History Main / NobleSavage

* In his review of ''Avatar'', [[RedLetterMedia Mr. Plinkett]] calls the movie out on it's rosy portrayal of the Na'vi (an {{Anvilicious}} stand-in for Native Americans) as utterly perfect, peace-loving space hippies in harmony with nature:

* In his review of ''Avatar'', [[RedLetterMedia Mr. Plinkett]] calls the movie out on it's rosy portrayal of the Na'vi as PerfectPacifistPeople in harmony with nature:

* The Osu in David Wingrove's ''ChungKuo'' series

* The Aboriginal boy in Nicolas Roeg's ''Walkabout''.

** Probably not true, incidentally. On average a "civilized" man has a considerable size and strength advantage due to a more reliable diet.

** This was more a call to being hermits actually.
* People have been known to demand this trope from things like literary depictions of Aztecs, to the extent that they complain terms like 'provincial' and 'months' ought to be avoided in favor of 'country' and 'moons', because a fifteenth-century Mexica living in classical Tenochtitlan can't talk ''sophisticated'', obviously. He's still an Injun, after all. T'weren't a ''proper'' empire.
** Note that this is in despite of the fact that using 'moons' to render the Nahuatl term for 'month' would be ridiculous, since the periods were about twenty days long, subdivisions of the solar calendar with no relation to the moon at all.
** Also the civilizations in the High Plane of Mexico and the Yucatan were in fact civilized: millions of people living in various cities, they had agriculture, social stratification including aristocracies and underclasses, writing, organized warfare and religion and were nothing like the hunter-gather cultures in North and South America.
** There were a number of advanced cultures in North America too, like the Anasazi and the Mound Builder cultures. They were largely wiped out by a series of plagues that dwarfed the Black Death in Europe just before European colonials started arriving in earnest.
** The "Noble" part is also a bit off since the Aztecs at least practiced HumanSacrifice and [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalism.]] Or not, since this was their way of honoring people.

Compare with MarySue, MarySuetopia, MagicNegro. Contrast with the CorruptHick, MightyWhitey (although the modern form of MightyWhitey often co-exists with this trope) and LowCultureHighTech. Occasionally refers to being "OfThePeople".

* ''Literature/Winnetou'' by Karl May is the most widely known example in many European countries (that is, all those where the films with Pierre Brice are regularly seen on TV). In the ''Film/DEFAWesterns'', Gojko Mitic played that role for Eastern European viewers. Both even gave rise to a Native American Reenactment Movement (so called "Indianervereine") on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

[[folder:FanFics]]
* In the FanFic of ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' called ''Kataang Island Adventure'', Aang and Katara come across an island tribe who [[NationalGeographicNudity live in the nude]] and developed a traditional way of life on their own. Their leader named [[SdrawkcabName Aratak]] is a hermaphrodite who accepts them as members of the tribe...and acts rather friendlier to them than the others do.

* Two Rivers in ''TheForestRangers''.

OlderThanFeudalism -- Tacitus wrote of the noble Germanic and Caledonian tribes to contrast with his view of Roman society as decadent and corrupt, and even [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade wrote eloquent Roman-style speeches about liberty and honour for "his versions" of Calgacus and Arminius]]. The trope has gone in and out of fashion over time, usually contrasting a decadent distrustful "city life" that a thinker feels has tarnished the essentially good nature of humanity. In the USA, NobleSavage came into style in the mid-1800s, about the time a lot of Western states/territories got their names. This left many geographical features with names of [[ShownTheirWork Indian]] (or at least [[AsLongAsItSoundForeign Indian-sounding]]) extraction.

OlderThanFeudalism -- Tacitus wrote of the noble Germanic and Caledonian tribes to contrast with his view of Roman society as decadent and corrupt, and even [[HistoricalHeroUpgrade wrote eloquent Roman-style speeches about liberty and honour for "his versions" of Calgacus and Arminius]]. The trope has gone in and out of fashion over time, usually contrasting a decadent distrustful "city life" that a thinker feels has tarnished the essentially good nature of humanity. In the USA, NobleSavage came into style in the mid-1800s, about the time a lot of Western states/territories got their names. This left many geographical features with names of [[ShownTheirWork Indian]] (or at least Indian-sounding) extraction.

* ''PastwatchTheRedemptionOfChristopherColumbus'': Toyed with, then averted in the OrsonScottCard novel. One of the characters monitoring the past watches in despair as European explorers rape, murder, and plunder their way through a tribe of "gentle" natives in the Caribbean, and resolves to intervene. It is then discovered that Columbus' voyage to America was the result of an earlier intervention from a different future people, because without European influence, the Americas would have been subjected to an ''even greater'' atrocity, the complete subjugation by a local culture fanatically dedicated to human sacrifice. There is even an in-universe aversion: a man of pure Native American blood has to work very hard to convince the more European characters that his ancestors, left to themselves, really would have been that bad.

** There's also the issue of slavery. The watcher mentioned above who despairs is of African descent and wishes above all else to find a way to eliminate slavery from history. Then along comes a Turkish meteorologist claiming that slavery was a ''good thing'', considering that it replaced human sacrifice. According to him, it was Noah himself to advocated slavery, along with a nomadic lifestyle, after his homeland of Atlantis (ItMakesSenseInContext) was destroyed by a flood at the end of the last Ice Age.

* In the FanFic of ''AvatarTheLastAirbender'' called ''Kataang Island Adventure'', Aang and Katara come across an island tribe who [[NationalGeographicNudity live in the nude]] and developed a traditional way of life on their own. Their leader named [[SdrawkcabName Aratak]] is a hermaphrodite who accepts them as members of the tribe...and acts rather friendlier to them than the others do.

* First straight but then cruelly and tragically subverted in ''Film/TheThinRedLine''. The first Melanesian village welcomes the AWOL private [[TheMessiah Witt]] with open arms, and there he realizes that the villagers know the true meaning of "love thy neighbour". However, when he's forced back into the army, he visits another village, which unlike the first village had been traumatized by the war and the villagers avoid him with disdain while arguing with each other for petty reasons, not caring about the sick and older villagers. Realizing that the closest thing to a paradise on Earth has been corrupted by the Hell of wars, Witt leaves.

* The Togrutras from the ''Franchise/StarWars'' series, [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ahsoka_Tano some]] [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Ashla of]] [[http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Shaak_Ti them]] even become Jedis

* Creator/JeanJacquesRousseau all but stated that man was better off when we were little more than animals. He also said that in an unarmed fight a "savage" would easily defeat a "civilized man". Otherwise, his NobleSavage theory has been subjet to misinterpretation and reworking by the author himself.

* Jean-Jacques Rousseau all but stated that man was better off when we were little more than animals. He also said that in an unarmed fight a "savage" would easily defeat a "civilized man".

----

** The "Noble" part is also a bit off since the Aztecs at least practiced HumanSacrifice and [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalism.]]

*** Probably is true, matter of factly. While the civilized man might have more size, the uncivilized man generally has to chase after his food, which requires stamina, speed, and a considerable amount of strength. For example, there used to be a tribe in mexico that were known to run for days after their food. I don't know any civilized man that can do that.

** Some Feral World tribes are this, as are the Fenrisians (Space Vikings), the best of which are allowed to join the SpaceWolves (Viking-ier Space Vikings).

** Also from ''Warhammer 40000'', [[TheGreys Tau]] propaganda depicts [[FeatheredFiend Kroot]] auxiliaries as this, and there's more than a little truth to the propaganda, too.