Not Tropeworthy: Ambiguously Brown

My point was rather that that's the way society is, and the artist may just include someone of a different skin colour because people in Real Life do have different skin colours. Sometimes, it's to mark that they're different somehow, but often with no other significance than that.

For that reason, that it doesn't have a significance, what makes it still a trope? Has Brown Skin is just as little of a trope as Has Brown Hair. And why is it different than being Non Ambiguously Brown (or black, as most people say)?

On the side note, yes, I know being of a minority is different from not being one. However, those differences are often too small to be of any significance within the story. Or even realised by the author. I still say, "Meh, close enough."

edited 15th Aug '12 11:41:48 AM by AnotherDuck

I disagree. (although I'm a black person and therefore unassimilable - my color gives the game away at every passage. ) Having your parents come from Indian and have the immigrant experience is huge. Being 3rd generation and sticking out even so is huge. The insulting nicknames you get, the assumptions... It's a little big to not matter. So people with that experience see that gap, and think "really? In a country like Brittiana no one notices that Viletta is dark skinned? Yea right'.

Although hair color is a trope sometimes as well. In this manga I'm reading the caste system is based on hair color.

Well, I grew up in an immigrant-dense area of Sweden (say, around 30%-50% were first or second generation immigrants), so my perspective is probably different from yours. That's off topic, though.

Yes, hair colour can be meaningful in a work, but "having brown hair" is not a trope in itself. "Down-to-earth characters have brown hair" is a trope, though. How is this trope different from the former?

edited 15th Aug '12 7:42:38 PM by AnotherDuck

Characters are randomly brown. They stand out from the rest of the cast and often are 'foreigners' in an unexplained manner.

And some characters have a hair colour that sticks out. It may be within the realistic spectrum, or it may be in a work featuring You Gotta Have Blue Hair.

I don't think "randomly brown" is a trope. "Being brown as a sign of being a foreigner" is, though. But if no one ever mentions that the character is a foreigner, you can't really be sure that's the trope.

That's actually the point. It's not about character being brown. It's about character being different without explanation. Like Yoruichi from Bleach (she is also on the page image), it's not that's she is dark skinned, the problem is that everyone else is light skinned and we have no explanation (not even a Hand Wave) for why she is different despite not being an outsider. If the Seiretei population was diverse to begin with, we wouldn't question it, but it's not.

edited 16th Aug '12 2:58:30 AM by kundoo

We DO have a trope for ambiguous hair color, particularly in Manga and Anime. It's called Mukokuseki. This is the exact same principle, only applied to skin color; the point is, it's making a character stand out in some way from the norm by giving them some kind of ethnic trait.

So it's essentially a subtrope of Mukokuseki? As in, it's just about the skin, and not the whole character design? However, that's still not "randomly brown". It's "brown to differentiate the character(s)".

edited 16th Aug '12 12:26:02 PM by AnotherDuck

Yoruichi from Bleach is a bad example there are several dark skinned people in Bleach. (Gosuke Kiganjo, Kaname Tosen, Abirama Redder, Zommari Rureaux, Tier Harribel and Yoruichi Shihoin are named to be Ambiguously Brown on the Bleach page). The Seiretei is diverse there are not only people of unexplained dark skin there are people of unexplained light hair and eye color to e.g. Kira, Urahara or Hiyori. This is not a case of Mukokuseki. The Japanese humans in the Bleach universe have more or less natural colorings and Ichigo's and Orihime's light hair is unusual as we learn in their backstory.

If you have a trope description to distinguish one type of character from the other, let's hear it.

But there's no dark-skinned ethnic culture in Bleach. The people you mentioned above are all random and completely unrelated to each other in any way. We never even see Africans in Bleach, and the only person whose skin is explained is Sado (Chad), because he's half Mexican. So it's not as if race doesn't exist in the setting—it just doesn't exist as far as the aforementioned characters are concerned. The point about blondes isn't comparable because in Real Life, there's no such thing as a "blond ethnicity".

edited 16th Aug '12 9:41:18 AM by KingZeal

What do you mean?

I said a lot of things there. Which part do you want me to clarify?

edited 16th Aug '12 10:53:50 AM by AnotherDuck

But there's no dark-skinned ethnic culture in Bleach. The people you mentioned above are all random and completely unrelated to each other in any way. We never even see Africans in Bleach, and the only person whose skin is explained is Sado (Chad), because he's half Mexican. So it's not as if race doesn't exist in the setting—it just doesn't exist as far as the aforementioned characters are concerned.

In Bleach is one person whose skin color is ever discussed Chad and he is the only person with a ethnic background we know. The only person whose ethnic background we need to know because it influences his character.

All other people are just brown skinned, their skin tone is not important to their character, it is just a design element. There is no need to explain their skin tone as there is no need to explain why Kira is blond. Just a physical attribute is not a trope.

The point about blondes isn't comparable because in Real Life, there's no such thing as a "blond ethnicity".

There is no "brown skinned ethnicity" either... just physical attributes pointing towards the ethnicity of a person. And in a work not using Mukokuseki blond hair is a pretty strong indicator that a person is white (or an albino).

There is no "brown skinned ethnicity" either... just physical attributes pointing towards the ethnicity of a person. And in a work not using Mukokuseki blond hair is a pretty strong indicator that a person is white (or an albino).

This is my point exactly. A character with blonde hair is less likely to be ambiguous, because if their hair is blonde, we pretty much know that they're white. (I'll give you that we don't know what ethnicity of white). But brown skin isn't as informative about a character's race or ethnicity as blonde hair. Because there are numerous ethnicities that have brown skin. The character could be Indian, or Mexican, or Jamaican, or... Hence why the brown-skinned character with unexplained ethnicity is ambiguously brown.

edited 16th Aug '12 12:17:05 PM by TrueRuby

In Japanese media, white character have very varying ethnicities. She could be Swedish, British, American, German, Russian, French, Australian, South African, or something else. The difference between various countries is often defined in their personalities, but not necessarily in their design. In other words, there's nothing that says being brown is somehow more worthy of distinction than being white.

edited 16th Aug '12 12:23:23 PM by AnotherDuck

It's not quite the same unless the white person in question is a minority on the show among non-whites. That would be a rare occurence. So rare, in fact, that I don't believe it's worthy of being a trope. But brown, on the other hand, is common enough to warrant it.

edited 16th Aug '12 2:41:32 PM by TrueRuby

It's one of those things that could be a trope, but you don't find it in media due to societal issues.

@Duck: If you have a way of distinguishing characters that randomly brown from those who are brown to stand out, by all means, let's hear it.

But random blond hair, along with other colors is a trope in Japan.

edited 16th Aug '12 3:49:24 PM by KingZeal

So you're saying it's not common for a white person to appear alone in an otherwise homogeneous Japanese cast?

A Dark Skinned Blond has some connotations and standard explanations, which makes it an indication for some sort of character types, at least. Kaleidoscope Hair is about one person changing hair colours all the time. They're not the same.

Got a point about distinguishing those. The only thing I can think about is if it's actually mentioned somewhere. But otherwise, if there's no way to tell, I don't see a trope.

edited 16th Aug '12 8:25:48 PM by AnotherDuck

That white person is usually given some sort of nationality. IT'S THAT WACKY AMERICAN! Oddly, westerners are drawn with bigger noses than Japanese people in manga, whether they are black or white.

Yes. I'll admit I don't watch too much anime, but in most of the anime I've seen, those "Japanese" characters look mighty white to me. Definitely true in most Western animation as well, and live-action TV. Ain't no black on the TV screen.

They look Japanese to Japanese people, though.

Yes the facial structure is more Japanese than white, there's videos, etc.

Did this get dropped?

If nothing else, I suggest we split off a trope for Ambiguous Ethnicity, where it's addressed In-Universe.