At first I thought "Oh, this is real easy" but then I got further and further into the description.
- Simply put, the Evil Counterpart to The Chick.
Sounds simple enough, although is there a rule saying The Chick can't be evil?
- Just as the heroic Chick represents diversity and an emphasis on emotion, so, too, does the Dark Chick.
Chicks represent diversity?
- He/she (the gender ratio is fairly evenly split, literally at least in post-1970s works)
So why are we calling them chicks if they are just as likely to be dudes (to use a comparable masculine term)?
- is the member of the villainous ensemble that adds a certain indescribable quality.
TV Tropes exists to describe things. How if we can't describe it, we shouldn't try.
- How it does this can vary.
In otherwords, this can be anything or one of a bunch of different things, so it really is questionable that this can be narrowed down to something specific that can be coverded by one trope.
- Most frequent is for the member to be a Token Minority (relative to their peers; it's not unheard of for this member to be a Token White or The One Guy), acting out their status to an excessive degree.
Token Minority The Same But More So? Not a good sign.
- For example, if this member is the Dark Action Girl in a male dominated organization, she'll also base a lot of her actions and dialogue on how she is breaking gender stereotypes.
???
- If it's a Scot in an otherwise English group, expect her to be wearing a red plaid kilt and speaking with a thick Glaswegian accent while perpetually drunk.
WTF? Why Scots?
edited 12th Jan '14 4:22:37 AM by Catbert
Ignoring the laconic, I've always assumed that the trope is the Five Bad Band counterpart to Five-Man Band's The Chick.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanI would just keep the first two sentences of the first paragraph "Simply put, the Evil Counterpart to The Chick. Just as the heroic Chick represents diversity and an emphasis on emotion, so, too, does the Dark Chick." and then cut the rest of that paragraph entirely. Leave the rest alone then see what we're working with.
Maybe cut out the diversity bit from the second sentence too.
edited 12th Jan '14 4:24:14 PM by acrobox
I actually began a wick check on this a few months ago. There was a fair amount of misuse for Dark Action Girl.
First eleven wicks (note: These were from a few months ago so they may be out of date:
- A Cat in Paris: Seems to be used for Dark Action Girl
- Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Correct.
- Ace Combat: Equestria Chronicles: Correct
- Action Dress Rip: Dark Action Girl
- Adventure Time: Correct
- Aerith and Bob: Misuse for Dark Action Girl
- Afterhour Mayhem: not sure, but there's no mention of Five Bad Band on the page.
- A Game of Gods Nomads: Dark Action Girl.
- Albert the Fifth Musketeer: No mention of a Five Bad Band, so presumably Dark Action Girl.
- Fan Fic/Alex: ZCE but in Five Bad Band so probably correct.
- All Girls Want Bad Boys: Used as "The Chick, but evil."
edited 12th Jan '14 6:08:36 PM by Larkmarn
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.Are we absolutely sure that Five Bad Band (as opposed to a team, period) is a requirement for Dark Chick? I don't think that we need to restrict the trope like that.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanIt has to be part of some group, either a Five Bad Band, a Quirky Miniboss Squad, or something similar given the only concrete definition of the character is "member of the bad guy group who is weird."
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.I say if The Chick has to be female so does the Dark Chick. Saying that someone "adds a certain indescribable quality" should not be allowed. If The Chick keeps to group united through goodness the Dark Chick should keep the group united through evil. They should actually be counterparts of each other.
Part of the problem is The Chick's own Trope Decay. Partly as a result of "let's shoehorn every team into Five-Man Band" syndrome, The Chick drifted from its more sexist definition as "the token chick of the team" to a definition that had little to do with being female and more to do with being The Heart. I'm not sure if that's still the case or if The Chick has been redefined again, because I know this definition drift came up in a past Five-Man Band discussion, if only because I brought it up.
Dark Chick is inherently dependent on Five Bad Band for its definition, but that doesn't necessarily mean every Dark Chick is a member of a Five Bad Band, and Five Bad Band itself, I suspect, represents a questionable effort to find an Evil Counterpart to Five-Man Band from when it was already being heavily misused.
This has always struck me as something people did because Five-Man Band is an extremely specific pattern who's only plausible addendum is The Sixth Ranger, and a lot of "groups where members have specific strengths" are somehow "shoehornable" to it since it's apparently the only one in Cast Calculus that covers groups larger than Four-Temperament Ensemble and Power Trio. making it a very nice target for shoehorning and other Follow the Leader tropes like The Magnificent Seven Samurai.
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same goes for Five Bad Band.
I blame it on adding the "associated character tropes". which probably makes people read it as "additional shoehornable members"
pretty sure there are two tropes here, one is the Psycho Rangers version of The Chick (which i'd say can be safely shoehorned there as an inversion) and "The Token "diversity" guy in a Villain Ensemble".
edited 14th Jan '14 2:47:38 AM by ShanghaiSlave
Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?I agree there are two tropes here, but disagree with what they are. We've got "Token Female, but evil" and "The Heart, but evil." For the latter, they might not be the Token Good Teammate, but they're still the glue that keeps the rest of the team together.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Asfar as shoehorning, that's now solved by The Team which allows for different versions of the same role (like Action Girl Chick and The Heart Chick) as well as no cap on number of members or genders etc.
As for Dark Chick the definition is pretty solid in my mind but just needs some clarification.
- The Dark Chick is the member of the Five Bad Band who is probably the Token Girl (or we could make this necessarily the Token Girl like it now is for Five-Man Band)
- Where The Chick is The Heart and is usually good at reading emotions and doing something positive, like making people feel better or resolving fights. The Dark Chick can be a Villainous Demotivator, Ice Queen, or Deadpan Snarker who cares little for others emotional well being. If they don't outright ignore their other peoples feelings, they will either make fun of them, berate them, or use as fodder for mind-games and manipulation.
- The Chick brings 'diversity' by being the member of the team who usually a Non-Action Guy or Faux Action Girl. The Dark Chick brings 'diversity' by being the member of the team who usually not just For the Evulz, or has reasons why they don't always act like everyone else does, (sometimes being the Token Good Teammate or most susceptible to a Heel–Face Turn especially if she has a thing for one of the heroes)
- Often relegated to Designated Girl Fight with The Chick, or is otherwise given more character focus and is set up as a female foil to a male hero. If this happens she usually starts to overlap with The Dragon, and may outright replace him in the hierarchy much to his chagrin.
- In a leadership position she's either a Puppet Master or a Bad Boss
- In short the reasons that make The Chick different from a regular Five-Man Band typically make her teammates like her, what makes the Dark Chick different makes her Five Bad Band teammates dislike her.
- Or barring the other side components of the trope she's the Chick's Evil Counterpart by virtue of being the Token Girl for the bad guys.
edited 15th Jan '14 8:33:36 AM by acrobox
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There's still remnants of shoehorning on Five-Man Band. i'm guessing this is due to Five Bad Band, which makes FMB the go-to trope "the team The Hero is on regardless of number".
that aside, anyone's free to clean them up right? what edit reason would prevent someone reading shit, EDITING them? sorry, i lost track of my thoughts there. took me a while to edit... fail.
also yeah, that's the diversity i'm referring to as well.
edited 15th Jan '14 9:46:24 PM by ShanghaiSlave
Is dast der Zerstorer? Odar die Schopfer?was my interpretation of Dark Chick agreeable, (^ ^ ^ acrobox, post #13) should I just go in and make edits?
edited 16th Jan '14 6:36:02 PM by acrobox
Bump. We've got three different solutions suggested: Split into Evil Chick and Token Evil Female, split into Token Evil Female and The Dark Heart, and narrowing the definition a bit
.
I can't think about The Dark Heart without thinking DARKHEART!
Sorry, I had to.
But, I agree that Dark Chick should be a girl just as The Chick is. It doesn't make sense for a male character to fill this role, since The Chick must be a girl. The name should probably be called The Dark Chick (current name can redirect to this) since most members of The Team are called that. "The" may seem trivial, but it helps indicate that it's a role, rather than just a dark chick.
The Dark Heart sounds like it's similar to Your Cheating Heart or like The Heartless, or the negative counterpart of What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?.
Given how many heart-named tropes we have, I don't think The Dark Heart is a good choice for this one.
we also havent even gotten any descriptions of what such a trope would be.
If someone is The Heart (the glue that keeps the team together) does it matter if they're on the good guys team or bad guys team?
edited 17th Mar '14 5:59:32 PM by acrobox
I think that maybe the glue that holds the bad guys together is a bad description. It's sort of a combination of Morality Pet + most likely to Heel–Face Turn and generally when they do it indicates that the remaining bad guys have gotten even more evil. I don't think that roll is necessarily Always Female. It can be a male with a Code of Honour, but I also don't think heart or chick is the best name for the roll, even if those tend to be the counterpart good rolls.
The real important things seem to be that they're less evil than the rest of the bad guys, and when the bad guys lose them (either death or Heel–Face Turn), it's generally a sign that the bad guys becoming even more evil or escalating their behaviour in some way.
edited 18th Mar '14 8:26:37 AM by shimaspawn
Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick
Crown Description:
What would be the best way to fix the page?

Oy. Where to start?
The laconic helps, if we assume it's accurate. "The expressive/quirky member of the Five Bad Band." (Note the lack of gender specification, which is backed up in parts of the description — apparently this doesn't have to be a woman.)
That definition is problematic enough in itself (it's going to be hell to work out whether examples are misused or not — how do you define "quirky"?), but the description and examples seem hopelessly confused as to whether this is Dark Action Girl, The Chick But Evil, or something else entirely. The name can't be helping, as "Evil Counterpart to The Chick" is the obvious implication (and then the first sentence of the description confirms that), even though I'm not really seeing how that fits with the laconic.
edited 12th Jan '14 4:02:45 AM by johnnye