Misused: Blond Guys Are Evil

I have several questions about this tropes applications:

1. Is there a specific type of villain its supposed to refer to in order to be an example. IE: Blonde Aryan Foreign strongman, Cruel Surfer/hippie type, or Cruel Blonde ladykiller. Or is it just any semi-antagonsitic character who happens to be blonde? Because I've seen it applied to pretty much any semi-antagonist character who happens to be blonde, even when the hero is also blonde, and the blonde antagonist is less bad then the dark haired bad guys.

2. Are subversions and aversions really worth noting? On a lot of character pages, I see Blonde Guys Are Evil listed with the description "averted, he's a good guy" or something similar. I don't see blonde heroes as really that rare, when I was a kid, it seemed more like Blonde was the hair color for heroes, while Darker hair was stereotypically the badguy hair color.

3. Why is Blondes Are Evil, a separate trope? Couldn't Blonde Guys Are Evil just be changed to Blondes Are Evil so we could list both genders?

Yeah, there definitely is a problem.

These two tropes really seem to be just lists of "evil guys/gals who happen to be blonde" and nothing more. But! I feel there are tropeworthy meanings hidden beneath all that. For example:

• Evil Blonde Foreigner
• Evil Blonde Aryan
• Dark Haired Hero Blonde Villain
• Blonde Alpha Bitch (which might just need to be a mention on the Alpha Bitch page)

I agree, it seems like there are several distinct types of characters on these two pages that are currently being lumped together just because the characters are all blonde and vaguely villainous. Also, these pages are riddled with Zero Context Examples, aversions (which are pointless to list), shoehorned subversions, and inversions that are really Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold.

This isn't a trope. "List of blonde guys who are evil" isn't a trope.

I'd say the concept is already covered by Beauty Is Bad (which needs cleaning, since the trope is "villains are prettier than protagonists"). We don't need the general blonde version, or the gender specific version.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I don't think it's necessarily about beauty so much as contrast. "Blond happens to be evil" isn't a trope, but "villain contrasts hero physically" could be one.

Yes, that's far clearer of a trope, and very common. It is the supertrope to many tropes, though some sub-distinctions might be worth their own pairing tropes.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

I get the impression the Evil Brit is commonly blonde, or at least fills much of the same stereotype as Blond Guys Are Evil.

edited 26th Jun '15 5:00:02 PM by AnotherDuck

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Correct; Beauty Is Bad is about the contrast between the villain and the hero.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Blonde villains aren't always portrayed as beautiful, even when they're still supposed to contrast the hero. We don't have a more general supertrope for physically contrasting heroes and villains, do we?

So we need a trope for an appearance contrast between the protagonist and the antagonist.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

We do have Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain, if that's the definition you're looking for.

No, we want the supertrope to that.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Huh? What supertrope? I think that trope is pretty broad already.

Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain looks like a duplicate of Beauty Is Bad, going by the description. What shimaspawn is talking about is a more general trope; the protagonist and antagonist are foils in appearance.

To reference Superman IV, Nuclear Man and Kal-El are both physically attractive, but one is dark-haired, and the other is light-haired. One is in Red, Blue, and Yellow, and the other is in Gold and Black.

edited 28th Jun '15 9:00:45 PM by crazysamaritan

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

There are quite a bit of foils who have opposite hair colors, opposite outfit colors and so on.

As for this there is a thing about sharply dressed evil blonde guys though, not just British guys as well, there is a reason why they chat about Barney being the bad guy in How I Met Your Mother based on his appearance alone.

edited 29th Jun '15 2:32:40 AM by Memers

I like the idea of a trope about the hero and the villain having contrasting looks.

Are the already any tropes about protagonists having contrasting appearances? Given what's being discussed is a supertrope, sometimes two protagonists who are designed to contrast each other (Hero/Lancer, Hero/Rival, Hero/Anti-Hero, etc.) can end up being given contrasting appearances, especially if they're Vitriolic Best Buds or Fire-Forged Friends or if one is an Aloof Ally, etc. The supertrope might be wider than just heroes and villains.

edited 17th Jul '15 5:36:24 PM by Wyldchyld

If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.

Not to mention Hot Guys Are Bastards. All these tropes define themselves as an inverse to Beauty Equals Goodness.

Well, Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain tries to separate itself from that definition by claiming that this is a specific foil in appearance between the hero & villain, while the other two is more of a general trend of character appearances in relation to their morality compass. I'm not entirely sure how this by itself is not The Same But More Specific to the latter definition, since we do not have the specific trope for Handsome Hero Ugly Villain contrast.

The supertrope isn't just going to be Handsome/Ugly. It can be "One of them wears all white, the other wears all black." "One of them is huge and built like a mountain, the other is tiny and lithe." There are lots of ways to have contrasting appearances without having it be based on attractiveness.

I think there should be a trope for the protagonist and antagonist. If you want a super trope to that supertrope for foils, twins, rival martial arts flower arranging schools, that's fine.

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

Is there a storytelling significance to a character being both blonde and evil? Are there examples in which blond hair signifies evil?

edited 19th Jul '15 7:41:46 AM by gallium

There seem to a be a lot of evil blonds in fiction, but there seem to be a lot of blonds in fiction in general and it doesn't seem that blonds are any more likely to be evil than non-blonds, unless the protagonist is dark haired and they're contrasting appearances. In which case a blond hero is more likely to get a dark haired villain.

Or unless they're making a nod at Nazis/White Supremacists.

edited 19th Jul '15 7:51:20 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

So to summarize, by splitting Blond Guys Are Evil and Blondes Are Evil, we'd get at least:

• Hero Villain Appearance Contrast (self-explanatory)
  • Ugly Hero, Good-Looking Villain (has its own trope already)
  • Dark Haired Hero Blond Haired Villain (e.g. Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy, could probably include inversions)
  • Enemy Costume Color Inversion (e.g. like the Flash and Reverse Flash, often a trait of an Evil Counterpart or Evil Twin)
  • Evil Is Bigger (has its own trope already)

• Evil Blond Foreigner (e.g. Evil Brits, Evil Russians, etc., related to Phenotype Stereotype)
  • Evil Blond Aryan (blonde Nazis or Nazis by Any Other Name)

Cut: Zero Context Examples, "X is a blond/blonde and evil"

Additions or corrections? Should we Sandbox the new tropes or YKTTW them?

edited 4th Sep '15 9:55:14 AM by Morgenthaler

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"

That sounds like a perfect summary of the situation.

Sandbox for the initial example sorting then YKTTW.

edited 4th Sep '15 9:56:35 AM by shimaspawn

Reality is that, which when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -Philip K. Dick

This sounds like a great plan.