The Ingenue: Difference between revisions

[[File:Renoir Ingenue.jpg|thumb|400px|''The Ingenue'', by [[wikipedia:Renoir|Renoir]] (1877)]]

 

 

'''The Ingenue''' is a young [[My Girl Is Not a Slut|virginal]] woman with the [[Purity Personified|purity]] [[Adult Child|of a]] [[Children Are Innocent|child]].

 

Compare [[Man Child]], [[The Pollyanna]], [[Princess Classic]], [[The Cutie]], [[Purity Sue]], [[Parasol of Prettiness]], [[Proper Lady]]. Contrast [[The Vamp]], [[Femme Fatale]], [[Innocent Bigot]], [[Seemingly-Wholesome Fifties Girl]], [[Stepford Smiler]], [[Wide-Eyed Idealist]], [[Covert Pervert]], [[Coy Girlish Flirt Pose]], [[Old-Fashioned Rowboat Date]].

 

* Subverted by Lacus Clyne, of ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED]]'' and ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny]]''. When she's introduced, she comes off as being innocent to the point of being impossibly naive, even stupid. She's actually highly political savvy, heavily implied to be [[Obfuscating Stupidity|pretending to be dim to be overlooked]], and ends up a major world-leader by the end of the series.

* Tohru in ''[[Fruits Basket]]'' fits this completely.

* Kohaku from ''[[Wish]]''. So, so much.

* An extremely rare male version of this is Ryo from ''[[FAKE]]''. He is not a [[Man Child]] and a very mature [[Straight Man]] to contrast his partner [[Lovable Sex Maniac]] Dee. However, he is extremely naive when it comes to intimate matters and often nearly taken advantage of as a result. Sexual innuendo tends to fly over his head, has little experience in relationships and is hardly able to keep his partner's (or boss') sexual advances at bay. So much so that in the English version, other characters call him 'Sandra Dee', an actress known for playing the Ingenue in many roles.

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Little Annie Fanny]]'', the protagonist of a recurring comic in ''[[Playboy]]'' magazine. She was depicted as an eterally innocent - and incredibly attractive - young woman (both a parody of [[Little Orphan Annie]] and a caricature of [[Marilyn Monroe]] and [[Jayne Mansfield]]) and was completely oblivious to the attempts by lecherous men to get in her pants.

 

* [[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White]], to a T. That's the point of her name.

** [[Sleeping Beauty (Disney film)|Aurora]], to an even better T.

*** Heck, throw in [[Cinderella (Disney film)|Cinderella]] as well, who maintains her optimism and purity even while living a crapsack life.

*** [[Tangled|Rapunzel]] has some elements of this as well.

* Mary Lane from ''[[Reefer Madness]]''. This is played for laughs in the musical, giving us the page quote.

* Janet ('''[[Audience Participation|SLUT!]]''') in ''[[Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'', although she's less naive than Brad ('''[[Audience Participation|ASSHOLE!]]''').

* The young Countess Elizabeth Bathory in ''[[Count and Countess]]''. Sadly, [[Break the Cutie|this does not last long]].

* Antonia, who is only fifteen when ''[[The Monk]]'' opens, and extremely sheltered from having grown up in an isolated castle with her mother. She even read an edited version of the Bible because her mother believed the text to be too violent.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

* Captain Kirk and his many female conquests in ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series]]'': "What is this, 'love?'" Andrea Android from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", Shahna from "The Gamesters of Triskellion", and Kelinda from "By Any Other Name" comes to mind.

 

* [[The Bible]] has The Virgin Mary. Eve from Genesis may have also qualified as she was innocent of all evil before she ate the forbidden fruit.

 

 

* Rose Maybud in ''[[Gilbert and Sullivan|Ruddigore]]'', although it turns out she's not so much "innocent" as obsessed with etiquette (and gold-digging).

* Johanna in all versions of ''[[Sweeney Todd]]'' that include her, but especially the original penny-dreadful.

** Alfred is quite honestly a better fit for this trope, despite being, you know. Male.

* Christine Daaé in every incarnation of ''[[The Phantom of the Opera]]'' '''except''' [Gaston Leroux's original novel where she may be a daydreamer (and [[Genre Savvy]] victim of [[Stockholm Syndrome]]) but also a [[Well, Excuse Me, Princess!]] whose pluck and stubbornness unnerve Raoul several times before he realizes how wrongly he's misjudged her just because she ''isn't'' a meek little ingenue-type.

** In Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical, Christine is actually called "your precious little ingenue" (by her rival).

* Miranda from ''[[The Tempest]]''. Of course, this is mostly to do with the fact that she was raised on a desert island and was apparently unaware of the existence of humans other than her father until well into her teens. When Ferdinand turns up, she immediately falls in love with him.

* Jemima from ''[[Cats]]'' is this in cat form.

* [[Cyrano De Bergerac]]: Deconstructed by Roxane, who is highly intelligent and practical, but is completely convinced her (and Christian) lives are like the Romance Novels she had read. Notice that no one of his suitors tries to force her to accept reality until Christian wants her to choose between Cyrano and him at Act IV, and that her [[Hidden Depths]] and [[Character Development]] demonstrate that she could handle reality very well.

 

== Video Games ==

* Shinmyoumaru Sukuna in ''[[Touhou]]'' was easily manipulated by Seija Kijin into causing a major incident because of her impossible naivety and baffling lack of knowledge of her own people's history despite her royal descent. Even after she had to suffer a very humiliating punishment for the both of them and Seija's lies were exposed, Shinmyoumaru still considers her a friend.

 

* Oasis from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' alternates between being The Ingenue and being an [[Ax Crazy]] assassin, sometimes within the span of a single sentence. What do you expect when you take a supernatural killing machine and [[Brainwashed|brainwash]] her to be "as giddy as a schoolgirl"?

* Tempest from ''[[Domain Tnemrot]]''.

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

** Well, she [[Character Development|was]], but [[Crazy Awesome|not]] [[Beware the Nice Ones|anymore]].

* Miss Cooter from ''[[Me and My Dick]]'' is sweet, naive, optimistic, beautiful and caring. There's just little thing: she's the heroine's vagina. It [[Makes Sense in Context]].

 

== Western Animation ==

* Lola Bunny's incarnation in ''[[The Looney Tunes Show]]'' seems to be a comically hilarious variation of this, despite being a [[Stalker with a Crush]].

* In the ''[[Indiana Jones]]'' parody episode of ''[[Phineas and Ferb]]'', Isabella is an Ingenue ''and'' a [[Femme Fatale]], having business cards for both. "A girl has to earn a living!" (She's also a certified [[Damsel in Distress]]. {{spoiler|And [[The Commies Made Me Do It|a Dirty Double-Crosser]]}}.)

 

== Real Life ==

* Appears occasionally at [[Overheard]]. [http://www.overheardinnewyork.com/archives/000635.html "I was a call girl for a while..."]

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Purity Personified]]

[[Category:Women Are Delicate]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ingenue, The}}