Blithe Spirit: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Common variants of this character include:

* [[Mighty Whitey]].

** Or, alternatively, a [[Painful Rhyme|"Person of Color and Valor"]] who comes to a privileged setting and [[Unfortunate Implications|shows all the zombie-like white folks]] [[Pretty Fly for a White Guy|how to "get down"]].

* [[Robin Williams]].

 

 

[[The Complainer Is Always Wrong]] is an inverse of this trope. [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl]] is a subtrope that serves as a shaker-upper of one particular person. Contrast [[Fisher Kingdom]], which tends to eat these people and turn them into cogs (not usually literally).

 

== Anime and Manga ==

* Judai of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX (anime)|Yu-Gi-Oh GX]]''. [[Heroic BSOD|Then the plot happened]]...

* ''[[Great Teacher Onizuka]]'': Onizuka Eikichi, 22 years old. Virgin. And very available.

* In ''[[Simoun]]'', [[Spell My Name with an "S"|Aer/Ael/]][[Buffy-Speak|That blond girl with the]] [[Odango Hair]] [[Buffy-Speak|and the music box]] is this, to an insane degree. Coupled with her [[Genki Girl|endless enthusiasm]] and her total lack of tact, she causes no end of frustration (or, in some cases, bringing up terrible memories) to the more straight-laced Sybilla, particularly [[Tall, Dark and Bishoujo|Paraietta]] [[Spell My Name with an "S"|and Neviril/Neville/]][[Buffy-Speak|that pink-haired girl who doesn't smile]].

* Sometimes averted and sometimes played straight in ''[[Irresponsible Captain Tylor]]'': Tylor is made skipper of a starship, despite no training, no military or space experience, and a penchant for nonsensical and irresponsible schemes. On the other hand, he is given command of a [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]], half of whom are on the verge of mutiny anyway. Still, near the series' conclusion, one of Tylor's [[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] antagonists admits Tylor's adherence to this trope is the likely factor of his success.

 

== Film ==

* Notably averted in [[So Bad It's Good]] ''[[American Shaolin]]'' - it looks like the protagonist will shake things up in the monastery... but ''he'' ends up shaken up by staying there - humbler, wiser, not to mention about 5 points up on the badass scale and getting a girl to boot.

** One could say his role in the ''[[Law and Order SVU]]'' episode "Authority" is a dark version of this.

* The live-action [[Bratz]] movie puts the four main girls in this type of role. (2004)

* ''[[Jungle 2 Jungle]]'' (1997) features a [[Mighty Whitey]] character who leaves his home in the Amazonian jungle and comes to New York to shake up his stockbroker father's stodgy yuppie lifestyle.

* ''[[Pete's Dragon]]'' (1977) has Pete ''and'' his Dragon acting as Blithe spirits for the town they visit, but the Dragon is also acts as one for Pete.

* And has the hell subverted out of it in ''[[The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie]]'', which initially makes the title character seem like the typical kooky free spirit who teaches the kids to break out of their shells to find happiness, but soon reveals that she refuses to accept any idea about what that happiness should consist of other than her own. Eventually many of the children meet tragic fates due to her meddling in their lives.

** Not to mention that she's a ''fascist''.

*** Well, fascism ''was'' considered "cool" and "cutting-edge" by quite a few intellectuals in the 1930s, just as communism was. It was democracy (or constitutional monarchy) that was viewed as old-fashioned and repressive.

* Subverted with Holly Martins in ''[[The Third Man]]''. He's a brash American who comes to Vienna and thinks he's going to prove everyone wrong about his dead friend [[Orson Welles|Harry]] [[Complete Monster|Lime]], only to end up in over his head and screwing everything up.

* ''[[WALL-E]].'' (2008) Ironic that it's the ''robot'' that shows everyone what it means to be human again.

 

== Literature ==

* John the Savage of ''[[Brave New World (novel)|Brave New World]]'' is this entirely. He protests against the loss of art, truth, and passion, despite the fact that for everyone else, it ''works.''

* Daisy in Henry James' story ''[[Daisy Miller]]'' is also just like this, the quirky American girl trying to shake things up in Europe. Except the European aristocrats don't lighten up, and things end tragically, to say the least, for Daisy.

* Pippa in the poem ''Pippa Passes'' by Robert Browning - a young girl in Asolo, Italy who strolls through the town (on her single annual day off from the factory) singing a song which influences the lives of all who hear her for the better.

* Caitlín Mulryan, {{spoiler|the eponymous character}} of [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''The Avatar''.

* ''[[One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest]]'', where McMurphy shakes up an asylum

** Which makes her married name all the more fitting.

 

* The Doctor in ''[[Doctor Who]]''. ''All the time.''

* In ''[[LazyTown]]'', Stephanie is theoretically responsible for helping to get everyone exercising again (at least, according to the theme). That she's just as likely to have the [[Idiot Ball|lazy ball]] in a given episode is apparently irrelevant.

** Also, Sportacus is new to the town at the beginning of the show and wants to inspire the kids to eat healthy and become fit.

* Andy of ''[[WKRP in Cincinnati]]'' started off as one.

* Will Smith in [[The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air]]

* Subverted on an episode of ''[[Frasier]]'', in which the eponymous psychiatrist is hired to testify on behalf of an elderly philanthropist whose son is trying to have him declared mentally incompetent. After meeting with him, Frasier becomes convinced that the man is just a blithe spirit trying to enrich the lives of those around him...and is humiliated when he has a complete breakdown in the middle of Frasier's testimony.

** Inverted in another episode: Frasier hires [[The Jeeves|a butler]], who doesn't directly change the characters lives in any significant way, but has his own revelation that his [[British Stuffiness]] and class-consciousness may have been getting in the way of being with his [[One True Love]]. Which, [[Status Quo Is God|conveniently enough]], means [[Reset Button|he quits his post.]]

* Barney Stinson in ''[[How I Met Your Mother]]'' ''thinks'' he's this trope, gracing his friends with his presence to guide them through life and make them "awesome" like him. He refuses to acknowledge the fact that his friends all actually consider him a walking, batshit insane, [[Your Approval Fills Me with Shame]] generator, and only indulge his ridiculous shenanigans out of loyalty to him (and on occasion, amusement).

 

== Video Games ==

* In [[Final Fantasy X]], Tidus fills this role in the world of Spira, questioning the current way of dealing with Sin and generally being an over anxious [[Fish Out of Water]]

 

* In ''[[Flipside]]'', this describes Maytag perfectly. In a fantasy setting with fairly standard levels of prejudice and bigotry, she's a free spirit who believes in [[Good Bad Girl|loving widely and unconditionally]], [[Be Yourself|complete freedom of expression]], and [[The Power of Friendship|total acceptance of herself and the people around her]]. In fact, she's so good at this that she is almost completely immune to [[Cold-Blooded Torture|torture]], due to accepting her pain rather than fighting it; and is uncommonly resistant to [[Charm Person|magical compulsion]], due to seeing the world so clearly. She also loves to [[Manic Pixie Dream Girl|help repressed people find themselves]].

* In ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' Torg plays this role when he's transported to the Dimension of Lame, being the only person there who doesn't epitomize [[Pure Is Not Good]]. When [[Demonic Invaders]] show up and starting eating people, the average Dimension of Lame citizen considers throwing food at them a monstrous overreaction. Then Torg shows up to organize a resistance movement and start hacking demons to pieces with his [[Cool Sword|magic, talking sword]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Jimmy Two-Shoes]]'' is practically built around this trope. Jimmy is a textbook [[The Pollyanna|pollyanna]] in [[A Hell of a Time|Miseryville]], where he constantly tries to cheer people up despite the fact that [[Satan|Lucius]] wants everyone miserable.

* ''[[Santa Claus is Comin' to Town]]'' reveals that Santa Claus was this as a teenager. He avoided growing up in [[Crapsack World|Sombertown]] when he was adopted by toy-making elves who lived up the nearby mountain. When he finally made the climb down the mountain to hand out toys to Sombertown's citizens, he was stunned to find out that toys were illegal and instantly became a toy-delivering outlaw, [[Origin Story|explaining his habit of going down chimneys and hiding gifts in stockings]].

 

== Real Life ==

* Many Westerners who go to China immediately find themselves in this position. This is especially true with educated Chinese expatriates who speak Mandarin well, as they can communicate with more of the natives but usually have a mindset that is completely different. This usually manifests as the foreigner seeming to have an enormously expansive personality that both intimidates and fascinates those around them, coupled with a directness that seems comically rude. The result can be very funny to watch.

** And also Japan. While it's certainly not universal, the average Westerner does a lot better at thinking outside of the box than most Japanese are encouraged to.

*** Speaking of boomerangs, it's not just in the East that this holds true. Australians (and other Westerners) often have the same reaction to Americans.

** This can depend on the nationality. [[Latin Lover|Italians, Spanish and Frenchmen]], for example, are perceived as more laid back than the [[Germanic Depressives|ultra-serious Germans.]] [[Husky Russkie|Russians]] have the whole [[Vodka Drunkenski|"depressed vodka-swigging Russkie"]] stereotype, and Canadians are seen as more mellow and polite. Depending on how the Americans are perceived and the nationality they clash with, there can be different results.

 

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[[Category:Stock Aesops]]

[[Category:The Trickster]]

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