Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold in Literature.
- Bad News Ballet: Mary Bubnik is the only blonde of the gang and is bubbly, kind, and friendly to everyone—even when they don't truly deserve it.
- Zig-Zagged with Laura Steele from Bone Song. She's a beautiful blonde woman... who also happens to be a zombie with a black heart and black blood, and her character is far from innocent (she can be sarcastic and somewhat acerbic at times). However, she retains her human personality, has genuine feelings for her friends and her human lover, and as a police task officer, she does the best for society and catches dangerous criminals. So in the metaphorical sense, she does have a heart of gold.
- A Court of Thorns and Roses: Tamlin is blond and generally kind and well-meaning. At least, until he Took a Level in Jerkass in the second book.
- A rare older and male example in Less. Arthur Less (49) has pale blonde hair and bright blue eyes, and is described as "a man utterly without armor" against the often-harsh world he lives in. A major part of Arthur's character arc is attempting to reconcile his sweet nature with his personal failings, and eventually learning that he doesn't need to.
- In The Little Prince, the Little Prince is depicted as having golden hair and is a symbol of innocence and childhood.
- In C. S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, the innocent Lucy, who first finds Narnia and is closest to Aslan, is described (near the end of the first novel) as having blond hair. However, the illustrations by Pauline Baynes show her with black hair and pigtails. The only adaptation that actually has her as a blonde is the 1970s animated film.
- In The Clique novels, Claire Lyons has light blonde hair and is the nicest member of the Pretty Commitee.
- A Song of Ice and Fire: Generally, hair color is not a guarantee of characterization, but preconceptions about it still abound.
- Sansa initially Thinks Like a Romance Novel and romanticizes Cersei and Joffrey's golden hair as part of her fantasy of going to King's Landing and becoming a princess. Although Joffrey and Cersei subvert her expectations by being terrible people, the youngest royals Prince Tommen and Princess Myrcella play this trope straight by being kindhearted and sweet by all accounts.
- The trope is referenced when a bard writes a propagandized ballad about the Battle of Blackwater. The lyrics make a big deal of the handsome, young, golden-haired prince (Joffrey) and equally golden-haired mother (Cersei) going up against his wicked, black-haired uncle.
- Exploited by Tyene Sand along with Innocent Blue Eyes. She's described as beautiful, sweet, and pious-looking, and you'll believe that right until you realize she's already poisoned you.
- This Side of Paradise: The blonde Clara Page is full of goodness and purity that puts her above the questionable morals of a desperate husband-seeker and people flock to her because of her kindness. When Amory, who was charmed by her kindness, is rejected by her, he chants about gold, alluding to her golden hair and how he wanted her.
- Evangeline in Uncle Tom's Cabin has golden hair and is an angelic mouthpiece for the author's anti-slavery message. For extra points, she's Too Good for This Sinful Earth.
- Little Lord Fauntleroy is famous for the titular character's blond, curly hair. He's a sweet but a bit precocious boy who lives up to his aristocratic heritage and his family expectations.
- In the The Demon Princes, Alusz Iphigenia Eperje-Tokay has dusty blond hair and ggray eyes. She's beautiful, intelligent, gently bred and fatalistic.
- Emma Woodhouse of Jane Austen's Emma is interested in befriending a girl of lower social standing than herself, Harriet Smith, specifically because of Harriet's beauty. Harriet has Hair of Gold and big Innocent Blue Eyes, and her nature is very sweet, timid and affectionate. She's glad that so great a lady as Emma notices her and happily lets Emma lead and guide her.
- In Goblin Market, Laura's golden hair is a key part of the plot, because she buys fruit with "a golden curl" rather than with actual money. Using her hair this way leads to the loss of innocence (and, metaphorically, her virginity).
- In the J. R. R. Tolkien's Legendarium:
- Most of elves are dark-haired, so the golden ones stand out, and it tends to be symbolic. In The Silmarillion, this is the hallmark of the Houses of Ingwë and Finarfin, and they are of the High Elven houses the wisest, kindest, least rash, and (in the case of the Exiles) most friendly and helpful to mortals. One of those (Galadriel) even survived long enough to appear in The Lord of the Rings.
- Ingwë, and his people (the Vanyar) in general, are noted as the wisest and most holy of the High Elves. They live exclusively in Valinor itself. Every one of them chose to come to Valinor instead of staying behind in Middle-earth, and only a small handful joined the rebellion of the Noldor. Which is why they get the least page-time of the three clans.
- Of the Noldorin royalty, Finarfin's family are the wisest, and he was the only major character who quit the rebellion and returned to Valinor to humbly ask the Valar for pardon before it was too late. Thus, they made him king of what was left of his people. His kids all continued with the rebellion but were the most reluctant to participate (other than Galadriel, who was just itching to leave).
- Galadriel's hair is literally luminescent, and said to have been like "a mesh of gold" with the light of Laurelin (a holy golden tree that served as a precursor to the sun) bound up in it. Her part in the Fall of the Noldor changed as Tolkien's concept of her character evolved—in most versions she's a leader of the rebellion and more eager than her brothers to leave Valinor. Later, Tolkien decided she was entirely innocent of any wrongdoing, and planned to change the stories to say she didn't participate in the rebellion, but only happened to leave Valinor at the same time.
- Averted with Celegorm the Fair, the only one of the seven sons of Fëanor to have blond hair, and quite possibly the worst of them.
- In The Phantom of the Opera Christine Daae is described as having golden blonde hair which matches her affectionate loving nature (given she can show pity to the deformed Erik), further more, Christine’s hair also fits in with the novel’s themes of light and dark. The Musical and live-action versions don't give a hoot for this however and tend to make Christine brunette in almost all portrayals.
- If we apply this trope's logic to the Broadway Musical, then Little Meg is very much this trope.
- The teen hero Michael Vey who is one of the sweetest, nicest characters in the series. He can get angry and be pushed, but he is very forgiving and despite growing more experienced and smarter over the series never loses his kind spirit and never crosses over to becoming the more cynical Pragmatic Hero.
- Maybeth, the third sibling in The Tillerman Family Series by Cynthia Voigt, is practically angelic by description, both in personality and appearance.
- Les Misérables:
- Fantine is noted for her beauty and particularly her long, angelic golden hair. She is presented as the model of motherly virtue, and at the beginning of her transition to Broken Bird she sells her beautiful hair to provide for her daughter Cosette.
- Cosette herself is described as brunette in the text, but in the musical and other adaptations is often played by a blonde actress because of this trope.
- Enjolras has Hair Of Gold and is explicitly a Chaste Hero.
- Lucy Westenra in the novel Dracula is blonde. Dr Seward makes a reference to her hair lying on her pillow in "sunny ripples", but after she becomes an evil vampire eyewitnesses describe her as having dark hair.
- A Brother's Price:
- Little Eldie Porter, five years old, has blonde, curly hair and entirely innocent in her parents' scheming. It does get dyed black by the end.
- Averted with her uncle, Keifer Porter, who had the same hair colour but was a jerk. He's also Eldie's father, via Kij.
- Played straight with Cullen Moorland, who is a nice, a bit hyperactive and childish young man with honey-coloured hair.
- Prim and Mrs. Everdeen in The Hunger Games. Prim is a compassionate young blonde girl with blue eyes. She loves all living creatures. She was also a good healer at an early age, often helping her mother with patients. When Katniss leaves her family she doesn't bother suggesting that Prim learn to hunt because her attempts were disastrous. The woods terrified her and whenever Katniss shot something it would make Prim teary and she'd talk about how they might be able to heal it. Katniss is always amazed when her mother brought a wounded or sick patient: "she morphs from someone who calls her daughter to kill a spider to a woman immune to fear", Katniss says.
- Both Laurana and Goldmoon in the Dragonlance books are naive but kind beautiful blond princesses (elf and barbarian human, respectively). The former especially was naive and sheltered to the point of being an airhead while the latter was actually worshipped as a goddess by her tribe. They both grew out of it into an Action Girl and Messianic Archetype, respectively.
- Susan, Roland's Lost Lenore, in The Dark Tower, has blonde hair. She's 16, innocent and noble. About the only thing we know about her appearance other than her beauty is that she has long blonde hair. The villain of her story tries to hypnotize her into cutting it all off.
- Song at Dawn: Much is made of Alis' blond hair and 'Daddy's little angel' often follows it. She also has a frail constitution.
- Marta Hagen of To Shape a Dragon's Breath is blonde and kind, even if a great deal of what she considers "kindness" borders on being insensitive without meaning to be. She's kind to Anequs from their first meeting even if she's casually racist (and eventually starts to be less so). When Anequs doesn't have proper ballgowns to attend festivals that require it, Marta insists that she be outfitted properly, pays for the dresses, and even finds colors that set off Anequs's skin tone well. She's not as cruel as others are to Anequs or Theod once she gets to know them. And while it does take some time—and Anequs's connection at first—she comes to accept Sander's differences and learn he's pleasant and smart in his own way now that his mother isn't in the way of him making said connections.
- Anna Karenina: Kitty is a beautiful, kind and feminine girly girl, greatly admired in society for her beauty and grace. When she gets disappointed in love by her suitor, she becomes ill, but her parents take her to a spa and she recovers.
- In Gelsomino in Land of Liars, Gelsomino's golden hair corresponds with his character: sweet, kind-hearted and generally helpful. This is contrasted with Big Bad Jakomone, whose golden hair is fake.
- Clover from Entwined is blond and in no short supply of suitors and can barely say a bad word about someone.
- Werner Von Ebrannac in the World War II novella Le Silence de la mer is a soft-spoken Francophile Friend to All Children with naive hopes of amity with his unwilling French hosts who ends up suffering a Heel Realisation.
- A Necklace of Fallen Stars: Melina has blonde hair and is one of the kindest characters in the book. Kippen is blond as well, and he's a pretty gentle soul too.
- In White as Snow, Coira dreams that her real mother is a beautiful young blonde woman who is kind and gentle and loving. She imagines that this woman died and Arpazia took her place.
- In Rachel Griffin, Nastasia Romanov, Princess of Magical Australia, is a gracious, gentle, ladylike, dutiful and kind Princess Classic, with very long ash-blond hair.
- In The Wee Free Men, Tiffany Aching, who has brown hair and brown eyes, notices that in the book of fairy tales her mother read to her, all the princesses and "good" characters had blond hair and blue eyes (or possibly red hair and green eyes), and that the best you could hope for otherwise was to be an inkeeper or a maid—or a witch.
- Celine Herondale from The Mortal Instruments, had blonde hair, and according to Jocelyn was sweet, lovely, and made everyone want to protect her.
- Vampire Academy:
- Lissa Dragomir is kind-hearted and blonde. She has angelic-looking blonde hair and typically goes out of her way to care for people and animals.
- Eddie Castile. Described as blonde and one of the nicest guys Rose knows. He is very kind-hearted and protective of his friends, and is even willing to sacrifice his own career opportunities to help them.
- In Dragon Bones, Ward's younger sister Ciarra has blonde hair. She's the most innocent character in the novel, being one of two people who are mentioned to never have killed before (she's too young and a girl, her brother Tosten is rather sensitive and earns his living as a bard). She's also a Cute Mute, and the victim of choice for a jerkass god who needs to take possession of someone to talk to the heroes. Even the Genius Loci of castle Hurog, Oreg, likes Ciarra, and protects her in subtle ways. She also seems to be the one person he has always been visible to. (Usually he can only be seen by his master, the owner of castle Hurog.)
- In The Dragon Hoard, Princess Goodness has hair "just the colour of summer sunlight" in the first chapter and "bright golden as a buttercup" in the last, and lives up to her name.
- Subverted in, of all people, H. P. Lovecraft's Sweet Ermengarde, a parody of Melodrama. Ermengarde portrays herself as this, but the hair colour comes out of a bottle, and the heart isn't as innocent as she likes to pretend either...
- Land of Oz:
- Dorothy's hair colour is never mentioned in text, but a large amount of illustrations depict her this way. She's an innocent, sweet-hearted child from Kansas who is always up to adventure and enjoys helping others.
- The one time the young princess of Oz, Princess Ozma's, hair colour is mentioned, she's referred to as a blonde. Ozma is the sweetest person in Oz and is only matched by Glinda the Good for her beauty. In practice, however, illustrations consistently depict Ozma as a brunette.
- Hans and Petra in Caliphate are two German siblings who are described as having blonde hair and despite all the horrors they suffer in their lives (Hans is brainwashed to be a janissary while his sister becomes a sex slave), they remain fundamentally good and heroic people. Petra for example when she witnesses several janissary soldiers dying horribly, rather than feeling joy over enforcers of the Caliphate that brought such misery to her being killed this way, she pities them because they were just as victims like she was; meanwhile, her brother rebels against the corrupt and decayed regime he is forced to serve and joins the Americans in their mission to save the world.
- The sweet, harmless Darek from Devils & Thieves is always mentioned as having blonde hair. It serves to contrast him from the dark-haired and mysterious Crowe, showing him to be the nice and tame option. This is subverted; Darek turns out to be the villain, and an expert manipulator, who only seemed like a nice guy.
- Janet from Hetty Feather. Endlessly kind and supportive of Hetty, and keeps her own unrequited love for Jem buried in the hopes of Jem being happy with Hetty instead. Hell, Janet attempts to convince her romantic rival to stay in the village for Jem's sake, showing how she put Jem's needs before herself constantly.
- Hanami of Tasakeru fits the bill: an Innocent Flower Girl with a shy nature and long blonde hair, the color of which is unique in the setting.
- Luna Lovegood in Harry Potter. Sure, she's a bit of an oddball at times, but is one of the most lovably sweet characters in the series, as shown when she believes Harry about Voldemort's return at a time when almost nobody does and offers him some comforting words after Sirius' death. She even went as far as decorating her room with portraits of Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ginny and Neville with the word "friends" connecting them, showing how much she values their friendship.
- Just Juliet: Juliet is a blonde and a very kind girl.
- Amy from Space Glass is the kindest character in the cast, and has the brightest blonde hair among them. She is usually seen fighting only when her friends are in danger.
- Goblins in the Castle: Not exactly gold, but William is easily one of the nicest people in the series, and is known for his butter-colored hair.
- The Stormlight Archive: Evi Kholin had golden-blonde hair (an extreme rarity in the part of Roshar where the story takes place) and was among the kindest and gentlest characters we've seen so far. Similarly, her son Adolin has mostly blonde hair, and is noted as particularly friendly and gregarious.
