History Main / JadeColoredGlasses

Supertrope of SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids and SillyRabbitRomanceIsForKids.

Oh, clinical, intellectual, cynical."''\\

[[AC:{{Anime}} and {{Manga}}]]

[[AC:ComicBooks]]

[[AC:{{Film}}]]

[[AC:{{Literature}}]]

[[AC:LiveActionTV]]

[[AC:{{Music}}]]

[[AC:VideoGames]]

[[AC: WebComics]]

[[AC:WebOriginal]]

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]

-> ''When I was young it seemed that life was so wonderful,\\

Oh, clinical, intellectual, cynical.\\

* By the time we meet [[TheThickOfIt Hugh Abbot]], he seems to have already not only earned his pair but glued them permanently to his face.
* [[YesMinister Jim Hacker]] eventually gets these, but he has the heart (or lack of head) to take them off once in a while. Bernard follows a similar trajectory, while [[ObstructiveBureaucrat Sir Humphrey]] doesn't need them, as the lenses in his eyes were made of jade from birth.

* Charting [[SteelyDan Steely Dan]]'s albums from ''Can't buy a Thrill'' to ''Gaucho'' will reveal a trajectory which slides further and further into [[SlidingScaleOfIdealismVersusCynicism cynicism]]. They were pretty damn cynical to begin with, but even the shaky optimism of ''Change of the Guard'' is long gone by the time of ''The Royal Scam''.

--> '''Lovejoy''': Eventually I just stopped caring. Fortunately it was the eighties by then and nobody noticed.

* Neku of TheWorldEndsWithYou, before his CharacterDevelopment.

<<|CharacterizationTropes|>>

* As the page quote shows, [[TheTropeSong The Logical Song]], is this trope.

* Happens to [[spoiler: Harvey Dent]] in TheDarkKnight after [[spoiler: Rachel is killed, leading him to become Two-Face.]]

* PinkFloyd bought a pair after Syd Barrett left the group and reached it's peak with ''The Wall'' and ''The Final Cut''.

* Happens to [[spoiler: Harvey Dent]] in TheDarkKnight after [[spoiler: Rachel is killed, leading him to become Two-Face]]

--'''Supertramp''', "[[TheTropeSong The Logical Song]]"

--'''Supertramp''', "The Logical Song"

* [[CoolShades Morpheus]] from ''TheMatrix'' (pictured) wears these while teaching Neo that the world he once thought to be real was just a computer simulation. If you add in the greenish tint of the Matrix scenes, it becomes literal as well as metaphorical.

* The main character in ''Literature/InvisibleMan'' is an absolutely perfect example of this--he begins as a LoveFreak ''and'' a WideEyedIdealist, and ends up nearly knifing a guy for insulting him. It doesn't help that he was a XanatosSucker twice over and a victim of YankTheDogsChain at least three times.

* Voltaire's ''{{Candide}}''; probably the TropeCodifier.

!!Examples:

*Voltaire's ''{{Candide}}''; probably the TropeCodifier.
*At the beginning of ''ASongOfIceAndFire'', the lovely and ladylike [[TheIngenue Sansa Stark]] is an idealist who [[WrongGenreSavvy thinks the world works exactly like in heroic songs and fairy tales.]] By the fourth book her views have changed considerably, and she's being mentored by [[MagnificentBastard Petyr "Littlefinger"]] [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder Baelish]].
** Based on his backstory, Littlefinger went through the same cycle himself during his youth.
*Mimic of Marvel Comics' Exiles: An idealist superhero from a near-perfect universe, drafted into a dimension-hopping team, fixing "broken" realities. After seeing one too many far-from-perfect alternate versions of his colleagues, he snaps, and decides some people, and some worlds, aren't worth saving.
*[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPzXBh38h6Q Life is Beautiful by sixx:A.M.]] describes someone who was wide-eyed, became cynical then went around again to being wisely positive.
*This happened to Nathaniel in TheBartimaeusTrilogy when Lovelace destroyed the house.
**Although, to be honest, that didn't completely remove his naivete and beliefs about justice and honor, just diminished them. It was spending several years [[spoiler: working in a corrupt, selfish, and paranoid government that resulted in glasses so jade he turned into a VillainProtagonist.]]
* In ''Twisted Toyfare Theater'', main character Spider-Man befell this fate by virtue of simply living in Megoville. Being the OnlySaneMan in a world full of atomic supercrazies, several of whom routinely come over to his house uninvited, does that to a guy, to the point that he's completely unwilling to do anything even remotely heroic if he can avoid it.

* Odd aversion, many assumed [[IncrediblyLamePun Jade]] of ''TalesOfTheAbyss'' to have undergone such a process upon being introduced to him early in the game and having born witness to his emotionally distant manner and darkly cynical wit. However, its revealed he was ALWAYS like this, even as a small boy. Part of his character development throughout the game is getting him to remove said glasses, [[spoiler: which he does both really and symbolically in the final boss fight]] and view the world as a place where change is possible and one can place hope in other humans.
* The main character in ''Literature/InvisibleMan'' is an absolutely perfect example of this--he begins as a LoveFreak ''and'' a WideEyedIdealist, and ends up nearly knifing a guy for insulting him. It doesn't help that he was a XanatosSucker twice over and a victim of YankTheDogsChain at least three times.
* Nessiah ([[spoiler:A.K.A. the grim angel Aries]]) from YggdraUnion was at first TheMessiah. However, after getting cursed and thrown out of [[CelestialBureaucracy Asgard]] by the corrupt magi, he went insane and started the massive XanatosGambit that destroyed countless people's lives in order to exact vengeance on Asgard. When TheMessiah gets broken too much, the result is not pretty.
* Lans Tartare ([[spoiler:A.K.A. Alphonse in the gaiden Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis]]) from OgreBattle series starts out as WideEyedIdealist. However, after [[spoiler:losing his best friend and lover by the end of the gaiden]], he became a bitter cynic that we see in Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together.
* Archer of ''FateStayNight'', as his backstory eventually reveals. [[KnightInSourArmor He hasn't completely given up on his ideals]], but his ideals gave up on ''him''.
* Happened in Rick's past in ''{{Casablanca}}''.

* In {{StarWars/Allegiance}}, Mara Jade, as the Emperor's Hand, tended to be sharp-tongued but was overall quite idealistic. She consciously felt that the Emperor was [[HorribleJudgeOfCharacter "a good and wise man"]], she believed that the Empire was fundamentally good with some foul elements that could be removed from within, and just in general she had a pretty stable existence. The Emperor's death changed everything - his last command to her was "YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER", and it echoed in her head at dangerous intervals, her Force-Sensitivity fluctuated on and off, and she saw the Empire for what it was - fundamentally foul with some good elements, and not ruled by anyone she felt was worthy. In the years after that she bounced between various non-Imperial non-Rebel groups, mostly smugglers, always leaving after her Force-Sensitivity flared up and made her employer uneasy, and although her last employer, [[KnowledgeBroker Talon Karrde]], was by far the best, by TheThrawnTrilogy she was highly cynical. Mara [[MeaningfulName means "bitter"]], and "Jade" fits that (and one of creator Timothy Zahn's dictionaries also listed, as another meaning for Jade, "discarded woman").
** Ben Skywalker puts on some very tinted glasses immediately after [[LegacyOfTheForce Mara's death]]. He's mostly an odd mix of idealistic and pragmatic (merging both of his parents' traits, leaning slightly towards the latter), but losing his mother, the one person in the galaxy that he loved and admired the most (and could talk to without fear of anything), clouded his judgment and even caused him to go so far as ''kill'' in the name of [[YouKilledMyFather revenge]], causing Luke to forcibly stop that last attempt at killing Jacen (who Ben correctly guessed as Mara's killer), at which point Ben realizes he's gone too far. He recovers from that phase fairly quickly, but the tint's never going to wear off.
* Rev. Lovejoy of ''TheSimpsons''. Naturally, it was heavily implied that Flanders was solely responsible for beating the idealism out of him.
* An {{Aqua Teen Hunger Force}} episode has a discount toy doll being drug addicted, alcoholic, nihilistic, and self-harming and convinces two characters to become depressingly nihilistic, with the second one (another, more expensive doll) driven to blowing his head off with a shotgun.
* Auron in FinalFantasyX [[spoiler: was a wide eyed idealist in his first pilgramage with Braska, but after he found out the truth and was killed in Zanarkand, he became a much more [[IncrediblyLamePun sobering]] influence on the pilgrimage with Yuna]].
* [[TheWoobie Daniel]] from ''{{Stargate SG-1}}'', although he often plays his newfound cynicism for humor.

* In ''BaldursGate II'', provided you don't give her a HappilyEverAfter as the {{Player Character}}'s love interest, Aerie seems to be being fitted for these glasses. It's not an aspect of her that's developed much in the end, though, and it's not clear how she'll end up after all of it.
--> '''Aerie''': I've... I've just been thinking. About all this death, all these [[KickTheDog horrifying things]] [[BigBad Irenicus]] has done. He actually [[OurSoulsAreDifferent stole a soul]] and... and all these people died for nothing... And for what? Some "[[{{revenge}} vengeance]]" that Irenicus wants! For that he throws people aside like mere objects?! I... I cannot believe that such evil is allowed to exist! I will not [[{{wangst}} sit idly by and be pathetic]]! I have paid too much attention to my own sorrows and experiences... and not enough to the evil that has surrounded me!
* Back when he was a SelfMadeMan in the court of his country, Sonken aka Chuutatsu from TheTwelveKingdoms witnessed a terrible level of corruption and cruelty. When chosen as the King of Hou, then, the JadeColoredGlasses were so firmly glued to King Chuutatsu's face to that he became an absolute KnightTemplar and his absolute sense of justice caused him to slaughter a large portion of his own population for minor offenses. His zeal was so terrible that the minor noblemen rebelled, ovethrew and killed him, his ''kirin'' and his wife Queen Kekai, leaving his daughter Shoukei as the last survivor.

* [[CoolShades Morpheus]] from TheMatrix (pictured) wears these while teaching Neo that the world he once thought to be real was just a computer simulation. If you add in the greenish tint of the Matrix scenes, it becomes literal as well as metaphorical.
* Squall from ''FinalFantasyVIII'' pretty much had these welded onto his face from a young age, when [[spoiler: his "sister" Ellone was taken away from his orphanage, and due to his use of Guardian Force junctions - which erased his memories - he never got over the trauma.]] As a result, Squall grew up believing that it was better to push everyone else away and refused to make friends or even have any ambitions beyond proving himself strong enough to take care of himself.

* Theo Faron in "Children of Men" was a daring Merry Prankster and activist before the world's population ceased growing. After the crisis, he is so jaded and tired that he can barely muster a tear for anything.

[[quoteright:350:[[TheMatrix http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/matrix_morpheus_red_blue_pill_7050.jpg]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:When you add [[RealIsBrown the greenish filter]], Morpheus wore this trope quite literally.]]