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boldlygowriting · 4 years

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The 5 Man Band vs. the 5+ Man Band

I was inspired by this video by Overly Sarcastic Productions. They do an excellent job of explaining what a 5 Man Band is and its origin. If you want any extra information about tropes, you should check out their Trope Talk series on YouTube.

Anyway, let’s get into this!

Essentially, the video describes the 5 Man Band as a cohesive group of five characters with each character falling under one of the following categories:

Leader

Lancer: the second in command

Heart: the soft, emotional center of the group

Brain

Tank: the muscle of the group or expert fighter, has some powerful influence of some kind.

Although almost any of these can be switched out for comedic relief.

AND sometimes roles can be added and switched out for what you want. For example, in a non-action setting.

A brain

A beauty

A jock

A rebel

A recluse.

Some examples of the 5 Man Band you might be familiar with are: the Teen Titans, the Voltron team, Scooby-Doo, and Power Rangers (not including the Black or Green Ranger depending on which iteration you’re looking at), and the Breakfast Club.

As a writer who’s currently putting together their own group of characters for a sci-fi superhero story, it seemed like a 5 Man Band was perfect for building a team. It offers a pretty simple template for making a balanced team, building your characters’ traits, and abilities or skills. But I knew from the beginning, I wanted 6 characters for my team, not 5, which led me to a new question:

What’s the difference between a 5 Man Band and a 6 or 7 Man Band? And, is one better than the other?

I found out...well...technically, the 5 Man Band is better...but don’t click off yet! I’m not deleting one of my characters, I’m not discouraged and you shouldn’t be either.

The reason why 5 Man Bands are technically better, is because everyone has a distinct role and some people can hold two. If you’re familiar with any of the 5 man band I listed above, you can clearly distinguish the role of each character and if not, they might be holding two: For example, look at the 2002 Scooby-Doo movie.

Fred is clearly the leader, Velma is the brain (but I also put her in the lancer position), Scooby is the heart, Daphne is a tank (go Sarah Michelle Gellar), and Shaggy is comedic relief. You can play around with the 5 Man Band and how you can decide if you’d like to or need to add an additional character.

You can swap out downplay these traits as needed as well, like how Velma is known for being smart, but she’s clearly the one who helps out the most when solving the mystery between her brainstorming with Fred and deciphering the pyramid, she’s clearly second in command. Also, Lancers are known for being the one that eventually forges out on their own, and Velma was the first split at the beginning of the movie.

That’s what makes the 5 Man Band great in comparison to 6 man band, characters can do “double duty” and end up more layered and helpful because of it.

In a 5 Man Band, everyone has a distinct role which can help you build their personality and if you want to give them more oomph, you have room to. I’ve found once you exceed 5 the importance of each member gets a little muddled.

Two mainstream superhero groups started off as 6 man bands: The original Avengers (2012--not in the comic books, that’s a whole other story) consisted of 6 characters, and the live-action Justice League (2017) also had 6 members.

Although, not a superhero group, the flock from one of my favorite book series, Maximum Ride, consisted of 6 characters.

Looking at the Justice League, almost everyone is doing double-roles and I suspect, besides the writing that’s part of the reason why I didn’t really see them as a team. Aside from the fact that I thought it was an okay movie at best.

Batman and Superman can both serve as leaders. Although, after they revive Superman, it’s clear he’s moved to Lancer status. But you never get the sense of knowing who exactly is in charge.

Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Superman all fit the definition of the tank and although Wonder Woman could be considered the heart, she’s not really portrayed with those traits in this film as much as she is in her solo film. The Flash is clearly comedic relief. No one, in particular, is considered the brain despite Bruce Wayne’s intellect and Barry being a genius, unless you count Cyborg, who I would only place into this role because he has expert knowledge of the Motherbox.

Otherwise, he’s pretty unimportant.

The problem is that some characters are pulling more weight than others making the team unbalanced, less interesting and less fleshed out. I didn’t really care about any of them.

Of course, you could totally argue that Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman have their own stand-alone films, so of course, they do more, but just because some characters are more popular doesn’t mean they should make the other characters you added less interesting or less developed. What’s the point of adding underdeveloped and less interesting characters?

A poorly written group can be top-heavy and leave some of its characters in the dust (eg. Cyborg).

Does that mean that all 6+ man bands are going to be horrible and you’ll only care about half the characters? NO, definitely not. You can have the same problem with a 5 man band if you’re not paying attention, it’s just more likely in a 6+ character group.

My MC, Hal, is the Leader. His cousin Xavier is the Lancer, who also doubles as primary comedic relief. Evelyn is their Heart. Reyka is the Tank. Aren is the brain. And Jack is something I call ‘the dissenter; someone who is not a natural team player, but has a common goal with the main group and may act as their foil.

On top of their given roles in the team, I know that each has fleshed out backstories, hopes, wants, dreams, etc, that are as equally known as Hal’s. Everyone is treating each character like a person and not a trait, role, or plot point.

In 6+ man bands, it can get overwhelming to flesh out each character which is how you end up with top-heavy teams and forgettable characters. But it doesn’t take much to write a few scenes to flesh them out, especially on a team, because they’re teammates for Pete’s sake! Have them learn about each other, do some team building, something!

Now that that’s covered that explained with 5 Man Bands are technically better, here’s where they’re technically not. A poorly made 5 man band reduces them to their roles. The brain is just the brain and only really talks about their area of expertise. The Leader is the perfect hero with blonde hair and blue eyes and is never wrong. The comedic relief only spits one-liners. Etc. No one wants to read or watch a one-dimensional character. In that case, do the same thing you’d do with empty characters, fill them up with personality. Start giving them some good traits and bad traits outside of their role, hell, maybe even some traits that contradict their given role.

They both have the pitfall of empty, boring characters. The goal is to not have that. Most important, in a group of any size, make characters that play a specific role in the group not just in completing the mission (or whatever your end is).

I’ll be using Teen Titans as an example. Robin and Raven have trouble letting go of things and having fun, Cyborg and Beast Boy obviously don’t and can get each of them to lighten up when they need to—or in Raven’s case express some emotions. If anyone needs a hug or a fun day, Starfire is there for support. Raven has a sobering attitude which is good for when any one of the team members needs to look at something seriously. Robin also offers this, but as a leader, it’s more centering, where Raven’s can be a bit depressing. They work, not just as a superhero team, but as a group of friends.

The point of any group is to have characters that operate best as a unit and complement each other while having each having a distinct personality. They’re individuals that also fit well together in a team and, hopefully, as friends.

If you want, let me know what your favorite Man Band is and what it’s from!

#writing advice #writing with tropes #post 1 #boldly go writing advice #writing tips #character development #writing #tropes #writeblr #tropetalk #bookblr #oc #original characters

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