White Stallion is a trope whose description seems to saying that this is when a white stallion is used to signify something important about the social status of its rider — usually leaders, someone who senior to everyone else in some way, or heroes/The Chosen One.
The trope quote sets up the trope as being about renown — a person has to be worthy to ride the white 'steed', where 'steed' is neutral as to whether or not the subject is a stallion (high-spirited horses don't have to be stallions; they don't even have to be male).
The Laconic says 'Only the leader gets to ride the white horse.' but there's no reference to heroism or 'worthiness' of any kind.
However, looking at the examples, I'm seeing signs of the trope being used to list any white horse regardless of whether or not it's a stallion, regardless of whether or not it's to showcase the rider as a leader or hero and sometimes if the white horse is symbolic, but of a different symbolism to the trope. Many are Zero-Context Examples making it impossible to know what the relevance of there being a white 'horse' is to the work or character riding it.
Redirects to the trope seem to include 'White Horse' and 'White Mare'.
At the moment, I'm seeing a disconnect between the trope description, trope examples and trope redirects. The examples are in line with the redirects, but I think the redirects do not reflect the trope description. However, if this supposed to the wider trope that the examples and redirects suggest, then the trope description needs a rewrite to the extent of complete redefinition.
So, here's my question, is there a wider trope here and the trope name is inappropriate (because the examples are much wider than the idea that a white stallion depicts a leader or hero)? Or, are we missing a White Horses Are Symbolic supertrope, of which White Stallion is a sub-trope — a specific symbol of using white horses to symbolise leadership or worthiness. At the moment it feels like White Stallion started off as the latter but is turning into the former.
I've done a wick check (165 wicks in total, so I've checked 50 wicks):
May have symbolism of some kind, but context unclear: 7
Sex of the White Horse:
Male: 15 (I've extrapolated 7 of the 15 as male based on the horse's name, excluding them, it's 8 — that means I can't tell how many stallions or geldings)
Female: 2
Unknown: 38 (If we add the 7 I've extrapolated as male, this becomes 45)
Sinkhole since Shadowfax is specific to Gandalf and the image it's connected to shows a man riding a black motorcycle, so why bother with a reference to 'white' transport at all?
Forty Guns: During the tornado, Jessica falls from her White Stallion. Her foot get caught in the stirrup and is dragged for a considerable distance along the ground. (Notably, Barbara Stanwyck did this stunt herself after her stunt double said it was too dangerous.)
Truly White Fur, With Pink Skin: "White" horses are not truly white. They're a diluted grey called grey. Actual white fur requires a mutation that only occurs in th Camarillo White horse (a relatively new breed dating to 1921). The dominant white mutation is also rare, and unlike the aforementioned actual white mutation, it has the caveat of being homozygous lethal. Thus, white horses are muxh more common in fiction than in reality. Unicorns, pegasi, and magical horses extempt. White Stallion is a trope associated with this.
The problem is that the White Stallion isn't associated with pink-skin. As written, it's just associated with white-haired horses; The White Stallion trope page contains examples of grey horses who have white hair and black skin. The page image itself is one such horse. The point of White Stallion, as currently written, seems to be what it symbolises about the rider, not what colour skin the horse itself has, or whether the horse should be correctly called 'grey' or 'true white'. So, this appears to be sinkholing based on a misuse of the symbolism of the White Stallion trope.
White Stallion (Gender Inverted): Bel is a white mare, and a true lady, but still fulfills the requirements of the trope.
Zero-Context Example. It seems to start off as a Proper Lady example. It doesn't explain why it's the trope, and we've got the issue of whether or not mares count.
White Stallion: He checks all the status symbols; leader, knight, and prince.
This is a very lazy example. Given that the trope is supposed to be how the white stallion defines the rider's role in the work, can a My Little Pony actually count? I suppose the pony itself would have to be playing the role the rider would normally play. Does this pony play that role? I can't tell from the example as written, but I'm recording it as misuse because I suspect the symbolism is more about Light Is Good and Knight In Shining Armour tropes.
Thinks Like a Romance Novel: Ange wants to become a Prince Charming and goes out of her way to simulate what princes typically do when meeting a princess. In her Cross-Fate episode with Seruel, she even requests to ride his White Stallion just because she believes "princesses are destined to be greeted by her prince on a white horse". Seruel later deduces that Ange is a devotee of fairy tales, judging by the way she thinks.
This looks like an example of the mixed type (since Prince Charming tends to be leadership and heroism), but the entry doesn't define the sex of the horse being ridden.
White Stallion: His mount of choice, being a commander and supposedly higher social status than his soldiers. This contrasts with Mulan's horse who is black as ink and doesn't actually belong to her.
Seems to be an example, and covers the leadership aspect of the trope, but also is indicating wider symbolism than just White Stallion? I'm recording this as 'Example of the leadership type'.
White Stallion: Belle and Maurice's horse Philippe is white this time instead of brown in the original film.
Zero-Context Example. It might be an attempt to evoke the trope in the remake when it was never present in the original, but it could be misuse or shoehorning.
White Stallion: Guinevere, Lady of Leonesse and Queen of Camelot, is the only rider whose horse is white.
Zero-Context Example. If there's symbolism, the context isn't clear. For all we know, she could be riding a palfrey (which get stereotyped as 'white' but tend to have more in common with Proper Lady tropes than White Stallion.
What a Drag: During the tornado, Jessica falls from her White Stallion. Her foot get caught in the stirrup and is dragged for a considerable distance along the ground. (Notably, Stanwyck did this stunt herself after her stunt double said it was too dangerous.)
Potholing. There's no way to know whether it's a pothole or a sinkhole.
White Stallion: Jessica rides a white stallion, and makes her first appearance in the movie upon it, leading the eponymous forty guns.
Cool Horse: The first part of the story is taken up with the difficulty of acquiring enough horses large enough to carry Artos's heavy cavalry, which are critical for the mobile force he intends to deploy, and he meets Bedwyr because he's the only person who can control a prize stud horse called the Black One. Artos's White Stallion Signus is the Black One's son, and he fights the greatest victory of his career in the White Horse Vale and is crowned on the White Horse itself. The Saxons, meanwhile, also fight under the banner of a white horse, and one of them tells Artos that their ancestors served in the Second Legion, whose badge was the winged horse Pegasus.
Potholing, but it does look like a legitimate example, mostly of the leadership kind but it possibly overlaps everything the trope is looking for, making it the stand out example of all 50 wicks I checked.
White Stallion: Tam Lin claims that he was given this honor in the wild hunt because he was once a human knight.
Tam Lin is the page quote for White Stallion. The example is lazy and borderline ZCE because it's hard to tell whether heroism or leadership is the point (the page quote implies the connection is heroism).
Human Sacrifice: On the night Teitri the foal is born, Vadir Cedricson explains to Owain that Saxon kings used to sacrifice themselves for the sake of their people, and though the Saxons no longer sacrifice men, they do sacrifice the "king" of their horse herds, a White Stallion like Teitri. When Teitri later kills a man who tried to ride him, the Saxons interpret it as their still-powerful gods claiming a sacrifice in spite of the Christians' arrival.
This obviously symbolism, but I'm not sure it's actually the trope as written, since the White Stallion concerned is acting as a 'replacement' for the king instead of simply symbolising the king's role in the story as a leader and/or hero. It seems to be more about White Horse As Sacrifice
White Stallion: Fairfax's usual ride is White Surrey, named after the steed of King Richard III. A Bradford preacher dubs him the Rider of the White Horse after a horseman of the apocalypse in the Book of Revelation. Another knight on a white horse he resembles, Anne notes, is Don Quixote.
The white horse is clearly symbolic, but doesn't seem to be the trope.
This is sort of what I'd call a very wordy Zero-Context Example. The white horse is clearly symbolism of some kind, but it's not from what's written what kind of symbolism (given the Light Is Good theme).
White Stallion: In "Lippizan", Ben sets out to acquire a Cool Horse for the circus's blind equestrian after he accidentally causes the death of her Lippizan stallion. He eventually acquires, breaks and trains a white stallion named King that is half-Lippizan, half-Arabian wild stallion. At the end of the episode, King single-handedly fights off a wolf pack.
Trope misuse. This seems to be more about the horse and the person trying to obtain him than the rider who is eventually supposed to own it.
White Stallion: Zorro usually favors a black stallion, Tornado, the better to vanish into the night. However, during a time he's away from his usual base of Los Angeles, he rides a white stallion, Phantom, who proves to be just as speedy and as intelligent as Tornado.
Not enough context here to understand if the trope it in effect or whether there's symbolism of a different kind at work. Sex of horse is at least known.
'''This is from the trope description, but it behaves as if White Stallion is primarily a hero trope rather than a leadership trope (the White Stallion trope description implies it's the other way around).
Trope misuse. Possibly symbolism of a different kind.
Lonely Doll Girl (trope description)
Not always a child; in some cases she's an adult with a Kitsch Collection. Though if she is a child, she might have doll tea parties to make up for the fact that she has no real friends to invite. She might be in the Princess Phase because she's a Lonely Rich Kid or imagining that she and the dolls just have to wait until her hero on his White Stallion would come to rescue her or she has a Changeling Fantasy of how her parents are actually royalty.
This is from the trope description, but again associates the White Stallion primarily with heroic rather than leadership symbolism.'''
Game of Thrones: Likewise when Daenerys has her White Stallion killed as a blood sacrifice in an attempt to save her husband's life, the horse rears and whinnies in fright as she leads it into the tent where the sorceress waits.
Sinkholing; seems to be White Horse As Sacrifice symbolism.
Potholing, but it seems to primarily look at the heroism rather leadership symbolism of White Stallion. Judging from the horse's name, it does appear to be an actual stallion.
Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 26th 2019 at 6:28:18 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.
White Stallion is a trope whose description seems to saying that this is when a white stallion is used to signify something important about the social status of its rider — usually leaders, someone who senior to everyone else in some way, or heroes/The Chosen One.
The trope quote sets up the trope as being about renown — a person has to be worthy to ride the white 'steed', where 'steed' is neutral as to whether or not the subject is a stallion (high-spirited horses don't have to be stallions; they don't even have to be male).
The Laconic says 'Only the leader gets to ride the white horse.' but there's no reference to heroism or 'worthiness' of any kind.
However, looking at the examples, I'm seeing signs of the trope being used to list any white horse regardless of whether or not it's a stallion, regardless of whether or not it's to showcase the rider as a leader or hero and sometimes if the white horse is symbolic, but of a different symbolism to the trope. Many are Zero-Context Examples making it impossible to know what the relevance of there being a white 'horse' is to the work or character riding it.
Redirects to the trope seem to include 'White Horse' and 'White Mare'.
At the moment, I'm seeing a disconnect between the trope description, trope examples and trope redirects. The examples are in line with the redirects, but I think the redirects do not reflect the trope description. However, if this supposed to the wider trope that the examples and redirects suggest, then the trope description needs a rewrite to the extent of complete redefinition.
So, here's my question, is there a wider trope here and the trope name is inappropriate (because the examples are much wider than the idea that a white stallion depicts a leader or hero)? Or, are we missing a White Horses Are Symbolic supertrope, of which White Stallion is a sub-trope — a specific symbol of using white horses to symbolise leadership or worthiness. At the moment it feels like White Stallion started off as the latter but is turning into the former.
I've done a wick check (165 wicks in total, so I've checked 50 wicks):
56 examples in total, taken from 50 wicks:
All Girls Like Ponies:
Blue-Collar Warlock image quote (in the image, the man is riding a black motorcycle):
What a Drag:
The Man Your Man Could Smell Like
Implausible Hair Color:
Chronicles of the Kencyrath - Animals
Dota 2 Intelligence A To M
Ezalor, the Keeper of the Light
Evillious Chronicles Daughter Of Evil
Josephine
Fate/Grand Order: Lancers
Altria Pendragon (Lancer)
Friendship Is Magic: Mane Family Members
Prince Shining Armour
Fuegue Illusion
Vaati
Go! Princess Pretty Cure
Cure Scarlet
Prince Hope Grand Kanata
Granblue Fantasy Humans A To E
Lord Marksman and Vanadis
Eleonora Viltaria
Merlin – Main Cast
Lady Morgana
Guinevere
Merlin – Others
Lancelot
Mulan
Captain Li Shang
Shin Megami Tensei Fiend Race
The Four Riders of the Apocalypse
Super Hero Taisen Canon Riders
Hikaru Corday
Utawarerumono
Benawi
Sleeping Beauty
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
Beauty and the Beast (2017)
First Knight
Forty Guns
Book of Revelation
Loyal Enemies
Sword at Sunset
Tam Lin
The Dolphin Ring
The Merlin Trilogy
The Rider of the White Horse
Winter's Tale
The Corrs
Religion And Mythology
Pantheon / Naming Convention
Shining Armour
Doctor Who S28 E4 "The Girl in the Fireplace"
Merlin S 04 E 01 The Darkest Hour Part I
The Gamer's Alliance
Frontier Circus
McLeod's Daughters
Zorro
Tropes S to Z
A Knight's Devotion
Roza
Argai: The Prophecy
Hellish Horse (trope description) Contrast Unicorn (which are sacred) and White Stallion (which generally portray an image of heroism). No relation at all to Hellish Copter, nor to Undead Horse Trope.
Horseback Heroism
Lonely Doll Girl (trope description) Not always a child; in some cases she's an adult with a Kitsch Collection. Though if she is a child, she might have doll tea parties to make up for the fact that she has no real friends to invite. She might be in the Princess Phase because she's a Lonely Rich Kid or imagining that she and the dolls just have to wait until her hero on his White Stallion would come to rescue her or she has a Changeling Fantasy of how her parents are actually royalty.
Rearing Horse
Edited by Wyldchyld on Jan 26th 2019 at 6:28:18 PM
If my post doesn't mention a giant flying sperm whale with oversized teeth and lionfish fins for flippers, it just isn't worth reading.