Ambiguous Name: White Haired Pretty Boy

This isn't a character trope; it's an attribute given to certain antiheroes/villains, mostly.

So it is a characterization trope.

edited 23rd Feb '13 3:22:14 PM by Catbert

"certain" in the sense "some antiheroes/villains, who apart from this have nothing in common"

Well, let me grab a few examples to see what we get:

• Final Fantasy VII: Sephiroth: silver-haired. Originally revered as a hero, he went mad from the revelation and went to become an unrepentant villain. Even before his change, he was stoic, quiet and only close to a couple of people. Hair is meant to make him vaguely creepy and eerie.
• Berserk: Griffith starts out as a supposed hero, but even then, we get glimpses that he is in fact manipulating everyone for his dream. It is questionable whether he has empathy at all. His bishie design, white hair included, is a contrast to the more barbarian-like main character. After enduring brutal torture, his mind breaks and he sacrifices his entire team to demons in order to become the ultimate demon and main villain. Again, sinister and creepy, ends up off the deep end.
• Code Geass: Mao was a sweet little kid who only wanted to be around his mother/lover figure. He grows up into a sadistic, yandere stalker. White hair is again a sign of creepiness.
• Rurouni Kenshin: Enishi was a sweet little boy who adored his sister. When he witnessed her death, his hair turned white. From then on, he became sadistic, vicious, and hellbent on revenge. White hair is a sign of him turning evil.
• Yu Gi Oh: Bakura, Marik and Pegasus: All three have a Dark and Troubled Past, all three have the same type of supernatural powers, all three went incredibly evil and sadistic at some point.
• Final Fantasy IX: Kuja, otherwordly evil sorcerer trying to destroy all of creation. Very effeminate, narcissistic and ultimately nuts.

See a pattern?

edited 23rd Feb '13 3:58:51 PM by lu127

It's more that physical traits are used to highlight or foreshadow existing characterization. If there's an androgynous character with unnaturally white hair, their unsettling, otherworldly beauty is a tip-off that they're probably aloof and up to no good. Bringing them down to average appearance with a normal hair color doesn't (usually—there are always exceptions) affect their character or the plot in any way.

That's the way things go with a lot of the appearance tropes: they're based on stereotypes that have been built up over the years, and don't matter to the progression of the plot or the character development; they serve as a "tag" to point the viewer towards particular traits (or subvert those expectations, of course).

Okay, the characters seem to generally be sinister and tend towards insanity and sadism, yes? Not all of them were crazy, but Sephiroth, Mao, Griffith, Marik and Kuja are. And I guess Ryou Bakura was also kind of crazy. Accelerator from Index is sort of the same. He's definitely sinister and while not entirely insane he's definitely unstable and violent. Do we have more agreed upon examples to list to make sure these examples follow a consistent theme?

edited 23rd Feb '13 7:12:34 PM by Arha

I'm not sure about insane, but many of the examples seem to have tendencies towards being psychologically manipulative or insightful (Sephiroth, Mao, Kaworu, Akise).

Sesshoumaru from Inuyasha? Starts off as a villain, ends up as an anti-hero, never really loses his hard edge or violent streak. Barely softened by the Morality Pet little girl he picks up, he's cold, aloof, stoic, and very not-talkative. Oh, and he's a youkai.

edited 23rd Feb '13 7:23:38 PM by Nocturna

Contrast Sesshoumaru with his brother Inuyasha who has the hair colour, but not the pretty/effeminate thing and you get a better view of the trope. It's not just white hair that gets this personality. It's white hair and pretty/effeminate/young/beautiful. There's something else just a little bit other about them beyond just the hair.

I'd say another common personality with them other than being violent or psychotic is being cold, aloof, and detached. Even a lot of the psychotic ones act that way unless their composure breaks.

I don't know if Sesshomaru is an example, honestly.

^ I do think that a white haired pretty boy might frequently at least appear composed, cool and whatnot at first to hide their craziness.

edited 23rd Feb '13 7:41:30 PM by Arha

I'm struggling with names here. I like Sinister White Hair, but that doesn't get the Bishōnen part across. Sinister White Haired Bishonen? Too opaque to non-anime-fans (although it does strike me as being more common in Japanese works anyway)? Sinister White Haired Pretty Boy would be too long.

edit: I can read

edited 24th Feb '13 12:25:57 AM by InsanityPrelude

What about Sinister Silver Hair? It sounds pretty and it doesn't sound blonde.

Silver is generally used for more of a grey colour and sounds like it's talking about evil old men.

Sinister White Haired Prettyness is the only thing I can come up. And I have some serious doubts about it.

Honest question: What is it with this wiki and its strong aversion to more-than-four-words-long titles? I mean, it is a somewhat complex trope, and its components don't have any simpler names.

It's not an aversion to more-than-3-words trope names, it's an aversion against trope names which look just like a pile of adjectives.

It's an aversion to using laconics as names.

Even when it makes a lot of sense and is pretty much the most straightforward in describing the trope?

A laconic that is simply multiple adjectives tacked on to a noun sounds like a bad laconic to me.

Yes. Because it's boring, awkward and sounds weird.

And because strings of adjectives tend to encourage a lot of shoehorning and trope decay. They may be 'accurate' but they're also easy to abuse since people take a broad view of a lot of adjectives.

And finally, some of these overly explanatory names tend to convince people that the trope name alone is enough information so they start adding Zero Context Examples.

So, to put a number of points in order:

• White or silvery hair, usually long.
• Bishōnen
• Shady morality, from a dark Anti-Hero to a straight villain
• Quiet, aloof, detached
• Otherwordly, unnatural
• Sinister, creepy
• Will likely struggle with a Heel–Face Turn / Face–Heel Turn or the Moral Event Horizon
• If evil:
  • Sadistic, vicious
  • Rather unstable, maybe even Ax-Crazy

I think we ought to focus on the white hair, otherwordly-sinister aspects when we go for the name. As much as I loathe random Japanese in my titles, Bishonen will probably serve better than pretty boy for conciseness reasons, plus this is pretty much animation-CGI-comic specific.

plus this is pretty much animation-CGI-comic specific.

That does not mean that we can use Japanese there. There are plenty of non-Japanese examples there.

Do you have any non-Japanese animation or comic examples, or CGI that is not from Japanese games? I haven't found any.

I don't think the technicolor hair and pretty boy aesthetic is that popular outside of Japanese works.