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A blithe spirit is a free-spirited Fish Out Of Water who goes to strait-laced land and shakes things up there despite the insistence of everyone else that the way things are can't possibly be changed.
Common variants of this character include:
Not to be confused with the classic film of the same name. It and the Noel Coward play both derive from Shelley's 'Hail to thee, blithe spirit.' Interestingly, there's a famous quote by Matthew Arnold about Shelley's hopeless attempts to be a blithe spirit to the world himself: a "beautiful and ineffectual angel, beating in the void his luminous wings in vain"
The Complainer Is Always Wrong is an inverse of this trope. Compare with Manic Pixie Dream Girl, except that the latter frequently serves as a shaker-upper of one particular person. Contrast Fisher Kingdom, which tends to eat these people and turn them into cogs (not usually literally).
Examples:
Anime
- Majou Shoujotai. Also known as Tweeny Witches or Magical Girl Squad Alice qualifies for this trope.
- Judai of Yu-Gi-Oh GX. Then the plot happened...
- Onizuka Eikichi, 22 years old.
- The titular Manabi from Manabi Straight.
- Mikan in Gakuen Alice.
- Haruhi Suzumiya tries really, really hard to be one of these, hence the whole SOS Brigade thing, explicitly created to "fill the world with fun!". Actually a subversion, as should the world be shaken up as she would want it to be, it could very well be the end of reality as we know it. Again.
- The landlady Taeko's mother, Kimi, in Otaku no Musume-san. This is a point of contention between mother and daughter as Kimi left Tae to be raised by others throughout her life.
Film
- The 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (1964) based on a darker novel The Circus of Dr. Lao (1935).
- Notably averted in So Bad Its Good American Shaolin - it looks like the protagonist will shake things up in the monastery... but he ends up shaken up by staying there - humbler, wiser, not to mention about 5 points up on the badass scale and getting a girl to boot.
- Babe The Gallant Pig (1994)
- Black Knight (2001)
- Chocolat (2000)
- Dead Poets Society (1989)
- Also Good Morning Vietnam (1987), Patch Adams (1998), and even Robots (2005), Happy Feet (2007) and Night at the Museum (2007) have heavy doses of this. Apparently, just having Robin Williams appear in your movie at all causes Blithe Spirit. Doesn't even have to be Robin's character.
- One could say his role in the Law And Order SVU episode "Authority" is a dark version of this.
- Enchanted (2007)
- Footloose (1984)
- Mona Lisa Smile (2003)
- Petes Dragon (1977) has Pete and his Dragon acting as Blithe spirits for the town they visit, but the Dragon is also acts as one for Pete.
- Pleasantville (1998)
- And has the hell subverted out of it in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which initially makes the title character seem like the typical kooky free spirit who teaches the kids to break out of their shells to find happiness, but soon reveals that she refuses to accept any idea about what that happiness should consist of other than her own. Eventually many of the children meet tragic fates due to her meddling in their lives.
- Not to mention that she's a fascist.
- School of Rock (2003, The Power Of Rock in full effect!)
- Sister Act (1992)
- The Sound Of Music (1965)
- Step Up (2006)
- To Wong Foo... (1995)
- Wall E. (2008) Ironic that it's the robot that shows everyone what it means to be human again.
- What A Girl Wants (2003)
- Inverted in Lean On Me (1989; Very Loosely Based On A True Story)
Literature
- Cold Comfort Farm
- Robert A Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land
- Daisy in Henry James' story Daisy Miller is also just like this, the quirky American girl trying to shake things up in Europe. Except the European aristocrats don't lighten up, and things end tragically, to say the least, for Daisy.
- Pippa in the poem Pippa Passes by Robert Browning - a young girl in Asolo, Italy who strolls through the town (on her single annual day off from the factory) singing a song which influences the lives of all who hear her for the better.
- Stargirl
- Pippi Longstocking
- Caitlín Mulryan, the eponymous character of Poul Anderson's The Avatar.
- One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, where McMurphy shakes up an asylum
- A Sudden Wild Magic by Diana Wynne Jones - the women who go survive the trip to Arth start trying to deliberately upset 'the balance'. Except a few of them are quite mean-spirited about it - the people of Arth have been essentially robbing earth for centuries.
Live Action TV
Video Games
- In Final Fantasy X, Tidus fills this role in the world of Spira, questioning the current way of dealing with Sin and generally being an over anxious Fish Out Of Water
Webcomics
Western Animation
- Both used straight and subverted in Cartoon Network's Mike, Lu & Og. Mike is a hip American girl and the islanders are all descended from Brits (although they're "going native" by adopting faux-Polynesian customs), but they often manage to surprise her by being a lot less strait-laced than she expects.
- The Simpsons has an episode like this with Lisa Kudrow as the voice for the new, hip, fashion-savvy girl at Springfield Elementary. Lisa learned to be comfortable with her self image (again) and New Girl learned that you don't have to grow up so fast, and can appreciate fun for what it is.
- Jimmy Two-Shoes is practically built around this trope. Jimmy is a textbook pollyanna in Miseryville, where he constantly tries to cheer people up despite the fact that Lucius wants everyone miserable.
Real Life
- Many Americans who go to China immediately find themselves in this position. This is especially true with educated Chinese Americans who speak Mandarin just fine, as they can speak the language but usually have a mindset that is completely different from that of the natives. This usually manifests as the American seeming to have an enormously expansive personality that both intimidates and fascinates those around them, coupled with a directness that seems comically rude. The result can be very funny to watch.
- Americanitis alert - the above statement is actually true for pretty much every western tourist in China, whether they can or cannot speak Mandarin. Heck, sometimes the "natives" can speak English just fine and the Blithe Spirit effect goes boomerang.
- Not to mention African Americans who go to Africa. It's an interesting conversation to have when a native is explaining to you that you are a Whiteman, too.
- Socrates. He described himself as a gadfly stinging Athens into life.
Inverted Trope
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