Basic Trope: A young or naive character understates or misunderstands a tragic incident.
- Straight: 5-year-old Bobby's neighbor is molesting his sister, Alice, but Bobby just thinks he's being overly affectionate.
- Exaggerated: In addition to the molestation, Bobby's dad has died — he thinks he's just sleeping. Also, Bobby's heroin-addicted brother is displaying erratic behavior, but Bobby just thinks he needs more sleep.
- Downplayed:
- Bobby realizes that what his neighbor is doing is wrong, but he doesn't understand why it's wrong.
- The incident Bobby witnesses isn't bad, but not necessarily something he should be witnessing (e.g. he sees a Primal Scene between consenting adults and thinks they're just wrestling).
- Justified: Bobby is very young and his parents didn't want to educate him about that sort of thing yet.
- Inverted:
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior
- Bobby is so cynical that he confuses an innocent harmless (even perhaps good/moral) situation or action for something immoral and wrong.
- Emperor Evulz assumes an act of kindness is done with ulterior motive in mind and more malicious than it looks when it was clearly done out of genuine empathy. Because he is incapable of understanding how people can care about someone other than themselves.
- Subverted:
- At first it seems like Bobby is inaccurate regarding what his neighbor is doing, then you find later that his innocence is a coping mechanism and that he's fully aware of what's going on.
- Bobby does know what's going on. He just doesn't want to get involved and/or is too selfish to care.
- Bobby realizes what is neighbor is doing after a while.
- Double Subverted: ...but he still doesn't realize his dad has died. He still thinks he's sleeping.
- Parodied: Bobby's interpretation of what's going on turns out to be the truth.
- Zig Zagged: Some things he's pretty quick on, others he doesn't get.
- Averted: Bobby doesn't understand exactly what's going on with his neighbor, but he realizes enough to know he needs to tell an authority figure.
- Enforced: The original draft has Bobby know there is something inherently wrong with Alice's relationship with her father, but the executives decide children shouldn't know about such things because Children Are Innocent. The creator is then told to rewrite the work to make Bobby more naive about the situation.
- Lampshaded: "Wow, Alice, your daddy sure is nice! He's always hugging and kissing you!"
- Invoked: Alice leaves Bobby in the dark about what her dad is doing.
- Exploited: Alice's dad, seeing that Bobby trusts him, decides to blackmail him to keep his secret. Or worse.
- Defied: Alice tells Bobby everything about what her dad is doing.
- Discussed: "Do you think he's just hugging?"
- Conversed: "It always makes it more poignant when there's this naive character who has no idea what's going on."
- Implied: Bobby's neighbour is seen molesting Alice but Bobby just smiles, and he's not a Creepy Child.
- Deconstructed: Because Bobby doesn't really understand what's going on, he doesn't tell anyone what he's seeing the neighbor do, meaning he gets away with his actions. It's only far later that Bobby realizes what was going on, and by then he's powerless.
- Reconstructed: But kids aren't known for keeping their mouths shut, and even with the innocence and inaccuracy, Bobby at some point blurts out something that tips his parents off to what's going on.
- Played For Laughs: Bobby accidentally sees the neighbours having sex, and at school the next day tells everyone how they "hug" a lot.
- Played For Drama: Alice winds up needing therapy and Bobby still doesn't know why.
Back to Innocent Inaccurate.
