#2: May 8th 2019 at 1:19:29 AM
Opening and bumping.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
naturalironist
from The Information Superhighway
Since: Jul, 2016
Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
#3: May 8th 2019 at 5:47:57 AM
Why did this get unlocked when the are separate threads about both tropes?
In short, Man In White is a subtrope of Light Is Not Good about villains who dress in all white, while Woman In White can cover any alignment and has additional connotations with regards to death and betrayal.
There has been some discussion about whether Woman In White should be female only on that thread.
"It's just a show; I should really just relax"
#4: Jun 8th 2019 at 1:21:57 AM
Clock is set.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
#5: Jun 13th 2019 at 12:01:14 AM
Clock is up with no progress; closing.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Total posts: 5
Why are Woman In White and Man In White separate tropes?
There isn't anything specifically gender connected about either trope, aside from the assumption that all writers adhere to Men Act, Women Are, or Men Are Generic, Women Are Special - "Wearing all white is mystical, and there's something awe-inspiring when a woman does it, but when a man does it, it's just creepy". While it is important to recognize and document when stories are constructed around those ideas, it's counter-productive to build trope pages around the idea that 100% of writers think that way, and I think it reinforces those double-standards.
Anyway, I can think of quite a few examples that are just the same ethereal look as the "woman in white", but on a male character.
The "Man in White" trope description even says - "Compared to its Distaff Counterpart, the Woman In White, the Man In White is a much younger trope and not nearly as well established; as such, you'll find a broad range of characters and characterizations under the examples. All it really takes to be a Man in White is to wear white: all the added symbolism described above is just bonus."
Which seems to basically admit that it isn't a trope...
If there are too many examples to merge the pages, (even after taking into account that the "Man" page itself admits that most of those examples probably aren't actually examples of anything) then maybe separate the examples on a merged page into "Showing that the character is mystical or ethereal" (like Mystical White Hair) vs. "other reasons"?
Mystical White Costume could be a gender-neutral name.
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.