This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Working Title: Manic Pixie Dream Girl: From YKTTW
Glad to see this up here. But by "self-possessed," do you mean "self-obsessed". Calmness and confidence is not what I would normally associate with these guys...
bluepenguin: "The female character from XKCD"? Who would that be? The only recurrer I can think of is Hat Girl, and while she is indeed crazy, Hat Guy is equally so. I don't think she's an example. But maybe there's someone else I'm forgetting.
Ninjacrat: I nearly wrote 'all the female characters from XKCD', but then I realised there really wasn't any way to tell if they were one person or many. In any case, the idealised 'gee, I wish I had a geeky yet cool girlfriend' character(s) that turn up fairly frequently. (edit: Hitting 'random' a couple times found a representative sample.)
Momonga: There is at least one other recurring female in XKCD: the girl who builds a couch fort is the same as the one who puts a ball pit in her house. I wouldn't say she exists only for her man, though; it seems like she's the protagonist of those two strips and the guy is in a supporting role.
Andrew: I have doubts about the Scrubs examples. JD isn't an emotion-less automaton in need of finding his feminine side. He's pretty much ALL feminine side. He's pretty much ALL quirky. A few of those women (Kim, Kylie) are actually more tightly-wound, more "normal" than he is. Julie, for her part, is portrayed as JD's female doppelganger. I think the only one who works is Alex, because she came along during an episode where JD was obsessed with work.
Freezair For A Limited Time: Of the Finding Nemo example—I have seen a lot more Marlin/Dory 'ship than I ever needed to. It's quite prominently out there. In fact, I know of more than one movie reviewer who cited Dory's "When I look at you... I'm home" line as a declaration of love. I guess Your Mileage May Vary.
Kilyle: I assumed from midway through the story that they were going to be together by the end. Species never came into play for me; it's a widower who meets a woman who brings him back to life, what's there to get? In fact, it almost surprised me that she wasn't depicted as living with Marlin by the end, though I took it as a sign that time hadn't passed very much - that Marlin had changed very quickly - an impression that was helped by the fact that neither Marlin nor Nemo was quite comfortably "back to normal" yet (Nemo more affectionate/clingy than would be expected in, say, a year, and Marlin still fighting off his old instincts a bit). It wasn't until this page that I even considered that people would assume a lack of romantic attachment between the two leads. C'mon.
Freezair For A Limited Time: Well, Bruce did help her "find her way home safely" there at the end, and since "home" is obviously the reef for her now... Maybe they're neighbors?
So this is just another trope, and an unrealistic one at that? I assumed the MPDG was a more realistic portrayal of female personality compared to other tropes such as the femme fatale.
Scud East: If it is, it's in the sense that Wild Wild West is a more realistic Western than Trigun.
Tabby: Amelie: Yea or nay?
Nornagest: Definitely yea. Amelie is better written than most, but the title character is almost prototypically this.
Tabby: Added, and massive "word" on the "better written." It's the only example of this trope that I can stand.
Noaqiyeum: Removing Clarisse Mc Clellan until someone can explain how she is either a Manic Pixie (eccentric/crazy) or a Dream Girl (romantic interest), or, indeed, anything other than a bibliophilic homeschooler.
Thinks Too Much: She does, in fact, influence the hero to open up and start living (and they are a bit of a ship, too), and she is pretty pixielike, if not manic; her Cloudcuckoolaner attitude towards pretty things and random thoughts.
Yubi Shines: What, this long and no mention of Didi and Sexton from Death: The High Cost of Living?
Whatever: I actually know someone like this - don't know if she has a boyfriend, though. She's frustrating sometimes, but fun. And am I the only one who really doesn't mind this trope? Okay, that she exists just for the guy sucks, but apart from that... Although I do just generally like insane people. ETA: Aaaand I just remembered that I am much more tolerant towards characters than most people. Never mind.
Grimace: No no no, don't get us wrong. I'm sure many tropers, myself included, find these characters really quite endearing. But its just when you really sit and examine the character, you realise they're very shallow and little more than wish fulfillment (attractive, sexually free & highly exciting person who, for reasons unknown, finds the boring, plain looking and introverted interesting? Where do I sign!). And as tolerant as you may be of someone from the real world (not knocking that at all), if one of these characters were to jump out of the movie screen and into your life, I guarantee you'd get sick of being hospitalised and/or questioned by the police after the first week. All whilst she dyes your hair purple ;)
Momonga: I really don't think Fenchurch belongs here - not all quirky love interests are MPD Gs. Fenchurch has things going on in her life apart from Arthur, and is reasonably well-developed considering she has relatively little page time in the series as a whole. She also doesn't latch onto the male protagonist; it is he who seeks her out (IIRC, she's a little bit wary of him the first time he offers her a ride home). Furthermore, the fourth book starts out by saying that it is her story. She doesn't come along for the ride on Arthur's plotline; they've both experienced unearthly things and their plotlines converge. She's not even all that quirky - her main unusual trait is that she floats, and in the context of the series that's about as quirky as being left-handed. What say all of you?
Inkblot: I would call her a well-written version of this trope.
Momonga: Also, does Holly Golightly really belong here? My reasoning on the main page was this (before someone deleted it because it was "natter"—apparently TV Tropes is Serious Business): "This might be more of a deconstruction: Holly is certainly beautiful and zany, but she doesn't exist solely to change Paul/Fred's life - her character arc and her issues are arguably more important to the story than those of the male protagonist. In many ways, she's similar to Clementine in the example below." I think a lot of quirky female characters are ending up here even if they lack the "shallow wish fulfillment" element (although I suppose that's difficult to prove without Word of God); maybe we could make it clearer in the description? Unless we want to change the trope to just mean "eccentric love interest."
ninjacrat: It wasn't deleted because it was scarequote-natter-scareunquote. It was deleted because it was natter.
Momonga: I put it in scarequotes because I felt that a lot of what was deleted during that edit was not actually natter as it's defined on the site, but I understand that it's very difficult to get everyone to agree on what does or doesn't constitute natter, and the last thing I want is to get into some kind of edit war over it—I really like TV Tropes because people around here seem, for the most part, friendly to each other. Anyway, my main point was not about natter but about Girls-who-may-be-Manic Pixies-but-do-not-exist-to-fulfill-Dreams ending up here.
Does the Dollhouse reference really belong here? I've just watched this episode and as far as I can tell the whole point is that Topher just makes a friend, no romance whatsoever is suggested. He doesn't even ask for a female active specifically.
