Ask The Tropers

i agree. every time i see an adorkable entry on a page, i don't even bother to read it because they all read exactly the same: people gushing over people being shy or awkward.

Eh, I think it's a thing an author can be pretty clearly going for. The gushing's a different issue.

Take it to TRS?

There's definitely a discussion to be had; a wick-check is needed, of course, but I vote for TRS.

Agree for TRS. I was asking about the Adorkable trope here a few months ago for similar reasons

agreed on TRS. i can assist in a wick check, it's way too big for one person.

^ I mean, isn't it 50 or the square root of all the wicks...which is about 100 wicks... yeah okay point taken.

The size of the wick check in fact is what is tripping me up with the "In Hundsight" wick checks (yes, plural).

I feel there is a certain authorial intent to some examples, while others come off as YMMV.

^Can we add Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold to TRS too? Because a lot of the "examples" there are also just gushing about the characters (i.e. 'X is sweet, pure, innocent, and happens to be blonde') without providing actual context for how they exemplify the trope.

^the appearance tropes cleanup megathread should get to that one sooner or later, shouldn't it?

Maybe Adorkable should be In-Universe Examples Only, for characters who are dorky and considered endearing by other characters for it?

Funny thing is, Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold is a name that came about after the thread got to it.

"(i.e. 'X is sweet, pure, innocent, and happens to be blonde')"

That doesn't read like gushing to me, that reads like an attempt at context.

^Except not, since it's doting on the character rather than explaining how they portray the trope. For example: If I typed,

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: "Ilia's a young blonde who's sweet, pure, and innocent." Does that explain anything?

Or, does this:

• The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess: "Ilia is portrayed as selfless and giving, from her love of nature, to acting as a surrogate 'big sister' figure for the other village kids, and even saving a wounded Zora whom she found on her way to Hyrule Castle Town."

A lot of the examples I've seen basically read like the former, even though the last paragraph of the trope description explicitly says the trope isn't simply about nice blonde characters. The character is essentially supposed to be Purity Personified, or noted as such in-universe.

The latter doesn't explain blondeness.

Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold is an appearance trope with all the baggage you'd expect, so I'm not surprised it's horribly misused.

^^@Brainulator9: There's no need to reiterate that she's blonde, since that's already addressed in the ZCE that preceded the second example. The trope is more concerned about the character's purity and altruism.

Ilia's altruism and her love of nature are her primary character traits.

^ Huh? Isn't the second example a proposed rewrite of the first, or did I miss something? Why wouldn't it be necessary to mention that the character is blonde? That's half the trope! If it was just "purity and altruism", the "golden hair" part wouldn't be part of the trope...

^Not what i meant by it unnecessary to say she's blonde twice.

Besides, it's generally assumed that the character is blonde (unless otherwise stated) if they're being used as an example. If every example has to include 'X is blonde etc.' it becomes redundant.

^ Twice? We're talking about two separate examples here, neither of which would be used at once. What I'm trying to say (and what I think Brainulator was trying to say) is that since every example stands alone, yes, it is important that the second one doesn't mention hair color.

And generally assumed, sure, but context is context. The trope isn't "character is blonde", but it also isn't just "character is pure and altruistic". The trope is "Blondes are stereotyped as pure and innocent, so blonde hair is used to symbolize a character's pure and innocent personality". You have to explain both parts of the trope.

You may as well say "it's assumed the character has a heart of gold if they're being used as an example. If every example says "X is pure and innocent", it becomes redundant".

^ Yup, WarJay, that's what I meant. I assumed the second write-up was meant as a replacement for the first write-up and thus functions independently.

To add to what she said, if we might as well assume someone is a example because they're in the trope list, then this raises multiple problems.

• To reference a point made in the Trope Repair Shop thread for Hot Gypsy Woman, which I shall anchor to this post (the exact discussion starts a page back), how am I supposed to know if this text fits Red Eyes, Take Warning or Dastardly Whiplash if the evil part is described but not the appearance?
  In The Alice and Bob Show, Baddy McEvilson burns down an orphanage, kills several politicians undetected, and spits his gum where people can trip.
• Doing this leads to shoehorning since we might as well not explain everything. Why, everything is Self-Explanatory! Sure, being in the examples list means we should avoid Word Cruft like "this happens" or "this is an example", but it does not mean things get to go unexplained. There's also the habit of tropes that end up being ZCE magnets probably not even being tropes so much as meaningless patterns. This is what is causing Getting Crap Past the Radar to suffer so much, since a lot of examples emphasize the crap more than the radar.

^^I've never heard of blondes being stereotyped as pure and innocent. Virgins, sure and even that isn't always a given.

I'm not saying the trope is either-or, it's both at once. I just didn't think it was necessary to say she's blonde twice. If we were having a conversation about said character (which we are) and I already noted said character is blonde, would I need to say it again?

I also agree that each example is meant to stand on its own, but it still seems redundant for each one to stress they're blonde rather than focus on the altruistic aspect of the character (as in, how they exemplify it).

I genuinely don't understand why you keep referring to both examples as if they'd be present at the same time. Can you please explain? The examples were presented as either one or the other to be added to a page, not both, so repeating that you shouldn't have to say the character is blonde "twice" makes no sense.

Unless...are you referring to the title of the trope? If so, then the point Brainulator and I made still stands: The tile of the trope shouldn't be used as context, even if it's "redundant" to say otherwise.

Also, the trope and it's subpages say:

"The character is a blonde. Therefore, obviously, she is young, beautiful, pure, kind, and innocent, and the innocence can range up to Virgin Power."

" Since hair tends to darken with age, blondness does correlate with youth and the innocence correlated with that. Fiction runs with this so that the women are Colour-Coded for Your Convenience."

"Exploited: The character uses her blonde hair to look innocent and pure-hearted, when it's a facade."

So yeah, there is a bit of a stereotype at play here, or at least an underlying assumption about personality correlating with Light Is Good. That's why mentioning both is necessary; it's a Trope in Aggregate about how blondes are portrayed and seen as pure and innocent, so the blonde hair should be mentioned for context.

Anyway, this is off-topic from the original discussion about Adorkable. If we want to continue this, a forum thread may be better.