History Main / ThePollyanna

-> ''"I believe in friends and laughter"''
->''"And the wonders love can do"''
->''"I believe in songs and magic"''
->''"And that's why I believe in you"''
-->-- '''Pollyanna (I Believe in You)''', ''{{Mother}}'' Song Lyrics

A character, usually but not always female, who undergoes various hardships, losing almost everything she holds dear, and yet seems never to lose her sunny disposition. ThinkHappyThoughts may be how she does this.

* The Book of Job makes this OlderThanDirt. In the Bible, Job is a faithful Christian with many blessings, but then God decides to tell Satan to ruin him with every disaster imaginable. He plagues his livestock, destroys his home, kills his family, and makes him break out in boils. But at every step of the way, Job remains faithful and happy. This is supposed to make some sort of point about blind idiotic faith, I guess.
** Job was Jewish, since its the Old Testament. The point was not "idiotic blind faith" but that belief in God should endure even in the worst hardships because He will get people who trust in Him through it. God gave Job back everything he had possessed before twofold by the end of his life. Also, Job was not necessarily "happy" the whole time, but he did maintain a spiritual contentment despite his miseries.

Compare KnightInSourArmor. Polar opposite of TheEeyore.
Contrast {{Stepford Smiler}} where this trope is just a facade and IJustWantToBeAccepted as a cause for this trope

* Tavros from {{Homestuck}}. His life is pretty horrible all around, since he can't walk, his horns make it hard for him to sleep, [[spoiler: his beloved Lusus dies]] and the nicest thing anyone has done for him in the comic is [[spoiler: cutting off his legs with a chainsaw so he can get a robotic pair]]. He's currently pretty happy despite all of this.

* Amy in ''JohnDiesAtTheEnd''. She is crippled in a car accident and loses her entire family; yet she appears so bubbly that when David initially meets her he speculates whether she is taking Vicodin.

* Amber in ''JohnDiesAtTheEnd''. She is crippled in a car accident and loses her entire family; yet she appears so bubbly that when David initially meets her he speculates whether she is taking Vicodin.

* [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlBiLNN1NhQ Certain song]] from MonthyPython's LifeOfBrian:

Shows up a bit less nowadays; given that the current attitude is that a character's intelligence (As well as degree of "Cool"ness) is inversely proportional to their attitude. That is, the more and ''more'' negative their attitude, the more intelligent (and cool) the character is. Partly induced by works like ''{{House}}'' and ''{{Daria}}''.

** Almost to the point of ObfuscatingStupidity at times. There was one instance where he was confronted with a vampire, and, without changing his expression or even blinking in surprise, simply withdrew from his pack a jar of his family's special pasta with extra garlic, gulped it down in one gulp, diliberately gave the vampire a huge dose of his now horrendously garlicky breath (HHHHHHHHHey, there. HHHHHHHHHHave a nice daaaaaaaaay?), then just happily went on his merry way as the vampire fell over, defeated.

* The titular character of ''EdWood'' is constantly upbeat and optimistic about his movies, calling every initial take of his "perfect" even when glaring errors are made and believing his next one will be a smash hit despite the overwhelmingly negative audience, executive, and even ex-girlfriend reaction as well as his constant poverty. [[WordOfGod Tim Burton]] claimed he wanted to make the movie through Wood's eyes, [[GiftedlyBad showing his sincere love for movies despite his utter lack of talent]]. The darker parts of his life are glossed over due to this.

[[folder: {{Movies}} ]]

* Spider-Man's parents are dead. And his uncle. And his former girlfriend. And his best friend. And his wife. Across continuities, of course. For some reason, everyone around him just keeps getting maimed/killed/tortured/etc. He himself is a regular ol' ray of sunshine, of course.

* Brooke from ''OnePiece'' is an interesting male example of this trope. One of the characters almost Lampshades this by asking why he's so cheerful even though his life has been awful. It's heavily implied that Brooke has gone insane from all of his trouble though so...yeah.

[[TransSexual Kitten,]] from the wonderful film BreakfastOnPluto.

[[Transsexual Kitten,]] from the wonderful film BreakfastOnPluto.