What the five-man band and sixth ranger trope would have made me think about

Whenever I look at the Five-Man Band and the Sixth Ranger tropes, I often equate it to taking a Power Trio or Freudian Trio, and splitting each member into two more members.

Essentially, The Lancer and The Big Guy would usually play a combat role, while The Smart Guy and The Chick / The Heart would play a support role, leaving The Leader to do Exactly What It Says on the Tin. But when you incorporate a sixth member of a team, odds are, the ensemble dynamics would have consisted of either two hearts, two brains, and two muscles, or two Jacks of All Stats, two FragileSpeedsters, and two MightyGlaciers.

For example, I watched fansubs of Gokaiger, ToQger, and Ninninger on Facebook, and saw the following dynamics in these three Super Sentai:

• **Gokaiger:** Two well-rounded rangers, two melee rangers, and two gunner rangers.

• **ToQger:** Two well-rounded rangers, two agility-based rangers, and two strength-based rangers.

• **Ninninger:** Two dumb muscles, two brains, and two hearts.

Right?

Edited by EternalNothingness on Feb 26th 2019 at 7:26:54 AM

People spend way too much time worrying about fitting teams or ensembles into the Five-Man Band trope, so much so that we've had to rigorously enforce its rules. Five-Man Band is a specific variation of The Team, no more and no less.

We don't need new tropes or trope variations for every single possible arrangement of team members.