Needs Help (titles crowner 25 June 2019): Woman In White

Mystical White Dress, perhaps?

Optimism is a duty.

> "Woman in White is a distinct character type. They are the "Other". The "Other" could be pure, insane, whatever, the important part is that they're not of this world. ... It fails to get across the fact that the character is supposed to be otherworldly in the first place. They're not necessarily important, but they are alien to some extent."

From the first post.

Why is this not good enough?

Also, it should not be Always Female. There is nothing about this idea that is necessarily gendered, other than the assumption that most writers think that way, which isn't necessarily true. I can think of several male examples that fit that description, and they don't fit it any less just because they aren't female. To think that only a female character could fit this trope is a case of Men Act, Women Are, or Men Are Generic, Women Are Special, and we should be encouraging writers to use tropes like this in a less gendered way.

... sort of Mystical White Hair but for clothes.

I made this Idolized Julius Kingsley icon back when Akito first came out, and now that the crossover is actually happening, I don't care.

Alright, lets see some male examples, then.

I am not disputing that there are male variants, but I highly suspect that this is mainly a female trope, especially in older works.

I understand the urge to keep things gender neutral, but I also think tropes should be descriptive, not prescriptive. If the trope is entirely or near-entirely gendered female, then it should be described as such.

Optimism is a duty.

Doing a wick check for Man In White, I stumbled on these male examples of a mysterious, deathly man dressed in white:

• Beta Ray Bill: Left on the brink of death after defeating Omega Ray, Bill's soul was transferred into the newly-dead body of Simon Walters after an encounter with a mysterious Man in White.
• Theatre/Elisabeth: Death wears white at some point of every production. In some versions he only wears white in the prologue and final scene, and in others he spends almost half the show in white.

Given this and the recent discussion, I think the way forward would be to create a new White Is Death supertrope, and rework Woman In White into being specific allusions to the White Lady ghost legend, as discussed here and here.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I think that could work.

Optimism is a duty.

I added the options from to the crowner. It looks like something has decent consensus in the crowner, but the crowner's broken so who knows what it is. Anyone know how to fix this?

There also seem to be way more crowner options than I remember.

Edited by naturalironist on May 17th 2019 at 2:01:20 PM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I changed most of the crowner entries back (someone already fixed one or two of them).

• Rename, redefine to "white-clothed character has already died, at least metaphorically" (yeas:19 nays:8)
• Create a new trope, White Means Death, to cover other examples of death-coded white characters (yeas:3 nays:1)
• Redefine Woman in White to specifically focus on the White Lady Ghost legend (yeas:1 nays:0)

Additional options are all in the red. Note that new options have been added sice the last recap.

---

I don't think option A and option C are mutually exclusive, and may be of benefit to do both.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

C is more specific than A. I suppose we could rework the description to include more discussion of C without making it a requirement for the trope.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

To me, "rename and redefine" and "redefine" are similar enough to "split" that I don't see them as mutually exclusive. Under that interpretation, Woman In White would be the trope for references to the legend and some other trope would be the "mysterious otherworldly figure who has metaphorically died". Naturally they would cross-reference each other.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

• Rename, redefine to "white-clothed character has already died, at least metaphorically" (yeas:21 nays:8)
• Create a new trope, White Means Death, to cover other examples of death-coded white characters (yeas:4 nays:3)

Additional options are all in the red. I'm hollering for the crowner to be called because we have one supramajority option and eleven days of voting shows the other options as being strongly contested.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

The recent re-write of Sandbox.Woman In White by ~crazysamartian seems to have done the opposite of this, making the desciption more general. This is consistent with the crowner, but the re-write removed all references to the ghost legend. Since making references to the White Lady ghost legend its own trope didn't get enough votes, it seems like we should lump them in Woman In White.

Suggested addition to the sandboxed description:

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I think that's acceptable.

Optimism is a duty.

I'd use "are similar legends" instead of "are specific variants of the legend".

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Updated the sandbox.

Since the thread voted to rename, here's a crowner for possible names. Feel free to add other options.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Thanks; it's hooked and the thread title's updated to reflect the change.

Updated sandbox to reference a recently-launched subtrope, Wight in a Wedding Dress.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Bumping for crowner votes. The most popular option is 6:3; gonna need some more participation to resolve this.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

Indeed.

Looks like we got a lead change; the new winning option is 6:2.

she/her | TRS needs your help! | Contributor of Trope Report

Bumping this; there's an Image Pickin' thread that will need to be resurrected if/when this thread resolves.

Ethereal White Dress is at 10:1; getting close to consensus.

Edited by naturalironist on Sep 27th 2019 at 2:44:08 PM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

1794 wicks to change.

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

1650.

Should Woman In White be made into a disambig to point people towards Fairytale Wedding Dress, Gold and White Are Divine, Virgin in a White Dress, Light Is Good/Light Is Not Good, Ethereal White Dress, Winter Royal Lady, White Shirt of Death etc.? Or just cut altogether once wicks are cleaned?

Edited by naturalironist on Oct 10th 2019 at 5:26:13 AM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"