Clean up to match new definition NEW CROWNER 03/02/12: Greeneyed Redhead

@ DQZ: I had to leave yesterday, so I couldn't answer.

"Could we have some actual numbers to back either claim? Just going "It's X", "Uh-uh, it's Y" isn't really an argument."

Of course I can prove my point. Check a work with a Green-Eyed Redhead. Now check every other character in the work. But I'm not saying the just the main cast, check every other character that appears on screen, be it a Red Shirt, a Mook or some random citizen being saved, or whatever. Most often than not they won't even be redheads. And taking the number of redheads you count assume that 40% of them have green eyes (a pretty big percentage).

Now divide the number you obtain between the number of characters. I'd bet that the number won't surpass 1% ever.

And taking this trope as a Trope In Aggregate, it would only be a pattern if it were an Omnipresent Trope. Read post 118 and post 126 to read about this trope in aggregate.

And what I'm asking is: can we find some purpose that the Green-Eyed Redhead fulfills in a work? If we can't then we don't have a trope and we should cut it, and leave it as a mention in Common Colour Combinations.

Greeneyed Redhead has no different meanings than red hair (firey personality, connection to magic..) but in fiction red hair is strongly connected to green eyes. This connection is so strong, I always assume that a red haird character has green eyes, until this is stated otherwise.

edited 12th Jan '12 4:41:40 AM by Osmium

332 links from Green-Eyed Redhead vs 1691 links from Fiery Redhead.

I think that's not correct. You may assume it, but it doesn't work like that.

edited 12th Jan '12 5:18:25 AM by DrMcNinja

@Osmium: How about this: Add a paragraph on Fiery Redhead with the following meaning: "Usually, Fiery Redheads have green eyes, probably because of the strong visual contrast between green and orange." And that's all.

edited 12th Jan '12 7:14:01 AM by Zulfiqar

Considering Fiery Redhead is one of the older tropes on the wiki and Greeneyed Redhead is relatively new, it's gaining wiks at a respectable pace.

We can assume an increase of 178, more than the 50% of the current wiks, to make it 500 and it would be still less than a third of the Fiery Redhead characters. But not every Redhead is a Fiery Redhead, so it would be even less.

And "I assume they have green eyes unless noted" is not a proof of that happening. The numbers, in fact, prove the contrary.

edited 12th Jan '12 7:54:27 AM by DrMcNinja

Well, we also need to rule out any wiks from Anime or Live Action works. It's not really a trope there. So that knocks out another third at the very least and after balancing for all of that it's about even.

I mean, I just went through the comicbook section of the examples on that page and only four of them don't have green eyes and in two of them it's because they're not coloured consistently. Which leads me to believe that this page is just severely underwicked in comparison to Fiery Redhead.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:00:21 AM by shimaspawn

What? Excuse me? Why do we have to rule out the wiks from Anime and Live Action? "It's not really a trope there" how? Because you said it and that's all?

You can't say they have green eyes just because you want to say so.

And statistics don't work with invented numbers. In fact, my point is that even giving Green-Eyed Redhead a good advantage by multiplying it and make it have 1,5 times the numbers it really has it would be still less than a third of the number of redheads in works.

What you're saying is "and if we eliminate every other redhead we want without any reason to do that it gets even and therefore I can support a point that has already been disproven to death".

edited 12th Jan '12 8:03:02 AM by DrMcNinja

lets have look at the characters with red hair.

I diden't start with anime/manga because it was already discussed that other color schemes are used.

So according to a quick GIS search (sorry I don't read comics, so please correct me if I am wron)green eyed redheads are

Jean Grey

Rachel Summers

Rahne Sinclair

Ember of Elf Quest

Redlance of Elf Quest

Red Sonja

Mary Jane

Maxima from Superman

Patsy Walker

_________________

I didn't found a good image

Mariah from The Warlord

Ember from the Dutch comic 'Storm'

Black Widow

Chili Storm

Bethany Cabe

__________________

Not green

Frankie Raye

___________________

Webcomics

green

Oasis from Sluggy Freelance

Kestrel from Queen of Wands.

Princess Voluptua from The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!

Nanase El Goonish Shive.

Ratheel of Juathuur

Sixx from Collar 6.

__________

not green

Claudita

Wildy San from Dan and Mab's Furry Adventures .

Surma from Gunnerkrigg Court.

Scarlet 'Red' Macrumble from Girls In Space

___________________________

???

White Mage from 8-Bit Theater.

Catalina from El Goonish Shive

Monica Villareal from Wapsi Square

Trawn from Electric Wonderland.

Miriam from Out There.

Tailii from Comic Shorts

_______

I see a pattern.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:11:47 AM by Osmium

If you'd read the whole thread you'd know. Live Action is ruled out because this isn't a colour combination that frequently found in Real Life people. As such, Actors and Actresses do not have this colouring and thus there are not many Real Life examples. Part of what makes it a trope is what stops Live Action examples from occuring.

As for Anime, for whatever reason they don't use the same trope there. Their redheads tend to have blue eyes.

Um, Osmium, could you please add some bold or italic to your list? I'm afraid I have some trouble parsing it as it is UPD: Thanks!

And btw, what is the pattern you see?

edited 12th Jan '12 8:12:03 AM by Zulfiqar

Or they are red

green eyes beeing pretty commen for an uncommen eye color.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:13:04 AM by Osmium

I'm already giving Green-Eyed Redhead a gratuitous increase of more than 50%. If you know how statistics work you'll know that this would blow any chance for an objective result most times.

Yet I'm giving it the chance. 500 wiks vs 1700. Less than a third. Now let's say that the number of Non-Fiery redheads is 300 more, to make it 2000. Now it's a fourth.

And now let's make it with the real numbers that we actually know: 322 vs 1692. It's 0,19 or less than a fifth.

Applying true statistics and not patterns.

@Shimaspawn: Oh, sorry, I am that kind of person that thinks actors and actresses are real people. As you know, those that exist in Real Life.

And about eliminating the Anime part that's just gratuitous. Is Anime not part of fiction now? Eliminating it because they don't have the eye colours you need is not the way to make a valid statement.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:35:11 AM by DrMcNinja

We're finding actual evidence of severe underwicking far more than your allotment on the Fiery Redhead page. Actual evidence says that there aren't as many wicks as their should be.

You're saying that it has an underwicking of more than 50%? I'm sorry but I don't believe that. And even if I believed it I'm proving you that it would still be less than a third of the numbers of Redheads in fiction, with actual numbers and not just a few as Osmium did.

And in fact now you're moving the point to "Green-Eyed Redhead is the only kind of redhead in fiction", which is completely false.

Argumentum Ad Nauseam just to keep a page that we already proved that is not a trope isn't a valid way to win. You're doing the same thing you did in the Superpower Lottery thread (but we'll talk about it there when you reopen it after a week as you promised).

edited 12th Jan '12 8:22:23 AM by DrMcNinja

So, Osmium, I looked through your list. If I understand right, you took it from the Fiery Redhead page?

So, the pattern I see here is this: "In Western comics and cartoons, Fiery Redheads have a tendency to have green eyes. In anime and manga their eyes are more likely to be blue."

As I said, a paragraph along this lines would be a fine (and probably, much needed) addition to the Fiery Redhead page.

...But not a separate trope

Just based on the comparisons of the two pages, it has far more than that. Looking at the example list of one compared the number of examples we could pull from the other, it's really really bad. And that's not even a list of all redheads in fiction.

And about eliminating the Anime part that's just gratuitous. Is Anime not part of fiction now?

We have quite a lot tropes which only occures in anime/manga and not in western works. Why are they allowed to exist while it is not possible for a trope to be mainly represented in western media?

Far more than 50% is just assuming numbers at random. It can be 51%, to 10000% just because it's more than 50%.

If you want to prove me wrong use numbers applying them correctly. Statistics is not something that works on samples as small as the one Osmium brought. And I already gave you numbers with a logical reason to give them. From 322 to 500 it's more than 50% of wiks that I'm saying that we didn't link. But it's not as simple as that. It means in absolute numbers that I gave it 178 more links, a number big enough to think that it's not just a mistake and that this trope is underwicked.

And even then, even with that the number is less than a third. But as you said that's not the true number of Redheads. I applied just 300 more to the "total" number in Fiery Redhead, but I could easily have said that Fiery Redhead covers 2/3 of the number of redheads and make it 2500.

So, less than a third in any case, less than a fifth applying logical numbers to it.

Now, if you just simply ignore these numbers and apply your own kind of statistics that work without any proof, what do you expect me to do? I can't simply go on explaining if my arguments get ignored. And that's Argumentum Ad Nauseam, because you are expecting me to give up and thus make you "the winner" without you having to break a sweat.

You can do as Zulqifar said and add a note in Fiery Redhead. And that's missing the point of the discussion.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:48:02 AM by DrMcNinja

Ninja,

Instead of telling others to prove somethin do it yourself.

You say only a small number of the redhaired characters in non live action media is green eyed? Prove it. Give me a real statistic not some assumptions based on some random numbers.

Even my little check of examples showed that quite a lot of the green eyed red Fiery Redhead are not on the Greeneyed Redhead example list.

Making any statistics on the number of wicks a trope has is not that easy, as everybody who worked some time in the TRS should know.

Pages are underwicked, misused, insanly popoular because the trope is considers cool and everybody tries to connect their favourite show with this trope...

Assuming the number of wicks mirrors the actual useage of a trope is naive.

The numbers are not random. You know from where I took them because I explained it before. You're argumenting a fallacy and calling me false, and therefore I have nothing else to say about your comments.

Assuming that the number of mirrors reflect the usage is how TV Tropes works, and assuming flaws with no reason for it is what is wrong.

edited 12th Jan '12 8:58:59 AM by DrMcNinja

Assuming that the number of mirrors reflect the usage is how TV Tropes works,...

Really? Prove that.

A misuse check is needed to know if the numbers work like they are supposed to, which is the way I said they work. Proved.

And about underwiks, I said it previously: I'm giving it more than 50%, something that means 178 wiks completely ignored (and in a trope like this one, it's a pretty big number to say that they got ignored and it's actually a reason to think that the numbers are right) to compensate for any possible underwiking. And my point stood still.

And now stop using fallacies, because I don't have to prove that things work the way they work. I know you expected me not to answer to automatically claim that you were right without having to prove it yourself.

edited 12th Jan '12 9:13:08 AM by DrMcNinja

1. You're attempting to say that green-eyes and red hair is no longer unique because people use colored contacts? Why not supply statistics? I did write a paragraph arguing with you on this, but I realized that this point seems to be smoke and mirrors on your part, and is actually utterly irrelevant to the trope, since you cannot prove how many people use green colored contacts on a regular (near-constant) basis, yet I can prove roughly how many people have green eyes.

2. The examples themselves. When they mention a work, they usually only mention one character with that trait. Dr Mc Ninja keeps trying to say how this proves how this isn't a trope, but it's just the opposite—with only one or two characters with this color combination, they remain unique.

Bear in mind that's why I made the note that they are supposed to be important (or at least their appearance is)—if it's just a background character, there's nothing too notable. But as a main character, their appearance serves to highlight them.

"Also, note that Starfire and Hawkgirl are aliens. Don't you think that it's much more unlikely (in Real Life) to have an actual alien in the cast?"

Uh, yes? What, people can't have multiple unique features? It's also unlikely that so many of them have gigantic breasts, but we note that. Since when do we only point out one unique feature?

3. No. Did you read what I said or are you just casting smoke and mirrors? My point was that her appearance was actually important to her debut, and the color combination chosen was a Greeneyed Redhead.

4. That would be its own trope about Russian stereotypes. The name "Ivan" or "Boris" is only supposed to denote this guy is super Russian. The name itself isn't supposed to make him stand out. It's just that he's Russian. Whereas the hair and eyes are standalone features that can be combined with any other personality that still make a character unique.

Uh, yes, I did. I pointed out that there is a meaning attached to it—these characters are special. You attempted to give examples how they weren't. They were bad examples.

5. You keep pretending I argued something I didn't. I never said redhead means bombshell. I said her appearance was important, and they chose that color combination.

Define "important"? Well, there's Lily Potter (as I mentioned), who is by no means a main character, but is incredibly plot important. There's Hawkgirl, who is a main character. There is a cast of seven main characters, some with more screentime than others, yes—but in this case, she's still a main character with long story arcs of her own. The Big Three's hair color is not notable because most of humanity has black hair. Whereas only 1% of humanity has red hair, and only 2% have green eyes. This is an extremely rare color combination. The frequency of it in fiction denotes that it is a deliberate visual choice, and I believe, given the examples of those with these traits in fiction, it is used to make them seem special.

Batman's hair is not used to make him seem special. It's probably used to make him seem Tall, Dark, and Handsome, but that's a different point entirely.

You're trying to pull a "Gotcha!" but we've already pointed out these characters are special. You keep asking me to define it—it already has a definition.

edited 12th Jan '12 9:20:33 AM by helterskelter

Actually, TV tropes generally works on the assumption that we haven't scratched the surface on cataloguing everything. There's a reason that one of our biggest metrics for a working trope is growth. We assume that we haven't scratched the surface organizing something. Even the most wiked tropes on the wiki are constantly getting new examples from works that are decades if not centuries old. All you're displaying now is that you don't understand how the wiki works.