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
That said all these examples that have people that operate as a team, even if they don't fit the FMB, can still be listed under The Team if you want to keep a 'group dynamics/roster' entry on the page. And then you can find other Party Member roles that might even fit some of them better than trying to shoehorn the five legendary roles.
edited 29th May '17 1:03:39 PM by acrobox
It looks alright to me. I have one caveat; does the player character, as the leader, actually make decisions for the group? Oftentimes, when the player is supposed to be a leader, what ends up happening is that they go along with whatever their strategist/best friend/etc. says (i.e. the programed plot of the story).
Would this work as a Five Bad Band?
- Game of Thrones: Cersei's regime at the end of Season 6:
- Big Bad: Queen Cersei Lannister
- The Dragon: Jaime Lannister, Cersei's brother and highest-ranking nobleman, sent to subjugate the Riverlands.
- Evil Genius: Qyburn, a disgraced Maester who managed to resurrect Gregor Clegane.
- The Brute: Ser Gregor Clegane, Cersei's hulking, armored silent bodyguard.
- Dark Chick: The Little Birds, Creepy Child assassins that Qyburn "borrowed" from Varys.
Utterly inaccurate use of The Dark Chick is enough to disqualify it all on its own (which is not to say it's the only problem).
I honestly don't know what it is with this trope, although I've wondered before whether the problem is that the concept is really just an invention of this site.
The problem is twofold:
First, for a long time, this was one of the only team tropes we had, which is why it started getting shoehorned for everything from three-person teams to teams with ten or twelve members. (And, of course, non-teams, ditto.)
Second, the name is really generic. So people assume it's a lot broader than it is. It's honestly a terrible name for such a specific trope. But renaming it at this point is probably hopeless. Or, at least, a nightmare no one sane wants to face. :)
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.I was actually referring to Five Bad Band - which I've basically never seen correct examples proposed for here. At least Five-Man Band, name problems aside, does get some accurate usage.
Five Bad Band is/was the worst kind of snowclone: one made just to make it. There's no reason that the villains can't have a Five-Man Band; Five Bad Band is Five Man Band But Evil. And worse, ithe definition allows it to be fuzzy: "also that Five Bad Bands are more fluid than Five Man Bands, open to more roster changes, and there may not even be five of them, though there's never less that four. " This trope was made to be misused.
edited 2nd Jun '17 8:10:08 AM by Madrugada
@1354 - Sally explains the mission objectives because she knows the layout of the ship and how to reach certain areas, but it is the player that orders around the other three, and you also give Sally orders in a few spots. Conversely Sally never really orders you, just lets you know how to do things.
I have a question about the use of The Chick. From what I've read the chick is the character that mediates arguments in the group and ensures that they work together. However most uses of this trope seem to use it to describe the most feminine character in a group. The example I'll use here is Mikuru Asahina from Haruhi Suzumiya who fits the idea of being the most feminine of the group but she never fills the peacekeeping role. Is this a misuse of the trope or not?
I have two more questions. First, why is the page for Five Bad Band open to editing but Five-Man Band is closed? Second, in the Writea Five Man Band page, it suggests that The Big Guy can be a person that can use something like a credit card or ID to get the group past obstacles, is this misuse?
edited 9th Jun '17 12:36:41 PM by papyru30
Also we could change the main trope page for Five Bad Band to say that it is six members at most (though only if it's a Sixth Ranger or Sixth Ranger Traitor as mentioned on the page already) and no less than four. That would clear up misconceptions about the number of members. Though doing this would require us to clean up the subpages.
No. I still don't know what the deal is with Sixth Ranger in relation to FMB, but four is definitely not a permitted number of members for a Five-Man Band. This trope is pretty rigid when it comes to who's on the team and how many people are a part of it.
edited 9th Jun '17 11:03:58 PM by Karxrida
The main characters of Riverdale fit the trope: Archie Andrews - The Hero Jughead Jones - The Lancer Betty Cooper - The Smart Guy Veronica Lodge - The Big Guy Kevin Keller - The Chick Cheryl Blossom - Sixth Ranger or Token Evil Teammate
No.
- Veronica is not The Big Guy — she is not the one who is the most physical.
- The Chick must be female and must be the emotional center of the group.
- Jughead as The Lancer is questionable. The Lancer is the second in command to the Leader, and is often a Foil to him as well. Jughead is the comic sidekick at least as often (more, as I recall) as he's the Lancer.
- The gender division must be four males and 1 female unless it's gender-inverted, then it has to be four females and one male.
- They must operate as a team.
edited 12th Jun '17 10:14:56 PM by Madrugada
- I thought there could be two girls as long as one is The Chick, that's what Nocturna said. Anyways, I found this Five Bad Band from Dark Souls and it is a complete misuse of the trope, as it contains too many members. I wanted to present this to this thread and ask permission to remove it.
- Dark Souls
- Big Bad: Lord Gwyn
- Co-Dragons: Ornstein and Smough
- Evil Genius: Kingseeker Frampt, and Seath the Scaless
- The Brute: Gravelord Nito, and The Bed of Chaos
- Dark Chick: Dark Sun Gwyndolin, and The Four Kings
- Here is another Five Bad Band that I'm going to remove for having way too many members.
- The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius: The League of Villains
- Big Bad: King Goobot
- The Dragon: Professor Calamitous
- Evil Genius: Eustace Strych
- The Brute: Grandma Taters and the Junkman
- Dark Chick: Beautiful Gorgeous
- Kid-of-Heel Character: Baby Eddie
- Sixth Ranger Traitor: Zix, Travolton, and Tee
yeah. with context they can still be The Team but evil, but 10 people split into 7 roles isn't 5 anything
edited 4th Jul '17 6:05:58 PM by acrobox
"Kid-Of-Heel Character" is so offensively bad both as a shoehorn and a pun that it should be burned.
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In the Rangers case, Theo as The Chick is an obvious shoehorning. It has been stated many times that The Chick must be female, no exceptions.
Bigotry in the name of inclusion is still bigotry.