Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
214,347
edits
Wide-Eyed Idealist: Difference between revisions
no edit summary
No edit summary |
|||
| (7 intermediate revisions by 6 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
[[File:
{{quote|''"With kindness comes naïveté. Courage becomes foolhardiness. And dedication has no reward. If you can't accept any of that, you are not fit to be a magical girl."''|'''Homura Akemi''', ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]''}}
Line 7 ⟶ 6:
A character who is far too idealistic for his or her own good.
It may be the [[Naive Newcomer]] who [[Jumped At the Call]]
This character either becomes a victim of [[Trauma Conga Line]] or [[Break the Cutie]], [[Too Dumb to Live|dies horribly]] or [[Jade-Colored Glasses|acquires a coat of jade]] post-haste. In particularly [[Anvilicious]] cases, expect deployment of [[Diabolus Ex Machina]] to deal with them.
Line 13 ⟶ 12:
If the character remains triumphant and idealistic throughout, then it's a case of [[Good Is Not Dumb]] or [[The Pollyanna]]. May also be [[Stupid Good]].
While [[The Messiah|messiahs]] are frequent victims of wide-eyed idealism, [[Doomed Moral Victor|their suffering or sacrifice]] can encourage them to become full-blown [[Messianic Archetype
When [[The Hero]] appeals to a group of people, often [[Least Is First]] falls under this.
Compare [[The Pollyanna]], the [[Love Freak]], [[The Ingenue]], and [[Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids]] Contrast the [[Grumpy Bear]], the cynic in an idealistic setting. See [[Turn the Other Cheek]] and [[The Farmer and the Viper]].
{{examples}}
▲== Anime & Manga ==
* Goku of ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' is this full throttle. Throughout the series he is constantly offering his opponents a chance to change and be good people, even after they kill his friends he still has hope for them. He is overwhelmingly optimistic and nice to every person he meets. This will not, however, stop him from fighting to protect the people he loves.
* Kenshiro from ''[[Fist of the North Star]]'' is an idealistic lives in a [[Crapsack World]] where people daily dies and kills over a scrap of food or a sip of water. Still he believes it is easy being despicable in that age, but it takes a true HERO keep your humanity and keep being a good person when everything and everyone around seems suggestng you otherwise. In the first chapter, Bat asks him bluntly how he has survived so far if he would not even try break himself out of jail because it could get a little girl in trouble. Not long after Bat finds out Kenshiro is idealistic because ''[[Beware the Nice Ones|he can afford it.]]'' Behaving like scum and harming helpless people in front of him is a very, ''very'' bad idea. Like in "he WILL disintegrate you" bad idea.
* [[Rurouni Kenshin|Rurouni Kenshin Himura]] is a good example of this [[Trope]]. Some might consider him [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]], but [[Super-Powered Evil Side|old]] [[Dark Messiah|habits]] die hard...
** Except his intro speech at the end of the first chapter goes, "no, swordsmanship is an art of killing. Kaoru-dono believes a sweet, naive lie. But if this one had a wish...it would be that her sweet lie would become the truth of this world." Kenshin's [[Walking the Earth]] with [[Obfuscating Stupidity]] routine involves some serious ideals, but despite avoiding his battle expression most of the time he's not too wide-eyed. He's got the world-weary thing going, but values Kaoru as a
*** Some of the stupidity probably isn't fake. The line is impossible to find, as is common with [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]] types.
*** His backstory involves a bit of this, despite all his childhood
* [[Large Ham|A]][[Axis Powers Hetalia|me]][[Love Freak|rica]] is pegged as one of these by Fanon.
** Though, considering [[Keet|his]] [[Adult Child|nature]], he could very well be one of these in [[Canon]].
* ''[[Now and Then, Here and There]]'' is based around this trope.
* Judai of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! GX]]'' was once an [[Idiot Hero]] [[The Ace|Ace]] who believed life was one big game and the only thing worth caring about was having fun. His journey of [[Deconstruction|deconstructing]] [[The Ace]] [[Despair Event Horizon|is not a pleasant one.]]
* Touta Matsuda from ''[[Death Note]]''. [[Playing with a Trope|Deconstructed]] with Light: it's pointed out that he is "quite the positive thinker" and ironically it's his idealism that drives him to commit his atrocities in order to "[[Utopia Justifies the Means|make the world a better place]]."
Line 55 ⟶ 54:
* [[Sayonara, Zetsubou-sensei|Kafuka]] takes this trope and runs with it. Everything has a good side to her: a Trash Can is a 'Treasure Chest for the Homeless' and it only gets worse from there.
* [[Trigun]]'s Vash The Stampede is determined to be one. No matter what he sees, what humans or Knives or anybody do, to him or anyone. His traumas are simultaneously cases of [[Break the Cutie]] and [[Break the Badass]], and are usually horrific. Worse in the manga, where he is clearly fighting to maintain his idealism over his own common sense and has a lot more bleak moments. The setting is also much darker, since the series went seinen after the Fifth Moon. But he always stands up again. Because he won't give up on humanity and by extension Rem.
** And on himself. After all, if he gives up on people then what does he have to resist Knives' [[Hannibal Lecture
*** The anime incident with Zazie mirrors Wolfwood's manga shooting of Rai-dei, in both cases to protect Vash. Vash is not appreciative, because he feels his sworn enemies [[Honor Before Reason|should always have another chance]] to not-shoot him. Wolfwood, who's got a certain [[Knight in Sour Armor]] and [[Anti-Hero]] thing going on, thinks he's crazy but wishes he could believe the way Vash does.
*** Wolfwood's a priest. There are intentional religious themes here, although they are way vague and have a distinct lack of real theology.
** Vash is helped by his own awesomeness; when Knives and his subordinated aren't involved he can usually pull a casualty-free resolution out of the worst situations imaginable. Sure, this has meant horrific scars all over his body, but it gives him all kinds of warm fuzzies and hope. He wants Wolfwood to see this. Wolfwood wants him to see that most people are only human and you can't save everybody all the time.
** When Vash has a [[Heroic BSOD]] it's usually because of this getting challenged harder than usual. On some level he disbelieves a lot of it, and the fact that it's sheer will keeping him in line sometimes distinguishes him from the kind that are this because they don't know better. But somehow he keeps regaining [[Incorruptible Pure Pureness]].
** Know who's the Trigun poster child for this trope? '''''Manga Knives.''''' He was all "our hearts are the same as people's, I'm sure if we try we can understand one another," and actually ''cried'' when the first human they met besides Rem accepted them. Then he [[Go Mad
** Meryl is a little naive but never an idealist. Millie is...strange. Maybe a wide-eyed idealist. Maybe just terminally clueless. Actually very sharp under it all, and ''very'' tough.
*** Anime Millie is Wolfwood's other foil, and they become a couple. One of Wolfwood's [[Character Development]] soliloquies involves the frustrated observation that Millie and Vash always "do everything I can't, like it's no big deal."
Line 71 ⟶ 70:
** Rock also struggles with this in earlier arcs: His attempts to understand Revy makes her angry at him, trying to 'save' Gretel failed utterly, and his attempt towards Yukiko backfires completely. It isn't until "Le Baile de la Muerte" [[Jade Coloured Glasses|he starts to understand that]] if he wants to save people he'll have to become a cynical rotten power-player like Chang and Balalaika.
== Comic Books ==
* Steve in Gilbert Hernandez's "Love and Rockets X" story within ''[[Love and Rockets]]''.
* Gilly the [[Perky Goth]] from ''[[Dork Tower]]''.
* Tomcat in the ''[[Star Wars Expanded Universe|Jedi vs. Sith]]''. He believes everything he hears in the songs and stories that claim the Jedi are invincible heroes. {{spoiler|When he ends up in the middle of the battle against the Sith and sees Jedi dying in the mud with their non-Force sensitive comrades, [[Start of Darkness|it does not end well]].}}
== Fan Works ==
* [[Glee|Blaine]] in ''[[Hunting the Unicorn]]'' to [[Fridge Horror]] inducing extents. He would help anyone who asked without question, which puts his [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]] in a completely different light. Greg has a point when he tells Blaine how lucky he is to have met Kurt, and that "all Kurt did was fall in love with him." {{spoiler|As it turns out, people have [[The First Cut Is the Deepest|taken advantage of his clueless nature]] before.}}▼
▲* [[Glee|Blaine]] in [[Hunting the Unicorn]] to [[Fridge Horror]] inducing extents. He would help anyone who asked without question, which puts his [[Chronic Hero Syndrome]] in a completely different light. Greg has a point when he tells Blaine how lucky he is to have met Kurt, and that "all Kurt did was fall in love with him." {{spoiler|As it turns out, people have [[The First Cut Is the Deepest|taken advantage of his clueless nature]] before.}}
* Saori Tagawa from ''[[The Ikaris]]'' is a marriage counsellor boasts she has NEVER failed on saving a marriage. She also has a very idealistic outlook about love and marriage. Attempts to talk her out of it are met with a [[Shut UP, Hannibal]] sharp retort.
== Film ==
Line 91 ⟶ 87:
* While Charles Xavier in [[X-Men]]: First Class isn't exactly naive, he still has an extremely idealistic attitude towards Mutant/Human relations. Even when the humans turn on the X-Men in fear, he still continues to beieve that the mutants should try to be the better men, in the hope that they will someday be accepted.
* Otto from ''[[One, Two, Three]]'' about Communism. He even thinks it's a capitalist lie that Siberia is cold, and is happy that the Communists assigned them "a magnificent apartment, just a short walk from the bathroom!"
== Literature ==
* Sansa Stark from ''[[A Song of Ice and Fire]]'', who bases her whole life around singers' tales, is a perfect little lady, gentle and trusting. {{spoiler|Until the person she is starry-eyed over cuts off her father's head in front of her.}} [[Break the Haughty|And then MUCH misfortune followed]].
* [[Discworld]]:
** Dangerous Beans in
** Subverted by [[The Ace|Carrot Ironfoundersson]]. He starts out as a wide-eyed idealist... Except that for some reason, his idealism somehow ''works''. He can talk anyone into behaving like a friendly, reasonable person. If any other character tried it, they'd be dead.
*** It works because he's big, strong, usually accompanied by city watchmen (including a troll and later {{spoiler|a golem}}) and, most important of all, is fairly intelligent. Carrot is an actual idealist, rather than just naive like most of the examples here; he knows full well that [[Humans Are
*** True but the world does tend to warp itself around him. After all he may or may not be the heir to the throne of Ankh Morpork and in a world chock full of narrativium, how can things ''not'' go his way.
** Well almost any other character. In ''[[
* Moomin- 'all I want is to grow potatoes and live in peace'-troll of ''[[The Moomins]]''
* Jane Bennet of [[Jane Austen]]'s ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]''. Her younger, more cynical sister, Elizabeth, is convinced that Jane's new friend, Caroline Bingley, deliberately sabotaged her romance with Caroline's brother in order to hook him up with his best friend's
* Dorden, [[The Medic]] of ''[[Warhammer
* Voltaire's ''[[Candide]]''. Among many, ''many'' other examples in the book is Dr. Pangloss's thoughts on having caught syphilis, and having had an eye and an ear removed as part of the treatment:
{{quote|"O sage Pangloss," cried Candide, "what a strange genealogy is this! Is not the devil the root of it?"
Line 127 ⟶ 123:
* ''[[Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea]]'': [[The Professor]] Aronnax must be constantly reminded that other people is not as good as himself. He really doesn’t want to believe that Nemo is doing something sinister, and Ned Land must remind him that the war ship that is shooting the Nautilus is doing it on purpose.
* Tyentyetnikov starts as this in ''[[Dead Souls]]'', tries to improve the lot of his serfs, with at best mixed results, and becomes apathetic in the end.
== Live-Action TV ==
Line 144 ⟶ 139:
* Shinji in ''[[Kamen Rider Ryuki]]'', caught in a fight for a single wish, Shinji fights to try and stop this but learn he could not...
* Annie in ''[[Community]]''. She even thinks her nickname is "Irony-free Annie".
== Music ==
* [[Billy Joel]]'s song "Pressure" is about a Wide-Eyed Idealist and how unrealistic his hopes and expectations are.
* Anthony Hope in ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'' is as idealistic as [[Grumpy Bear|Sweeney]] is cynical. And then he gets [[Break the Cutie|bashed (literally, in some cases) down by Judge Turpin and the Beadle.]] And he is still idealistic, even though everyone - even his er, bride, Johanna, tumbles down the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]. And it can be viewed as [[Spanner in the Works|all HIS fault]].▼
** It should be noted, though, that Anthony Hope is one of the few characters still alive at the end.▼
== Newspaper Comics ==
* Ratbert in ''[[Dilbert]]'' is (or was) pretty much the only idealistic character in the [[Crapsack World]] the strip takes in. Considering the strip's message that [[Family-Unfriendly Aesop|"cynicism equals intelligence"]], it [[Anvilicious|comes off as no surprise]] that he's portrayed as stupid.
* Pig, the title character of ''[[Pearls Before Swine]]'', has a very idealistic outlook on life. This makes him a perfect [[Foil]] for his [[Nietzsche Wannabe]] roommate Rat.
== Tabletop Games ==
* The Tau in ''[[Warhammer
** Also the Chaos God Nurgle, in a [[Blue and Orange Morality|very weird way.]]
* In the backstory of the old ''Battletech'' world, the last First Lord of the Star League, Richard Cameron was orphaned as a boy, and grew up with idealistic, Arthurian vision of his supposed role as head of the multi-kingdomed, federal empire. Since politics in the Battletech universe are much more realistic than that, he was the worst possible choice for the critical throne at the worst possible time, and catastrophe followed.
** Not helped by the fact that an [[Evil Chancellor]], who would later go on to kill Richard and bring the Star League to ruin, was warping his mind and constantly clouding his judgment towards said idealism.
* According to the ''Angelic Player's Guide'' of ''[[In Nomine]],'' angels that are brand new to Earth sometimes have this tendency. After all, they've spent their entire life in an environment where everyone really is out for the best.
{{quote| "For example, a new angel performing a mission in modern-day America knows that interstate buses are a method of transportation, and that they begin and end their trips in metropolitan bus stations. ... Bur the angel is unlikely to realize that it's a bad idea to spend the night in a bus station, or that the nice man who offers to watch your luggage while you get a drink won't be there when you get back (and neither will your luggage)." -- APG, pg. 80}}
== [[Theatre]] ==
▲* Anthony Hope in ''[[Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (theatre)|Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street]]'' is as idealistic as [[Grumpy Bear|Sweeney]] is cynical. And then he gets [[Break the Cutie|bashed (literally, in some cases) down by Judge Turpin and the Beadle.]] And he is still idealistic, even though everyone - even his er, bride, Johanna, tumbles down the [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]. And it can be viewed as [[Spanner in the Works|all HIS fault]].
▲** It should be noted, though, that Anthony Hope is one of the few characters still alive at the end.
==
* Tahlkora from ''[[Guild Wars]]: Nightfall''. "I signed on for the heroic songs and the praise. I did not sign on for the blood-sucking bugs."
* ''Will / Ed'' from [[Nintendo Wars|Advance Wars: Days of Ruin / Dark Conflict]]. His idealism arguably pushes him dangerously close to being an [[Idiot Hero]], as he is often wildly optimistic and consequently sometimes fails to look at situations properly. However, his will and [[Determinator|sheer determination]] in even the worst of situations often leads to at least one crowning moment of heartwarming. Case in point - mission 16, which starts off with desperate music playing pushing ever closer to the [[Despair Event Horizon]], when suddenly Will/Ed decides he's going to fight, and the music changes from desperate to [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCD6ribbc-4 sheer awesome.]
Line 182 ⟶ 173:
** Fenthick in [[Neverwinter Nights]], so much that he cannot comprehend evil. Linu is a lesser example.
** Dawn Star in [[Jade Empire]].
* PJ in ''[[Ace Combat|Ace Combat Zero]]''. Given [[Ace Combat]] tries to use "[[War Is Hell]]" as [[An Aesop]], [[Retirony|and he mentions his
* Luisa Fortuna in ''[[Red Dead Redemption]]'' is an exceedingly idealistic individual in the [[Crapsack World]]. She genuinely believes in rebel leader Abraham Reyes, who John quickly learns is a [[Glory Hound]] with a penchant for [[Meaningless Meaningful Words]] and chastises John for working with Allende when he constantly makes it clear that he's [[Not in This For Your Revolution]].
* Brother-Sergeant Thaddeus in ''[[Dawn of War]] II'', with most of his older and wiser fellow sergeants pointing out his relative naivete at several points. In the [[Expansion Pack]] ''Chaos Rising'', {{spoiler|Thaddeus will go rogue if his [[Karma Meter|Corruption level]] is the highest in the squad -- unlike all the other squadmates, who go rogue over [[Necessarily Evil]] reasons, [[Demonic Possession]] or over bitterness, Thaddeus' corruption is revealed to be over his idealism -- [[Horrible Judge of Character|he willingly believed the word of a daemon]].}}
* In ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'', David Sarif is this to an extent. In a world of high tech cybernetics, ruthless conspiracy, corporate warfare, [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking|And]] [[Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain|Bad Weather]]
* The ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' series plays with this trope, ultimately subverting it: [[The Hero|Sora]] is so idealistic that villains often take advantage of his [[Chronic Hero Syndrome|do-gooder tendencies]] and manipulate him in various ways. The villains all insist that the protagonists are [[Wide Eyed Idealists]] who should just give in and admit [[Crap Saccharine World|that the world is nothing but darkness at its heart.]] A notable example is in [[Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories]], when Sora is manipulated into {{spoiler|erasing his own memory.}} Ultimately, his idealism and [[The Power of Friendship|his bonds with friends]] protect him.
=== Visual Novels ===▼
▲== Visual Novels ==
* Shirou Emiya of ''[[Fate/stay night]]'', who wants to follow in his father's footsteps to become an "ally of justice" and enters the Holy Grail War to prevent civilian casualties and abuse of the Holy Grail. The end result depends somewhat on the route: {{spoiler|[[Pollyanna|His idealism remains unscathed]]}} in the first route, {{spoiler|[[Character Development|he chucks away the 'Wide-Eyed' part after a thorough examination of his ideal]]}} in the second route, and {{spoiler|[[Always Save the Girl|chucks away it all as meaningless to who he really is]]}} in the third. The latter ones are foreshadowed in "Fate" when he couldn't come up with a real answer about if what he was doing actually brought him happiness.
** {{spoiler|Then again, judging by Archer's comments, the past he went through seemed similar to the Fate route, so there may be a pair of [[Jade-Colored Glasses]] waiting for Shirou there...}}
* Seiko from ''[[Used Books]]'' is a great example. She is constantly standing up for people tho others deem as villains. She holds fast that people are [http://www.drunkduck.com/Used_Books/index.php?p=437135 basically good]{{Dead link}}, even if they have done nothing but cause hardship. She also stops in the middle of a battle to [http://www.drunkduck.com/Used_Books/index.php?p=633715 bandage up]{{Dead link}} an enemy someone on her own team just injured.▼
▲* Seiko from ''[[Used Books]]'' is a great example. She is constantly standing up for people tho others deem as villains. She holds fast that people are [http://www.drunkduck.com/Used_Books/index.php?p=437135 basically good], even if they have done nothing but cause hardship. She also stops in the middle of a battle to [http://www.drunkduck.com/Used_Books/index.php?p=633715 bandage up] an enemy someone on her own team just injured.
* Lisa from ''[[Mechagical Girl Lisa A.N.T.]]'' is one of these... only thing is, not only she ''still'' firmly believes her life is a [[Magical Girl]] anime despite all she's been through, but she ''doesn't even cares'' about her robot outfit being actually a [[Humongous Mecha]] for ants.
* Franchesca "Kid" Martines from ''[[Angels 2200]]'' is a textbook example. Not surprisingly, she almost gets booted off the squad when she can't bring herself to fire on an enemy fighter knowing she'd be taking someone else's life.
* Played with in ''[[Homestuck]]'' with John Egbert. He's a wildly idealistic kid playing a game that's already [[The End of the World as We Know It|destroyed the Earth and rendering it more or less uninhabitable]], and being constantly accosted by literal [[Troll
* In ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'', Grace is this in all things including [[Innocent Fanservice Girl|nudity]], and so was {{spoiler|Susan}} before {{spoiler|1=her [[Mercy Kill]] [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2010-05-31 of the aberration.] Literally so -- her eyes change into her current half-droopy state when she looks down at his corpse, and while she still [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2008-07-11 has] [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2009-01-22 wide] [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2010-06-23 eyes] [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2009-02-10 quite] [http://www.egscomics.com/?date=2010-06-30 often], they do tend towards the "half-droopy". After the encounter of a weird kind with Jerry led to [[Freak-Out]], though, she now tends to having wide open eyes more often than not.}}
== [[Web Original]] ==
▲== Web Originals ==
* Himei of ''[[Sailor Nothing]]'' was once a [[Genre Savvy]] [[Ascended Fanboy|Ascended Fangirl]] of [[Magical Girl]] anime... starring in a [[Deconstruction]] of Magical Girl anime. She quickly learned (by the beginning of where the story picks up) that the job is ''not'' so much fun as it looks. Aki fills the role after Himei has become thoroughly jaded.
* A toned-down version of Penny in ''[[Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog]]''. "...a generally nice person whose idealistic attempts at solving the problems of their world turn out to go ''horribly horribly'' awry..." Do I detect a bit of irony?
Line 210 ⟶ 198:
** One could easily make a case for Carol Burke as well, who seems to genuinely believe they are going to be rescued and the terrorists wouldn't get away with it a fourth time. To her, very few at her school would actually play, especially her friends. Heck, she trusts ''[[Psycho Lesbian|Reiko]] [[Ax Crazy|Ishida]]'' {{spoiler|and like Emma, gets killed for her troubles}}.
** Orn "Dutchy" Ayers could also be interpreted as this. However, it's also a major reason why he's considered [[The Woobie]]; he's smart enough to know that although things should be good and he wants to do the right thing, things... [[Break the Cutie|aren't working out]]. As a result, he doesn't take things very well, and spends a good portion of his time on the island in a [[Heroic BSOD]], wishing he could save all his friends.
== Western Animation ==
Line 227 ⟶ 214:
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Characters As Device]]
[[Category:The Idealist]]
▲[[Category:Wide-Eyed Idealist]]
| |||