Basic Trope: The number four is bad somehow.
- Straight: The fourth member of the Five-Man Band is the Token Evil Teammate who ends up being the psycho ranger defector.
- Exaggerated:
- Almost everyone dies when four people are together — the heroes refuse to operate with one member missing.
- A number four itself is deadly. Anyone who counts to four, writes 4 or does anything related to this number drops dead instantly.
- Downplayed: A character gets sick after eating food that has been expired for four days.
- Justified: The villains are The Psycho Rangers to the Five-Man Band, so Emperor Evulz chose four executives.
- Inverted: Carol, Dave, Bob, and Alice speak to four gods of life.
- Subverted:
- You hear about a group called the "Shitenno" who everyone fears, and their "Leader". It turns out that Edgar is the Leader, and Carol, Dave, Bob and Alice are the Shitenno.
- The fourth member of the Five-Man Band, Faye, turns out to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Fake Defector.
- Double Subverted: Edgar is not actually involved in field operations. For all intents and purposes, the Shitenno are a team of four, plus a Voice with an Internet Connection.
- Parodied:
- Several characters die — the digital root of their ages is 4.
- Death is four years old.
- Zig-Zagged: The fourth member of an evil organization that turns out to be The Mole and tries to kill their leader, but fails.
- Averted: There's no special significance attributed to the number 4 in this story.
- Enforced: Thirteen is a common Arc Number in the series, and the producers want to appeal to the superstitions of other cultures.
- Lampshaded: "The bad guys are in a group of four, huh? Of course they're in a group of four."
- Invoked: The villains stylize themselves around the number four to induce unease in Wutai by exploiting cultural beliefs.
- Exploited: A character looking for a shortcut to One-Man Army-level badassery in combat calls upon the spirit of the number 4. Of course, they're then prone to succumbing to its effects themselves.
- Defied: The heroes say, "Screw Destiny," and proceed with four members in Wutai. No one dies, suggesting that the cultural connotation was bupkis.
- Discussed: ???
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: The dead, worst-hurt, and/or simply Butt-Monkey characters have fours going on in their lives, but it's not made clear that four is why things turned out badly for them.
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