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Clean up to match new definition NEW CROWNER 03/02/12: Greeneyed Redhead

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Zulfiqar Since: Dec, 2010
#101: Jan 11th 2012 at 7:14:02 AM

@helterskelter: Sorry, I arrived in this thread recently, so I've been only answering recent posts.

...the frequency in which a red-haired, green-eyed character is a main (or very important) character is not random.
Yes, this color pair is common in character design for some reason. Just like the orange-blue pair is common in poster design for some reason. But what is this reason? I don't know. No one knows. It's a just a trend.

It's a deliberate costuming trope that I believe is chosen to reflect the character's "specialness".
Are you implying that "special characters" are more likely to be Green Eyed Redheads than have other combinations of eyes and hair? I don't think it's the case. A "special character" is just as likely to be, e.g., a blonde or a brunette.

Furthermore, e.g., Mary-Jane Watson isn't a main character. She was initially a secondary character - a friend of the hero's blonde love interest. Then moved to his love interest after the blonde love interest died. Then they married. Then they became not married again, and MJ became a secondary character again - just as in the beginning.

Or the girl in the page image. Hawkgirl. She isn't even an A-list hero. She's a secondary character in most incarnations of JLA. And even if you take Hawkgirl per se, she started as a spin-off and sidekick of Hawkman.

Compare the live-action film  to the literature, anime, western animation, and video games sections—it's much smaller in comparison because it's much harder to find red-haired, green-eyed actresses.
And still, the trope's page explicitly states that this "trope" may be coined by a live-action actress, the same Maureen O'Hara you mentioned.

If I had to guess, it's also that, since the colors are so rare, it makes the character look more unique.
"Hey Bill, we have a character who's meant to be unique! How do we make her unique?" "I know, Bob! Let's make her a redhead with green eyes! Now that's unique! Nobody's ever done that!"

Red and green are the only two complementary colors that humans can actually have.
What about blue and orange? "Red" hair isn't actually red - most of the hues of "red" hair are orange. We could expect a lot of redheads with blue eyes - but there's almost none.

I believe creators choose this combination to reflect perhaps the importance of a character
See the MJ and Hawkgirl examples above. Sorry for just two examples, it's what I could think off the top of my head, being mostly a comic book nerd :)

why no one seems to have dirty blonde hair or mud brown hair, but platinum and chestnut.
Yeah, contrast in visual mediums is important. Actually, I think you found a genuine trope here! "In visual mediums, characters are more likely to have hair, eyes and clothes of more bright and contrasting colors" - it sounds like an actual trope to me. What do others think?

Routerie Since: Oct, 2011
#102: Jan 11th 2012 at 7:27:05 AM

That's far more of a trope, yes.

DragonQuestZ The Other Troper from Somewhere in California Since: Jan, 2001
The Other Troper
#103: Jan 11th 2012 at 9:14:09 AM

The purposes for this are 1) the bright color contrasts are appealing, and 2) it shows artists like this combination far more than it shows up in Real Life.

Those seem like trope purposes to me.

edited 11th Jan '12 9:14:30 AM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
Deboss I see the Awesomeness. from Awesomeville Texas Since: Aug, 2009
I see the Awesomeness.
#104: Jan 11th 2012 at 9:25:35 AM

More comic book examples: Natasha Romanov (Black Widow), Mary Jane Watson (Spiderman), Jean Grey (Xmen) as well as much of her family. I believe there are several others through out the Marvel verse. Personal guess is that Stan Lee really likes this combination.

Hawkgirl is much more of a Fiery Redhead, with the default green eyes that come with red hair in most western works. Although, if you want more DC, there's Barbara Gordon (Batgirl). In fact, if you read the new 52, specifically Nightwing, Dick Greyson recently had a relationship with an old childhood friend (I'll give you three guess as to her hair and eye colors), and they ran into each as Barbara was coming to crash at his place, which was one of those really funny moments.

edited 11th Jan '12 9:28:06 AM by Deboss

Fight smart, not fair.
Routerie Since: Oct, 2011
#105: Jan 11th 2012 at 9:28:40 AM

[up][up]The second's not a purpose, it's a cause. The artist is not trying to make a statement about artist tastes. We are, by making the page.

The first is a purpose, but that trope would be Contrasting Colors Scheme, of which red hair/green eyes is a single example.

DragonQuestZ The Other Troper from Somewhere in California Since: Jan, 2001
The Other Troper
#106: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:04:59 AM

"cause" is a reason for a trope happening, which is still a legit reason for a trope.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#107: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:07:52 AM

I think what we have here are two different definitions of what makes a trope.

A trope must have a purpose/deeper meaning for existing. Patterns without meaning are not tropes.

and

A pattern in media (that differs from real life) is a trope, albeit a shallow trope. Deeper meaning is not needed.

Our current site seems to support the latter more than the former definition. Changing to the first would require more discussion than just one TRS thread.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:08:22 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
DrMcNinja Batman Since: May, 2011
Batman
#108: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:20:06 AM

[up]Except it doesn't differ at all from Real Life. This characters are as common In-Universe as they are in Real Life. If Green-Eyed Redhead was common In-Universe then we would have what you call a trope: a pattern that differs from Real Life.

There are no heroes left in Man.
Arha Since: Jan, 2010
#109: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:23:52 AM

Yes, but the authors choose to use the combination on their prominent characters.

ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#110: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:24:47 AM

That doesn't make any sense.

Green-eyed redheads are relatively common in non-live fiction. They are not common in real life. That's a pattern that differs from real life.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
captainpat Since: Sep, 2010
#111: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:28:06 AM

[up] It's about individual works not fiction as a whole.

ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#112: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:29:05 AM

Why not? It is a pattern in fiction as a whole. A pattern in fiction as a whole is an Aggregate Trope.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
DrMcNinja Batman Since: May, 2011
Batman
#113: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:31:57 AM

@ Arha Your point is?

With the definition of trope that ccoa gave this is not a trope. With the definition above this is still not a trope.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:32:11 AM by DrMcNinja

There are no heroes left in Man.
ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#114: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:35:30 AM

Your explanation of why it isn't a trope didn't make sense, though. Reiterating that you don't believe it to be a trope doesn't make your position any clearer.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
Arha Since: Jan, 2010
#115: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:36:18 AM

No, it means it's a pattern formed by multiple authors who choose to have a certain rare combination apply to their characters, thus making it more common than real life. If it were up to me, instead of saying 'This isn't a trope' I would instead expand it to include multiple different versions of that for things that are rare in real life, but authors always pick for their protagonists.

DrMcNinja Batman Since: May, 2011
Batman
#116: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:41:13 AM

We don't trope something that happens in fiction as a whole. Fiction is not an individual thing that can be troped, it's a thing formed by multiple different works, and it's those works what we trope.

[up] You can't just compare something formed by multiple things to Real Life just like that. We only know one reality, fiction is infinite.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:42:37 AM by DrMcNinja

There are no heroes left in Man.
ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#117: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:46:34 AM

Except we do trope things that happen in fiction as a whole, all the time. All of the tropes currently on the Tropes in Aggregate YKKTW are exactly that. No Bisexuals, for example, is only a trope when you take fiction as a whole. The absence of bisexuals in any given single work has no meaning and no pattern.

And again, that doesn't make sense. We can easily compare the frequency that something happens in fiction to what happens in real life. It's kinda what we do. It's not the only way to spot a trope, but it's a tool we use all the time.

If you want to disallow tropes that are Only Tropes In Aggregate, that will take a site-wide policy change and needs to occur outside a single TRS thread.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:47:33 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.
DrMcNinja Batman Since: May, 2011
Batman
#118: Jan 11th 2012 at 10:58:25 AM

[up] No Bisexuals is something that doesn't happen. That means that we don't have to count the number of times it doesn't happen, just the times it does, as that's what is significant.

Green-Eyed Redhead needs the number of times it happens. And now, how many works can be out there? The usage counts mention about 350 links, but even though some of them are from indexes an all I'll say that there are at least 150 more we haven't listed, for a total of 500. It's an improvement of 42%, something quite respectable. Compare it to fiction as a whole now. Fiction as a whole means more than 50000 works pretty easily, and I'm sure I'm not even approaching the number of works out there. That makes this "trope" less than 1%, so it would be at least as common in fiction than in Real Life, if not less, when troping fiction as a whole.

Without a purpose to serve patterns in fiction as a whole can't be tropes, as, appart from Omnipresent Tropes, they wouldn't be used enough compared with the whole fictional multiverse.

edited 11th Jan '12 11:02:50 AM by DrMcNinja

There are no heroes left in Man.
Routerie Since: Oct, 2011
#119: Jan 11th 2012 at 11:09:06 AM

Yes, "tropes in aggregate" makes sense only for omnipresent or near-omnipresent tropes. Particularly trends so prevalent that we should list aversions and lampshading instead of examples.

DragonQuestZ The Other Troper from Somewhere in California Since: Jan, 2001
The Other Troper
#120: Jan 11th 2012 at 11:37:44 AM

You know, "it looks pretty, so we do it even more often than Real Life" does fall under Rule of Glamorous (as in we accept this being more common in fiction because it looks pretty).

And in case anyone goes "how often do artists do it for that reason?", I would ask why we need to know author intent for every example? If it's generally accepted to have the reason of looking nice, then we would need word of god to not be for that reason.

edited 11th Jan '12 11:39:29 AM by DragonQuestZ

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
captainpat Since: Sep, 2010
#121: Jan 11th 2012 at 11:43:18 AM

[up] Doesn't Rule of Glamorous only apply to things that are impossible or improbable?

Routerie Since: Oct, 2011
#122: Jan 11th 2012 at 11:48:56 AM

People interpret "Rule of Glamorous" to mean "glamorous" or "for the purpose of being glamorous." Same with Rule of Cool, Rule of Cute, Rule of Symbolism and Rule of Sexy. All are broken.

DragonQuestZ The Other Troper from Somewhere in California Since: Jan, 2001
The Other Troper
#123: Jan 11th 2012 at 12:06:54 PM

[up]That is what "Everything's Better With" actually means (but still needs work). Rule of Index states that the Willing Suspension of Disbelief of a given element is allowed due to a certain factor. In this case, a Green-Eyed Redhead looks nice, which means we accept it, even if it's not that common a color combination in reality.

I'm on the internet. My arguments are invalid.
DrMcNinja Batman Since: May, 2011
Batman
#124: Jan 11th 2012 at 1:15:09 PM

[up] What Willing Suspension of Disbelief is broken when a one or two characters like this appear in a work? I don't think anyone says "well, I know this doesn't exist but hey, Fanservice!".

If Green-Eyed Redhead was common In-Universe just for the sake of being some kind of superbeautiful species or something like that then yeah, it would be Rule of Glamorous. But it's not like that.

There are no heroes left in Man.
ccoa Ravenous Sophovore from the Sleeping Giant Since: Jan, 2001
Ravenous Sophovore
#125: Jan 11th 2012 at 1:21:29 PM

Yes, "tropes in aggregate" makes sense only for omnipresent or near-omnipresent tropes.

So you've said, but your arguments completely failed to convince me. A pattern is a pattern, whether it's large-scale or not.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

AlternativeTitles: GreeneyedRedhead
2nd Mar '12 6:51:34 AM

Crown Description:

Vote up names you like, vote down names you don't. Whether or not the title will actually be changed is determined with a different kind of crowner (the Single Proposition crowner). This one just collects and ranks alternative titles.

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