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** And the EU also justifies the formula: when there were more than two Lords, they usually argued, fought, and killed each other due to [[Chronic Backstabbing Disorder]].
** Though this only applies for the "Rule of Two", which is only for Darth Bane's Order of the Sith Lords. There are several other Sith orders before and after that, and as mentioned many of it's members bent the rules where they could- Bane only enforced it because the one he belonged to prior to that was comprised of ''hundreds'' of Sith Lords who kept fighting each other more than the fought the Jedi. Older orders have even been intergalactic ''empires'' with ''thousands'' of Sith, though they were much better organized into a strict hierarchy so they didn't collapse so easily. And The One Sith from ''[[Star Wars Legacy]]'' used the "Rule of One", which operated as a cult whereby they had dozens of Sith but the Order was put above the individual (the complete opposite of the previous orders, which stressed selfish personal ambition), therefore they were all "[[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|One Sith]]".
== [[Literature]] ==
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* The ''[[Good Omens]]'' witchfinders. They've dwindled down to Witchfinder-Sergeant Shadwell and Witchfinder-Private Newton Pulsifer, but apparently in their heyday there was a whole Witchfinder Army.
** It is implied (If not outright stated) that Shadwell is paid by Crowley and Azriphale, both of whom think that Witchfinders are on their side - Azriphale because he's a witchfinder, and witches are evil, Crowley because of what witchfinders do to witches once they're found. Of course, this later proves to be true of most of the organizations they consider to be on their side.
* ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'' makes mention of an order of wizards—of which only five exist, only three even figure into the story at all, and only two of those actually appear in person. There's a reasonable back story that [[All There in the Manual|the main books and movies don't detail at all]]: the wizards are an undercover angelic spec ops force sent by the [[Powers That Be]]. There's not more of them because (a) said Powers [[Rage Against the Heavens|are still miffed]], and (b) the last open attack had mountain ranges (not to mention an entire subcontinent) as collateral damage. Five is not few because Gandalf alone saves two kingdoms, spends the prequel restoring a third and expanding a fourth, and kills his opposing number, doing more for the war effort than an ICBM would. Furthermore, it's implied in Tolkien's notes that the two "missing" wizards had been working offstage to stir up rebellion in Sauron's lands (ie, three-quarters of the world) and prevented him from bringing his full forces to bear.
* The Death Eaters in ''[[Harry Potter]]'' similarly appear as a rather... small organization. Depending on how loose are your criteria for what makes a Death Eater (and whether some of the unnamed Death Eaters are all different from one another), there's only about 3 dozen of them (And that's including the members that died after Voldemort's disappearance AND those who were freshly recruited {{spoiler|after Voldemort's return}}. There never seemed to be more than 20 or so Death Eaters active at any one time.
** Both incarnations of the Order of the Phoenix are also quite small; the original group only had twenty six members (and are said to have been outnumbered by about twenty to one), and about half of them were killed before the end. The second group is not much bigger, but has the advantage of facing a much smaller enemy (the core force of the Death Eaters appears to be about fifty wizards, with the rest consisting of the coerced, the manipulated and the brainwashed, as well as minor hangers-on, who hadn't been replenished when the second Order was formed).
** The exact size of the wizarding population is an example of this trope. But as [http://www.hp-lexicon.org/essays/essay-hogwarts-how-many.html This essay points out], assuming the vast majority of British wizard children go to Hogwarts (something outright said in the book), that means Britain's wizarding population between the age of 11 and 18 is below the 300 mark; maybe even less than 250. Harry's class itself has only 8 confirmed members in it, with a potential of two more. Assuming an even spread between the four houses and all 7 grades, that's 224 students.
* ''[[Night Watch (novel)|Night Watch]]'' and Day Watch both are pretty small organizations. Although there are still enough of them to have offices in most major cities of the world. (even if with only a dozen or so Others per Watch) Justified. A.) there are only about two hundred Others in Moscow, which has one of the "strongest watches" (Paris and Edinburgh Watches being the larger ones) in the world. One cop for every twenty people is actually an unreasonably high ratio. B.) As of Twilight Watch, the Watches can conscript any and all Others in the event of a crisis. The Night Watch trains all Light Others and Light Others unaffiliated with the Watch are even called 'reservists' a few times.
* [[Discworld[[:
** The [[Discworld|other Night Watch]] is also pretty small: when ''[[
** During ''
** It's understandable that Lancre, a kingdom a hundred miles across with two hundred inhabitants, would have a very small military and civil service. In fact
*** It's easier to just list the government jobs Shawn Ogg doesn't perform: king, queen, falconer, and (possibly) palace cook.
** The number of Witches in and around Lancre tends to vary (down to about half-a-dozen at one point, but more numerous now), but is apparently not too many, at least compared to times past.
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''"But rest assured," I added, "that between passengers, seamen, or officers, we don't total one–tenth of that figure."'' }}
== [[Live
* ''[[Blackadder]]'': in ''Blackadder II'', the Queen appears to have only three courtiers; in ''Blackadder the Third'', the Prince Regent has a staff of two; and in ''Blackadder Goes Forth'', Capt. Blackadder has only two men under his command.
* Averted in ''[[Stargate SG-1]]'' - the government had the good sense to form a large command of at least 20 teams with a full base when they realized what they were up against. However, it's still kind of played straight, in the "[[Ghost Extras|many more are stated to exist, but we rarely actually see them]]" sense. Although this makes perfect sense when you consider the name of the show - it's meant to focus on the principal team not the command as a whole. Less justified in [[Stargate Atlantis]] whose name does not specify only one team to be the primary focus.
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* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]],'' when Earth is attacked by the [[Space Pirates|Pirates of Ipecac,]] their ship turns out to contain only two pirates.
* In the ''[[Tales Of Gnosis College]]'' a student named Jill Keeney joins an organization she believes is devoted to the overthrow of the hated dictator of Monte Blanco. Once she's joined it, it appears to consist of three people.
== [[Web Original]] ==
* The Order in the Breeniverse shows is supposedly a far reaching worldwide organisation, but the same individual members appear frequently. In ''[[Kate Modern]]'', these typically include Michelle Clore, the Shadow, Kate's Watcher and Rupert van Helden. In ''[[Lonelygirl15]]'', more Order members do appear, but the gang still seem to run into Carl, Lucy and Bree's Watcher surprisingly often.
== [[Western Animation]] ==
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