Five-Man Band cleanup

Well, sort of? Technically speaking, The Heart was never an acceptable FMB swap because of the gender rule, which included "one of the girls must be The Chick".

The Heart is way broader.

Right, but we decided that that rule was arbitrary. So really The Chick is just "The Heart, but female".

I mean, like I said, The Chick doesn't exist outside of Five-Man Band. That's how it's defined. It needs that trope in order to exist. So while I agree that the concepts are literally the same except The Chick has some weird limitations, as defined, The Chick is a much narrower shell of what The Heart is.

This might seem like I'm just being pedantic, but the weird reliance on FMB for The Chick is one of the biggest issues with it, and we can't overlook it by saying "It's just The Heart".

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 24th 2022 at 7:33:49 AM

What I was getting at is that The Heart covers the same territory as The Chick and doesn't have the same gender limitation. I suppose you could have a trope about female characters being The Heart more often than male characters, but we would have to redefine The Chick.

Edited by RustBeard on Mar 24th 2022 at 4:40:12 AM

I mean, we're on the same side. I also agree that they should just be the exact same thing and if anything they should just be merged together. I'm not saying what The Chick should be, I'm just saying what it's currently and has always been defined as.

Edited by WarJay77 on Mar 24th 2022 at 7:45:51 AM

If The Chick is supposed to be always part of a Five-Man Band, why do most of its (on-page) examples not mention an FMB?

Edited by Lymantria on Mar 24th 2022 at 5:24:35 PM

Misuse, basically.

Another stab at Psych

Psych: The Leader is Shawn Spencer, a hyper-observant man who masquerades as a psychic to help the SBPD solve crimes. The Lancer is his partner and best friend since childhood - Burton Guster, who is generally more serious and level headed that Shawn but has his own moments of quirkiness and immaturity. He is also one of the only two people to know Shawn's secret, the other one being Henry Spencer, Shawn's father. As a former cop who often gives advice to Shawn on the cases he works on, he functions as The Smart Guy. The Big Guy is Carlton Lassiter, the head detective of the SBPD and a massive gun nut. While he and Shawn often snipe at each other, Lassiter is always there to provide the Psych duo with police backup. The Chick of the group is Juliet O'Hara, Lassiter's partner who accompanies Lassiter in providing backup to Shawn and Gus. She is also the most level headed and caring member of the band.

I'm not an expert on the show or anything, but, looking at the main page, is Vick a significant member of the team?

I'll get to cutting/commenting out the Anime examples I brought up earlier (depending on which one we actually need to do for wick cleaning) later. New batch:

Edited by GoldenCityBird on Mar 28th 2022 at 8:43:31 PM

Purged the previous examples I brought up. Again, asking about what should be done with PlayingWith.Five Man Band and SoYouWantTo.Write A Five Man Band, and if the page image should be changed.

Edited by GoldenCityBird on May 6th 2022 at 11:25:43 AM

The page image needs to be discussed at Image Pickin' if we haven't already. IDK about the other pages.

Rewrote the Playing With page. Thoughts?

Request for new example on main page under Fan Works folder:

Trope examples need to stay on one bullet, as per official guidelines.

Here's the adjusted example without the double-bullets.

It's technically right, but it's still quite the wall of text. That, and we don't even need specific roles anymore; they just have to be a persistent, sturdy team.

Edited by GoldenCityBird on May 13th 2022 at 10:53:55 AM

So there's no need to specify roles (e.g. The Leader, The Lancer, etc.), and the example only has to say "these five people are a team with a common goal"?

Pretty much, yeah.

Writing up an example for Torchwood. Any opinions?

• Five-Man Band: After the First-Episode Twist of Suzie Costello leaving the team, Torchwood solidifies into a five-person team that can take on any alien threat. The immortal Captain Jack Harkness and newcomer Gwen Cooper form the focal duo, with medical officer Owen Harper, all-around genius Toshiko Sato, and driver and administrative worker-turned-field agent Ianto Jones filling out the group.

Here's the adjusted example with reasonable length.

Sounds good! Now just ask for it to be added on the Locked Pages thread and it should all be sorted.

Could The Chick be said to be just Token Female plus The Heart?

Eh, well, yes/no depending on what definition you go with.

The Chick is the most problematic of all the old FMB tropes because it's the only one defined by its role in the team, and was forced to be involved thanks to Eddie's gender rule. Boiling it down to "The Heart but female" is simplifying the bigger issue of it being a FMB-specific trope that, as a result, has a lot of glaring problems beyond overlap.