Naive Newcomer: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

'''Prospero''': ''Tis new to thee.''|''[[The Tempest]]''}}

 

Done poorly these characters may just become flimsy justifications for an [[Info Dump]], making them a sort of inverse [[Mr. Exposition]].

 

 

A [[Super-Trope]] to [[Rookie Red Ranger]] (the newcomer is also [[The Hero]]), [[Ensign Newbie]] (the newcomer is an officer presiding over a more experienced enlisted crew).

 

Contrast [[Team Prima Donna]].

 

== Anime & Manga ==

* ''[[Tower of God]]'': [[Fish Out of Water|Twentyfifth Baam]], who spent years living in a cave with only a single girl as social contact, enters the secluded world of the Tower, which is an alien environment for most, and finds out that it can get a little rough when everybody is aiming for the same.

* Rokuro Okajima, AKA Rock, from ''[[Black Lagoon]]''.

* The virginal Kate Curtis in the [[Hentai]] ''Bondage Queen Kate''.

* Soah from ''[[The Bride of the Water God]]'', a literal [[Country Mouse]] now living at court with the Water God, and dealing with the intrigues of the Emperor.

** Played straight with Yoshimune from the game 3 Way Standoff.

* Ito Keita in ''[[Gakuen Heaven]]''.

* In the anime ''[[Haibane Renmei]]'', Rakka acts as the Naive Newcomer, appearing in the Haibane's world and having to have everything explained to her by the seasoned residents.

* Luffy tends to get most of these moments in ''[[One Piece]]'', as he honestly doesn't care how the world works unless it's directly relevant to him somehow. The other members of the Straw Hat crew also occasionally get moments of it, being among the very few denizens of the relatively tame East Blue to travel the considerably more deadly Grand Line, and thus having heard precious little about it beforehand.

* Haruhi in ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]''.

* Ai Tanabe in ''[[Planetes]]''.

* Ahiru in ''[[Princess Tutu]]'' {{spoiler|...since she's a duck that was magically turned into a girl.}}

* Utena early on in ''[[Revolutionary Girl Utena]]''.

* Manta/Morty in ''[[Shaman King]]'', though Morty is inflicted with [[Bowdlerise|an annoying fanboy mentality in]] [[Macekre|the translation.]]

* Nia in ''[[Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann]]''. When first introduced, she isn't even aware of what a human is despite she and her father being ones themselves.

* Linna Yamazaki in the ''[[Bubblegum Crisis]]'' remake, ''Tokyo 2040''.

* Takumi from ''[[Initial D]]'' is an interesting variation on this for at least the first couple seasons. Despite being nearly godlike in his abilities, he's often having basic racing techniques and auto facts/mechanics explained to him because he's developed his skills in isolation on his own and has no actual background. Later on, the racers he's defeated (despite being high-level themselves) often serve as the audience to explanations.

 

 

== Comic Books ==

* Robyn "Toybox" Slinger at the start of ''[[Top Ten]]''.

* Kitty Pryde (later Shadowcat) filled this role in the ''[[X-Men (Comic Book)|X-Men]]'' comics. This is notably averted with teenage girls [[Heel Face Turn|Rogue]], [[Bad Future|Phoenix II]], and arguably [[Street Urchin|Jubilee]].

** Jean Grey served as this in the very first issue of X-Men.

** Alison Crestmere (aka Magma) is this in ''[[X-Men Legends]]''.

 

 

== Fan Works ==

 

 

* Bethany from ''[[Dogma]]''.

* Subverted in ''[[Ghostbusters]]'' Winston Zeddemore is not a scientist, let alone a parapsychologist, and applies for the job after seeing an ad put in the paper by the seriously over-worked Ghostbusters. His interview is a small moment of comic relief suggesting that he has no idea what he's getting himself into...and then he has no problem with the job, even going so far as to suggest a paranormal explanation for ''why'' the Ghostbusters were so over-worked in the first place.

* Ariadne in ''[[Inception]].''

* In the film version of Astrid Lindgren's ''Mio, my Mio'' (I think the movie title was ''Mio in the Land of Faraway'', but I'm not sure) the titular character serves as the Naive Newcomer as he was taken from the Land of Faraway as a newborn and doesn't return until nine years later. After a while it gets a bit tedious that he constantly needs to have the world explained to him, but it also leads to a rather funny moment (largely thanks to Christian Bale's delivery). It involves Mio (Nicholas Pickard) and Jum-Jum (Bale) gallopping along a bridge that's being raised, and Mio panicks when he can't get the horse to stop. The horse then proceeds to fly across the gap in the bridge, and then the following exchange:

'''Jum-Jum''': (in a kids-are-stupid tone) What you know does not amount to much, Mio. }}

* Norvile Barnes in ''[[The Hudsucker Proxy]]'' is a naive midwesterner, fresh from business school. He arrives in New York for work and finds everything requires experience, and he winds up in the mailroom.

* Dr. Reeves in ''[[Twister]]''. As a psychiatrist riding with tornado chasers, she asked questions on behalf of the audience like "What's a Category IV?".

 

 

== Literature ==

* ''[[Harry Potter]]'', in most of the first book and every so often thereafter.

** Given the fact that they are attending a school, nearly all the students count as this to a degree., especially Ron, Hermione, Neville, and Draco. Ron and Hermione both have the humorous dichotomy of being both the one asking the question and the one answering the others questions, depending on the subject.

* Eustace on his first trip to ''[[Narnia]]'' in ''Voyage of the Dawn Treader''; likewise, Jill on her first trip in ''The Silver Chair''.

* Harry Crewe in ''[[The Blue Sword]]''.

* Claire Lyons in the ''[[The Clique]]''.

* Paul Carpenter in Tom Holt's ''[[The Portable Door]]'' (and subsequent novels). Considering the entire place pretty much is having fun keeping him thinking he's insane due to all the crazy things happening, he doesn't really fall into this trope as much as sink horrifyingly into it as it slowly closes its inky black waters around him.

* John the Savage in Brave New World.

* Thursday Next herself in the ''[[Thursday Next]]'' series. She's an apprentice in the BookWorld, and is always being educated in its many intricacies.

* The viewpoint character of nearly every utopian novel ever written (often combined with [[The Watson]].

* Most fantasy novels do this to some extent. If the lead character isn't [[Summon Everyman Hero|summoned from another world]], he's almost certainly from a small town and hasn't experienced the larger world. Either way, many things must be explained to him and, thus, the reader. Examples are numerous.

* In ''[[The Belgariad]]'', Garion grew up on a small farm, specifically isolated from the larger world by his "aunt".

* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'', Rand al'Thor and his friends Perrin and Matt grew up in a small town far from the turmoil of the world.

* The Ohmsfords from ''[[Shannara]]''.

* ''[[Foundation]]'': "His name was Gaal Dornick and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before."

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

* PC Jim Carver, ''[[The Bill]].''

* Constable Maggie Doyle, ''[[Blue Heelers]].''

* Dr. John Carter (also later Lucy Knight and to a lesser extent Neela Rasgotra), ''[[ER]]''.

* Jack Carter, ''[[Eureka]]''. Later season episodes justify this continued status by focusing more on his inability to understand complicated science rather than his lack of comfort with the many world-ending experiments performed in the city, though he may also be evolving into [[The Watson]].

* Kyle from ''[[Kyle XY]]'', who is essentially a 16-year old infant.

* Detective Brian Cassidy, in the first season of ''[[Law and Order SVU]].'' Played with in that he does not last the season.

* Vladimir Sharapov of ''[[The Meeting Place Cannot Be Changed]]''.

* Tobias Beecher in the first season of ''[[Oz]]''.

* ''[[Power Rangers]]'' is rather fond of this, typically putting one of these in as Red Ranger. This in contrast to [[Super Sentai]], more fond of having the same ranger be [[The Ace]], leading to occasional amusing dissonance between character and behavior in the American version.

** Eventually he had to pass this torch to Kate, but he still gets his chances at it occasionally.

* From ''[[Stargate SG-1]]''

'''Jonas''': Funny. }}

* John Burns in the first season of ''[[Taxi]]''. Elaine Nardo was one, too, in the pilot episode.

* Donna's orientation by her predecessor in a flashback sequence of ''[[The West Wing]]''. She's not only tricked into thinking there's a nuclear warhead on the White House grounds, she reveals her surprise of this "fact" in an interview with a teen magazine, showing her "bambiesque naivite" to the world ("I'm too stupid to live!").

 

 

== Radio ==

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** [[Ravenloft]], a Gothic horror setting which took inspiration from 18th-20th century horror literature and [[Hammer Horror]] films, had an equally disorienting effect on players who approached it following the tropes and logic of other settings or "general" D&D.

 

 

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Call of Duty]] 4'' starts off by new S.A.S. member Soap MacTavish showing his proficiency at a firing range and making his way through a 'killhouse' shooting pop-up terrorist targets. The game suggests a difficulty based on how well you manuever through said killhouse. That he soon starts [[Take a Level In Badass|taking levels in badassery]] needs not to be said.

* ''[[Gears of War]] 2'' features the main characters leading a 'green as grass' new recruit on his first patrol - who, by bizarre coincidence, is [[Backup Twin|one of the three brothers of the redshirt on Marcus's squad in the previous game]].

* Phoenix Wright starts off as this in the first ''[[Ace Attorney]]'' game. He gets nervous, but doubly becomes so when the prosecution gets the upper hand in court or if Phoenix loses his advantage in the case. On top of this, he's always looking to someone to bail him out of a jam if he gets stuck, such as Mia. Despite characters that tell Phoenix that he is blind to how things really work, he still does what he think is right by just sheer determination. By the next two games, Phoenix slowly starts to shed off his newcomer skin and by ''Apollo Justice'', Phoenix is a lot wiser and more mellow, but still fierce in finding the truth.

* [[Cloudcuckoolander|Merrill]] in ''[[Dragon Age 2]]'' has little experience with anything outside the Dalish, and is inordinately fascinated by the Kirkwall Alienage.

 

 

* Taylor Quinn/Onca in ''[[Panthera]]''.

* Go in ''[[Mushroom Go]].''

* In ''[[The Specialists]]'', [http://thespecialistscomic.com/page-55/ the Baron's new secretary] introduces us to the ''ubermenschen'' as she arrives.

** Also, Max, [http://thespecialistscomic.com/page-77/ when he first meets the other Specialists], but somewhat easier than her, because some of them make him welcome.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

* Todd in ''[[Wayside]]''.

* [[Doug]] was this slightly when he moved to Bluffington in the first (chronological) episode.

 

[[Category:Exposition]]

[[Category:Beginning Tropes]]