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Author: Ironeye

Feb 23rd 2013 at 4:18:11 PM

You wrote the first one into the description, so I assumed you were at least considering it. Jeong Jeong is the one I know off the top of my head.

Anyway, the problem with a general contrast is that it doesn't often mean anything. If an author isn't thinking about PersonalityPowers at all, there will inevitably be characters whose powers and personality contrast according to PersonalityPowers, just like there will eventually be pyromancers with brown, blond, and red hair. Doesn't mean at thing at all. To be tropeable, there either has to be a greater meaning pulled from the combination, or their has to be a pattern across groups of characters.

For example, one of the pyromancers having red hair means nothing. If the only redheads on the main cast are pyromancers, or if there's a color match for hydromancers and geomancers too, then there's a trope. In this case, ''one'' fire-user having a stoic personality without any attention called to it means nothing. They break a pattern of PersonalityPowers? That means something (as a subversion of PP). All fire-users in a culture are this way? That means something. Everyone flips expectations? Means something (this time an inversion). A character lacking a ''seemingly required'' element? That's got meaning too.

The problem with the trope that you're trying to define is that an intentional example is indistinguishable from a "darboard" example. It's like the (mercifully destroyed) Red-headed Hero trope proposal. Yes, ''maybe'' some authors tend towards using redheads as heroes. But so will authors that assign hair color independent of hero status. Without some form of greater context, there is no meaning.