Example scope of Dark Skinned Redhead and Dark Skinned Blond

So, Dark Skinned Redhead and Dark Skinned Blonde have been on my list of appearance tropes with possible issues for a while now. Both tropes are about Exotic Foreigner characters (placeholder name for whatever supertrope these two tropes fit under) whose phenotypes stand out in the work because of how relatively rare they are. There are personality types that are associated with DSR and DSB but they appear to be secondary to the trope. Most wicks I see for both tropes only mention the character's phenotype and nothing about their foreignness or personality. A lot of characters listed under these tropes have nothing in common besides their physical appearance (if they aren't supposed to be foreign/exotic.)

Also, the descriptions for both tropes are very Japanese/anime specific so I wonder if non-Japanese examples are being used in the same way the description describes the trope being used in Japan.

Implausible Hair Color seems to be the core of both, but crosswicked from neither.

I watch more live-action and Western works than anime. It only very rarely pops up 'naturally' (and when it does, it's in specific backgrounds, like Erin Kellyman who is mixed Jamaican/Irish), so I don't think there is a specific personality associated with it in live action. When it pops up artificially (eg. through wigs or hair dye) the intent is to create a striking look more than anything meaningful (eg. it was part of Rihanna's look for some time probably because it looked memorable).

If the dark skin and hair-colour is specifically given to a character to give them a more striking design, maybe we should add more restrictions like Significant Green-Eyed Redhead?

Is it because of Skin + Hair? Or just because Bright Hair is striking?

Well, if you're asking why it's striking:

• If you are a brown person of color who isn't slightly-more-than-half white, your natural hair color is most probably brown or black. So someone who has blonde or red hair stands out more in a crowd than someone with brown or black hair.
• The genes that give someone red hair are also the ones that give them lighter skin that does not tan as well. (To a lesser extent the same is true for blondes.) So again, unless they are mixed race, a natural redhead will have a hard time getting dark skin.

There's a whole recent Conversation (tm) around the converse, white celebrities darkening their skin to the point of ethnic ambiguity, sometimes keeping their light hair for the striking look, but it's probably not relevant to this thread as it hasn't shown up in fiction much (yet?).

I think I can agree with 'beachy tan skin + light hair being indicative of a sunny personality' being a thing (the "California girl"/surfer stereotypes, basically), but that's too far removed from the current glut of meaningless examples in Dark Skinned Blond for a straight retool.

I've always thought Significant Green-Eyed Redhead was a 'have our cake and eat it too' kind of solution; even with the restrictions in the description it doesn't really feel like much of a trope.

Significant Green-Eyed Redhead still has a lot of issues. The more detailed requirements helped out with the trope's ZCE issues but the trope is still "green eyed redhead". The green eyes and red hair are the only things tying the examples and I don't think those traits are considered significant in the stories the character's are in.

Anyways, back to Dark Skinned Red Head / Dark Skinned Blonde...

Adventuress and outgoing is also some of the personality traits associated with Dark Skinned Redhead (in Japanese works anyways) but again, like with Dark Skinned Blonde, there aren't examples with that context. Not sure how to fix the ZCE problem of either trope but I guess we will figure something out once I take both tropes to the TRS.

As an aside, I think personal appearance tropes that are just about making a character look striking are tropes but it's really hard to write good examples for them if the traits aren't acknowledged in universe or if there is no distinct personality attached to them or the personality traits are only secondary to the trope.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 26th 2022 at 11:08:46 AM

Just bumping to note that I wick checked both Dark Skinned Redhead and Dark Skinned Blond (Sandbox.Dark Skinned Blond Wick Check and Sandbox.Dark Skinned Redhead Wick Check). The usage rates for both are as bad as I expected and boil down to the physical attributes themselves. I was hard pressed to find more than one wick that mentioned personality. Soo, I am definitely taking both tropes to the TRS.

Edited by MacronNotes on Jul 26th 2022 at 11:12:48 AM

Hmm, World of Technicolor Hair notes that we have Distinctive Appearances... How much could that work for this? If X character is the only one with Red / Blonde hair?

Implausible Hair Color calls itself a supertrope of DSR and DSB, does it have similar problems? Oh, right, I noted that in Post 2, but nothing came of it?

Edited by Malady on Jul 26th 2022 at 8:16:44 AM