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The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air/Characters: Difference between revisions
→Hilary Banks (Karyn Parsons)
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A successful attorney (later appointed a court judge) who doesn't try hide his reluctance to Will settling in with the Banks. Spends a good portion of the show dealing with Will's antics and help fix any mess made.
* [[Berserk Button]]: On a comical side, any scheme that blows up in Will's and sometime's Carlton's faces. On a more serious side, hurting his family and telling him that he gone soft when he has done his fair share of fighting for Civil Rights is sure to put him through [[Tranquil Fury]] and his speeches are just as lethal as his temper as the result.
{{Quote|'''Phil:''' You talk as if I wasn't there with you in Birmingham facing dogs and firehoses. This is me, Olfame, the same Olfame that was with you the night Harlem went up in flames. But now I have a family, and I choose not to fight in the streets. I have an office to fight from and I have fought and won cases for fair housing, affirmative action, health care, and I am not ashamed to write a big fat check for something I believe in and that doesn't make me any less committed than you, so don't you dare look down your damn nose at me, Adabola.}}
* [[Best Served Cold]]: Normally when Will and Carlton's antics go too far, Phillip just screams and threatens them. However in the episode "Best Laid Plans." Will goes further than that. To elaborate, Will wanted to have sex with his then girlfriend of the week, however she doesn't believe in sex before marriage. So Will stages an elaborate wedding, with Jazz as the minister. However his conscience gets to him before he goes through with the deed. Naturally the girlfriend, [[Woman Scorned|punches him out]] and steals Phil's Mercedes, causing Will to confess the deed to Phil. Phil goes beyond yelling and is [[Tranquil Fury|eerily calm]] [[OOC Is Serious Business|stating that he isn't gonna punish Will.]] Will thinks he's out of the woods, but Phil reiterates. He doesn't plan on punishing him today or even tomorrow. Will's scheme was so bad, that he has to think long and hard about just what he's about to do to him and tells him to worry about it, before doing his trademark [[Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles|Shredder]] [[Evil Laugh|Laugh.]] It takes him 3 years and reading a book on Medieval Tortures, to figure out what he wants to do to Will. Thankfully [[Nothing Is Scarier|(or not)]], [[The Un Reveal|the credits roll before we see what he has planned.]]
{{quote|'''Phil:''' I'm not gonna punish you today. Maybe not even tomorrow. You see I need to think a long long time about just what I'm going to do with you. I don't know, it might come to me in the middle of the night. Or maybe next week. Or a few years from now. In the mean time, why don't you worry about it. Be afraid Will. Be very afraid.}}
* [[Big Eater]]: It ends up giving him a heart attack in an episode.
* [[Bald Black Leader Guy]]: Not a leader, per se, but more than a few plots show that he's in charge of the family.
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* [[Jerk with a Heart of Gold]]
* [[Large and In Charge]]
* [[Memetic Mutation]]: "Uncle Phil is the Shredder?!"
* [[Old Shame]]: His [[Farm Boy]] upbringing was this to him until halfway through the first season.
* [[Overprotective Dad]]: Especially when it comes to Ashley.
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* [[Parental Substitute]]: Eventually proved to be more of a father to Will than his real father ever was.
** The last episode effectively spells this out and makes it clear that the two consider their relationship that of father and son rather than uncle and nephew.
* [[Reasonable Authority Figure]]: Averted when he gets angry, played straight when the issue is important enough (or simply once he calms down).
* [[Scary Black Man]]: When he gets angry.
* [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]]
* [[Tranquil Fury]]: Occasionally when he's really angry, he speaks softly, smiles and even laughs...then he really [[Unstoppable Rage|explodes]].
* [[Self-Made Man]]: He came from a poor family, and by their and his own hard work was able to go to college and law school. Implying that he's "less black" because he's become wealthy thereby is a [[Berserk Button]] you don't want to press.
=== Vivian Banks (Janet Hubert-Whitten, 1990-1993; Daphne Maxwell Reid, 1993-1996) ===
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* [[Lysistrata Gambit]]: Employs this a LOT. Often overlaps with [[Exiled to the Couch]].
* [[Mama Bear]]
* [[Mean Character, Nice Actor]]: Inverted. While Vivian Banks was a pleasant, kind, tolerant character, Janet Hubert-Whitten was an absolute nightmare to work with, and treated pretty much everyone with contempt. She still blames Will Smith for getting her fired (likely because she hates rappers and couldn't care less that Will was a "clean" one as opposed to "gangsta", and despised him from the moment she heard she'd be working with him), but Alfonso Ribeiro insists that the ''entire cast'' teamed up and demanded something be done about her.
* [[Not So Stoic]]: She's usually more reserved and reasonable than Phillip, but she can lose it when a matter specifically bothers her.
** If she starts taking her earrings off, ''be warned''.
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** ''[[Crowning Moment of Funny|Dressing up as Macaulay freakin' Culkin for Halloween]]''. Goddamnit.
* [[Black and Nerdy]]
* [[But Not Too Black]]: [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]] and [[Deconstruction|Deconstructed]]. One episode has Carlton deliver a verbal smackdown to the entire concept and point out just how petty, tasteless, and indeed racist that those who go around applying it to any black person are.
* [[Butt Monkey]]
* [[Clark Kent Outfit]]
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* [[Bratty Teenage Daughter]]: More like Bratty Twenty-something Daughter.
* [[Character Development]]: Originally shallow and lacking of self-confidence for being a jobless college dropout, she is shown to be more and more jovial for each successful job she takes on from Season 2 onwards; she ends up starring in her own hot talk show and moves to [[New York]].
** Note that she never really becomes any more intelligent or less shallow, she just learns to channel her cheerful ditziness into a career. Well, and she does learn to be a ''little'' nicer to people.
* [[The Ditz]]
* [[Filing Their Nails]]: Hilary starts a fire when she drops her oven mitts on the range top so she can file her nails. When she notices the fire, she makes a token effort to beat it out with a frying pan before returning to filing her nails ''while smoke continues to rise''. When Geoffrey enters the kitchen she tells him [[Understatement|that something might be wrong with the stove]] before going back to her nails ''again''.
* [[Full Name Ultimatum]]: "Hilary Violet Banks!"
* [[Light Feminine and Dark Feminine]]: The dark to Ashley's light.
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* [[Daddy's Girl]]: She fights this trope for much of the show before eventually accepting and appreciating her father's concern.
* [[Light Feminine and Dark Feminine]]: The light to Hilary's dark.
* [[Life Imitates Art]]: In one episode Ashley seems ready to hit it big with a music career. She gets a swelled head, steps on the people who got her there, and then her career bombs and she has to eat crow and apologize. Pretty much the exact same thing happened when Tatyana Ali tried to have a singing career.
* [[One-Hit Wonder]]: when she started her singing career.
* [[She's All Grown Up]]: Naturally through the seasons, though Uncle Phil is reluctant to accept this.
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=== Nicky Banks (Ross Bagley) ===
The youngest of the Banks children, born during the run of the show. But don't let that make you think he didn't have any [[Character Development]], he [[
* [[Children Are Innocent]]: And Santa tells Will to keep Nicky that way for as long as possible.
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* [[You Look Familiar]]: Long previously played another girlfriend of Will's three seasons earlier.
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