[[quoteright:263:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Prospero_and_miranda.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:263:Miranda, from ''The Tempest'']]

-->'''Miranda''': ''O, wonder!\\
How many goodly creatures\\
are there here!\\
How beauteous mankind is!\\
O brave new world,\\
That has such people in't!''\\
'''Prospero''': ''Tis new to thee.''\\
— '''WilliamShakespeare''', ''TheTempest''

Character whose inexperience with the world presented by the show allows them to act as the AudienceSurrogate. Often it is through their eyes that we are introduced to the show's principal characters and milieu (see WelcomeEpisode). Sometimes incorporates qualities of TheWatson and FishOutOfWater. May lack GenreBlindness.

They may be TrappedInAnotherWorld, new additions to a WizardingSchool, [[NewMeat the fresh recruit]], or just TheIntern, but the device is the same.

In dangerous situations, this character may condemn himself as a coward for feeling fear, until [[YouAreBetterThanYouThinkYouAre a sager head tells him]] that only the FearlessFool avoids that.

A popular character type in SpeculativeFiction, because it allows the reader or viewer to explore the world as the character does.

Frequently overlaps with CountryMouse.
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!!Examples

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* Shinji Ikari from ''NeonGenesisEvangelion''. However, he is a lot less of a WideEyedIdealist than many examples.
* Arika Yumemiya in ''{{Mai-Otome}}''.
* Linna Yamazaki in the ''{{Bubblegum Crisis}}'' remake, ''Tokyo 2040''.
* Manta/Morty in ''ShamanKing'', though Morty is inflicted with [[{{Bowdlerise}} an annoying fanboy mentality in the translation.]]
* Ito Keita in ''GakuenHeaven''.
* Utena early on in ''RevolutionaryGirlUtena''.
* Rokuro Okajima, [=AKA=] Rock, from ''BlackLagoon''.
* Ayato Kamina from ''{{RahXephon}}''.
* In the anime ''HaibaneRenmei'', Rakka acts as the Naive Newcomer, appearing in the Haibane's world and having to have everything explained to her by the seasoned residents.
* Ahiru in ''PrincessTutu''...since she's a duck that was magically turned into a girl.
* Haruhi in ''OuranHighSchoolHostClub''.
* Ai Tanabe in ''{{Planetes}}''.
* Mai in ''GhostHunt''.
* [[DeconstructedTrope Deconstructed]] ''HARD'' in the second season of {{Gundam 00}}, with Shinji's partial {{Expy}} Saji Crossroads.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Comic Books ]]

* Agent J in incarnations of ''MenInBlack'' comics, and in the first movie.
* Robyn "Toybox" Slinger at the start of ''[[TopTen Top 10]]''.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Film ]]

* Rogue, in the movie adaptation of ''Comicbook/{{X-Men}}''.
** Kitty Pryde (later Shadowcat) filled this role in the actual books. Notably averted with teenaged girls [[HeelFaceTurn Rogue]], [[BadFuture Phoenix II]], and arguably [[StreetUrchin Jubilee]].
* ''DasBoot'': The presence of a war correspondent aboard the titular vessel means that there is a proper excuse for explaining various aspects of submarine operations to the audience, by having crewmembers explain them to this character, who could reasonably be expected not to already know it.
* Agent John Meyers in the first ''{{Hellboy}}'' film adaptation.
* Bethany from ''{{Dogma}}''.
* Shilo from ''[[RepoTheGeneticOpera Repo! The Genetic Opera]]''. She was locked in her bedroom for 17 years. A large chunk of the story is about her entering the real world for the first time, and the trouble being naive gets her into.
* Lt. Saavik in ''StarTrekIITheWrathOfKhan''. In [[StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock the next film]], she was taken out of this capacity, but [[TheArtifact stuck around anyway]]. And [[TheOtherDarrin was recast]] with [[{{Ptitlel9hmpkz3zwf4}} a less charismatic actress]].
* 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?".
* 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:
-->'''Mio''': It felt like we were flying! I didn't know Miramis could do that!
-->'''Jum-Jum''': (in a kids-are-stupid tone) What you know does not amount to much, Mio.
* Skorpan in ''TheBrothersLionheart''.
* 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.
* Will Smith in ''MenInBlack'' learns that his experience as a [=NYPD=] cop means precisely dick when he enters the new world of alien policing.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Literature ]]

* ''HarryPotter'', 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''.
*Thursday Next herself in the ThursdayNext series. She's an apprentice in the [=BookWorld=], and is always being educated in its many intricacies.
* Harry Crewe in ''TheBlueSword''.
*Lemuel Gulliver from ''GulliversTravels'', making this trope at least OlderThanSteam.
*The viewpoint character of nearly every utopian novel ever written (often combined with TheWatson.
* 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.
* Dr. Maturin in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels often serves as an excuse to explain naval lingo, especially in ''{{Master and Commander}}.'' Partially subverted because Maturin is otherwise the most sophisticated character on board.
* In ''TheTempest'', the situation is inverted: the new world is brought to Miranda's island.
* Claire Lyons in the {{The Clique}}.
* Most fantasy novels do this to some extent. If the lead character isn't [[SummonEverymanHero 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.
** Just see the SummonEverymanHero page, there's no need to get redundant.
** [[LordOfTheRings Bilbo and Frodo Baggins]] grew up in the Shire, isolated from things that made you late for breakfast.
** [[TheBelgariad Garion]] grew up on a small farm, specifically isolated from the larger world by his "aunt".
** [[TheWheelOfTime Rand al'Thor]] and his friends grew up in a small town far from the turmoil of the world.
** [[MythAdventures Skeeve]] grew up in an isolated, backward ''universe''.
** The Ohmsfords from {{Shannara}}.
* "His name was [[{{Foundation}} Gaal Dornick]] and he was just a country boy who had never seen Trantor before."
* Skorpan in ''TheBrothersLionheart''.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* Dr. Daniel Jackson from ''{{Stargate SG-1}}''. But he quickly fit in.
** His ''{{Jonas Quinn}}'', well, [[TropeNamer Jonas Quinn]] did much of the same thing, oddly enough, long after the show and other characters had all been well-established to the audience.
--->'''Sam''': How come you're not smiling?
--->'''Jonas''': Should I be?
--->'''Sam''': Well, it is your first time being captured by a Goa'uld.
--->'''Jonas''': Funny.
* John Crichton on ''{{Farscape}}''.
* BuckRogers.
* Dr. John Carter (also later Lucy Knight and to a lesser extent Neela Rasgotra), ''{{ER}}''.
* Diane Chambers, ''{{Cheers}}''.
* Jack Carter, ''{{Eureka}}''.
** New episodes (in the ''third season'') ''still'' play Jack as the Naive Newcomer, but focus more on his inability to understand complicated science rather than his lack of comfort with the many world-ending experiments performed in the city.
** One could argue that he's evolving into TheWatson, at least to a point.
* Kyle from ''KyleXY''.
* Just about all of the Doctor's companions in ''DoctorWho'', but especially Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright in the original show, and Rose Tyler in the current revival. In those case we get introduced to the Doctor through their eyes, whereas in other companion introductions we already know the Doctor when we see him meet them.
* Gwen Cooper, ''{{Torchwood}}''.
* Taken to its fullest potential in ''GreysAnatomy'', where the main quintet (that's FiveManBand dressed up) are all {{Naive Newcomer}}s.
** Arguably stolen from ''{{Scrubs}}'', which did the "group of new interns" thing first.
* Simon of ''{{Firefly}}''
* Will Zimmerman, ''{{Sanctuary}}''.
* PC Jim Carver, ''TheBill.''
* Constable Maggie Doyle, ''BlueHeelers.''
* Detective Brian Cassidy, in the first season of ''LawAndOrderSVU.'' Played with in that he does not last the season.
* Harry Kim from ''StarTrekVoyager'', though after seven years of terrible life (and numerous death) experiences he is...exactly the same.
* Tobias Beecher in the first season of ''{{Oz}}''.
* Detective Tim Bayliss is this for most of the run of ''HomicideLifeontheStreet'' ultimately subverted [[spoiler: at the end of the series and in the subsequent movie, where he guns down a serial killer set free in the former and confesses to his ex-partner in the latter and presumably goes to jail.]]
* PowerRangers is rather fond of this, typically putting one of these in as Red Ranger. This in contrast to SuperSentai, more fond of having the same ranger be TheAce, leading to occasional amusing dissonance between character and behavior in the American version.
* John Burns in the first season of ''{{Taxi}}''.
* Donna's orientation by her predecessor in a flashback sequence of ''TheWestWing''. 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!").
* Ben in ''{{Carnivale}}'' who is the butt of many a joke among the carnival folk at the beginning of the series.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Radio ]]

* Arthur Dent in ''TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy''.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

* The Tau Empire in ''Warhammer40000''. That being said, they are still a force to be reckoned with.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Video Games ]]

* The first two ''Shadow Hearts'' games have the female lead be a Naive Newcomer to the world of monsters and the supernatural, while Yuri is a relative old hand--and the CoolOldGuy is very much an old hand. ''From the New World'' inverts this, with the male lead being the Naive Newcomer, and the female lead the old hand, while the CoolOldGuy is likely as or more naive than the male lead, although he's too crazy to show it.
*Tidus from ''FinalFantasyX''. His father Jecht, while not a Point-of-view character, also suffered from this several years earlier.
* Though an antagonist rather than a viewpoint character, Elena of the Turks in ''FinalFantasyVII''.
* And Vaan of ''FinalFantasyXII'', though he's barely even an AudienceSurrogate in the actual plot.
* ''Legaia: Duel Saga'' has the protagonist filling this role. Which is really, ''really'' irksome when, after playing for twenty hours, you realize he's entirely oblivious about everything, when ''everything'' quite literally revolves around him.
* Shirou in FateStayNight has no training as a magus except a basic grasp of strengthening and a rather intuitive knowledge of projection. Tohsaka gets pretty annoyed that he knows next to nothing about magic and nothing at all about the Grail War. He's drastically unprepared for the violence going on, so it's a good thing he's TheHero and has a Servant so brokenly strong that she's still a match/superior to any of the other Servants except Berserker and possibly Lancer.
* ''CallOfDuty 4'' starts off by new S.A.S. member [[FunnyName Soap MacTavish]] showing his proficiency at a firing range and making his way through a 'killhouse' shooting pop-up terrorist targets. In a nice bit of GameplayAndStoryIntegration, the game suggests a difficulty based on how well you manuever through said killhouse.
* ''GearsOfWar 2'' features the main characters leading a 'green as grass' new recruit on his first patrol - who, by bizarre coincidence, is [[BackupTwin one of the three brothers of the redshirt on Marcus's squad in the previous game]].
* Like Winston Zeddemore discussed under "Films" above, the Rookie in [[{{Ghostbusters}} Ghostbusters: The Video Game]] doesn't have much of a problem adjusting to the job of catching ghosts and stopping a supernatural apocalypse. The trope is played straight at the same time, however, as he's caught somewhat off-guard when told his job description in layman's terms is to test new gear on the off-chance it explodes. Interestingly, it's suggested that Winston has ''become'' a scientist in the time between the first movie and the game.

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Webcomics ]]

* Calix plays this role in the "Oceans Unmoving" arc from ''SluggyFreelance''. Most of the explanations he gets about Timeless Space are done in the form of ''extremely'' boring informational videos, even when the people around him could answer his questions far more quickly. Calix gets kinda pissed about this.
* Alice the main character of ''NowhereUniversity''

[[/folder]]

[[folder: Western Animation ]]

* Todd in ''{{Wayside}}''.
* Fry, ''{{Futurama}}''.
* Jubilee in the 1990s ''[[XMen X-Men]]'' cartoon.

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