mammal that isn't a tetrapod. It is sort of the "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others" type of thing.

And that's why I am saying the crowners are contradictory and the best option we have is cleaning up the trope based on the lowest level of agreement we have, just eliminating non-teams and shoehorned character roles.

I don't see how you come to the conclusion that "no less than 4" implies "4 is OK". Also, ccoa called both options, so I don't see why they should be contradicting.

Anyway, anyone for the proposal of locking cleaned Five-Man Band subpages like we did for Complete Monster?

I could go either way on that. I don't object to it, but I'd be fine if it doesn't happen.

What you're basically asking for is for us to completely ignore the no-duplicate-roles rule. Why should we choose that one to ignore? Why not ignore the no-less-than-4 and no-more-than-6 with all-roles-present rule, if we're going to completely ignore one of the winning results? You can't claim one is incompatible with the other without that cutting both ways. (And you seem to be the only one insisting that the incompatibility actually exists, but that's another issue.)

whoops, yeah, another post snuck in there.

edited 20th Jun '12 11:39:21 AM by Xtifr

This isn't addressed at me, right?