Oooh, Julia... nice analysis. You're right. Angel's the Big Guy. I hadn't thought about his role, but that's it in the early days.

Well, one wonderful thing about Buffy is that the roles in the five man band can change from season to season (and even from episode to episode) without breaking character. It makes sense when certain characters take on different roles. For the most part anyway. The characters are very defined with how they operate as a team--Willow and Giles often switch up Lancer and Smart Guy roles, Xander is definitely the chick, and depending on the season, there's usually a different Big Guy hanging around (whether it's Faith, Riley, or Angel).

Come to think of it, Spike and Anya remain characters I could never quite place in this trope. Spike's role grows and changes so constantly, I suppose someone could even make the argument that Spike is himself the hero/protagonist of Buffy (in a way you could argue that Anakin and not Luke is the protagonist of the entire Star Wars saga). But that is probably an entirely differerent can of worms. I should shut up now.

I never actually watched Buffy (bad me! bad!)  but I've been trying to apply the "Five Man Band" analysis to Always Sunny, which is one of my favorite shows.  Does anyone else watch it?

I've never seen Always Sunny, I'm afraid, but TV Tropes itself has this to say on the subject:

Lampshaded throughout "The Gang Solves the Gas Crisis" as the gang argues over which role they fill in the band. The final version is:

The Looks: Dennis

The Wild Card: Charlie

The Muscle: Frank

The Brains: Mac

The Useless Chick: Dee

 I'm going to guess that those roles map to Hero, Lancer, Big Guy, Smart Guy and Chick respectively.

I love it when movies have that "look out at the audience" moment like this. I haven't seen the show, so I can't say unfortunately but with the amount of TV I want (and none of it being 5 man bands), I really can't say.

I was however, looking at most of my anime and noticing that the 5 man band is definitely not represented in the majority of shows. I think I will be spending some time figuring out how Japan looks at Story. Since I prefer their shows to almost anything on western television (and I've been told that my books read very much like a book format anime would), I think it will be really interesting to see if I inadvertently picked up their "how to's" instead of my own culture's.

Do they discuss cultural tropes on TV tropes or just western culture stuff?

There's a lot of discussion of anime and manga on TV Tropes, but it's not exactly academic. I do think that the Five Man Band is a product of Western narrative conventions, and when it's present in Japanese stories, it generally takes a non-standard form.

There are a couple of examples, though: in Cowboy Bebop, I think it's pretty clear that Spike is the Hero, Faye is his Lancer, Jet is the Big Guy and Ed is the Smart Guy; at some points in Trigun, Vash is the Hero, Wolfwood is his Lancer, Millie is the Big Guy and Meryl is the Smart Guy. It's interesting that both series are arguably missing the Chick.

Of course, any series with a strong ensemble cast will have emergent Five Man Band dynamics, from Super Sentai to Sailor Moon. They may not be conscious, but they'll be there.

In general, the differences between Japanese and Western (specifically Anglo-American) storytelling are fascinating. It's something I'd love to study more, and perhaps explore on the show -- just as soon as I figure out a way of adding a few more hours to every day!

In response to Alastair:

I don't know if I agree that their self-designated roles correlate to their positions in the Five Man Band. I prefer this lineup:

Dennis=half Hero, half Smart Guy

Frank=the Big Guy or the Smart Guy, depending on how recent the episode is

Mac= the Lancer or the Big Guy, depending on the episode

Dee=weird combination of the Lancer (because she argues with EVERYONE) and the Chick (because she's a waste of space); in the football tryouts episode she was the Big Guy.

Charlie=the Chick, easily. He is practically useless, weirdly emotional, and is more likely to attempt to mediate arguments than take part in them (unless they involve the waitress)

Speaking of Japanese stories following a different convention than Western stories, the PopStuff podcast from HowStuffWorks had a recent episode about Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli. They mentioned an interview where he talked about his process for story-writing and production. Apparently, they don't set anything down in stone at the beginning but just let the stories of their movies come organically while they make it. Not sure of all the details, but I'd love to read up some more about it.

... that might also make it a lot harder to pin down some of the more common tropes in Western story-telling in Miyazaki's works.

@clockwork monk I hadn't gotten as far as Faith's role, but I can see her as the Big Guy, at least at first. I really need to rewatch the show with all of this in mind. And maybe Firefly too...

Oh, now that I will go and listen to! I love podcasts!

I just got my iPod cord replaced and finally got to listen to the week about the Five Man Band and this was my favorite discussion yet. In part that's because I had never heard of this construction, but when I looked at my current WIP, I have a Five Man Band.
I didn't care for the title "The Chick," though. In my band, I have "The Kid" - still the heart of the band, but not as much gender baggage, perhaps?
Also, it's becoming increasingly clear that I need to watch Buffy.

I constantly have four man band's in my party, usually with the Hero and the Chick being the same character or splitting up the job of the chick between them.

I've created an entire series based around the "four" man group... I enjoy having the dynamic in my novels.

Wow - it took me all week, but I caught up on the last 2+ months of the podcast- Yeah!

I had heard the term 5-man band, but had never heard it described or really thought about it. Of course because I'm in the middle of revisions right now it made me think about my story and now I'm a little curious and worried.

My hero is my hero- the Fairy Godmother
I think the big guy is her mini schnauzer (is it even possible for a mini schnauzer to be the big guy?)
The smart guy is the magic mirror
I'm concerned a bit about the lancer and the chick...

Half or more of me thinks she is her own foil - aka the lancer (is that possible without having a twin or a split personality?), but it could be her new buddy Mick (although he's not always there)

The other half of me thinks Mick's the chick.... but I'm not sure.

And now that my Hunter- Finn is going to be operating in the light, so to speak, I haven't figured out where he fits yet.

One thing this thinking has done - is because I have decided that the mini schnauzer is the big guy - I've been bumping up her actions and reactions to be the "big guy" - even though she's small, she now acts in a determined "big guy" fashion.

So, considering these options - even if they're not perfect- can lead to some interesting thinking and stronger character pov, action, and reaction. So thanks for the chat... who knew - a mini schnauzer "big guy" - attitude +1.

As I'm getting close to being done with the first draft of my story that I started in NaNo, I'm of course starting to think about the story I've been working on revision for, which happens to have 5 main characters in the group. The Hero is easy, that's Zia, the main character. The Big Guy is Jack, which is also fairly easy because he functions to be the big threatening one. The Chick or Kid is Acton, as he's really the thing that holds the whole think together.

The Smart Guy and the Lancer are being the more difficult to figure out which is which. Rizan and Emma are the two members of the group left.

The idea is that the Lancer is the hero's foil? And the Smart guy helps the hero figure a way out when the hero is convinced there isn't one? Under these definitions, I think that the best fit is Emma as the Lancer and Rizan as the Smart Guy. I'm going to try to pay a lot of attention to this in the next read through.

I think that figuring this out and making their roles more clear in the next draft might really help!

Hi all! I’m first time poster, long time listener.

I love studying archetypes and the five man band is probably my favorite way to tell a story thanks to my love affair with Joss Whedon.

Like some others, I applied the five man band roles to the ‘team’ in my story (even though I have six characters) and sure enough, it naturally fits.

However, I have these two characters that just haven’t been working together. They both have a different influence on my hero/protagonists arc so their individual scenes are working but during the action/teamwork moments I sometimes flat-out forget to include one or the other! Never a good sign…

As I applied the roles I realized they were both “The Big Guy” so maybe the reason I’m having so much trouble with them is that they are trying to occupy the same space!

It is always such a relief to pin-point why something isn’t working!!!

Since, at least for now, I need/want to keep both of the characters I’m trying to fix the problems by tinkering with roles to make more a distinct Big Guy 1 and Big Guy 2.

Lani and Alistairs observations on the Buffy team where you’ve got some role switching and sharing are really helping here.

I can definitely see one of my big guys being more loyal to the cause and the other more loyal to the hero, one more rooted in the normal world and one more willing to embrace the supernatural for a start. These slight differences in motivation and attitude should give them distinct reactions making them each more relevant to the action scenes.

Anyway, while I’ve always found the podcasts extremely helpful this epiphany inspired me to finally come and say thanks!

Belated Commentary

Thanks for the episodes on five man band--I looove teams.

Oddly, in Star Wars Luke is more The Chick even than Leia. And though Leia isn't the hero, she is more the reason why they're all together--it was her plea for help that brought Luke in, and her reward that brought Han in, and she's the official representative of the fight against the empire. Whereas Luke is the one they have a soft spot for, the kid, the doofus. So I think those two are semi merged. ;-)

Here's my A-Team breakdown... I think there's a good gender reversal

Hannibal the hero
Face the lancer
Mr T bruiser
Murdock the chick (he's the innocent, the glue)
Amy the smart guy (definitely not the chick, they're kind of hostile towards her)