Needs Help: White Haired Pretty Girl

Ok probably shoul;dn't be writing this atm given my total lack of sleep, (it's way past my bed time ), but i'll have a go.

Again Helter Skelter your going on with the special. Yes the trope mentions special. it also gives a whole byunch of examples of what this means. Somke of those examples are supernatural or magical. Some are not. It seems to apply more to examples that are distinctly and markedly diffrent from those around them, or possibbly are part of an order of such individuals, (or species or whatever). The point is that it's somthing thats explicitly assosiated with their white hair. It's not a case of "i have white hair and i'm special", it's "White hair (in-universe obviouslly), marks me as special, though it isn't the source of power". Or at least thats my read on it. In effect it's a situation where white hair is a marker for their otherworldlyness, or magical powers, or great wisdom or whatever else. When white hair is assosiated with some kind of special ability or power, (literial or not), it's this trope. When people with special abilities or power just happen to have white hair it's not.

@Lexicon: Thats becuase the examples page i copied across is full of spurious examples of all those kinds. When it's attracted so many bad interpretations due to persistant bad description.

Also given we seem to have come to an agreement about gender specific = wrong what does everyone think about starting a thread covering the various king/queen/prince/princess specific tropes?

My read on this was always "white hair as a sign of supernatural abilities".

I am not clear what your last paragraph wants to say.

Looks like a strawman.

white locks Tend to mark their owner as special in some way. Maybe her hair is indicative of some spiritual (or outright magical) qualities, or maybe it's a hint of a nonhuman background. At the most mundane, it suggests wisdom beyond her years. It is a common mark of a Mysterious Waif.

Again, why have i had to quote this three times now. Can nobody here read or somthing.

It explicitlly gives non-supernatural examples in the trope descritpion.

Also whats not clear about the last pharagraph?

Also my spelling sucks.

edited 6th May '13 12:14:08 AM by Carl99

You might want to improve your spelling, since it makes your posts hard to read.

The unclear bit is what the new princess and whatever tropes are.

@Carl And yet what you keep missing (and what I, and others, have repeated) is that "special" is a nebulous term that doesn't constitute a trope unless you can qualify it with some other things. Significant Green-Eyed Redhead is a trope because it's also paired with an eye color, is notably both real life hair and eye colors that appear disproportionately in fiction, despite being incredibly rare in real life. That is what marks it off as different. White hair, however, is a fictional hair color (excluding age and albinism). When there is a unique pattern to it it is either White Hair, Black Heart or the suggested Arcane White Mane. "Special" is not a significant enough contribution to a trope.

I promise you we could have a flourishing trope built on every single hair color + special. That's not good enough. Characters with unique hair colors tend to be special. It sets them apart. That doesn't mean there needs to be a specific hair color for it. It is not limited to women (see the misuse of WHPB). Pretty is not a qualifier; fiction is almost entirely based around pretty people.

When white hair is assosiated with some kind of special ability or power, (literial or not), it's this trope.

Yes. This is what I've been saying. But that is not the trope as it currently stands. It's not the trope as it is defined. It is not the trope as it is titled. It is not the trope as seen in the examples. It is not the trope for which we selected an image or a quote for. As I mentioned earlier, I believe that the reason this trope has lived so long is that some people read into it Arcane White Mane, since that is a part of the trope. But that isn't the trope.

So let me say clearly, once more: White-Haired Pretty Girl is a pretty, young girl with white hair who is special in any way. That is not a trope.

Also given we seem to have come to an agreement about gender specific = wrong

You seem to be getting huffy about what it is people are disagreeing with. This is not a female specific trope in that it's not even closely associated with females. It just attracted female-only examples because because it is listed as Always Female and there existed a male version alredy. The association with females is wrong because if it is female inclined, it's a very light inclination. Barrier Maiden can have male examples, but it is overpopulated with female ones. There's maybe five male examples listed on the page.

But the concept of white hair meaning something mystical and arcane about a character is not in practice or theory limited by gender. Not to mention the fact that we'd be tightening the trope description (basically replacing it) warrants a name change, as no one will realize the trope has been changed.

If you don't understand, please tell me what it is you think I'm saying.

For the record, I would also like to note that you have insulted myself and others more than once.

edited 6th May '13 12:32:08 AM by helterskelter

@Septimus: Would help if firefox had a spellchecker. Forgoten the login i have for this place and can't find an e-mail so i can't log in on chrome with it's built in one. I'm relying on the cookies.

To clarify. With this discushion we've set a standard, even if a trope lacks significant numbers of non-genders specific examples it is not ok for it to be genders specific. Thats leaves a whole bunch of tropes open to editing, the King/Queen/Prince/Princess tropes are a huge great heap of such tropes.

@Skelter. I don;t know why i'm bothering because this is just going to be what i've repeated 5 times allready.

It is NOT ABOUT SPECIAL, (Sorry don't know how to do bold here, nothing in the editor to help).

It's about where white Hair is a sign that they are in some way diffrent to those without it. It's a hair colour vershion of Good Scars Bad Scars except instead of denoting good or bad it denotes that they posses a unique quality that is not possesed by those without white hair.

Likewise this is exactly what the section i quoted says, it's then undermined by terribble examples and some bad wordines surrounding it, (you'll notice i deleted 2 entire pharagraphs and slightlys adjusted the quoted peice wording by removing the words "tends to" in the sandbox).

To be blunt, (not that i'm ever not), i think this comes down to us interpreting the existing description diffrently.

Your so hung up on the word special our ignoring everything else in that quote. I'm viewing the word special as a catch-all for the many diffrent types of thing white hair can be a sign of. Ideially we'd give a full list of examples. But that would be everything under the magical powers index, super powers index, and probably a couple of other index's as well. There's so many things that can be unique to white Haired individuals that listing them all is nearly imposibble. It's at the whim of the creator afterall. This trope is specifically about when the hair colour is denoting this somthing. Ushually it's magical, somtimes it's species, and other times it's less overt but nonthless valid powers, (Wise Beyond Their Years being the specific example).

Perhaps this is a bit easier to understand. It is this trope when white hair denotes them having a capability or ability, or similar that is beyond or diffrent to what others in the setting posses"

EDIT: If i'd insulted you it would be random swearing. But i DO expect people coming into a thread to do the basic curtusey when it's this short of reading past posts. I shouldn't need to repeat myself all the time to diffrent people.

edited 6th May '13 1:00:08 AM by Carl99

And I think people expect you to do the basic "curtusey" of either making your posts legible or going to this thread if you want them to understand what you're saying.

edited 6th May '13 1:01:16 AM by nrjxll

Ignore what was here, no idea what i was responding to there. Tiered. I am an english speaker bu have dyslexia and dyspraxia. Is there anyqway to get my login details sent ot an e-mail or somthing, if i could log in with chrome browser i've got a built in spell checker.

edited 6th May '13 1:55:04 AM by Carl99

Carl 99: No one is arguing about the definition. The problem is that the name only sets two qualifiers: white hair and pretty girl. Generally, a trope name doesn't have to be an inclusive laconic of every aspect of the trope, but in personal appearance tropes, the name White-Haired Pretty Girl is a disaster. Most of the wicks are white hair + pretty. Not A Trope. Most of the wicks are Zero Context Examples, not explaining if the white hair signifies special/magical/otherwordly/mysterious or different in some capacity people. Most of the wicks are perpetuating our overarching problem with people obsessing over meaningless superficial chaacteristics while missing the point of the underlying messages which appearances are shorthand for. Even the past image pickin' thread was more interested in finding white hair + pretty, saying they are the only requirements for the trope.

That's three strikes against. Now, enough of this. Let us brainstorm names.

edited 6th May '13 1:28:52 AM by lu127

@Lu we've gone a rather long way beyond that point atm. Guessing you missed page 3 or somthing? Where now arguing about the definition, or at least me and skelter are. Not sure abotu anyone else.

No, you really haven't. It reads like you and helter are talking past each other and can't understand what the other is saying, therefore I am moving past that stage.

I guess i'm having comprehenshion issues again here.

Skelter is hung up on the idea that special is the defining term, (which could mean anything). Wheras i'm saying it's a catchall for a wide array of things that make perfect sense as qualifiers.

I'm just not sure how bringing up the name debate we dropped last page is relevant to that?

EDIT: off to bed, mabe it will all make sense in the morning/afternoon/whenever i wake up

edited 6th May '13 2:19:21 AM by Carl99

helterskelter is right to the point where this thread is just wasting time in discussing the matter further. Pretty And Female And White Haired isn't a trope, the trope we want to make out of this is not gender specific, and we need a new name.

I tried removing the gender specificity and beauty focus from the sandbox. I also removed the multiple paragraphs of disclaimers describing what the trope isn't, which will be unnecessary once we switch to a descriptive name. There is now a very short description.

I think the misuse of WHPG has gotten to the point that it should be cut and start the new page from scratch.

Amy that is not what helter skelter is saying though. Hel;ter skelter is sayiing that the description you have left is not a trope. Thats why there's a blasted argument.

You're right - my edits weren't enough. We have to cut this down to "White hair represents magic" and then build it from there.

Carl, when you accidentally cut out 90% of a trope, please make sure you fix it.

In any case, this is what the trope currently defines:

• Pretty
• Female
• White-haired
• "Marks their owner as special in some way"

These things together do not constitute a trope. This is what I have been saying this whole time. The name needs a change because it doesn't even bother to suggest "special".

The trope that should be here is that white hair is used to mark a character as mystical and arcane—not special, that's way too nebulous a term. I have said it many, many times, but hair color + special could have thousands of wicks a piece. Right now that's what the trope is about. We need to narrow the definition (while also widening it past pretty and female). This essentially means we're cutting the current trope, as we're leaving only one aspect of it in place.

How about we get a page action crowner?

edited 6th May '13 12:43:47 PM by helterskelter

Here you go. I added one of my own options, so add anything else that could be good.

How do the current options sound? All-encompassing? As I see it, we've only discussed one potential replacement for this trope, so I clarified that is what it is about. If there is another option, please add it.

And once again helter skelter your fosuing on special. It's not about special stop going on about it please.

It's about when wghite hair marks them as possesing some form of power, (great or small), that is directly assosiated with their white hair.

Your right if the only requierments where white hair and special we'd have a million wicks. Except it's not about white hair + special. It's about white hair = power. And power does not automaticlly mean arcane or mystical, there cna be non0magical forms, albiet doubltess rarer.

...I think the thread consensus is leaning towards you being the one who won't "stop going on about" your pet definition of the trope.

No it's not. The trope description, title, quote, image, and examples don't mean white-haired = power of some kind. That's what we want the new trope to be. All it is is white hair (also pretty and female) = special right now. That is my, and everyone else's, problem with it. If you feel like I haven't explained it thoroughly enough, please just PM me.

Carl. Do you not realize that "mystical and arcane" don't mean magical?

Arcane: Understood by few; mysterious or secret
Mystical: having a spiritual meaning or reality that is neither apparent to the senses nor obvious to the intelligence

This can include magic, but it never has been limited by it.

edited 6th May '13 1:25:08 PM by helterskelter

I'm going to add in a bit about gender neutrality into the redefining option. It should be there anyway.

Good-thinking. I added a bit about it also cutting out the 'pretty' part.