The Legend of the White Snake (白蛇传), also known as The Legend of the White Serpent or Madam White Snake, is a famous Chinese legend about the forbidden love between a female snake god and human man. It is considered one of China's great four folktales, along with The Butterfly Lovers, Lady Meng Jiang and The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.
The legend has many variations,
Adaptations and interpretations with their own TV Tropes pages:
- The Snake Prince, a Gender Flipped version of the story.
- Green Snake
- The Sorcerer and the White Snake
- White Snake (2019)
- Green Snake (2021)
- Mizuchi
Tropes in this story include:
- Action Girl: Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing are both quite skilled in magic and physical combat. Xu Xian meanwhile is completely a Distressed Dude who needs Bai Suzhen to save him constantly.
- Babies Ever After: The story often ends with Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian having a son, Xu Shilin
- Color-Coded Characters: Bai Suzhen is characterized by the color white. Xiaoqing, being the Green Snake, is characterized by both the color green and blue because of Green Is Blue ensues.
- Downer Ending: Some versions lean onto Bittersweet Ending, but most end with both leads dead and Xiaoqing escaping bowing for revenge.
- False Friend: Xiaoqing in some versions of the story. In most of them, however, she is very much Bai Suzhen's trusty SwornSister.
- Fantastic Racism: Fahai tries (and succeeds) to ruin Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian's marriage simply because he considers that the marriage between a magic snake and a human is an abomination.
- Interspecies Romance: Bai Suzhen the White Snake fell in love with Xu Xian, a human. This is what kickstarts the whole plot.
- Involuntary Shapeshifting: Bai Suzhen is forcibly transformed back to her snake form after drinking realgar wine.
- Healing Herb: Xu Xian dies of a shock after finding out that her wife is indeed a snake, so Bai Suzhen goes to seek a healing herb to revive him.
- Really 700 Years Old: Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing, both immortal snakes, are much older than their human disguises imply.
- Reincarnation Romance: In some versions of the story, Xu Xian and Bai Suzhen were originally both immortals who fell in love and were banished from Heaven because celestial laws forbade their romance. They fall in love once again after reincarnating as a human man and a female white snake spirit.
- Scaled Up: Bai Suzhen is forcibly morphed into her original snake form after she is poisoned with realgar wine.note
- Snake People: Most versions of the story (especially in Peking Opera) make Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing appear as half-human and half-snake rather than fully snakes.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Fahai treats the snake spirits as such, which is why he antagonizes Bai Suzhen.
- Sworn Brothers: Bai Suzhen and Xiaoqing are each other's sworn sisters as per Chinese tradition.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Fahai assumes all demons are either evil or dangerous for humans so they must be either imprisoned or destroyed. Bai Suzhen was doing no harm yet he tries to destroy her marriage simply because she is not human.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Fahai in some versions of the story is portrayed in a more sympathetic light, showing him as misguided and authoritarian yet well-intentioned.
