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A romantic, innocent character, almost always a preteen or teenage girl, who is essentially a fairy-tale heroine in the present (or in the science-fiction future). She is naive, ignorant and insecure (especially about her body). She will be the target of every bully in the world, especially the Alpha Bitch. All she has going for her is her pure heart, which will save her — she never gives up, no matter what, and will eventually get the better of her tormentors.

But the Naive Everygirl is not a saint. She's particularly bad at showing gratitude, which tends to drive her friends away when she needs them. But eventually she will reconcile with the people who helped her, after wondering how she could be so blind.

This character is mostly a Discredited Trope on Western TV nowadays but were popular before 1990s; only the most idealistic shows on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism (and occasionally their Deconstructions) have one nowadays. But in film and "young adult" fiction, she is inescapable. They are however very frequent protagonists of Shojo stories written by women.

See also Wide-Eyed Idealist, Love Freak, The Ingenue. Compare Unlucky Everydude, her spear counterpart.

Examples of Naive Everygirl include:


Anime & Manga[]


Comics Books[]

  • Abby in Coming Up Violet appears to be this on the surface, and indeed may indeed be a great example of this trope. However, she also harbors the heart of The Chessmaster.


Film[]


Literature[]

  • The protagonist of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret..
  • Most 19th century fairy tales have one, either male or female, and modern stories with a Naive Everygirl will often have a Shout-Out to them. The main difference is that in the old fairy tales, she was just as likely to come to a bad end. (Hans Christian Andersen's "The Little Match Girl" is a particularly sadistic example, full of Glurge.)
  • Nita, the heroine of Diane Duane's Young Wizards series of books, started out a Naive Everygirl, but matured beyond that stage with the discovery and mastery of her wizardry.
  • Sci-fi author John Ringo tends to have subversions or inversions of this trope in his books. Megan Trevante and Mirta in the short story at the end of John Ringo's Emerald Sea, as well as from the later books of his Council Wars series are subversions of this, one being a very intelligent, tough and cunning young woman and the other spending most of her time pretending to exemplify this. The character Shenea, however, while being very sexual, exemplifies this trope. There are also several in his Paladin of Shadows series (mainly Katrina), which is odd considering the fact it is, by far, his most misogynistic series.
  • Mary Anne Spier and Mallory Pike in The Baby Sitters Club series.
  • Twilight: Bella will put herself in danger just to see Edward again.


Live Action TV[]


Video Games[]

  • Ryfia from Arc Rise Fantasia, since she grew up never leaving her home.
  • Sophia Esteed of Star Ocean Till the End of Time, although with less emphasis on a lack of gratitude (she doesn't have much to be grateful for, really) and more emphasis on her naivete and ignorance. Her body image issues are somewhat of a running joke through the game, too.
  • Estellise from Tales of Vesperia; like the above example, is not ungrateful, but she is quite naive from being sheltered all of her life. Unlike the rest of the party, she is very kind and never hesitates to show compassion. This lead to some unfortunate consequences, but she eventually recovers.
  • Sumia from Fire Emblem Awakening has shades of this. She's naive, innocent, clumsy, insecure, and relies on storybooks to make her feel better about herself.
  • The Avatar from Fire Emblem Fates, especially on the Birthright and Conquest paths. In Revelation, they drop their wide-eyed naivete in favor of steely determination and manage to bring both their families together.
  • Annette Fantine Dominic has shades of this in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. She's sweet, earnest, determined to try her best, but is also incredibly clumsy and worries too much about making mistakes that haven't happened yet to the point where her potential boyfriend Caspar calls her out on it.
    • Bernadetta von Varley is this amped up to painful extremes due to her mentally abusive father and being the target of assassins more than once in her past. Even when she calms down due to her Character Development, she's still insecure and easily rattled when she thinks she's messed up.
  • Lapis from Fire Emblem Engage has some of these traits when she's not displaying her incredible survivor's instinct and battlefield prowess. She's sweet, insecure about her background, has a crush on a cute boy, and wants to fit in.
    • Both Alears display some of this as well. They're insecure, worried about fitting their role, and Griss's actions towards them later in the game are most certainly bullying. They win the day with the power of their pure heart (though their stubborn determination doesn't hurt, either).
    • Clanne is a male version. He's innocent, wide-eyed, and hero worships Alear, but he's also insecure about how well he's performing his duties as a steward, gets cranky with Vander when he feels he's not being taken seriously, and in his support with Citrinne he's shown talking to a flower in hopes of helping it grow.

Western Animation[]

  • Comic-book/animated example: Chi-Chian Mitsui from Voltaire's Chi-Chian series.
  • Parodied in the South Park episode "Are You There, God? It's Me, Jesus."
  • Kim Possible is at her core a parody of this type; she's insecure about boys, dating, and the social order, and has very few close friends; however, she's admired by her peers, involved in every school activity, and is an international kung-fu-fighting pro-bono action heroine.
  • In the sequels of Disney's Cinderella, Anastasia, the redheaded stepsister gets retconned into a character like this.
  • Phoebe Terese on The Magic School Bus is a perfect example. She's the sweet natured, reserved romantic of the girls (once saying "Gee, what a guy!" about Arnold and found the notion of a bullfrog couple "romantic"), and tried saving the desert animals (which failed, due to the animals not needing to be saved, as pointed out by Carlos). She's also been picked on by Janet on different occasions, had the class turn on her once, and neglected to realize everything Ms. Frizzle did for her in "Goes to Seed". Despite her advocacy club failing, not being able to name three good things about recycling, and inability to do a slam dunk, Phoebe doesn't give up and retains her innocent nature.
  • In The Princess and the Frog, we have Charlotte, being The Ditz and a complete romantic, wanting to fall in love with a prince and become a princess, a dream of hers since she was a little girl. In the end, she gives up that dream so that Prince Naveen and Tiana would get together and was generally happy for her best friend.
  • Aaahh Real Monsters: Gender aside, Ickis fits this. He's got all of the flaws, plus a tendency to say he's giving up... only to come back when it counts.
  • Sharon Spitz from Braceface fits this trope to a T.
  • Ginger from As Told by Ginger. Dodie and Macie also fit this trope. Even Courtney seems to fit this to a lesser extent (particularly in the high school years).
  • Annie Redfeather from Adventures from the Book of Virtues, in spades.
  • Doug Funnie is a Rare Male Example, especially in the Nickelodeon series. He's insecure, naive, has a crush on a popular athlete, writes in a diary, and is bullied relentlessly. Technically he's also an Unlucky Everydude, but has the emotional and often romanticized traits of the female version as well.