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The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong in the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good, and the very gentle, and the very brave, impartially.

A character far too idealistic for their own good.

It may be the Naïve Newcomer who Jumped at the Call — he or she has a huge stack of comic books/movies/bards' tales, and thinks they're pretty Genre Savvy. Unfortunately, their universe is more toward the cynical end of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism than the stories they know. Alternatively, they might just be generally nice people whose idealistic attempts at solving the problems of their world turn out to go horribly horribly awry as no one else plays by their rules. Usually used as nothing more than a device to highlight the realism/grittiness/cynicism of the setting.

This character either becomes a victim of a Trauma Conga Line or a bad Break the Cutie ordeal, dies horribly or acquires a coat of jade post-haste. In settings that are still somewhat idealistic, they might get off with just becoming a Knight in Sour Armor or the Morality Pet to one. In particularly anvilicious cases, expect deployment of Diabolus ex Machina to deal with them.

If the character remains triumphant and idealistic throughout, then it may be a case of Good Is Not Dumb, The Pollyanna, or even Stupid Good. If their idealism drives them to turn evil or ruthless, they become a Well-Intentioned Extremist.

While All Loving Heroes are frequent victims of wide-eyed idealism, their suffering or sacrifice can encourage them to become full-blown Messianic Archetypes and inspire others in the setting to lighten up and thereby change the setting, unless they're a different kind of messiah, in which case the setting is only cemented.

When The Hero appeals to a group of people, often Least Is First falls under this. Someone will likely tell them Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids! and they are just as likely to retort with Silly Rabbit, Cynicism Is for Losers!.

Compare The Idealist, Being Good Sucks, The Pollyanna, the Naïve Everygirl, the Love Freak, and The Ingenue. If there are entire civilizations of Wide-Eyed Idealists waiting to be slaughtered, see also We Have Become Complacent and Sugar Apocalypse. See Turn the Other Cheek and The Farmer and the Viper. Not to be confused with using literal wide eyes to show that a character is idealistic.


Examples:

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    Anime & Manga 
  • Altair: A Record of Battles: This is 17-year-old pacifist pasha Mahmut's Fatal Flaw at the start of the story since while he's very clever, he has almost zero experience of the outside world. This leads to him being demoted, and spending months travelling the continent trying to gain more wisdom. However, even a year or two later his idealism still shows.
  • Area 88:
    • In the manga and OVA, Ryoko has very idealistic ideas about love, and seems to think that she is in a romance story instead of a war story. In the manga, even abandonment and heartbreak at the hands of her absentee boyfriend do not dent her idealism.
    • Rishar Vashtal from the manga also qualifies. He has romantic visions of a democratic Asran and genuinely wants to empower the Asranian people. Mickey, however, warns him that the Asranian people may call for his death after the war.
  • Akari from ARIA is a special case, in that she manages to stand out in a setting that is practically paradise incarnated.
  • Attack on Titan:
    • Every military recruit that hasn't been mentally broken by encountering a Titan yet and expects good things after training. Some examples stand out, especially Eren, Marco, and Marlo, who are prime examples of soldiers wanting to enter the Survey Corps (Eren) and Military Police Brigade (Marco and Marlo) for the right reasons. Everyone gets a quick dose of the reality that battle with Titans is, though.
    • Some civilians can be like this, too. Eren sees a young brother and sister admiring the Survey Corps and thinking how awesome they are, just like he did only 5 years ago with his own sister. He can only look away and try not to cry the same way Erwin looked away in shame last time.
  • Subverted in Baccano!, specifically in Druge & the Dominoes: turns out that even the widest-eyed of wide-eyed idealists can be provoked into trying to blow your head off if you push the right buttons. The only thing that stopped her was the fact that Luck got to him first.
  • Black Lagoon:
    • The neo-nazi band. Having no real experience with the way the criminal underworld works, they're sent on a fixed race to "test their ability" against the protagonists, where they overspend resources, repeatedly underestimate the crew of the Lagoon, refuse to see facts, and waste time making dramatic and hammy proclamations about their heroic destiny as champions of the white race. Revy and Dutch kill all of them, and their would-be patron abandons them the moment it's obvious to him they've failed (though not before admitting to the leader that he set them up in the first place).
    • Rock also struggles with this in earlier arcs: His attempts to understand Revy make her angry at him, trying to "save" Gretel failed utterly, and his attempt towards Yukio backfires completely. It isn't until "Le Baile de la Muerte" he starts to understand that if he wants to save people he'll have to become a cynical rotten power-player like Chang and Balalaika.
    • Rotton the Wizard. Firmly believes that he's in a far, far more idealistic series. Only his Crazy-Prepared-ness and association with a Dragon Lady and a chainsaw-wielding body disposal expert keep him alive and kicking.
  • Bleach: As a teenager, Ryuuken Ishida was willing to sacrifice his personal dreams and happiness for the chance to save the future of the Quincies. However, flashbacks reveal that Aizen accidentally shatters his idealism; it is implied that a further Trauma Conga Line then occurs between the flashback arc and the main storyline to produce the bitter, hypercritical Dr. Jerk that his son Uryuu thinks he's familiar with.
  • Both Suzaku Kururugi and Princess Euphemia Li Britannia from Code Geass genuinely believe they'll be able to reform the shockingly racist Britannian Empire and be facilitators for the peaceful integration of the Japanese people into the empire's fold. Cue Diabolus ex Machina on a national scale. This is subverted in the second season, where Suzaku forms a reasonable, if rather myopic, plan to free Japan (the rest of the world isn't his concern) and begins suffering from a bad case of Motive Decay until he realizes his ideals are nothing but smoke.
    • This is spoofed in official side comics, where Suzaku and Euphy are portrayed as so blindingly naive that they still believe in the Delivery Stork and Cabbage Patch Babies, while Lelouch looks on in stunned disbelief.
    • This trope is lampshaded artistically with Shirley, who has literally the largest eyes in the whole cast, with Euphemia just in second place.
  • Death Note has Light: it's pointed out that he is "quite the positive thinker" and ironically it's his idealism that drives him to commit his atrocities in order to "make the world a better place."
    • Touta Matsuda is the only member of the Task Force to have any sympathy for Kira and believe Light is innocent until the very end. At which point, he tried to murder Light for mocking his late father as a fool.
  • Ichiro Yamada from the manga Freesia. He very much initially thinks that he can help the country by punishing ex-convicts and such until he realizes quickly that the Vengeance Proxy Enforcer firm that he works for is nothing more than a group of contract killers for people who have massive grudges.
  • Fullmetal Alchemist:
    • In the manga version, Scar's brother and the Rockbell family are wide-eyed idealists who believe in the basic good nature of man. The Rockbells leave their practice so they can heal the Ishvalans being massacred by the Amestris army, and Scar's brother wants to learn alchemy so that he can better understand the bonds of humanity. During an attack Scar's family is killed, and Scar's brother tries to shield Scar, but is unsuccessful, and Scar loses his arm. Scar's brother sacrifices an arm and his life to save Scar, and Scar wakes up in the Rockbell's hospital. Finding out that his brother's arm is now attached to him causes Scar to go temporarily insane, and he kills the Rockbells in a Freak Out.
    • Roy Mustang is the other side of the coin. His sometimes borderline dumb faith in human nature helps him sometimes (when he took for granted Dr Knox would cover his scheme to save Maria Ross, because they were war buddies) and other times dooms him (when he believed overthrowing the Fuhrer would be a piece of cake when people found out he was a Homunculus. It turned out the brass knew and couldn't care less). Still, his idealism is precisely what makes his subordinates so loyal to him.
      Havoc: He's stupid! How can such a naive thing keep climbing up in this country?
      Hawkeye: I think it's good that there are idiots like that, once in a while.
    • The first anime, on the other hand, makes a point of contrasting Al's childlike optimism and naivete with Ed's growing cynicism and the horrible truths of the world around them.
  • Galaxy Fraulein Yuna: Yuna Kagurazaka is one of the rare examples of this trope not to suffer either of the standard fates.
  • Albert from Gankutsuou, along with having Horrible Judge of Character. He is undoubtedly the most naive and idealistic of all the characters in that series. He truly believed for a long time that his friends' (and his own) families were perfectly rosy and that the Count is a wonderful person. (He was very wrong, by the way - they were all insanely messed up.) Not to mention how he manages to go on about "true love". However, despite all hardships he goes through, Albert ends up taking route A and becomes a better person who not only saves the Count's soul from Gankutsuou but also fixes his father's wrongs by becoming an envoy of peace.
  • Getter Robo: Musashi Tomoe in the original manga combined this trope with Wrong Genre Savvy. After meeting Ryoma and co. for the first time, he insists on becoming a Getter Robot pilot. When he is said he is not strong, sturdy, and intelligent (or crazy) enough to pilot Getter (a task which is very taxing for both body and mind), he replies he has got the most important skill to become a mecha pilot: hot-bloodedness. Ryoma and Hayato wondered if he was serious. Apparently nobody told him that Getter Robo is a Cosmic Horror Story and Go Nagai and Ken Ishikawa Humongous Mecha mangas (Mazinger Z, Getter Robo, Kotetsu Jeeg) are way darker than the idealistic fare of later series that the genre would be stereotyped with.
  • Great Teacher Onizuka: Minami Kikukawa is a training teacher who would love teaching in a private school because in a public school she would have got to deal with troubles such as like bad students and administrative corruption. Fuyutsuki quickly warns her that she is Tempting Fate with that naive attitude. After meeting the class four students (who prior Onizuka's arrival and lessons hated all adults and tried to drive all teachers crazy or suicidal), she realizes things are not so simple.
  • Hetalia: Axis Powers: America is pegged as one of these by Fanon. Though, considering his nature, he could very well be one of these in Canon.
  • Arguably, Éclair from Kiddy Grade, who, despite having dealt with the dreadful realities of GOTT and galactic politics for many, many years, has somehow avoided becoming a cynic, and actually keeps up her spirit to fight for her ideals. Granted, this may be due to two things: (1) she does use autohypnotic suggestions to block out some of her memories temporarily, and (2) as a superhero, and with her partner, she does in fact have the ability to back up those ideals with force.
  • Kanzaki Nao in Liar Game. Almost every chapter. You'd think that one of these days she'd learn... Except you know, she's usually proven right by the end.
  • Due to her intense loyalty to her older brother Kouen, her crush on Sinbad and friendship with Alibaba, Kougyoku in Magi: Labyrinth of Magic wants them to forget their differences and fight together, honestly believing that because they fought against a common enemy her wish was coming true when in reality, things are becoming more complicated and tense between everyone.
  • UC Mobile Suit Gundam, have at least one pacifist who thinks they could stop the fighting, usually they are proven wrong and lives to watch the ramifications of their actions.
  • Tenma and Nina from Monster, despite being frequently subjected to horrific trauma. The fact that Tenma in particular absolutely refuses to become cynical about the human race drops him straight into Badass Pacifist territory.
  • Naruto actually trends towards the optimistic side of things, but it doesn't shy away from the fact that it takes place in a setting where the major powers have had a long, bloody history of conflict involving, among other things, Ninja Child Soldiers. Case in point: Obito Uchiha, written as a clear analog for our plucky, good-hearted hero Naruto, was squashed by a boulder at the age of 13 and could only pass on his Sharingan eye to his comrade Kakashi before being left to die. He didn't, but things only got worse from there. Obito's idealism took a turn for the worst after he was brought under Madara's wing and witnessed the death of Rin, his best friend and crush, becoming someone who would manipulate, assault, and kill just about anyone to build a world where nobody suffered like he did. It was only after a protracted conflict with Naruto and his allies that he started returning to his old purely idealistic self.
  • Negi of Negima! Magister Negi Magi starts out as one of these, but he eventually starts to realize that good and bad aren't quite as clear cut as he thought they were. Evangeline actually deliberately discourages his idealism (despite the fact that she's a Noble Demon who's constantly sliding towards Anti-Villain territory). Negi eventually admits that he can't always be the good guy, although he still tries to go with the most "good" option available.
  • Now and Then, Here and There is based around this trope.
  • Ai Tanabe, the newest member of Section 7 in Planetes. Her first name means "love," and it just picks up from there. She's taken to task for it countless times by fellow Section 7 crewman Hachimaki and Claire, Hachi's former Love Interest, the latter of which causes her to doubt her own ideals. And yet, although she's set up for a particularly cruel Diabolus ex Machina, which she could avoid by betraying her convictions, she stands by them to the absolute, heart-wrenching end, to Claire's shock. Given the nature of the series, she's proven right at the end.
  • Played with in Princess Tutu. Duck Jumped at the Call to help Mytho regain his heart, never stopping to consider that he might have had a very good reason to shatter his heart. Her idealism slowly wears off throughout the series as she discovers how her thoughtless actions keep changing things for the worse. However, her initial optimism does have an effect on Fakir, who eventually returns the favor by giving her hope when she's on the brink of a Despair Event Horizon.
  • Sayaka Miki of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. Naturally, the series being what it is, it doesn't end well at all. Madoka is also one of these, although the story seems to jump through hoops to discourage it. She finally gets it to work at the very end, although it takes a Cosmic Retcon to do so.
  • This is what makes Alice L. Malvin of Pumpkin Scissors stand out from many of the other nobles of the setting. She firmly believes in her cause to "eradicate evil" and that others will push for it too. This is what got Machis and Oland to join in the first place.
  • Re:CREATORS: Of all the fictional characters that come to the real world, Mamika Kirameki is the only one who comes from a children's TV show. Therefore, she believes everyone is basically good and they can all be friends. Unfortunately, the other characters do not share her sense of idealism, and her attempts to stop conflicts ultimately fall on deaf ears. Over time, she loses her naivety but remains as idealistic as ever. Unfortunately, this earns her a horrible death.
  • The title character of Revolutionary Girl Utena, which can be infuriating when you realize that she refuses to see the emotional hardships that her peers go through (Juri's conflict over Shiori and her sexuality in general come to mind; Utena brushes it off and tells her to stop acting cold). Miki is this to a lesser extent, in regards to his sister Kozue, but it may be more that he's a genuine Nice Guy more than anything else.
  • Rurouni Kenshin: Kenshin Himura is a good example. Some might consider him Incorruptible Pure Pureness, but old habits die hard... Except his intro speech at the end of the first chapter goes, "no, swordsmanship is an art of killing. Kaoru-dono believes a sweet, naive lie. But if this one had a wish... it would be that her sweet lie would become the truth of this world." Kenshin's Walking the Earth with Obfuscating Stupidity routine involves some serious ideals, but despite avoiding his battle expression most of the time he's not too wide-eyed. He's got the world-weary thing going but values Kaoru as a Wide-Eyed Idealist.
  • On Sailor Moon, the titular character definitely fits this, considering that deciding to spare the life of Hotaru almost killed her future daughter and brought The End of the World as We Know It. It's so blatant Sailor Uranus & Neptune try to incapacitate, sometimes even murder her for her idealism. However, it's worth noting that Uranus and Neptune's actions contributed greatly, if not more, to the outcome of the event more than Sailor Moon's idealism did.
  • Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: Kafuka takes this trope and runs with it. Everything has a good side to her: a Trash Can is a "Treasure Chest for the Homeless" and it only gets worse from there.
  • Slayers:
    • The anime and manga incarnations of Princess Amelia, both genuinely and to a comedic extent. She does have a blind eye towards the more wicked intentions of certain foes, especially the Monster race, but this is more of an ideology taught to her than anything else because of her violent family history. In the novels, where she's more mature, she's still optimistic, but her idealism falls more into Stepford Smiler territory.
    • The anime-exclusive character Filia, the Golden Dragon, is this combined with Holier Than Thou taken to aggravating levels. It doesn't help that she was sheltered for most of her life, but even after she learned the Awful Truth, during the last battle she believes that the Big Bad isn't beyond salvation (it's established clearly that he is at that point) and doesn't want to destroy him, even as he's consuming the world at that moment...
  • Yuriko from Smile Down the Runway, she's a widow and Struggling Single Mother and despite the hardships she endures, she remains positive for her children's sake and maintains a playful sense of humor.
  • Twenty-Fifth Bam from Tower of God cannot understand why people have to fight each other to reach the top of the Tower. This leads to him being a Broken Bird after the Time Skip.
  • Trigun:
    • Vash The Stampede is determined to be one. No matter what he sees, what humans or Knives or anybody do, to him or anyone. His traumas are simultaneously cases of Break the Cutie and Break the Badass and are usually horrific. Worse in the manga, where he is clearly fighting to maintain his idealism over his own common sense and has a lot more bleak moments. The setting is also much darker since the series went seinen after the Fifth Moon. But he always stands up again. Because he won't give up on humanity and by extension Rem. And on himself. After all, if he gives up on people then what does he have to resist Knives' Hannibal Lectures with, and what have all these years meant? Therefore, Technical Pacifist willing to Turn the Other Cheek to a sometimes absurd degree. Vash is helped by his own awesomeness; when Knives and his subordinates aren't involved he can usually pull a casualty-free resolution out of the worst situations imaginable. Sure, this has meant horrific scars all over his body, but it gives him all kinds of warm fuzzies and hope. He wants Wolfwood to see this. Wolfwood wants him to see that most people are only human and you can't save everybody all the time.
    • Know who's the Trigun poster child for this trope? Manga Knives. He was all "our hearts are the same as people's, I'm sure if we try we can understand one another," and actually cried when the first human they met besides Rem accepted them. Then he Went Mad From The Revelation that Humans Are Bastards, and resolved to kill them all.
    • Meryl is a little naive but never an idealist. Millie is... strange. Maybe a wide-eyed idealist. Maybe just terminally clueless. Actually very sharp under it all, and very tough. Anime Millie is Wolfwood's other foil, and they become a couple. One of Wolfwood's Character Development soliloquies involves the frustrated observation that Millie and Vash always "do everything I can't, like it's no big deal."
  • Judai of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX was once an Idiot Hero Ace who believed life was one big game and the only thing worth caring about was having fun. His journey of deconstructing The Ace is not a pleasant one.

    Comic Books 
  • Due to the way comic books have been since the end of the Silver Age, characters and stories have gone from escapism to complex storytelling, usually in the form of being Cynical and Darker and Edgier types. Because of this, any hero who hasn't done so becomes this by default. Examples include:
    • Superman: Even in the face of unquestionably dark odds, Superman still stands by his beliefs and ideals. He fully admits that the world isn't perfect, so he's not stupid, but he tries his damnedest to make it better.
    • Supergirl: Pre-Crisis Supergirl was an exceptionally innocent, trusting teenager. Her enemies often exploited her naivete and tried to earn her trust or seduce her so they could manipulate her and kill her or her cousin. Eventually she stopped being so gullible, but she kept believing that people are mostly naturally good-hearted. Post-Crisis Supergirl is less innocent (excepting some versions such as Elseworld's Finest: Supergirl & Batgirl Kara who was fooled by Lex Luthor) but she still stands by his ideals and always tries to do the right thing and be a hero, no matter how dark her world is or what bad things happen to her.
    • Spider-Man: While he's got a very misplaced reputation for being whiney and angsty (coming from the second two Raimi films playing up his Woobie points and the nineties being, well, the nineties), Peter Parker's main reason for being so popular isn't because of his powers, but because he'll always do the right thing, no matter what the world throws at him.
    • Robin: All of them, except Damian, play against Batman's seriousness and the griminess of Gotham. Dick stayed happy and upbeat after his parents died in front of him and became the Boy Wonder, Jason too, until the world broke him in A Death In The Family and broke him again in Under The Hood, Tim's entire reasoning for becoming Robin was that Batman needed one to keep him off the edge, and Stephanie's entire MO is to stay upbeat about everything even in the worst situation. Barbara too, though that was decreasing when she retired as Batgirl and shattered after The Killing Joke.
    • The Flash: The first four flashes are this. They believe in doing the right thing and will not compromise their morals even when doing so would be to their advantage.
    • X23: Ironically, X-23 has become this despite all the hell she's lived through. In contrast to Wolverine's pragmatic cynicism and willingness to compromise his beliefs, Laura has increasingly become an idealist seeking something noble to aspire to and is much much more uncompromising in her views of right and wrong (such as insisting on helping, rather than killing, Siphon once she discovered he was actually a victim of Paradise despite the extreme danger he presented when hungry and it does eventually end up biting her on the ass). Laura notably went through a mini-Freak Out when she learned that, despite how bad things in her home reality are, the Ultimate Universe is even worse.
  • Gilly the Perky Goth from Dork Tower.
  • Steve in Gilbert Hernandez's "Love and Rockets X" story within Love and Rockets.
  • Tomcat in the Jedi vs. Sith. He believes everything he hears in the songs and stories that claim the Jedi are invincible heroes. When he ends up in the middle of the battle against the Sith and sees Jedi dying in the mud with their non-Force sensitive comrades, it does not end well.
  • X-Men: An interesting inversion of the Darker and Edgier creep described above is brought to us by Exodus. A literal Knight Templar who was turned into a Sealed Badass in a Can 800 years ago and revived in the modern-day, Exodus still holds true to the noble values of the knighthood and has no greater ambition than to protect and defend his people, even dressing like a classic Silver Age hero. Unfortunately, he also holds to the uncompromising black-and-white thinking of his era, turning him into an Anti-Villain who clashes with the X-Men because he is unable to admit that not all mutants are good and not all humans are bad.
  • The Punisher MAX had a rare villainous example in Mickey Cooley, a young Irish-American who fervently, almost pathetically, believes that the PIRA are noble freedom fighters striking against legitimate targets which are part of the British oppression of Northern Ireland and should be supported as much as possible. Given that this series was written by Garth Ennis, whose frothing-at-the-mouth hatred of the PIRA and their American supporters is well-known, and the protagonist is The Punisher... yeah, it doesn't end well.
  • Gotham City Garage: Kara Gordon is happy-go-lucky, innocent, and optimistic in a post-apocalyptic world where the last city on Earth is ruled by a tyrant and the rest of the planet is a barren wasteland inhabited by bandits and scavengers. Big Barda thinks she'll have to break her cheerful idealism before it kills Kara... until they discover the "super-strong and invulnerable" thing.

    Comic Strips 
  • Ratbert in Dilbert is (or was) pretty much the only idealistic character in the Crapsack World the strip takes in. Considering the strip's message that "cynicism equals intelligence", it comes off as no surprise that he's portrayed as stupid.
  • Pig, the title character of Pearls Before Swine, has a very idealistic outlook on life. This makes him a perfect Foil for his Straw Nihilist roommate Rat.

    Fan Works 
  • Bloodstained Hands And Hearts has Midori Gurin, who's optimistic of most if not all of the girls trapped in the Deadly Game to work together and survive.
  • Child of the Storm has Clark as an idealist who believes that Rousseau Was Right, befitting his roots. However, Good Is Not Dumb - he knows that there's plenty of bad out there, including plenty of bad people, who won't accept a Last-Second Chance. But damn, he's going to offer it to them anyway. Because, you know, Superman.
  • Code Prime: As in canon, Suzaku is this. Deconstructed further than in canon, though, because his tendency to see only the best in people means that he fails to recognize just how monstrous Megatron is, which also blinds him to how evil the Decepticons are.
  • Androgyninja's A Drop of Poison: One of Naruto's biggest issues is his heavily romanticized ideas of what the shinobi world is like. For instance, he believes that the only thing you need in order to win is sheer bloody-minded determination, and that retreating equals cowardice, meaning he doesn't Know When to Fold 'Em. Not only does he fail to recognize how easily he or his friends could be killed, he also struggles to grasp the fact that they have to be willing to kill others themselves. When he finally learns that Sakura has killed several times in order to defend herself and others, he's utterly horrified, angrily asking her how she could do such a thing.
    Naruto: I just don't understand—
    Sakura: Well, that's the problem, isn't it? You probably could have gotten away with knocking them out, or fighting them head on, and you never considered that maybe I couldn't.
  • Entropy: The Fate of the Hero System: Izuku Midoriya, despite claiming he wants to fix the problems with society, ultimately fails to understand the crux of the problem.
    Because he didn't care for such motivations, he'd overlooked this critical detail when he pushed for the Heroic Contributions Act, failing to realize to realize just how much heroes required external validation to function. His "Just do your best" mentality implicitly demanded that every hero should try to succeed in their goals without any consideration for the causes behind the obstacles they may face, and implied that any hero who failed to live up to their potential had only themselves to blame for it regardless of their circumstances. Most importantly, he idolized the hero industry far too much to even contemplate the idea that the field of heroism should be allowed to die out, even as he himself acknowledged and attempted to correct some of its flaws.
  • Blaine in Hunting the Unicorn to Fridge Horror-inducing extents. He would help anyone who asked without question, which puts his Chronic Hero Syndrome in a completely different light. Greg has a point when he tells Blaine how lucky he is to have met Kurt, and that "all Kurt did was fall in love with him." As it turns out, people have taken advantage of his clueless nature before.
  • Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls: Sombra and Twilight Sparkle discuss this trope in regards to Twilight Velvet. He says that she was this when she was a part of Xcution and, like Twilight, wanted peace between the Quincy and Soul Society. However, he also says that she became jaded due to Soul Society's actions, turning into the woman she is today. He thinks that the same thing will happen to her. Twilight, naturally, doesn't believe him.
  • Saori Tagawa from The Ikaris is a marriage counselor who boasts she has NEVER failed on saving a marriage. She also has a very idealistic outlook on love and marriage. Attempts to talk her out of it are met with a Shut Up, Hannibal! sharp retort.
  • In Mega Man: Defender of the Human Race, Brain Bot hopes that the Stardroids are peaceful to the point of wondering if they're in trouble when they arrive and is very disappointed when they turn out to be hostile.
  • Mako in Natural Selection comes across as this to the likes of Houka and Nonon. While she's under no illusions that she's working for a tyrant with the blood of countless people on her hands, her insistence that she can help Ryuko become a better person baffles the more cynical and worldly of the cast, who deride her as painfully naïve.
  • Princess of the Blacks:
    • Danny, Hermione, and Ron are at least as idealistic as canon despite the setting being Darker and Edgier. Notably, they're convinced that they can get Hagrid exonerated after he admits to kidnapping and smuggling a giant across international borders (both very serious crimes) to an auror. Naturally, they fail.
    • The Order of the Phoenix in general and Dumbledore, in particular, are fully convinced the Death Eaters might redeem themselves and thus shouldn't be killed. Contrast Narcissa who openly laughs at the idea that Draco has made a Heel–Face Turn and claims Draco only told Dumbledore what he wanted to hear.
    • Luna is a milder example, noting how she always believed that evil people were only ever pure evil and that those who appeared to be anything else, would be Obviously Evil upon being unmasked. Unfortunately for her, she lives in a world of Black-and-Gray Morality and Jen wasn't pretending to be her friend or to love her.
  • Some Semblance of Meaning (The Hunger Games):
    • Vale, the heroine, has a prominent idealistic streak. Back in her home district, she used to make up stories full of idealism, and even in the midst of the Hunger Games, she desperately wants to believe that there is good in everyone (despite what the "pragmatic voice" in her mind says). She undergoes quite a bit of Break the Cutie but never gives up her belief in the underlying potential for good in humanity. She eventually dies defying the Capitol in the hopes that it will prove a point to those watching, and in fact, this action does plant the seeds for the rebellion that occurs thirty years later in The Hunger Games canon.
    • Another example: District One's Obsidian is quite idealistic for a Career. For example: "Growing up and hearing stories of Hunger Games past, they had seemed like so much fun, adventures with fantastic, unimaginable riches and eternal fame as the victor's reward. A dream come true for a small, idealistic boy with a 'bright' future as a Career tribute lying ahead of him." However, in the arena, he experiences some Break the Haughty when the brutality of the Games come into conflict with his expectations and beliefs. He ends up winning the Games after Vale's death, but as a very broken shadow of the carefree Career he once was.
  • Téa from Ultimate Re-Imaginings, right to the point of trying to brush off Joey's claims that his father was abusive, all the while he was sitting in a hospital bed.
  • X-Men: The Early Years: Scott Summers' parole officer Carol is cheerful, optimistic and determined to help every troubled child. She freaks Scott out since he can't believe a public servant might be idealistic.
    Scott Summers: Carol's my parole officer. She comes up here to get a status report once a month. She's young, just out of school, perky, idealistic, and determined that she can save every troubled child. I can deal with her being young and right out of school. It's the cheerful, idealistic, and perky part that I have a hard time with. She's part of the juvenile justice system for God's sake, they're not supposed to be idealistic. Carol's a freak anomaly. I hate anomalies.
  • You Can't Take the Sky Away from Me: After his wide-eyed idealism and trust in the military is shattered when the military frames him as a spy and strips him of his position despite his attempts to be good, America bursts into tears.

    Films — Animation 
  • A given with La Muerte from The Book of Life, since she believes that the heart of humankind is essentially pure.
  • A Bug's Life: Flik doesn't once stop thinking that the Ants can have a better life.
  • Felicity in Felidae who seems to believe good in everyone despite being blind. Unfortunately...
  • Frozen (2013): Reconstructed with Anna. She's extremely idealistic by nature and naive. She thinks Hans is her One True Love after less than a day, only to find out he's a murderous, manipulative Gold Digger. She also believes her sister Elsa is just misunderstood when the latter freezes the whole kingdom, but turns out to be right. By the end of the movie, she's become more discerning and realistic but still retains her idealism. The casting call for the Broadway version even outright says "her greatest flaw – and her greatest strength – is her faith in love".
  • Ratatouille: Gusteau is an optimist by nature, and recognized that anyone might have an unexpected talent.
  • Marianne from Strange Magic starts out like this. She happily proclaims that once she becomes ruler she'll be able to successfully negotiate with the goblins so that everyone can go wherever they want to, brushing over the longstanding fantastic racism on both sides and security problems that would lead to. She's much more cynical about the goblins and everything else after she finds her fiancée cheating on her.
  • Russell in Up, to the point that he spills Kevin's existence in Muntz's airship.

    Films — Live-Action 
  • Jurassic Park (1993): Hammond's greatest flaw is his persistent naiveté. He wanted to create something special and unique to capture the imagination of the planet but didn't account for human error and the unpredictability of wild animals.
  • MonsterVerse:
    • Monarch are seen as this In-Universe by government and military authorities, but it's actually played with or averted by them.
      • While Dr. Serizawa is the only one who seems to understand that allowing Godzilla to take down other Titans might be both a viable option and the wisest course of action, he at first does so because of naturalistic philosophy. Worse, he continues to push for leaving it all to Godzilla, even as the humans disadvantaged him by feeding the MUTOs nukes, and doesn't abandon this philosophy in the sequel, even because Ford Brody turned the tide in his favor.
      • Serizawa's partner Vivienne Graham has no illusions about how dangerous some of the Kaiju she studies can be, but it gets showcased in the Godzilla (2014) novelization that Vivienne isn't as stoic or grim as Serizawa is and is less critical of human interference in nature.
      • In the aforementioned novelization, Dr. Whelan gets an Adaptation Personality Change which turns him into this.
    • In Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Madison Russell admires the Titans but she's also this at the start of the film, helped by her mother's influence. Emma admittedly sugarcoated the Titans' temperament to Madison, only giving her exposure to the most benevolent Titan of all, and this made her think the release of all the other Titans won't be a problem. However, Madison has never had any first-hand exposure to any evil Titans until Ghidorah is freed — just seeing him and the damage he quickly causes is enough to make Madison realize that some of the Titans may not be nearly as nice as Emma led her to believe.
  • Terminator:
    • Terminator 2: Judgment Day: Miles Dyson is a far cry from the person you'd think would create Skynet. Indeed he sees only the possible positives of his creation. This may even blind him to the military applications of his invention or to the dangers of removing humans from certain decisions.
    • Terminator Genisys: In the Alternate Timeline, Danny Dyson is a Generation Xerox of his father described above.
  • Amy Adams's characters in Enchanted and Doubt.
  • Megan Davis in The Bitter Tea of General Yen is this for most of the film, but she learns her lesson in a harsh way.
  • Kaji starts out as one in The Human Condition, but is forced to become more cynical as a result of his fight to stay alive.
  • Renate Richter in Iron Sky thinks that all Hitler wanted was peace under his gentle rule. It's clear that she's been brainwashed by the Moon Nazis, and the film starts with her doing plenty of brainwashing of her own of young Nazi children, showing them a 10-minute version of Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator. Her idea of romance is to be genetically compatible with an Aryan man to produce perfect children. After arriving to Earth with her "fiancé" Klaus Adler (who has no such ideals and merely wants to conquer the world), she helps the President's re-election campaign by writing inspiring speeches straight out of Hitler's handbook (with gems like "we raise our hand to one nation"). She tries to convince James Washington (a black male model who was "albinized" by Renate's Mad Scientist father) of the Nazis' good intentions by showing him The Great Dictator, not realizing that it's the full 2-hour version. Her illusion finally breaks after seeing the film and a disastrous encounter with some skinheads spray-painting her "symbol of peace" everywhere.
  • Alice, the innocent younger sister from Last of the Mohicans.
  • In Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, all Mr. Smith wants is a Boy Scout camp and nature preserve on a piece of land. Too bad the rest of the Senate is against him.
  • Otto from One, Two, Three about Communism. He even thinks it's a capitalist lie that Siberia is cold, and is happy that the Communists assigned them "a magnificent apartment, just a short walk from the bathroom!"
  • Horrendously deconstructed in Europa by Lars von Trier: Leopold Kessler, a naive German-American pacifist arrives in post-WII Germany to help his compatriots survive the aftermath of the war. He is repeatedly bullied and resented by his own uncle, gets involved in intrigues between the American military and Nazi resistance, the woman he loves and eventually marries turns out to be a member of Werwolf, and after being betrayed and used by everyone, he finally snaps and blows the train with himself and everyone else in the movie, and drowns. What is worth noting, that train was the one he just saved from being blown up by The Remnant - and nobody is grateful to him.
  • Will Proudfoot in Son of Rambow in spite of having lost his father and being raised in a repressively conservative religious household.
  • X-Men Film Series:
    • X-Men: First Class: While Charles isn't exactly naïve, his idealism is accentuated by the fact that everyone else seems to have a far more pessimistic approach to mutant-human relations. It's suggested that this is at least partly because he hasn't faced persecution in the same way. It sets up a nice contrast with his portrayal in the previous films, where he remains idealistic but is a lot more cautious about it now that he's had personal experience.
    • X-Men: Apocalypse: Xavier has regained most of his cheery optimism from First Class, and Word of God even says that he has too much hope at the beginning of the story. By the end of the movie, he becomes The Idealist, i.e. he is no longer "wide-eyed," but he doesn't give up hope for peaceful coexistence between mutants and humans.
  • True Believer: Roger, and apparently Eddie as well in the past, which he regains by the end of the film (thus the title).
  • The Hunger Games: Prim, at first. She loses the wide-eyed part but keeps the idealism.
  • Wall Street: This serves as Bud Fox's Fatal Flaw. He is too wide-eyed about Gordon Gekko's schemes, as Gekko is solely driven by greed and wants him to obtain information by any means necessary, even if it's illegal. Bud also wanted to be like Gekko but doesn't realize the costs of having such a lifestyle until it was too late.
  • Boiler Room: Like Bud Fox before him, Seth is too naïve to realize that JT Marlin is actually a boiler room - it's a "pump and dump" scam, where the share price of fake or nonexistent companies are artificially primed up through bogus statements. Once the operators "dump" their overvalued shares, the share price falls and the investors lose their money. The film revolves entirely around Seth trying to get a legitimate job to impress his father, but this actually endangers his father's career as a federal judge when the feds get wind of it.
  • Aquaman: King Ricou of the Fisherman kingdom believes war with the surface is not inevitable and that Atlanteans should educate the land-dwellers. Whether this belief was naïve is hard to say, but it was definitely naïve to think Orm would take no for an answer.
  • Descendants: Prince Ben pretty much hinged on the universe rewarding nobility and courage. His first scene in the movie is him telling his parents Belle and the Beast, he wants to give four children of villains a chance to become better people and invite them into the kingdom despite their parents being some of the most feared and hated villains in their historynote . Of special note is when he spent time with Mal, which revolved around the idea that Mal is a lost being who just needs good influences in her life, as opposed to the evil spawn of villains she and her friends are painted as. Of course, everyone heavily doubts his move to give the villain kids a chance, but Ben doesn't let that stop him.

    Literature 
  • The young baby-faced soldier boy in All Quiet on the Western Front definitely qualifies. As should be completely obvious given the nature of the book and this page, he dies.
  • Alpha and Omega: Barb Taylor, an American volunteer for Eric's dig, is excited and optimistic about their work's religious impact while remaining unworried about the ensuring conflict.
  • Voltaire's Candide. Among many, many other examples in the book is Dr. Pangloss's thoughts on having caught syphilis, and having had an eye and an ear removed as part of the treatment:
    "O sage Pangloss," cried Candide, "what a strange genealogy is this! Is not the devil the root of it?"
    "Not at all," replied the great man, "it was a thing unavoidable, a necessary ingredient in the best of worlds; for if Columbus had not caught in an island in America this disease, which contaminates the source of generation, and frequently impedes propagation itself, and is evidently opposed to the great end of nature, we should have had neither chocolate nor cochineal."
  • Cosima from Comrade Death. She flat-out refuses to see Sarek for what he really is. He confesses to abandoning her husband to die, and later refuses to save her grandson from going to war, and both times she dismisses his spite as being concealed guilt and claims he would have helped if it had been in his power to do so.
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses: Tarquin hopes to someday abolish the gap between High Fae and lesser fae, making them equals.
  • The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids 's Ally-1243, until the events of The End of the Homeworld, seems not to have actually grokked the existence of evil people in the slightest. He does get through some Character Development there while retaining his quintessential optimism, averting Break the Cutie, even though his helpfulness has just been manipulated in a way that nearly destroyed the Homeworld.
    Ally-1243: "The way I figure it, kindness isn’t something you pay for. It’s not a reward for being good. It’s doing good. I always thought this… impulse of mine, to help people out, I always thought that must mean everybody I met was fundamentally good. That they fundamentally deserved it. And I, er, what happened today is making me rethink that. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t continue to be kind."
  • Drizzt Do'Urden in The Dark Elf Trilogy: Homeland; he gets mildly bitter during the later portion of the novel when he finds out that his favorite mentor Zak kills clerics by the dozens, not that he always enjoys it....
  • Daughter of the Sun: Orsina describes herself as an idealist who's dismayed how older paladins are often much more cynical, fighting with the Temple of Iolar (their organization, the Order of the Sun, is also dedicated to Iolar), wishing they could get along because after all they have a common faith and shared goals. She believes sincerely in her work as a paladin and their ideals. Orsina has to face dangers which challenge her idealism while the story's unfolding. Aelia takes advantage of her naive, trusting nature to deceive Orsina repeatedly and at length.
  • Tyentyetnikov starts as this in Dead Souls, tries to improve the lot of his serfs, with at best mixed results, and becomes apathetic in the end.
  • Discworld:
    • Dangerous Beans in the book The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, who finds his dreams of a rat utopia all but dashed, and learns that on Discworld, you have to Earn Your Happy Ending.
    • Subverted by Carrot Ironfoundersson. He starts out as a wide-eyed idealist... except that for some reason, his idealism somehow works. He can talk anyone into behaving like a friendly, reasonable person. If any other character tried it, they'd be dead. It works because he's big, strong, usually accompanied by city watchmen (including a troll and later a golem) and, most important of all, is fairly intelligent. Carrot is an actual idealist, rather than just naive like most of the examples here; he knows full well that Humans Are Bastards and simply refuses to be one himself. Also, the world does tend to warp itself around him. After all, he may or may not be the heir to the throne of Ankh-Morpork, and in a world chock full of narrativium, how can things not go his way.
    • In The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic, Twoflower, if anything, has an even more rose-tinted view of the world, to the endless irritation of his traveling companion Rincewind — and likewise comes to no harm. Admittedly, this is probably because he travels with a Cosmic Plaything, so all of the trouble they run into goes after Rincewind rather than him. After they part ways, he does get thrown in a dungeon to rot for being so wide-eyed, which supports that theory.
    • Reg Shoe is another Morporkian Wide-Eyed Idealist. In his case, he actually was killed as a result, as shown in Night Watch (Discworld), but that hasn't dampened his enthusiasm any.
  • Don Quixote severely deconstructs this trope: In the first part, Don Quixote cares more for fulfilling his fantasies than for anyone else. He is confident that the farmer Haduldo will stop flogging the boy Andrés and that the Galley slaves he liberates will be grateful enough to do him a favor. (They're not.) His actions make him the original Lord Error-Prone. In the second part, it goes From Bad to Worse: Don Quixote really acts For Happiness and after some adventures that convince him he is a real Knight Errant he must face the sad fact that he has not helped anyone and therefore, all those Chivalric Romance tropes were Blatant Lies. This is so heartbreaking that he becomes Bored with Insanity and dies. Being called "Quixotic" is not always a good thing.
  • Isherwood Williams in Earth Abides, although he's not a complete naïf.
  • For Want of a Nail features a nation full of politicians like this in the Confederacy of North America, a nation formed after the British Empire restructured their management of their colonies following The American Revolution.
  • Dorden, The Medic of Gaunt's Ghosts, has aspects of this, in trying to adhere to Thou Shalt Not Kill and preventing Gaunt from carrying out necessary Shoot the Dog despite their living in a Crapsack World.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Colin Creevey in falls under this with his cheerful, naive, and innocent loyalty to Harry at all costs.
    • Hermione also has her moments, with her working for House Elf rights even though they have Happiness in Slavery, much to the amusement of others who know better.
  • Peeta Mellark from The Hunger Games. At first. His idealism gradually erodes as the series goes on.
  • Tessa from The Infernal Devices, always compares her adventures to what she's read and hopes for the best of all situations.
  • The main character of Invisible Man is both this and a Love Freak, albeit with (absolutely desperate) followers. Since he's also a Horrible Judge of Character, he runs into a few problems . . .
  • Unsurprisingly, idealists don't fare well in Les Misérables.
    • In a twisted way, Inspector Javert. He might be a snarky hardass, but he has absolute faith in authority and the law, believing that no judge or politician has ever erred, that leaders can all be counted upon to have nothing but the public good in mind, and that whoever has met the harsh punishments of the justice system therefore deserves it. This runs up hard against the story's Morality Kitchen Sink, with fatal results.
    • Fantine loves Tholomyes and assumes he will care for her and Cosette, only for him to abandon her on a whim. She then trusts the Thenardiers to look after Cosette for her, and they mistreat Cosette and extort an outrageous amount of money from her until she ends up a prostitute and dies from tuberculosis.
    • Enjolras and the rest of Les Amis de l'ABC start a rebellion, believing that the people of Paris will rise and support them. The support never comes, and they all end up dead.
  • Moomin-"all I want is to grow potatoes and live in peace"-troll of The Moomins.
  • Toglio in Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead. Always thinking to himself about how he and his squad are "The good ol' boys", hard-working and patriotic. Then, of course, he gets his leg shot up to hell and sent home.
  • Kostya Saushkin in Night Watch (Series). He goes to medical school to try to find a cure for vampirism. However, since vampirism isn't actually a disease in this setting (he's actually undead), he fails. He does, however, succeed in figuring out how to quickly boost himself to High Vampire status using a special blood cocktail he comes up with. Normally, such a thing requires completely draining about 50 humans. He genuinely believes that he would feel more normal is everyone in the world had magical powers. Everyone else understands how asinine that idea is. Most people are far too irresponsible to be entrusted with magic. The world would plunge into chaos. He still tries to do it using the Fuaran spellbook, but attempting to open a portal to the ISS results in him missing by a mile and finding himself in orbit. The next book mentions that he burned up on re-entry.
  • In Outbound Flight, the smuggler Maris Ferasi fits this trope pretty well. She had the utmost trust in and adoration for the Chiss commander Thrawn. Unusually, she wasn't disillusioned within the book — Thrawn lied about what he had done to resolve an extraordinarily prickly conflict, letting her leave without knowing just how much of a Downer Ending the whole issue became. Why?
    Thrawn: There are all too few idealists in this universe, Car'das. Too few people who strive always to see only the good in others. I wouldn't want to be responsible for crushing even one of them.
    Car'das: And besides, you rather liked all that unquestioning adulation coming your way?
    Thrawn: All beings appreciate such admiration.
  • Rinaldo in Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian story "The Phoenix on the Sword," one of the conspirators of Ascalante's plot to overthrow Conan.
    "Alone of us all, Rinaldo has no personal ambition. He sees in Conan a red-handed, rough-footed barbarian who came out of the north to plunder a civilized land. He idealizes the king whom Conan killed to get the crown, remembering only that he occasionally patronized the arts, and forgetting the evils of his reign, and he is making the people forget. Already they openly sing The Lament for the King in which Rinaldo lauds the sainted villain and denounces Conan as 'that black-hearted savage from the abyss.' Conan laughs, but the people snarl."
    "Why does he hate Conan?"
    "Poets always hate those in power. To them perfection is always just behind the last corner, or beyond the next. They escape the present in dreams of the past and future. Rinaldo is a flaming torch of idealism, rising, as he thinks, to overthrow a tyrant and liberate the people."
  • Jane Bennet of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Her younger, more cynical sister, Elizabeth, is convinced that Jane's new friend, Caroline Bingley, deliberately sabotaged her romance with Caroline's brother in order to hook him up with the sister of his best friend Darcy — all to increase Caroline's own chance of getting hitched to said best friend. Jane remains convinced that Caroline is her affectionate friend and would never do anything to hurt anyone, and more importantly, never do anything less than beneficial to her brother's happiness. Obviously he must prefer Georgiana... It takes a surprise face-to-face meeting with Caroline for Jane to admit Elizabeth was right about her, but she displays the same naivete and belief in love and the innate goodness of man when Wickham seduces their youngest sister, Lydia—despite Jane and Elizabeth knowing that he's tried the same technique on at least two other girls.
  • Played with in Redeeming Love with Michael, whose Love Martyr tendencies make him look like this trope (especially when placed beside the noticeably more cynical members of most of the rest of the cast). The heroine mocks him for his idealism, and his brother gives him a lecture on how it’s going to ruin his life. However, even though he looks like this trope to everyone else, Michael is actually not ignorant at all, and he struggles with the seeming impossibility of the task that’s been given to him (healing the Broken Bird with The Power of Love). However, ultimately Love Redeems, and although it was a hard and very rocky road, idealism actually wins the day.
  • Zoë in Saving Zoë, and this trait is why her sister Echo believes she was killed by a serial killer who pretended to be a modeling agent.
  • A Song of Ice and Fire:
    • Sansa Stark, who bases her whole life around singers' tales, is a perfect little lady, gentle and trusting. Until the person she is starry-eyed over cuts off her father's head in front of her. And then MUCH misfortune followed.
    • Sansa's Trickster Mentor, Littlefinger is implied to have been even more idealistic than her as a child, having had a mischievous, adorable, and optimistic nature before his own Break the Cutie process. He hasn't handled it well... at all!
    • Less drastic but still quite there examples also exist with her siblings: her younger brother Bran especially, who believed in the same songs and stories as she did. His Break the Cutie process just happened faster.
    • Quentyn Martell has the mindset of a heroic fantasy and sees himself as The Hero who will succeed. But he is in fact unskilled to the task given to him. He was sent to Meereen to marry Daenerys, but he is unable to woo her, as he just isn't manly enough. His next plan was to try to tame her dragons thinking it would impress her, but he ends up getting burnt to a crisp for his foolishness.
    • Brienne of Tarth realized long ago that since no Knight in Shining Armor will sweep her off her feet, then she will be one. She quickly learns knighthood ain't what it's cracked up to be either.
  • Vance Turbo of Space Academy is the most noble self-sacrificing and heroic member of the Community Space Fleet (sort of) that he passionately believes is The Federation. However, he has a Downplayed Trope example of Wrong Genre Savvy as it's actually a much more cynical organizatoon that uses a lot of realpolitic.
  • Eustace Osgrey of Tales of Dunk and Egg truly believes Daemon Blackfyre's cause was just and that his fellow rebels are heroes, no matter how much this has cost him.
  • 300 adults decide to try to create the Just City from Plato's Republic by using 10,000 slave children in The Just City, the first book of the Thessaly series by Jo Walton. It works about as well as any utopian experiment ever tried, meaning the problems become rapidly apparent.
  • 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea: The Professor Aronnax must be constantly reminded that other people are not as good as himself. He really doesn’t want to believe that Nemo is doing something sinister, and Ned Land must remind him that the war ship that is shooting the Nautilus is doing it on purpose.
  • Jack Squarim, a character Rob has coffee with for one chapter in Asi Hart's Utopian Massacres is idealistic, from inexperience. He gets upset when the way of the world across the river is described to him.
  • Villains Don't Date Heroes!: Fialux believes that criminals are pure evil and if they can all be stopped that the good people will be able to rise above their problems. It takes her a while to understand that Night Terror was doing more good for the city as the top villain than Fialux does as its top hero.
  • God-King Susebron from Warbreaker. His entire experience of life outside his palace consists of having been read a book of fairy tales by his mother as a child. Semi-subverted in that while he does develop a more realistic view of the world, he never loses his almost childlike sense of straightforward goodness.

    Live-Action TV 
  • Phil Coulson of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a very idealistic man who believes that people are fundamentally good. His belief in heroes is seen as slightly old-fashioned (his favorite hero being Captain America, who is definitely an idealist), but it's implied that this fundamental faith in human decency is why he's described as Nick Fury's "one good eye" and why Fury is willing to go to such lengths to resurrect him. He's rather like the Token Good Teammate for the rest of SHIELD and, in an interesting example of Playing with a Trope, his idealism seems to be highly valued by the more cynical agents he works for and with.
    • It's implied that, while he's naturally inclined that way anyway, retaining his idealism is also an intentional strategic choice on Coulson's part. Many of the entities he deals with are either terrified and confused by their new powers or savvy antagonists who have plans within plans to deal with swat teams and superspy tricks. The former find his cheerful "it's OK, your power is cool, think of all the good it could do" attitude comforting, and it puts the latter on the back foot. The simplistic morality involved also puts him in the good graces of the Norse gods, which is a matter of great concern to SHIELD.
  • Angel: While running Caritas, Lorne firmly believed that anyone, human or demon, could turn their lives around if given sufficient guidance, and thus allowed everyone, even baby-eating demons, entry.
  • Lieutenant George in Blackadder Goes Forth, despite having spent three years in the trenches of World War I, is still mindlessly optimistic about giving the Germans a good bashing, and readily believes all war propaganda to be true. The grim reality of his situation (in particular, the event of "going over the top" he's been looking forward to for all the series) dawns on him when he realises that he's the only one of his class group left, all the rest having been killed. He goes over the top shortly afterwards in a Bolivian Army Ending. His response to realizing all his friends are dead is "Well, I guess I'm the only one left... oh... I mean, if it wasn't for the excitement of going over the top tomorrow, I might be a bit down!" Subverted when he says to Blackadder: "Captain, I'm... scared." Up until that point, it's not clear whether the whole thing was intended to be more of the show's black humor, or if it was actually supposed to be horrifying. That line cleared it right up. Then, it goes From Bad to Worse.
  • New correspondent Kristen Schaal played this (along with The Woobie) on The Daily Show. She was cruelly disillusioned in just about every appearance.
  • Daredevil (2015): Karen Page is possibly the most idealistic of the protagonists, and this manifests in her determinator style dedication to bringing down Wilson Fisk. It's dangerous, and it doesn't pay well (Karen ends up being forced to kill James Wesley, while allies like Ben Urich and Elena Cardenas get killed), but she knows it needs to happen because Fisk is a dangerous criminal.
  • A.W. Merrick and Reverend Smith of Deadwood. Since they both live in Deadwood this doesn't work out too well for either of them. Reverend Smith's religious faith is seriously undermined when he develops a fatal brain tumor and must question the purpose of his suffering. Merrick gets off easier, he's able to hang on to his worldview for most of the series but has to toughen up to deal with what life keeps throwing at him.
  • Kim Ga-on of The Devil Judge is an idealistic, virtuous young judge who fully trusts the system and the law. However, as the story progresses he learns about the corrupt rich people who run the country, and through assisting Yo-han his ideals are challenged. He finds out that people are way too complex to be divided into white and black.
  • Doctor Who: In "Turn Left", an alternate-timeline Donna is laughably naïve, among other things severely overestimating the value of secretaries as the world goes to hell.
    • In "Remembrance of the Daleks", this is why the neo-nazi Sgt. Smith remains a sympathetic character to some; he's not so much puppy-kicking bad as horribly misguided. He honestly thinks the Association is acting in Britain's best interests. When Ratcliff's pedestal breaks, Smith's actions are of someone who is utterly bewildered and desperate.
  • Game of Thrones:
    • At the beginning of the series, Sansa thinks she is going to be a fairy tale princess and that Joffrey is her Prince Charming. She loses more and more of her illusions after her father is executed and she's kept as a hostage in King's Landing. In Season 6, she tells Jon that she'd like to go back in time and smack her younger self for being so stupid.
    • Eddard Stark is wise in war and justice but is totally surprised by the amount of intrigue and corruption infecting capital politics.
    • As a child, Littlefinger was one of these. After all, the small and lowborn yet intelligent hero always gets the girl, right?
    • Matthos Seaworth holds a rather optimistic view of the world, believing that Stannis will win, the Lord of Light will rule all and everything will be just lovely.
  • In The Good Place, the Good Place Committee is ridiculously optimistic about everything, and just about everything makes them happy.
    Chuck: It is one of the great honors of my eternal life to be invited here, by you, today, for this momentous occasion. Now, who are you, and why are we here.
  • Detective Tim Bayliss of Homicide: Life on the Street. It's deconstructed in Season 2, where his partner Frank Pembleton points out that much of Bayliss's supposed naïveté is actually just an act he puts on out of self-righteousness and an inability to reconcile with his own dark side, and bluntly tells him that the whole doe-eyed act is only hindering his potential as a detective.
  • How I Met Your Mother has a deconstruction in Ted. Ted is a man who sees love and relationships through rose-colored glasses. He believes there's only one person for him out there, that will be completely perfect for him and that relationships, when is with your "The One", are easy and free of conflict. This is something that his future self actually lampshades to be unrealistic and that he ended up facing a lot of hardships because of this belief.
  • On The Inside Man, AJ is this. Mark Shepherd, who has been sent to steal data from the company he works at, doesn't understand why he would want to protect a company. AJ tells him that a company is just people.
  • Kamen Rider:
    • Shinji in Kamen Rider Ryuki, caught in a fight for a single wish, Shinji fights to try and stop this but learn he could not...
    • Kouta in Kamen Rider Gaim fights to save the earth... and in the end has to leave to a faraway planet after killing Kaito.
    • Keitaro in Kamen Rider 555 just wants to make people happy, which would be easier to do if he wasn't in one of the darker installments of the franchise. Compounded by the fact that (aside from one non-canon instance) he is incapable of using any of the Rider Gear despite how much as he'd like to.
  • David Shephard and Michelle Benjamin both fit this trope to a T in Kings although David seems to be growing out of it.
  • Legion:
    • "Chapter 22" affirms that Charles Xavier is idealistic compared to the more cynical Gabrielle.
      Charles: We can change.
      Gabrielle: People don't change.
      Charles: I don't believe that.
      Gabrielle: That's sweet.
    • In "Chapter 26", Charles admits to David Haller that wanting to see the best in people made him vulnerable to Amahl Farouk's deception.
      Charles: You're right, it's my fault. I've been naïve. [...] See, I came here for friendship. Because I've been to war, David. I've seen what people do. But this Farouk, he... He's a monster.
  • Medici: Piero de' Medici seems to genuinely not comprehend that the politics and justice of Florence are managed through an elaborate web of bribes, favors, threats, and blackmail, unlike the rest of his family. Never is this clearer than when he speaks in defense of his father, Cosimo, at his trial. Piero spends days researching to find some scrap of evidence to unravel the case against his father, only to have the document he finds dismissed as a forgery.
  • Dominic "Nicky" Hutchinson of Our Friends in the North has dreams of becoming a left-wing politician who will make a real difference to the lives of poor working-class people. First he joins the Labour party but quits when he discovers the levels of corruption within. He then joins an anarchist group closer to the extreme Left but quits when he realises that they're plotting terrorist acts. He then rejoins Labour and stands in the general election but loses thanks to a vicious smear campaign by his Tory opponents. Finally, he accepts that he is too nice for politics and abandons his political ambitions.
  • Oz: Tim McManus is idealistic to an unrealistic degree, often expect the best in people who are not to be trusted under any circumstances. However, his idealism also proves to be a good thing sometimes, leading to some prisoners genuinely reforming, or at the very least coming close to it.
  • In Quantum Leap, Sam's idealistic disposition fits this category to the point where there are times where he'd follow his own heart and his emotions to try to change history on his own terms for idealistic/personal reasons while ignoring Al and/or the main leaping mission at hand. In many episodes, things do work out for him when he does this, such as when he changed history so that Donna married him after all or when he changed history so that his brother didn't have to die in the Vietnam War. However, being too idealistic and emotional also came back to bite him HARD in episodes like "Deliver Us From Evil" where Sam nearly got himself and Jimmy killed simply because he let his emotions rule his head and only saw what he wanted to see in the evil leaper Alia, instead of picking up on the rather obvious clues that she was, in fact, the reason for why the Lamotta family fell apart.
  • The Resident: Manish Dayal's Dr. Devon Pravesh, an intern who on his first day performs CPR on a drug addict for an extended time only to leave her brain-dead, a whole lot of Break the Cutie ensues.
  • Scrubs:
    • Dr. Molly Clock. Subverted, however, in that her incorrigible optimism is undaunted in the face of the naked cynicism of Dr. Cox and Dr. Kelso, and even allows her to triumph against them.
    • J.D. himself might fit too, at least at the beginning.
    • And then there's the one-episode character from season one (played by Sean Hayes), who is eternally optimistic about the chances of a little boy in his care until finally he suffers a Heroic BSoD as he realizes nothing he's tried is working and the kid is going to die.
  • Star Trek: The Original Series: Edith Keeler in "The City on the Edge of Forever". If she had lived, her peace movement would have delayed America's entry into World War II and Hitler would have won.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • Naive, gentle Tora Ziyal, despite growing up as a prisoner of the Breen, despite being rejected by Bajorans and Cardassians for her hybrid status, still remains trusting and hopeful that she can somehow help, with her art that resembles that of both cultures, in proving that the groups aren't so different after all. She knows her father, Dukat's past, but loves him anyway, sincerely believing he's changed and keeps right on forgiving him. Too bad that choosing saving her friends over staying with her father gets her shot by her father's Dragon as a traitor. Dukat goes mad as a result.
    • When the Dominion War starts and they occupy Deep Space Nine, Jake remains behind to report on it. A few months in, he finds out the Dominion is preventing his articles reporting on their oppressive policies from being delivered to his publisher, and actually tries to invoke freedom of the press.
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • To some extent, Data. Not completely — he's good at being skeptical and savvy about more abstract situations — but has a tendency to be far too trusting and willing to get close to people who he knows personally or who behave in a well-meaning manner, usually resulting in injury and/or betrayal (e.g., Lore, Ira Graves, Ishara Yar, brainwashed members of the crew on various occasions). Considering he's an android, stereotyped as logical and dispassionate about things that could emotionally compromise normal people, this trait of his is almost a subversion. Or perhaps his programming isn't designed to pick up on "sketchy vibes".
    • Gia in "Thine Own Self". Even while sickly and barely able to move, Gia believes that Data isn't trying to hurt anyone. Of course, he'd done nothing to make her think he was doing them any harm, making it justified.
  • Supergirl: In season 4, Lena is absolutely convinced that the only reason people are racist against aliens is that aliens have superpowers and humans don't, and that if she gives humans powers it will avert a civil war. Multiple people point out that it will just result in evil people getting a hold of those powers, no matter how careful she is, and make everything worse.
  • Supernatural:
    • Sam Winchester used to be this, especially in the first season. This was a contrast to Dean's cynicism. It doesn't last long though and any last remnants of it are crushed forever after Dean's Deal with the Devil.
    • Despite trying to act like a badass, Jo Harvelle starts out with very naive misconceptions about hunting because of drunk hunters making stuff up to try to impress her, which Dean calls her on. By the end of her first hunt in "No Exit", she's considerably shaken up and admits to Sam that it wasn't how she thought it'd be, but still thinks it's worth it because they saved someone's life. Eric Kripke described her as an enthusiastic, innocent girl who takes a "girl-next-door" approach to hunting.
    • The angel Samandriel still believes after all the damage Castiel caused that he was only trying to make things better.
    • Castiel, for all his badassery in Season 4, is this. He believes in Heaven's mission completely and follows orders without question. Even after he begins to question his orders and rebels, he maintains that the solution to the Winchesters' problems is to find God. He is completely devastated when he finds out God is aware of the situation and doesn't care.
    • Jimmy Novak, Castiel's vessel, was a man of faith who believed that Castiel choosing him as a vessel was a noble cause. This makes his eventual fate far more tragic.
    • Man of Letters Peter Jenkins wants to play a role in fighting evil without yet understanding what that may mean.
    • Chuck reveals that he used to be like this. Even when he was with his sister, Amara, he chose to create life because he wanted to show her something beautiful, something that could make her believe in something besides destruction. It didn't work. Chuck even calls himself stupid and naive for even trying. It probably was the root cause for his Face–Heel Turn as he grew apathetic for his creations slowly.
  • Sam Seaborn in The West Wing. Often, he creates idealistic scenarios and goals that sound wonderful, but when he presents them to Leo or the President, they are shot down because of being impractical, a waste of time, or just plain dangerous. He also is very trusting and naive, which gets him into trouble on a frequent basis. Often, as in the case of a public education plan he developed that would have been revolutionary, he completely forgets to factor in a budget, accidentally assuming that there are no limitations. Ironically, this makes utter sense, as this seems to be the most glaring problem with the entire American Dream.
  • Young Sheldon: In "Freshman Orientation and the Inventor of the Zipper", Pastor Jeff thinks maybe raising children will be the biggest adventure of his life. George is certain that won't be the case.

    Music 

    Professional Wrestling 
  • Aja Perera during her rookie years, or at least in Valkyrie Pro, to which she was enthused to make a 14-hour drive to, seeing such drives and wrestling matches as great ways to make friends.

    Tabletop Games 
  • In the backstory of the old BattleTech world, the last First Lord of the Star League, Richard Cameron was orphaned as a boy, and grew up with an idealistic Arthurian vision of his supposed role as head of the multi-kingdomed, federal empire. Since politics in the Battletech universe are much more realistic than that, he was the worst possible choice for the critical throne at the worst possible time, and catastrophe followed. Not helped by the fact that an Evil Chancellor, who would later go on to kill Richard and bring the Star League to ruin, was warping his mind and constantly clouding his judgment towards said idealism.
  • Warhammer 40,000
    • The Tau started out pretty close, before the inevitable grimmification. They still qualify in that galaxy, even though in any other they'd be the bad guys the heroes have to stop at all costs.
    • Also the Chaos God Nurgle, in a very weird way, despite being the embodiment of despair (and possibly love). Nurgle is a Friend to All Living Things... it's just that bacteria, rats, and other vermin are so much more numerous.
    • His opposite number, Tzeentch subverts this pretty hard (despite being the embodiment of hope, of all emotions). He represents the desire for things to change, and as such is the patron god of mutants, sorcerers, and traitors.
  • Princess: The Hopeful: Princesses of Mirrors will often fall under this trope, in contrast to The Idealist Radiant Princesses. While the Radiants are idealists, they do acknowledge that they live in A World Half Full and that they will need to Earn Your Happy Ending. Mirrors, on the other hand, teaches that there is no such thing as a no-win scenario, that hard choices only mean that you're not looking hard enough for the perfect answer, and that the Princess of Mirrors can fix everything by herself.

    Theatre 
  • Anthony Hope in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is as idealistic as Sweeney is cynical. And then he gets bashed (literally, in some cases) down by Judge Turpin and the Beadle. And he is still idealistic, even though everyone — even his er, bride, Johanna, tumbles down the Sliding Scaleof Idealism Versus Cynicism. And it can be viewed as all HIS fault. It should be noted, though, that Anthony Hope is one of the few characters who is still alive at the end.
  • The League of Youth by Henrik Ibsen has the young attorney Stensgaard. He wishes to make things better by creating a new political party, and thus gather the young forces against the "old regime". As it happens, he is led off course by older and more experienced politicians, who actually do it to preserve the status quo and their own positions. At the end of the play, he is run out of town.
  • Urinetown has Hope "Life should be beautiful" Cladwell, who overthrows her Archnemesis Dad while paying little heed to how his Repressive, but Efficient regime worked.
  • In Anyone Can Whistle, Hapgood confesses to Fay that being this was what made him functionally insane:
    "Until this morning, I was probably the craziest man in the world. Because I was not only an idealist, I was a practising idealist! Now that is mad; it's thankless; and it's absolutely exhausting!"
  • The Book of Mormon:
    • Elder Kevin Price truly believes that spreading the word of Christ (specifically of Latter-Day Saints theology) is as simple as confidently proclaiming it to all around him. He eventually becomes entirely disillusioned by it when Surprisingly Realistic Outcome occurs and no one is receptive to stories that have no real relevance to their lives.
    • Nabulungi is a Ugandan villager who, while aware of the strife in her village, nonetheless believes that life can be better and as such she is the only one in her town who is initially receptive to the Mormon missionaries. She approaches a Despair Event Horizon when she learns that Elder Cunningham had completely bastardized the teachings of the Mormon church and thus the stories that he told were all fabrications, but her fellow villagers pull her back from the brink when they reveal that they knew all along that the stories were not real and had instead interpreted them as inspiring parables which had convinced them to become idealists.
  • The Hunyak, the lone innocent inmate from Chicago. She insists Uncle Sam will not put her in jail because Uncle Sam is fair and just. This is in a play that satirises how the media transforms murder into a form of entertainment and makes celebrities out of criminals. The Hunyak, being an immigrant who can't speak English beyond 'Not guilty' doesn't get that treatment so cannot hope to get a decent lawyer to defend her. As a result, she's the only inmate who gets hanged.

    Video Games 
  • PJ in Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War. Given Ace Combat tries to use "War Is Hell" as An Aesop, and he mentions his girlfriend back at the base... He dies.
  • "Will / Ed" from Advance Wars: Days of Ruin / Dark Conflict. His idealism arguably pushes him dangerously close to being an Idiot Hero, as he is often wildly optimistic and consequently sometimes fails to look at situations properly. However, his will and sheer determination in even the worst of situations often leads to at least one crowning moment of heartwarming. Case in point — mission 16, which starts off with desperate music playing pushing ever closer to the Despair Event Horizon, when suddenly Will/Ed decides he's going to fight, and the music changes from desperate to sheer awesome.
  • This is occasionally implied to be the case with Batman in the Arkham series, such as one instance in Origins where he encounters a homeless person being harassed by the police and tells him to go to a shelter. The homeless man tells him that the police find them at the shelters, and goes on to say that the teenage villain Anarky, who has a very simplistic worldview, still is able to understand some things about the poor's situation that Batman doesn't.
  • BioWare usually includes at least one in the party, who is usually also young and female.
    • Aerie from the Baldur's Gate series, as becomes apparent if you put her in a party with Keldorn, Haer'Dalis or Jaheira.
    • Mission Vao from Knights of the Old Republic. Despite being a product of one of the galaxy's worst Wretched Hives, she is a cheerful girl who's higher on the Karma Meter than the party's Jedi and is the first to support the Player Character after the Tomato Surprise hits. Shame on you again Dark Side players, killing a teenaged girl like that!
    • Dawn Star in Jade Empire. Closed Fist practitioncers can change her outlook.
    • Tali and Liara in Mass Effect (Liara, in fact, is the party member who always promotes the Paragon option in every situation, regardless of who she's teamed with), less so in the sequel. Kaiden is a lesser example- he's very idealistic, but he's also a military officer who's seen some very bad things and knows firsthand that the galaxy is not a nice place.
    • Leliana in Dragon Age: Origins is an inversion. While definitely cheerful and idealistic, she used to be much more cynical and manipulative in her role as a spy and assassin where she prided herself on her ability to "be the woman" her target was looking for in order to get close to them. Her current role as a lay sister in the chantry is her Becoming the Mask, although her old teacher would have you believe otherwise. As with Jade Empire, you can encourage her one way or the other.
    • Fenthick in Neverwinter Nights, so much that he cannot comprehend evil. This leads to tragedy when it's revealed that he was unknowingly helping The Mole the entire time. His fate? Found guilty of "negligence", then publicly executed to appease angry citizens of the city. Linu is a lesser example.
    • NPC rather than party member, but Dragon Age II has Seamus Dumar. He's an outspoken opponent of the unthinking fear the qunari in Kirkwall inspire, and believes in bringing the two sides closer together (no easy task, since qunari aren't that approachable themselves). Too bad he lives in a Wretched Hive and his father is a well-meaning Slave to PR. Mother Petrice has him murdered and tries to frame the qunari for it to spark a race war.
  • In a world that is in effect suffering the final stages of a cancer, Solaire of Dark Souls fame is as cheery and upbeat as they come (and unlike a few others, doesn't try to kill you). Being essentially (as many pointed out) the cooperative type player archetype, he is always nice to you and is eager to help with a boss battle. However, true to the tone, he undergoes a Heroic BSoD at his failings to find his purpose and if steps aren't taken, will be possessed by a Chaos Bug, forcing you to kill one of the nicest characters in a dying, bleak world.
  • Brother-Sergeant Thaddeus in Dawn of War II, with most of his older and wiser fellow sergeants pointing out his relative naivete at several points. In the Expansion Pack Chaos Rising, Thaddeus will go rogue if his Corruption level is the highest in the squad — unlike all the other squadmates, who go rogue over Necessarily Evil reasons, Demonic Possession or over bitterness, Thaddeus' corruption is revealed to be over his idealism — he willingly believed the word of a daemon.
  • The Deus Ex series has this in spades:
    • JC Denton starts out the game this way. He's sent directly from training to a terrorist situation on Liberty Island and believes that UNATCO is a paragon of law enforcement and justice. When the NSF commander (Leo Gold) at the end of the level tries to debate him about ethics, JC is adamant that UNATCO can do no wrong and justifies their treatment of the NSF. It only takes about a day before he's forced to confront his employer's atrocities, and eventually switches his loyalties to the NSF when they activate his brother's killswitch. As a result, he takes on a much more cynical and snarky view of the situation.
    • Sam Carter is also this. Acting as the quartermaster for UNATCO, Carter always stresses by-the-book approaches to hostage situations and non-violent solutions. When JC is escaping UNATCO and tries to get him to join the resistance, Carter refuses to hear JC's explanation and says that all it needs to get back on track are a few good people. He's later dumped unceremoniously by the company after Walton Simons assumes control and admits how he was naive in believing they could change anything (which prompts him to help the Vandenberg scientists).
    • In Deus Ex: Human Revolution, David Sarif is this to an extent. In a world of high tech cybernetics, ruthless conspiracy, and corporate warfare — signs that would warn an individual that they're in a Cyberpunk setting - Sarif believes that the best thing to do with augmentation technology is to remove all restrictions on it and that doing so will help the people of the world. Of course, despite the multiple endings, this is a prequel to Deus Ex, so we know that all four endings will result in the exact same scenario a few decades down the line. His belief that merging man and machine will create a better world is vindicated by the original game's Helios ending, where the hero merges with a benevolent AI.
  • Disgaea:
    • Flonne falls under this trope. She never ceases to be an overoptimistic idealist who believes that demons can love and that Seraph Lamington is a good guy. In the best ending she's absolutely right.
    • Her Expy, Marona from Phantom Brave definitely fits into this (despite her situation).
  • In The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Master Thief of the Thieves' Guild, Gentleman Jim Stacey is one. His belief in the Bal Molagmer (Just Like Robin Hood thieves who practice Karmic Thievery) is entirely personalnote , and the other Guild leaders don't practice it. Depending on how you play the game, he may also end up getting killed by the other local crime group and rivals to the Thieves Guild, the Camonna Tong.
  • Endless Space has several of these. The Amoebas, Sophons, and the human Pilgrims who have traits like this. Amoebas and Pilgrims believe in mutual understanding, the Sophons prefer to focus on exploration and science. That said they are all Martial Pacifist, and they are not afraid to fight back if need be.
  • Poor Sigurd from Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. He charges into bandit territory to rescue his childhood friend, falls in love and marries a beautiful maiden, and some time later charges back into the fray to rescue another friend. Unfortunately, Augustria is way more political than Verdane, and Sigurd's actions aren't seen as quite so heroic. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
  • Godzilla Unleashed: Commander Tagaki wants to try and work together with the Kaiju to save the earth from the aliens.
  • Tahlkora from Guild Wars: Nightfall. "I signed on for the heroic songs and the praise. I did not sign on for the blood-sucking bugs."
  • The Kingdom Hearts series plays with this trope, ultimately subverting it: Sora is so idealistic that villains often take advantage of his do-gooder tendencies and manipulate him in various ways. The villains all insist that the protagonists are Wide-Eyed Idealists who should just give in and admit that the world is nothing but darkness at its heart. A notable example is in Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories when Sora is manipulated into erasing his own memory. Ultimately, his idealism and his bonds with friends protect him.
  • Amelia in Love & Pies usually remains hopeful throughout her investigations, but she suspects that Sebastian Corps, corrupt CEO of Global Megacorp, sabotaged the brakes of her great-aunt Esme's van. Her suspicions fly out of the window when he tells her that he's her father, and she refuses to believe if he's actually the culprit. However, Esme warns her that she might be too optimistic for her own good because "[she] can't trust ANYONE. Everyone here has a secret."
  • Kana Rua from Pillars of Eternity. Most party members are world-weary, scarred sorts with various traumas. Kana Rua is a young idealist on a quest for a lost tablet written by a great scholar, hoping to find it and end his people's xenophobic age by proving the world is more united than they thought. Depending on how the game goes, this idealism can either end up shattered or be tempered and strengthened.
  • Grovyle from Pokémon Mystery Dungeon may not be overly positive, but he does cling on to hope for a better future.
  • Luisa Fortuna in Red Dead Redemption is an exceedingly idealistic individual in the Crapsack World. She genuinely believes in rebel leader Abraham Reyes, who John quickly learns is a Glory Hound with a penchant for Meaningless Meaningful Words and chastises John for working with Allende when he constantly makes it clear that he's Not in This for Your Revolution.
  • Edge Maverick of Star Ocean: The Last Hope. A big part of his Character Development is dropping the "wide-eyed" part of the trope, becoming an idealistic character who functions in reality.
  • Undertale: This is the real reason why Undyne won't let Papyrus join the Royal Guard. He's surprisingly strong, but he's so kind and innocent, and so dead-set in his belief that everyone can be a great person, and everyone is a potential best friend, that she knows he could never hurt another person. You get to see the full depths of his idealism in a Genocide run. After witnessing your horrific behavior, Papyrus offers to just let you go without fighting, no strings attached, because he believes that with a bit of guidance from a good friend like him, you can be a good person again. Should you take him up on it, he's delighted and relieved and says you're already improving. If you don't and continue on your Genocide run, he still smiles, and says he still believes in you, encouraging you to be better. Many players have admitted to aborting or resetting an attempted Genocide run because of Papyrus, unable to bear hurting him after seeing just how unconditional his love is.
    Undyne: He'd get ripped into little smiling shreds.
  • Virginia Maxwell from Wild ARMs 3 is idealistic to a fault as she heads out into the wasteland in search of justice. Her ideals get torn to shreds pretty early on with near-constant betrayals by Janus Cascade and being constantly berated by Maya Shroedinger. Even her own allies believe she has more heart than sense. However, later in the game she matures her ideals rather than abandoning them so they become more practical but still optimistic.
  • Anduin Wrynn from World of Warcraft displays the qualities associated with this trope. Despite the chaos in his past and his father's stubborn vehemence toward the Horde, Anduin firmly maintains that "both [his] people, and the Horde, are essentially good." His benevolence toward both the Alliance and the Horde is unchanged even by his near-death at the hands of Garrosh Hellscream, the present Warchief of the Horde at the time. It is even implied during a vision from the draenei prophet Velen that Anduin may lead the forces of Light during the final battle against the Burning Legion, placing him in direct contrast with Sargeras, who views the denizens of Azeroth- the Alliance and the Horde by extension- as corruptible and impure.
  • Kasandra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 considers herself the luckiest Blade alive and prides herself on being able to see the silver lining of every cloud, even though it's actually her bad luck causing those clouds to form in the first place.
  • Xenoblade Chronicles 3: When Noah first starts to go on his adventure, he has a positive view of the world, optimistic about how much more there can be to just fighting. Although he keeps this mindset throughout the entire game, Noah eventually learns that the world can be quite harsh at times.

    Visual Novels 
  • Discussed in Double Homework. Amy says that Morgan, despite her tough and cynical exterior, is this at heart.
  • Shirou Emiya of Fate/stay night, who wants to follow in his father's footsteps to become an "ally of justice" and enters the Holy Grail War to prevent civilian casualties and abuse of the Holy Grail. The end result depends somewhat on the route: His idealism remains unscathed in the first route, he chucks away the 'Wide-Eyed' part after a thorough examination of his ideal in the second route, and chucks away it all as meaningless to who he really is in the third. The latter ones are foreshadowed in "Fate" when he couldn't come up with a real answer about if what he was doing actually brought him happiness. Then again, judging by Archer's comments, the past he went through seemed similar to the Fate route, so there may be a pair of Jade-Colored Glasses waiting for Shirou there...
  • Komari from Little Busters!, who always tries to look on the bright side, has a childish temperament and hates sad stories. And then it turns out that this is because her brother, who was very sickly, tried to shield her from anything painful, only telling her happy stories. Even when he died, he convinced her that it was just a dream. While in good faith, this had terrible consequences - Komari repressed the sad memories, but they're triggered whenever she encounters death or blood, causing her to have a Heroic BSoD. The main development at the end of her route is her learning to take a more realistic approach and accept both the good and bad parts of life.

    Webcomics 
  • Franchesca "Kid" Martines from Angels 2200 is a textbook example. Not surprisingly, she almost gets booted off the squad when she can't bring herself to fire on an enemy fighter knowing she'd be taking someone else's life.
  • In El Goonish Shive, Grace is this in all things including nudity, and so was Susan before her Mercy Kill of the aberration. Literally so — her eyes change into her current half-droopy state when she looks down at his corpse, and while she still has wide eyes quite often, they do tend towards the "half-droopy". After the encounter of a weird kind with Jerry led to Freak Out, though, she now tends to have wide-open eyes more often than not.
  • Homestuck:
    • Play with in John Egbert. He's a wildly idealistic kid playing a game that's already destroyed the Earth and rendering it more or less uninhabitable, and being constantly accosted by literal Trolls who continue to call out the fact that the kids fail to win the game and nothing they do will change that. This doesn't seem to deter John in the slightest.
    • Then there's Jake English, who considers Erisolsprite, a vile-tempered Jerkass of the first order, to be a "friendly guide" despite the sprite in question emphasising how much he hates Jake in every other sentence.
  • In Just a Goblin, Nog leaves the safety of his village to find a way for adventurers and goblins can live in peace even though they've been fighting and killing each other for centuries. He's horrified when to learn that goblin body parts and linens are used to make commodities as part of Mulros Town's economy. He also struggles to comprehend how some adventurers kill goblins solely because they enjoy it. Despite this, he continues to cling to his dream of making peace between adventurers and goblins possible.
  • Lisa from Mechagical Girl Lisa ANT is one of these... only thing is, not only she still firmly believes her life is a Magical Girl anime despite all she's been through, but she doesn't even care about her robot outfit being actually a Humongous Mecha for ants.
  • Theo from The Noordegraaf Files has this as his main character flaw. He's never been through any true tragedy or loss in his life, and this makes him overly trusting and foolhardy. Given the fantasy world he's in is no fairy tale, he's in danger of getting himself killed.
  • Seiko from Used Books is a great example. She is constantly standing up for people the others deem as villains. She holds fast that people are basically good, even if they have done nothing but cause hardship. She also stops in the middle of a battle to bandage up an enemy someone on her own team just injured.
  • Nebula:
    • Earth keeps trying to befriend her hostile neighbors no matter how harshly they act towards her, and instead of being wary at the clear signs that there's something horribly wrong with Sun thinks that he's just going through a rough patch and needs some friendly support.
    • Pluto thinks that the rest of the solar system's All of the Other Reindeer attitude towards him and their (understandable) fear of the Humanoid Abomination Black Hole is all a big misunderstanding and that they can all be friends.
  • Three of the four kids who make up the Wyre Cats team in We Are The Wyrecats neatly fall into this category in the flashbacks, but life has not been kind to them.
  • Remi from Unordinary. She's a Nice Girl who seems to believe in Arlo's hierarchy establishing order at Wellston. As a result, she's developed a friendship amongst the school's Royals, such as towards, Arlo, Isen, and Blyke, under the belief that they're having a great time at school together. Unfortunately, her view doesn't extend any further than this bubble, which has left her completely oblivious to all the bullying that goes on at the school amongst the lower tiers. She doesn't even catch on that two of her close friends, Arlo and Isen, have treated the crippled John horribly. Once John starts attacking Royals as the masked Joker out of revenge, and to push forward his plan of destroying the hierarchy, she finally decides to act against Joker since she's unable to understand why he's targeting the Royals.

    Web Original 
  • A toned-down version of Penny in Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. "...a generally nice person whose idealistic attempts at solving the problems of their world turn out to go horribly horribly awry..." Do I detect a bit of irony?
  • Himei of Sailor Nothing was once a Genre Savvy Ascended Fangirl of Magical Girl anime... starring in a Deconstruction of Magical Girl anime. She quickly learned (by the beginning of where the story picks up) that the job is not so much fun as it looks. Aki fills the role after Himei has become thoroughly jaded.
  • Tragically, we see in Scooby-Doo that The Nostalgia Critic was like this as a seventeen-year-old, happy and bouncy and positive everything will get better. They will, but not for a long time.
  • Springhole:
  • Survival of the Fittest:
    • Chris Davidson from v4 may indeed be this as well.
    • One could easily make a case for Carol Burke as well, who seems to genuinely believe they are going to be rescued and the terrorists wouldn't get away with it a fourth time. To her, very few at her school would actually play, especially her friends. Heck, she trusts Reiko Ishida and gets killed for her troubles.
    • Orn "Dutchy" Ayers could also be interpreted as this. However, it's also a major reason why he's considered The Woobie; he's smart enough to know that although things should be good and he wants to do the right thing, things... aren't working out. As a result, he doesn't take things very well and spends a good portion of his time on the island in a Heroic BSoD, wishing he could save all his friends.
  • Vigilant: Somewhat subverted in that Wayne realizes the city is evil and needs a hero. However, Wayne believes that the vigilantes are the good guys, and is shocked by his idealism when V kills the man who killed her parents instead of turning him in to the police.
  • Dreamscape: Dylan is always willing to see the good in people, no matter what they may be like on the outside. Although just as so, those people are usually straight-up evil and he'll have to fight them.

    Western Animation 
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Zaheer of Sequel Series The Legend of Korra is a villainous example who merits inclusion here as well as under Well-Intentioned Extremist - he plans to topple the Avatar world's governments so a better world can rise from the ashes, but he seems to think that the world will naturally turn into a utopia as soon as those pesky authority figures are out of the way, with no other steps required. Things don't quite work out that way, and his assassination of the Earth Queen only leads to an even worse and more restrictive regime taking the place of the old one.
  • Clarence: The main titular character is like this, he’s able to look on the positive side and find the way of making anything nearly interesting around him despite some of the things that are quite opposite and based on his naivety, however there’s a point where he seems to take back because due to something that might be far too serious.
  • Silverbolt of Beast Wars started out as a starry-eyed idealist. He was so thoroughly chivalrous that he refused to hit or fire upon a female (Blackarachnia) even if his own life, or the lives of his comrades, depended on it. His naivete took its toll in the three-part second season finale where he refused direct orders from Optimus to capture Blackarachnia, instead going after her to help her dig up the Ark. This enabled Megatron to make it to the Ark easier and gain the access codes from Blackarachnia after threatening Silverbolt's life. Then Megatron went into the Ark and fired a fatal blast into the still dormant Optimus Prime's head, triggering a cataclysmic time storm that nearly destroyed all the Maximals and wiped out time and space. All thanks to Silverbolt's refusal to capture Blackarachnia. Later on, of course, everything gets cleaned up but Silverbolt's actions nearly led to the destruction of time and space due to his wide-optical idealism. In Beast Machines, this trope becomes subverted as Silverbolt is transformed into the villainous Jetstorm. Blackarachnia does bring him back but once Silverbolt returns, he no longer has the rosy outlook on life that he used to, becoming a bitter Anti-Hero for the remainder of the series.

    It should be noted that despite leading Megatron to the Ark the first time, his continued pursuit of Blackaracnia kept her on the Maximal side all through season 3 despite some close calls regarding her Chaotic Neutral yearnings. In fact, it's only because of his devotion that ultimately she becomes a real Maximal. This ironically is the only thing that saves the future yet again when she's the last maximal to survive a mental takeover of Optimus Primal, and thus she's able to save the ark from self-destruction.
  • The Fantastic Racism of Manhattan is particularly painful for Angela of Gargoyles, who was raised on Avalon where humans and gargoyles live in harmony. She also hopes more than is wise or reasonable that her mother Demona can change or be redeemed.
  • Charlie Morningstar from Hazbin Hotel has lived all her not particularly short life in Hell, being the daughter of Lucifer, and still somehow manages to be so manically idealistic she'll do a sugary singing number in front of other demons expecting to convince them of her plan to redeem sinners' souls at her Happy Hotel.
    "Inside of every demon is a rainbow,
    Inside every sinner is a shiny smile!
    Inside of every creepy hatchet-wielding maniac,
    Is a jolly, happy, cupcake-loving child!"
  • Jimmy Two-Shoes manages to be one of these in Miseryville. While he suffers plenty of Amusing Injuries, he usually comes out on top, with Lucius really suffering.
  • Spongebob from SpongeBob SquarePants is the most optimistic and kindest character in the show and it actually gets him through most things.
  • Steven Universe is this in spades. However, unlike some other Idealists, Steven Quartz Universe actually survives, making this a possible subversion.
  • Total Drama:
    • Owen always tries to see the good in everyone. Except Heather.
      Gwen: Have you ever had a bad thought about anyone?
    • Zoey also tries to view everyone in a positive light, no matter how much dislike they receive from others and is quick to forgive her enemies. However, this also leads her to having a Horrible Judge of Character and will cause her to be a bit slow in detecting antagonists.
    • Ella believes everyone is good at heart, even when they physically abuse her on a regular basis. Chris seems to be the only exception.
  • Zeta from The Zeta Project is naive and kind, always taking people at their word, a terrible judge of character who thinks the best of everyone and generally easily manipulated. It's due to being so young and having no knowledge of the world beforehand, and to be fair, his friends do try to help him get better about this.
  • In Transformers: Prime, Optimus when he was Orion Pax as Megatron's protege in the Cybertron civil rights movement. He ended up endearing himself to the general public compared to his mentor's more ruthless methods.
  • Subverted with Yoink from the "Yoink Of The Yukon" short on What A Cartoon! Show. Oddly enough, he survives, and his cynical partner Sgt. Farflung gets to be The Chew Toy.
  • Wally from Where's Wally? (1991) fits this trope to a T but manages to avoid the horrible death part. He's too cheery for his own good and his dog Woof has more common sense than he does yet he always escapes unscathed from his dangerous journeys.
  • The Simpsons:
    • In the early seasons, Lisa Simpson started out as this but as the series progressed, she became a Deadpan Snarker who has as much compassion as a housecat towards her own brother and Homer from time to time.
    • When Ned Flanders briefly became principal of Springfield Elementary, he eliminated detention and put the school on the honor system. Bart and Skinner had a good laugh about how the teachers were afraid to leave the faculty lounge.
  • Wander over Yonder: Wander himself. He believes everyone has good inside them, including any and all Galactic Conquerors. This often gets him into deep trouble with Sylvia having to bail him out at the last moment.
  • Jet Propulsion from Ready Jet Go! is perpetually optimistic and cheerful, and he believes everyone has the potential to be good. This is a subversion, as his overly positive outlook usually ends up prevailing.
  • Mabel Pines from Gravity Falls is a cheery Genki Girl who tends to believe the best of everyone and that any situation will have a happy outcome. One episode, "Boss Mabel", has her arranging a bet with her great-uncle involving her being the boss of his place of business for three days. In keeping with her all-loving, Pollyanna personality, prior to and at the beginning of the arrangement, she honestly believes that just being nice and letting the Shack's employees do absolutely anything they want will yield positive results. It doesn't work out as planned, and she eventually realizes that sometimes in life, you have to put your foot down. She spends the first half of the episode looking literally wide-eyed.
  • An episode of The Cleveland Show is all about deconstructing the trope with Junior as when Rallo reveals he was being scammed by grifters, Junior turns into a cynic. Roberta spells it out for Rallo that Junior was better off being an idealist, prompting Rallo to try and change Junior back to a 'chump'.

 
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Alternative Title(s): Wide Eyed Idealism, Straw Optimist

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Little Good

Abby always sees the good in everything, even if she's living in a place like New York City and working for Bitsy Brandenham.

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