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Naïve Everygirl

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This trope is fascinating. I never knew this.

A romantic, innocent character, almost always a preteen or teenage girl, who is essentially a fairy-tale heroine in the present (or in the science-fiction future). She is naïve, ignorant and insecure (especially about her body). She will be the target of every bully in the world, especially the Alpha Bitch. All she has going for her is her pure heart, which will save her — she never gives up, no matter what, and will eventually get the better of her tormentors.

The Naïve Everygirl is not a saint, however. She's bad at showing gratitude, which tends to drive her friends away when she needs them. But eventually she will reconcile with the people who helped her, after wondering how she could be so blind.

This character is mostly a Discredited Trope on Western TV nowadays but was popular before the 1990s; only the most idealistic shows on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism have one nowadays. But in film and "young adult" fiction, she is inescapable and they are frequent protagonists of Shoujo stories written by women — see Stock Shoujo Heroine for how that plays out.

See also Wide-Eyed Idealist, Love Freak, The Ingenue and Manic Pixie Dream Girl. Compare Unlucky Everydude, her spear counterpart.


Examples:

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    Anime and Manga 
  • Code Geass: Shirley Fennette. Her innocence and naïveté makes for a contrast with all the world weary or aggressive soldiers/politicians etc. She also serves as a deconstruction, as every single time she becomes involved with the greater plot beyond simple school life, it comes at the cost of increasing personal consequences, and culminated in her being murdered simply for naïvely saying the wrong thing to the wrong person.
  • A lot of Yuri series feature a light-haired Naïve Everygirl as the Uke to the Onee-sama Seme:
  • Fushigi Yuugi: Miaka, most especially when she entered the book for the first time. As time goes by, her experiences inside the book particularly the times she nearly got raped and her position as the Priestess of Suzaku put her into some stress most especially when she learned that her best friend became the enemy priestess.
  • Princess Nia Teppelin, main love interest in anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, is the embodiment of an extremely idealistic fairy tale heroine trapped in a Super Robot show.
  • Sara Werec of Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry fits this exactly, although her series slides more to the cynical side than most under this page.
  • Fruits Basket:
    • Main character Tohru Honda is sweet, naïve and idealistic to a fault. Her most notable flaws are that her low self-esteem makes her put everyone else's needs before her own, and that her overly-trusting nature can make her extremely gullible. Her pure-hearted kindness makes everyone love her, but they also worry about how she cares so little about her own well-being and how easily she could be taken advantage of.
    • Kana, Hatori's fiance, is arguably this, though one harsh Heroic BSoD snaps her to the point where she needs Hatori's Laser-Guided Amnesia to return to this persona.
  • Subverted with Shiina Tamai from Shadow Star. She does start out as one of these, but becomes progressively less innocent as the series progresses, culminating with her and her Shadow Archetype, Mamiko Kuri, slaughtering every human on Earth except themselves.
  • Digimon Adventure: Subverted with Hikari/Kari. At first, she seems like nothing more than the Affirmative Action Girl and/or the ill girl of The Team. She's innocent, sweet, holder of the Crest of Light and hates to see other people in pain. However she also has all the guts and nerve of the older brother she idolises and at the age of eight is capable of holding her own.
  • Dawn in Pokémon the Series: Diamond and Pearl starts out as this, as she was an optimistic Nice Girl who struggled even more than Ash did at the start of his journey, attempting to bring an entire suitcase and taking an entire episode just to find Professor Rowan. However, thanks to Ash's help and some Character Development she gradually grows into a competent Trainer.
  • Ukraine from Hetalia: Axis Powers. And the story milks it for all the bad luck and hilarity it's worth.
    • Seychelles, Liechtenstein and Taiwan have some traits as well, though they also have more energetic and strongwilled sides.
  • While C-ko Kotobuki is not a saint, she is innocent and optimistic, and she believes in love and friendship. Instead of the standard bullies, she has weird shit happening to her at times. Though she doesn't seem to be too insecure about her body, she does have issues with being alone. She also has the "lovesick girl" aspect as well.
  • Berserk: Jill and Princess Charlotte are two sweet and idealistic girls. The Crapsack World they live in is not kind to the naïve.
  • Ojamajo Doremi:
    • Doremi Harukaze. She believes in a lot of things that shouldn't exist and believes that there is good in everyone. This gets lessened as the story goes on and she matures.
    • Hana. She is older than she looks due to a self-inflicted Plot-Relevant Age-Up, and she is very innocent and naive about the world. She tries to help others, but she is not very conscious about having to keep her powers a secret. In fact, she has risked exposure countless times throughout Dokkan but remains unconcerned despite what happens you're exposed in this world...

    Comic Books 
  • Bécassine: The protagonist of this comic strip is a young Breton peasant girl who is extremely naïve, not to say dumb, but "has a heart of gold".
  • Abby in Coming Up Violet appears to be this on the surface, and indeed may indeed be a great example of this trope. However, she also harbors the heart of The Chessmaster.
  • Wonder Woman Vol 1: Homeschooled kindhearted Ursula Keating is out of touch when she first attends Holliday College, since her "aunt" raised her in seclusion as, essentially, a "better" version of herself. This means that Ursula has odd gaps in her education and dresses like a Victorian in the 1940s. She notices her naivety quickly and joins the Holliday Girls; a commando/spy group disguised as a sorority.

    Fan Works 

    Film — Live-Action 
  • Babe from the two Babe films (especially the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City) is a rare male example. (He's also a Talking Animal voiced by a woman.)
  • Mia from The Princess Diaries blew off her best friend's brother to go to a party with the most popular guy in school who would hopefully give her a foot popping kiss.
  • Bridget Jones is clumsy, insecure (especially about her body), and is very vulnerable yet won't give up her pursuit of love.
  • Jamie Bartlett from the Disney Channel movie Read It and Weep, who became so blinded by the prospect of being in the popular crowd that she blew off everyone her inner circle and ignored her best friend Connor, who'd secretly been harboring a crush on her, only to lose this newfound popularity once it's revealed that her novel, "Is Saves The World", was truly a mockery of her high school and its cliques, which makes it difficult for her to gain back everyone's trust.
    • Essentially every single Disney Channel heroine can fit into this trope to some extent.

    Literature 
  • Diane Duane's Young Wizards: Nita, the heroine, started out a Naïve Everygirl, but matured beyond that stage with the discovery and mastery of her wizardry.
  • Sci-fi author John Ringo plays with this trope in his novels. Megan Trevante and Mirta in the short story at the end of John Ringo's Emerald Sea, as well as from the later books of his Council Wars series are subversions of this, one being a very intelligent, tough and cunning young woman and the other spending most of her time pretending to exemplify this. The character Shenea, however, while being very sexual, exemplifies this trope. There are also several in his Paladin of Shadows series (mainly Katrina), which is odd considering the fact it is, by far, his most misogynistic series.
  • The Twilight Saga: Bella will put herself in danger just to see Edward again.
  • Catherine Moreland, the protagonist of Northanger Abbey, is a Country Mouse thrown into the social scene at Bath with little supervision. The dishonest, gold-digging Thorpes attach themselves to her (and her Naïve Everyboy brother) while she tries to form a friendship with the honest Tilneys, all while looking at the world through a lens of Gothic literature. Needless to say, it gets messy.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire: Sansa Stark. Her worldview outside of Winterfell is based on her sheltered upbringing and the songs that she has heard. Too bad this was shattered when she watched her father's execution and the abuse she experienced in King's Landing broke her.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Dreamy, weak willed Terri from Degrassi: The Next Generation is so glad that she has someone who tells her she's beautiful even though she's fat that she doesn't want to break up with him.
  • Game of Thrones: Sansa Stark, to the point of thinking the naughty word for dung is "shift." She's come a long way since then.
  • Title character of Ugly Betty: Though Betty has become less naïve since then, she's still as idealistic as ever.
  • Laura Webber (later Baldwin, then Spencer) from General Hospital is an example of this trope, particularly during the character's original appearances from 1975 to 1982. When the character returned in 1993 she had become less naïve, but still retained most of the other qualities of this trope.
  • The Secret World of Alex Mack: Alex relies on her sister to steer her in the realm of her new super-powered life because she's only familiar with everyday mundane life.
  • Rebecca Harper, a happy-go-lucky, sugary sweet Team Mom who gets on the other characters nerves, in The Latest Buzz.
  • Sookie from True Blood is in her twenties, but otherwise seems to fit this trope, or at least this is how she and the people around her seem to interpret her actions.
  • Lizzie McGuire: Insecure, nice but liable to make mistakes, picked on by the Alpha Bitch; yes.
  • In the pilot of 7th Heaven Lucy is sensitive about starting her period and thus becoming a woman. She says that her type is Prince Charles because she bets that he is sensitive and shy.
  • The Middle: Sue is eternally naive, cheerful, and optimistic, no matter what. She always tries her best and never gives up, despite being the world's Butt-Monkey.
  • Deconstructed in an episode of Law & Order: SVU. A naive young woman who is planning to be an actress is raped during a late night theater play. Turns out she was setup by her friend, who was angry that she got picked for the role, while she let herself get used sexually by the director and other men in the business and was still rejected because she wasn't as good looking. And its implied that the naive girl knew how much her friend wanted the role, but took it anyway.
  • LazyTown: Stephanie had no idea the people in LazyTown were so listless or that the town itself was so rundown. Both she and the town get better over time.

    Music 
  • This was basically Taylor Swift's persona on her first couple of albums, exemplified by "Fifteen".
    Cause when you're fifteen and
    Somebody tells you they love you
    You're gonna believe them
  • The Garfunkel and Oates song "29/31" is about a woman who is like this when she is 29 years old, but becomes more cynical when she reaches 31.

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Mary Elizabeth Monroe's initial baby face run combined this with Misplaced Kindergarten Teacher. Regardless, she was blunt, inquisitive to a fault, astonishingly ignorant to just how violent her chosen profession was and oblivious to how much hatred people she tried to befriend had for her.

    Video Games 
  • Ryfia from Arc Rise Fantasia, since she grew up never leaving her home.
  • Sophia Esteed of Star Ocean: Till the End of Time, although more emphasis on her naïveté and ignorance. Her body image issues are somewhat of a running joke through the game, too.
  • Estellise from Tales of Vesperia; like the above example, is not ungrateful, but she is quite naïve from being sheltered all of her life. Unlike the rest of the party, she is very kind and never hesitates to show compassion. This leads to some unfortunate consequences, but she eventually recovers.
  • Sumia from Fire Emblem: Awakening is a competent fighter in addition to having a good heart.
  • Lillie in Pokémon Sun and Moon initially comes across like this, full of wide-eyed spirit for everything around her. She was actually subject to a huge amount of parental abuse and traumatizing sights at the hands of her mother Lusamine. As long as Lusamine or her Aether Foundation people aren't nearby, Lillie will keep a cheerful attitude because she wants to see the world that was denied her when she was younger. If they are around, however, Lillie will become very uneasy very fast.

    Visual Novels 
  • Nagisa in CLANNAD. She is very curious about the outside world and maintains her childlike innocence as she progresses through life.
  • Subverted with Amanda in Daughter for Dessert. She gives off an innocent vibe and gets attached to places and other inanimate objects, but she’s not self-conscious about her appearance, and she has a natural knack for business. Plus, it turns out that all her “accidental” sexual passes with the protagonist aren’t accidental at all.
  • Subverted with Becca in Melody. While Becca is a romantic who is insecure about her own attractiveness, she is not naive about relationships, and enjoys reading the most explicit romance novels.

    Western Animation 
  • Comic-book/animated example: Chi-Chian Mitsui from Voltaire's Chi-Chian series.
  • Kim Possible is at her core a parody of this type; she's insecure about boys, dating, and the social order, and has very few close friends; however, she's admired by her peers, involved in every school activity, and is an international kung-fu-fighting pro-bono action heroine.
  • In the sequels of Disney's Cinderella, Anastasia, the redheaded stepsister is retconned into a character like this; insecure, looking for love but knowing little about it, etc.
  • Phoebe Terese on The Magic School Bus is a perfect example. She's the sweet natured, reserved romantic of the girls (once saying "Gee, what a guy!" about Arnold and found the notion of a bullfrog couple "romantic"), and tried saving the desert animals (which failed, due to the animals not needing to be saved, as pointed out by Carlos). She's also been picked on by Janet on different occasions, had the class turn on her once, and neglected to realize everything Ms. Frizzle did for her in "Goes to Seed". Despite her advocacy club failing, not being able to name three good things about recycling, and inability to do a slam dunk, Phoebe doesn't give up and retains her innocent nature.
  • Aaahh!!! Real Monsters: Gender aside, Ickis fits this. He's got all of the flaws, plus a tendency to say he's giving up... only to come back when it counts.
  • Ginger from As Told by Ginger. Dodie and Macie also fit this trope. Even Courtney seems to fit this to a lesser extent (particularly in the high school years).
  • Yoko from Timothy Goes to School, due to her being from Japan, she is unaware that not everyone likes sushi as seen in the episode "Yoko".
  • Show Within a Show example: This appears to be the characterisation of the title character in Hello, Megan!, the sitcom Miss Martian modelled her human persona on in Young Justice. M'gaan identified with the character's naivity due to being a Naïve Newcomer on Earth.

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