TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Five-Man Band cleanup

Go To

Five-Man Band has been receiving a lot of misuse. As was concluded in this TRS thread, it needs a massive cleanup. There are over 30 subpages and almost 3500 wicks to be gone through. This thread is for organizing the cleanup effort and discussing any and all examples to be added and cut.

What is correct use of the trope?

  • The characters must be part of a team, that is, a team dynamic must exist between members of the band.
  • There must be exactly 5 team members

Format for examples

In an effort to cut down on misuse as well as get rid of all the Zero Context Examples, we are trying to shift all examples to the following format. If you are familiar with a current work and can do a writeup for it, please do so and post it here.

The sandbox for sorting examples is here.


Completed

Subpages:

  • Other (Moved and redirected to a Just for Fun page, as that is what is was acting as.)

Still needs work

Wicks (Related To page):

  • B-V

I will keep this post updated with the progress made, and any other needed information.

Edited by MacronNotes on May 19th 2022 at 8:59:40 AM

DrakeClawfang Since: Apr, 2010
#801: Oct 4th 2014 at 6:10:54 AM

Is this the place to make suggestions for an addition to one of the FMB pages?

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#802: Oct 4th 2014 at 6:22:11 AM

Yes. Make sure you explain how each character fits the character types - it's a common omission.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
DrakeClawfang Since: Apr, 2010
#803: Oct 4th 2014 at 7:01:48 AM

Alright. This concerns My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, specifically the "Equestria Girls" film spin-offs. While I concur with the removal of the original cast from the list, their human counterparts in the alternate world the films are set in have a different dynamic, most prominently that Twilight Sparkle is not a core member of the group as explained below. In the second film they also form a rock band called the Rainbooms with the appropriate positions filled.

  • The Leader: Rainbow Dash. Arrogant, headstrong, and athletic, considers the Rainbooms "her" band since it was her idea to form one. Lead singer and lead guitar.
  • The Lancer: Applejack. Rainbow's level-headed rival who corrects her "it's my band" behavior and thinks they should focus on sounding good. Bass.
  • The Smart Guy: Rarity, The Fashionista who designs the group's outfits. Intended to play the piano, but given it was impractical to move around, plays the keytar.
  • The Big Guy: Pinkie Pie, energetic and wacky event planner who just wants them to have fun. Drummer.
  • The Chick: Fluttershy, Shrinking Violet and song writer. Tamborine.
  • The Sixth Ranger: Twilight Sparkle, who crosses over from Equestria to help the group defeat the film's villains, then goes home. Back-up vocals. At the end of the second film, Sunset Shimmer takes her place in the band.

edited 4th Oct '14 7:02:56 AM by DrakeClawfang

lexicon Since: May, 2012
#805: Oct 4th 2014 at 4:54:39 PM

I would say not. Designing outfits is artistic, not academic and fun-loving event planner has nothing to do with physical fighting.

DrakeClawfang Since: Apr, 2010
#806: Oct 4th 2014 at 5:20:43 PM

True, but outfit designer is still an intellectual pursuit, and the group's instruments still fit the listings on the trope page.

Gideoncrawle Elder statesman from Put out to pasture Since: Dec, 2012 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Elder statesman
#807: Oct 4th 2014 at 8:51:45 PM

Doesn't matter, because all five roles must fit and there must be a certain team dynamic. There's no apparent Big Guy, who is defined by relying mainly on physical strength to solve problems. And no, fashion design isn't intellectual in the Smart Guy sense. The Big Guy and The Smart Guy are shoehorned in your example.

In any case, Eddie has decreed—and Eddie's word is law on this site—that FMB examples can't have more than two females, one of whom must be The Chick. No exceptions. In your example, aren't they all females? Automatic disqualifier.

Note also that a Five-Man Band is rarely an actual music ensemble, so the instrumentation in your example is not relevant. The rock band analogy in the trope description is just that—an analogy.

Bigotry in the name of inclusion is still bigotry.
TheOneWhoTropes Dread Sorcerer of Auchtermuchty from Newton-le-willows, quaint town Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Dread Sorcerer of Auchtermuchty
#808: Oct 5th 2014 at 3:24:22 AM

The rock band analogy is only there by Admin Fiat, plenty of tropers were arguing for its removal to be replaced with an iconic Five-Man Band.

Keeper of The Celestial Flame
NemuruMaeNi Since: Apr, 2014
#809: Oct 10th 2014 at 6:46:44 AM

VisualNovel.Kira Kira — Six people, deprecated hero lead, zero context, three females (part of musical quartet(sic)), unrelated role, deprecated hero lead. Removed. Along with the Five-Man Band Concert mention pseudocontexted with a pothole to Captain Obvious. It's slice of life romantic game with rock music theme. No FMB dynamics in sight per my standards.

edited 10th Oct '14 6:49:07 AM by NemuruMaeNi

muddycurve424 Her Lunacy from Dubai, UAE Since: Jun, 2013
Her Lunacy
#810: Oct 23rd 2014 at 3:25:07 AM

This is the first time I do this, so I know I'm gonna mess up. Apologies in advance. The The 100 has a listing for Five-Man Band that has 8 entries.

Edit: still can't get the link for The 100 working. I read the instructions, honest!

[When the pagetitle cannot be written in CamelCase form, you need to use curly brackets - Septimus]

edited 23rd Oct '14 3:28:03 AM by SeptimusHeap

Black is Order, White is Chaos.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#811: Oct 23rd 2014 at 3:26:58 AM

That one seems like misuse, given the too many characters.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
muddycurve424 Her Lunacy from Dubai, UAE Since: Jun, 2013
Her Lunacy
#812: Oct 23rd 2014 at 3:34:51 AM

So what should be done? remove it altogether?

Black is Order, White is Chaos.
TheOneWhoTropes Dread Sorcerer of Auchtermuchty from Newton-le-willows, quaint town Since: Feb, 2010 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Dread Sorcerer of Auchtermuchty
#813: Oct 23rd 2014 at 5:13:32 AM

remove it altogether, usually. There isn't any context to the characters, so they can't get their own entries under the appropriate Character archetype.

Keeper of The Celestial Flame
rexpensive Since: Feb, 2014
#814: Oct 23rd 2014 at 8:45:37 AM

They could potentially be put under The Team but context would be needed.

muddycurve424 Her Lunacy from Dubai, UAE Since: Jun, 2013
Her Lunacy
#815: Oct 23rd 2014 at 1:08:12 PM

I'm not really gonna be able to make a decision on this. I kinda just want someone to say "Do this". So please, someone put me out of my misery!

Black is Order, White is Chaos.
muddycurve424 Her Lunacy from Dubai, UAE Since: Jun, 2013
Her Lunacy
#816: Oct 23rd 2014 at 1:18:54 PM

so...I'm gonna go ahead and cut it. I figure if need be that decision can always be undone.

Black is Order, White is Chaos.
muddycurve424 Her Lunacy from Dubai, UAE Since: Jun, 2013
Her Lunacy
#818: Oct 25th 2014 at 11:15:19 PM

Supernatural has an example in the Supernatural S02 E21 “All Hell Breaks Loose, Part One” of 5-man band with characters filling more than one slot and 7 slots and...just...see?

Five-Man Band: The five Special Children at Cold Oak fall into these roles rather neatly.

The Hero/The Leader: Sam. He's The Hero of the group, the most heroic as well as the only many-episode character in a muddle of one- and two-off characters. As the member of the group with the most experience and knowledge of the supernatural world by far, he also falls into the role of The Leader, trying to keep them everybody safe, informed, and relatively calm. His job is not easy.

The Lancer: Jake assumes this role, first by acting as the voice of dissent against Sam (when nobody believes Sam about demons) and then by becoming his unofficial Number Two.

The Smart Guy: Andy is actually the least combat-capable of the psychics and is by and large used for comedic relief. He's also pretty smart (as was previously implied in his other episode) and ends up being the one who figures out a way to contact Dean.

The Big Guy: Sam and Jake. Sam is the most combat-capable of the psychics against the Acheri, having been trained a hunter. Jake is a US soldier, making him almost on par with Sam in terms of fighting ability and vastly superior to all the rest of the psychics in terms of pure strength; while he isn't stupid, he is quieter than the others.

The Heart/The Chick: Sam and Ava. Sam works to keep them together and connects with each of them emotionally. Helping him is that he has preestablished relationships (or at least acquaintances) with two of the other psychics. Ava is perhaps most emotionally connected to him (which is why her betrayal came as such a shock) and is the most emotional in general of the group.

The Sixth Ranger: Unlike Andy and Ava, Sam didn't meet Jake and Lily in a previous episode and so they are complete strangers to him and the viewers.

The Mole: Ava's true place in the Five-Man Band.

edited 25th Oct '14 11:17:08 PM by muddycurve424

Black is Order, White is Chaos.
SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#819: Oct 26th 2014 at 1:03:27 AM

Delete that. Too many "Chick-like" characters.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
muddycurve424 Her Lunacy from Dubai, UAE Since: Jun, 2013
Her Lunacy
#820: Oct 26th 2014 at 1:39:00 AM

gone

Black is Order, White is Chaos.
AndyLA Since: Oct, 2009
#821: Nov 5th 2014 at 3:28:32 PM

Um, hey. I've been Wiki Walking and found the trope page, which in turn led me here. I noticed that, while the other teams of Power Rangers are there (which in itself is already long enough, considering its Long Runner status as well as the fact that Super Sentai doesn't have nearly as many configs), the FMBs for (Super) Megaforce aren't there yet. This may be a bit complicated, though, since they tend to rotate about their roles in the team, but this is the closese I could think:

  • Leader: Troy (Red)
  • Lancer: Gia (Yellow); because of her innumerable attributes, it's hard to pin her down as just Big or Smart Girl, plus she does have plenty of authority in the team, coming second only to the Red Ranger, invariably.
  • Big Guy: Jake (Black/Green)
  • Smart Guy: Noah (Blue), though he can be a Lancer too.
  • Chick: Emma (Pink)
  • Sixth Ranger: Robo Knight in Megaforce, Orion in Super Megaforce

Gideoncrawle Elder statesman from Put out to pasture Since: Dec, 2012 Relationship Status: With my statistically significant other
Elder statesman
#822: Nov 5th 2014 at 5:51:40 PM

One of the FMB requirements is that there be no shared roles. Another is that none of the members can have multiple roles. So if Gia and Noah can move back and forth between roles, then it's not a Five-Man Band.

Bigotry in the name of inclusion is still bigotry.
lexicon Since: May, 2012
#823: Nov 5th 2014 at 7:37:16 PM

Welcome to the Five-Man Band page. You need context to say how each fits the role. The Lancer is "The hero's foil and The Leader's trusted companion," not one who is hard to pin down. As was said there's one role per character so please tell us how each one fits the role so the example can be added.

hamrag Since: Dec, 2014
#824: Dec 2nd 2014 at 8:07:49 AM

Hi all. I thought I would give Guardians of the Galaxy a shot at this:

The Leader — Peter Quill/Star-lord. Charismatic, level-headed, obviously The Hero.

The Lancer — Drax the Destroyer. A contrast to the leader in that he is headstrong and impulsive. While Star-lord is a rake, Drax refers to Gamora as a 'whore' so he's obviously more conservative by comparison.

The Smart Guy — Rocket Raccoon. Physically smaller, intelligent/clever, comic relief, a Trickster and a buddy of the Big Guy.

The Big Guy — Groot. A strongman, but one of 2 in the group I guess. Is borderline mute.

The Chick — Gamora. Not sure if she is the 'heart' of the group, but she is a female, so she fills that role.

When I posted this elsewhere I was told this fails because Groot is clearly the 'heart' of the group, but I'm not sure exactly what the definition of that is. Your thoughts?

Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#825: Dec 2nd 2014 at 8:21:18 AM

Copy/Pasting my post from that discussion:

"They're not. They'd be absolutely perfect if Groot were female, as he's definitely The Heart, Gamora is a classic Lancer, and Drax is The Big Guy.

Seriously, they fit the roles perfectly... except Groot isn't female."

If you want, look at the Guardians of the Galaxy page and look. These are the roles that we've established already. To make them fit your writeup, we'd have to switch that around to make them fit, which isn't good.

Drax isn't The Lancer. He's The Big Guy. His role is fighting and that's about it. Yes, he has elements that contrast with The Hero, but every character ever has "some" elements that contrast every other character, and his are sort of a reach.

Gamora, on the other hand, is The Lancer. She's a foil to Peter much more directly (female stoic assassin directly involved in Thanos' scheme vs. male affable thief who got swept up in this stuff). They're the ones who butt heads the most.

Groot is so ridiculously The Heart. He's the kindest, most compassionate member of the team and he's the one who sided with Quill during the 12% of a plan thing and he keeps them together. I mean, come on. "We are Groot."

Now, the problem is he's not female so he can't be The Chick. If he were, they'd be a perfect Five-Man Band. But he's not, so they're not.

edited 2nd Dec '14 8:24:22 AM by Larkmarn

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

Total posts: 2,455
Top