History Main / OneExtraMember

* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild'', the Gerudo race has a folk legend revolving around The Seven Heroines of Gerudo, who protected the city in distant past and are commemorated with seven statues built somewhere at the edge of Gerudo Desert. However, there is in fact an ''eighth'' heroine, whose statue is mysteriously built far from the other seven and said heroine accordingly is less known. In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTearsOfTheKingdom'', there's a side quest that revolves around these heroines, and eventually the reason why the eighth heroine is "excluded" is discovered: [[spoiler:said eighth heroine actually was a man, who, despite his aid towards the seven, was still barred from [[LadyLand Gerudo City]] out of tradition where no male may enter the all-female city.]]

* In ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire'', the Goblet selects Literature/HarryPotter as a fourth participant in the Triwizard Tournament. Everyone has to go along with it because the Goblet's choice is apparently binding, even though Harry didn't enter his own name and someone else seems to have rigged the selection. As with a lot of the Potterverse's magic, the book doesn't go into that much detail on how the Goblet itself works, but at least TheReveal at the end spells out ''who'' rigged it and ''why''.

* The original ''ComicBook/SevenSoldiersOfVictory'' were ComicBook/GreenArrow and Speedy, Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy, Vigilante, Shining Knight, and the Crimson Avenger and Wing. Wing, the Avenger's sidekick/chauffeur, was the "unofficial eighth soldier", even though there were two sidekicks as full members. When Green Arrow was removed from the line-up ComicBook/PostCrisis, and replaced with the sidekickless Alias the Spider, Vigilante's sidekick Stuff, the Chinatown Kid was added, so Wing was ''still'' the unofficial eighth soldier. This becomes a plot point in the mid-2000s reboot, where it's revealed that, just like the old team, this version of the Seven Soldiers also has an eighth member: namely, [[spoiler:the Spider, who turns out to have been GoodAllAlong]].

[[folder:Film]]
* ''Film/DayOfTheWolves'': The "Wolves" call themselves Numbers 1-7, but there's an eighth robber (the man who picks the others up from the airport and flies the getaway plane) who isn't assigned a number, and never interacts with any of the others except #1.
* ''Film/TheThreeStooges'' -- there were actually 6 of them (Larry, Moe, Curly, Shemp, Curly Joe, and Joe), though only 3 in any given short.

* Lampshaded in ''WesternAnimation/TurningRed''. Ming asks why the boyband group is named 4*Town if there are ''five'' members in it.

* Inverted by Music/{{Day6}}. Despite originally having six members, they’ve spent the vast majority of their career with five members. When Jae left in 2021, {{Day6}} now consists of four members.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' arguably falls under this trope when counting off [[TheNthDoctor regenerations of]] [[Characters/DoctorWhoDoctors the Doctor]], because two of them didn't increase the sequential numbering. "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd Journey's End]]" has the [[Characters/DoctorWhoTenthDoctor Tenth Doctor]] regenerate into himself, and "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS33E13TheNameOfTheDoctor The Name of the Doctor]]" [[spoiler:reveals a previously unknown and unnumbered incarnation known as the [[Characters/DoctorWhoWarDoctor War Doctor]], who existed between the [[Characters/DoctorWhoEighthDoctor Eighth]] and [[Characters/DoctorWhoNinthDoctor Ninth]] Doctors]]. As a result, the [[Characters/DoctorWhoEleventhDoctor Eleventh Doctor]] was on his twelfth face and thirteenth life. The Doctor continues regenerating and reaches the [[Characters/DoctorWhoThirteethDoctor Thirteenth Doctor]], and this is where things get ''very'' messy. [[spoiler:An unrecognizable new incarnation who claims to be from the Doctor's ''past'' appears, called the Fugitive Doctor, and then the story of the Timeless Child is unveiled in "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS38E10TheTimelessChildren The Timeless Children]]" and may signify an indiscriminate amount of past lives predating the [[Characters/DoctorWhoFirstDoctor First Doctor]] have existed. Then there's the anomalies like the Watcher and the Valeyard and the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor from the aforementioned "Journey's End", as well as an unseen incarnation who was impersonating Merlin. Finally, we have an apparent incarnation awaiting the Doctor's life in the far future called the Curator, a retired Doctor with the face of his fourth incarnation, only elderly, first seen in the 50th anniversary special, "[[Recap/DoctorWho50thASTheDayOfTheDoctor The Day of the Doctor]]".]] WordOfGod justifies the retroactive presence of these unnumbered incarnations and the lack of change to the numbering of the already numbered incarnations by saying that numbering the Doctor's incarnations is an out of universe convention and the Doctor themself does not use numbers to label their incarnations.

%% Image chosen via crowner in the Image Suggestions thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/crowner.php/ImagePickin/ImageSuggestions139
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1452266899092104700
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.
%%

%% This page has been alphabetized. Please add new examples in the correct order. Thank you!

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' arguably falls under this trope when counting off regenerations of the Doctor, because two of them didn't increase the sequential numbering. "Journey's End" has the Tenth Doctor regenerate into himself, and "The Name of the Doctor" [[spoiler:reveals a previously unknown and unnumbered incarnation known as the War Doctor, who existed between the Eighth and Ninth Doctors]]. As a result, the Eleventh Doctor was on his twelfth face and thirteenth life. The Doctor continues regenerating and reaches the Thirteenth Doctor, and this is where things get ''very'' messy. [[spoiler:An unrecognizable new incarnation who claims to be from the Doctor's ''past'' appears, and then the story of the Timeless Child is unveiled and may signify an indiscriminate amount of past lives predating the First Doctor have existed. Then there's the anomalies like the Watcher and the Valeyard and the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, as well as an unseen incarnation who was impersonating Merlin. Finally, we have an apparent incarnation awaiting the Doctor's life in the far future called the Curator, a retired Doctor with the face of his fourth incarnation, only elderly.]] WordOfGod justifies the retroactive presence of these unnumbered incarnations and the lack of change to the numbering of the already numbered incarnations by saying that numbering the Doctor's incarnations is an out of universe convention and the Doctor themself does not use numbers to label their incarnations.

* Inverted by Music/BenFoldsFive, a group with 3 members.
* Inverted by Music/{{Day6}}. Despite originally having six members, they’ve spent the vast majority of their career with five members. When Jae left in 2021, {{Day6}} now consists of four members.

* Late 30s band the Raymond Scott Quintette had six members.

* The Thompson Twins, a British New Wave pop band, had three members at the height of their success, and as many as seven in some years.

* In ''LightNovel/RokkaBravesOfTheSixFlowers'', the Braves of the Six Flowers are to gather at a point and go to defeat the Demon God, but seven Braves show up instead of six. This causes them to fight amongst themselves to see who the extra hero is, assuming that person must be there to sabotage them.

* ''LightNovel/Overlord2012'': [[PlayingWithATrope Played with]] by the group of YGGDRASIL players called "Nine's Own Goal." They originally called themselves that because they had nine members and performed suicidal actions (being an all-monster group that regularly adventured in human lands), but continued to do so even as their numbers grew. By the time they established a formal guild, they knew the name made no sense but were too attached to it to throw it out completely, so they opted to corrupt it into the meaningless "Ainz Ooal Gown", a name the protagonist later takes for himself.

* Inverted by Music/{{Day6}}. Despite originally having six members, they’ve spent the vast majority of their career with five members.

* In ''VideoGame/{{EarthBound}}'', the Runaway Five apparently consists of six members onstage, though there are only five of them when you speak with them backstage. Averted in the original Japanese, where they were the non-numerical Tonzura Brothers.

* The Slaughterhouse Nine in ''Literature/{{Worm}}'' will always be the Nine, no matter how few or many members there actually are at any given time.

* The Hive Five in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' have six members. {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Kid Flash. It was probably a good thing for them that Jinx [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere qu]][[HeelFaceTurn it]].

** In the sequel, ''Manga/FairyTail100YearsQuest'', this applies to [[spoiler:the Five Dragon Gods, survivors of the Dragon King Festival who hid from Acnologia and gained the strength to match him over the centuries. As it so happens, the wizard Elefseria who requested these dragons to be "sealed away" (regardless if that means killing or simply {{DePower}}ing them) was hiding the existence of a ''sixth'' dragon already sealed in a labyrinth near his home. {{Justified}} when he reveals originally they ''were'' called the "Six Dragon Gods" before he killed said dragon, Earth Dragon God Dogramag, and more importantly keeping Dogramag a secret was necessary to prevent anyone from trying to enter the sealed labyrinth, itself a [[MyDeathIsOnlyTheBeginning construct created by Dogramag's Magic Power in death]] that hides not only the still magically-charged Dragon God's corpse, but Elefseria's own [[BeatStillMyHeart still-beating heart]] that could give the possessor access to his own Law Dragon Slayer magic.]]

** As the name suggests, the Six Paths of Pain is a collective of six bodies representing the six Buddhist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_realm desire realms]], but the vital aspect of the jutsu is the seventh path, who presides over the other six paths, and is the ''actual'' controller of the bodies.

* ''Film/KungFuPanda'' is the TropeCodifier for the "signed on too late to change the name" variant. The Furious Five includes [[ADogNamedDog Tigress, Mantis, Viper, Crane, Monkey]]... and [[SixthRanger Po]].