Naive Everygirl

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

• Shirley Fennette from Code Geass is a Deconstruction of the trope. Her innocence and naivete actually leads her to much misfortune, including but not limited to: Mao's Mind Rape, Lelouch's Laser-Guided Amnesia, the Emperor's Fake Memories, Jermiah's Anti-Magic undoing said memories, Rolo's sociopathic jealousy, and finally her DEATH.
• A lot of Girls Love series feature a light-haired Naive Everygirl as one half of the main ship (sometimes referred to as a "Crimson and Candy" type), the other being a Aloof Dark-Haired Girl:
  • Resine de Poisson from Shiroi Heya no Futari.
  • Reina Harukawa from Maya's Funeral Procession.
  • Nanako Misonoo from Oniisama e....
  • Himeko Kurusegawa from Kannazuki no Miko basically personifies this trope.
  • Nagisa Aoi from Strawberry Panic.
  • Yumi Fukuzawa from Mariasama ga Miteru.
• Miaka from Fushigi Yuugi is an example with the dark side exaggerated, especially in the anime where at times it went a bit too far for some fans' tastes.
• Princess Nia Teppelin, main love interest in anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, is the embodiment of an extremely idealistic fairy tale heroine trapped in a Super Robot show.
• Sara Werec of Soukou no Strain fits this exactly, although her series slides more to the cynical side than most under this page.
• Tohru Honda of Fruits Basket is definitely this, especially with how she enters and approaches the various members of the Sohma family.
  • Kana, Hatori's fiance, is arguably this, though one harsh Heroic BSOD snaps her to the point where she needs Hatori's Laser-Guided Amnesia to return to this persona.
• Brutally subverted with Shiina Tamai from Narutaru. She does start out as one of these, but becomes progressively less innocent as the series progresses, culminating with her and her Shadow Archetype, Mamiko Kuri, slaughtering every human on Earth except themselves.
• Subverted deliciously with Hikari/Kari in Digimon Adventure. At first she seems like nothing more than the Affirmative Action Girl and/or the Ill Girl of the team. She's innocent, sweet, holder of the Crest of Light and hates to see other people in pain. However she also has all the guts and nerve of the older brother she idolises and at the age of eight is capable of holding her own. And she also suffers the downsides of her Messiah condition - as in, she's unable to handle the pressure and has at least two Heroic BSOD moments.
• Ukraine from Axis Powers Hetalia. And the story milks it for all the bad luck and hilarity it's worth.
  • Seychelles, Liechtenstein and Taiwan have some traits as well, though they also have more energetic and strongwilled sides.
• While C-ko Kotobuki is by no means a saint, she is innocent and optimistic, and she believes in love and friendship. Instead of bullies, she has weird shit happening to her at times. Though she doesn't seem to be too insecure about her body, she does have issues with being alone. She also has the "lovesick girl" aspect as well.
• Oh poor, poor Jill and Princess Charlotte from Berserk. Two sweet and idealistic girls who live in a Crapsack World...

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

• Babe from the two Babe films (especially the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City) is a rare male example. (Of course, he's also a Talking Animal voiced by a woman.)
• Mia from The Princess Diaries blew off her best friend's brother to go to a party with the most popular guy in school who would hopefully give her a foot popping kiss.

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

• Melanie Brodie from Degrassi Junior High.
  • Dreamy, weak willed Terri from Degrassi the Next Generation.
  • Nerdy little Clare, despite coming a long way, still falls into this trope even after the show's rebrand to Degrassi.
• Title character of Ugly Betty, especially in earlier episodes. Though Betty has become less naive since then, she's still, of course, as idealistic as ever.
• Laura Webber (later Baldwin, then Spencer) from General Hospital is an example of this trope, particularly during the character's original appearances from 1975 to 1982. When the character returned in 1993 she had become less naive, but still retained most of the other qualities of this trope.
• Hannah Rogers in Everwood, coupled with Shrinking Violet.
• Carly Shay in ICarly.
• Alex in The Secret World of Alex Mack.
• Rebecca Harper in The Latest Buzz.
• Meg Pryor in American Dreams.
• Spencer from South of Nowhere is a bit older than usual, but still fits this role perfectly.
• Sookie from True Blood is in her twenties, but otherwise seems to fit this trope to tee, or at least this is how she and the people around her seem to interpret her actions .
• Lizzie McGuire
• Riley Matthews from Girl Meets World couples this with Genki Girl. She's idealistic, cheerful, naive, insecure, and two episodes of the series were devoted to her dealing with bullies.
• Lauren Hutchinson from Square Pegs is chubby, insecure, and would do anything to be popular. Her best friend Patty Greene has a bit of this as well, but is offered more chances to fit in and turns them down to keep Lauren from feeling jealous and abandoned.

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.
    

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.