Five-Man Band cleanup

I'll look at some of those (from works I'm familiar with).

I personally wouldn't mind allowing one-gender examples... But reading back through this thread shows the idea has been flat out rejected by Eddie himself...

He isn't the owner anymore.

I'm aware. Its just that because of this fiat I think we need a little more consensus before we can make the decision.

I think the trope would need to be rethought for the group to become single-gender, given that there is a specific type of team dynamic that still exists that this trope was created for.

I don't recall seeing any five-person teams that were all-female that are genuinely this trope (I've seen plenty shoehorned to it, however). It's possible that there's a missing trope to cover all-female five-person teams that would have an all-male counterpart (that would also not fit Five-Man Band), but I do think there's still a real trope where Five-Man Band is concerned, where the point of having the single female team-member is to act as the counter or even pivot around which the men of the team turn.

My suggestion would be to gather up all known examples of all-female five-woman teams, sandbox them and identify whether a pattern exists on what these teams tend to represent and the dynamic they have. That'll tell us whether or not there's a genuine all-female Five-Man Band, or whether there's an all-female five-woman trope that needs to be created.

More like any FMB examples that don't fit the gender restrictions (female chick, at least 3 males).

According to the discussion page, the original trope was about older examples with 4 males where The Chick is a Damsel in Distress/Faux Action Girl, or something like that.

Edited by Lymantria on Feb 10th 2019 at 9:23:00 AM

thats interesting, i always thought the fmb applied pretty easily to Sailor Moon, at least in the 90s anime: Moon leader. Mars lancer. Mercury, smart. Jupiter, big. Venus, chick.

I know in other continuities the inners are more of an Elite Four so its: Moon Big Good/Chick, Venus Leader, Mars Lancer to Venus, Mercury smart, Jupiter Big. That formation might not count.

Sailor Moon is also a perfect example of what i mentioned earlier if the first 5 are an FMB (if you believe they are) and stay that way for a while before adding more party members later.

—

Also i find that transformers may be a genuine all male group at least in the original film, Optimus leader, Jazz lancer, Rachet smart, Ironhide big, Bumblebee male chick

Edited by acrobox on Feb 10th 2019 at 6:30:56 AM

That would disqualify a lot of examples from the sandbox then...

I guess I would lean towards excluding all female examples, unless there's a very large difference in characterization (the other four are an Amazon Brigade or Butch Lesbians, The Chick is a hyperfeminine Damsel in Distress).

With the Sailor Moon example, there's also the fact that Usagi is The Hero but also the most chick-like of the characters. That's a problem for figuring out the roles.

I swear that at some point in this thread it was stated that it could be 3 men / 2 girls (but not the other way around, for some reason) and that one of the girls must be The Chick.

yeah thats the assumption i've been operating under.

They're in the rules stated in literally the first post on page one of this clean up thread in the year 2012. haha. we're only now doing the work that this thread was created for by cleaning up the examples on the page itself.

interestingly, also covers the Grandfather Clause for FMB's being indented the way they are.

Edited by acrobox on Feb 14th 2019 at 9:08:35 AM

That's what I said. So any group with more than 2 girls or with a male The Chick/The Heart doesn't count (I'm still not quite sure why).

Edited by Lymantria on Feb 16th 2019 at 5:59:56 AM

anyway jsut wanted t bring up genders because of the sailor moon example. either way anime section is pretty much done. gonna move on to literature next.

currently at D for dresden files.

In other news, I removed this example from Trust Me, I'm a Genie:

• Five-Man Band: Although there's 7 of them, Diego and his friends fit this:
  • The Leader: Diego
  • The Lancer: Ziggy
  • The Smart Guy: Joe
  • The Big Girl: Sonia
  • The Chick: Zazie
  • The Heart: Larry
  • Kid-Appeal Character: Tony

The only record of the "no more than two female members" rule I can find is in the OP post, which cites fiat by Fast Eddie. It's not in the actual trope description, and I don't see it in the original TRS thread that started this clean-up effort (which even cites 3-female teams such as Avatar as good examples). Admittedly, I skimmed the thread a bit.

Hmm. 🤔

I don't know, then.

finished going through the literature section to the best of my ability. again only transferring over examples i could find context for. the rest feel like shoehorns or simply not enough information for me that i could easily find on other Tvtropes pages or with a quick google search.

may tackle live action TV next.

Edited by acrobox on Feb 17th 2019 at 8:44:55 AM

I removed trope misuse from the gen:LOCK character page, but someone's gone and added it to the work's main page.

Originally, it was entered as this:

• Five-Man Band: An interesting take on this amongst the pilots. As already noted below, Julian is The Leader, Yasamin is The Lancer, and Kazu's The Big Guy; however, the roles of The Chick and The Smart Girl are shared by Cammie and Valentina, with Cammie leaning towards the former more than Valentina does.

My edit reason for removing it:

It's now been put onto the work's main page as follows:

• Five-Man Band: The gen:LOCK team:
  • The Leader: Chase
  • The Lancer: Yasamin
  • The Smart Guy: Cammie
  • The Big Guy: Kazu
  • The Chick: Valentina
  • Sixth Ranger/Sixth Ranger Traitor: Sinclair

There's no explanation of how they fit each one, but the layout is different to the original attempt which by itself suggests the fandom doesn't regard the roles the characters play in the same way.

While Kazu is definitely the most physical, Chase also fights physically. Yaz is also a physical fighter. Chase and Yaz do use guns, but Kazu uses everything (cars, pipes, and — when he's eventually give one — a sword).

Cammie has no prior combat training and is a hacker. She is learning both unarmed combat and how to shoot a gun, she favours guns and drones in battle. Chase is definitely The Leader, Yaz is definitely The Lancer and Cammie is definitely The Smart Guy. However, while Kazu can be called The Big Guy, he does have competition from Chase and possibly Yaz. Also, Cammie is the one who tries to push the group to do things together as a team, but she doesn't particularly show any Chick/Heart tendencies beyond that. Valentina and Sinclair are the main problem (Sinclair is killed in the second episode so is barely introduced before dying).

In terms of team numbers: six mechs were created, six characters were recruited, but the infiltrator was killed in the second episode and the sixth mech has so far gone unused. Other information: Valentina is gender-fluid. Although they are currently presenting as female, they have been talking about possibly having surgery to become a man and whenever they are shown in virtual reality, they present as male. Valentina does fight differently to the rest of the group, preferring to act as sniper cover for the team (they're also strongly indicated to be a Knife Nut, too, but we've only seen one brief instance of it). However, Valentina (like Kazu) is not a team-player and they don't show any Chick/Heart tendencies.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 18th 2019 at 3:02:08 PM

^ Hold up, the person who added it back (Perfect Paradox) is the same troper who undid your Nightmare Fuel edit.

I didn't notice that. But, yes. It looks like they are.

I think that might be coincidence. The Five-Man Band entry was added to a different page than the one I removed it from.

My main concern is that Cammie and Valentina have been defined different across the two entries, suggesting problems with defining who genuinely fits The Chick trope.

Edited by Wyldchyld on Feb 18th 2019 at 3:05:22 PM

It's more just the fact that they're refusing to look at page history when making these edits. Your explanations were perfect.

Man this thread really took off recently. Also the gen:lock group don't count. Cammie is closer to The Chick than Val and is the only one who fits as The Smart Guy in the team. Also we should set up a system like the Complete Monster forum where we have someone make the edit proposals every Sunday.

What would these editing proposals entail?

It would include all of the proposed cuts, additions, and edits from the week, that way we can keep track of what things we mention on this thread actually go up. At the end of the week someone brings them up on the locked pages forum.

I'm personally not a fan of the Complete Monster approach, as it involves a lot of complex rules beyond the trope description that make it difficult for anyone new to the thread to participate. Also, if it's one proposed example per week, that seems actually slower than the current approach of cleaning out out all the subpages (which urgently need bad examples purged). And unlike Complete Monster, Five-Man Band is not YMMV, and seems like it has less chance of generating Edit Wars, Alternative Character Interpretations, or complaining/gushing, all of which I assume were a problem in addition to misuse for Complete Monster.