There is no Planet B
Moved from the main page for discussion:
- Richie Rich, the Poor Little Rich Boy, takes the premise and runs with it, becoming one of Harvey Comics' flagship characters specifically on the basis of being good-hearted, charitable, kind, clever, and generous to a fault, averting the negative stereotypes associated with the super-rich — crossing over with Casper the Friendly Ghost and Wendy the Good Witch, likewise inversions of common bogeymen of their day. A rare Gender-Inverted Example.
- Misuse. Lonely Rich Kid is a contrast trope to Spoiled Sweet.
- Spoiled Sweet are teen, young adult girls who are rich, pampered, sheltered, naive, optimistic and genuinely nice to everyone and popular, usually with abundance of friends. How does a small boy with no friends fit here?
- Comparison to other rich characters is irrelevant when writing an example.
- A Gender-Inverted Example in the form of Blackadder Goes Forth's Lieutenant George, an idealistic young soldier in the trenches of World War One, loyal, well-intentioned, amiable, and intensely naive. A Cambridge man, not quite nobility but still born of money, knowing all the right people, which helps him not at all in a foxhole, where he's oblivious to the point of willful ignorance of the horrors surrounding them, in stark contrast to the middle- and lower-class Blackadder and Baldrick (respectively) of the season. While Played for Laughs and heavily mocked through most of the show's fourth series, this same innocence is played entirely straight in the last moments of the Grand Finale, when the regiment finally goes over the top for one last desperate charge.
- Again — how is he pampered? Who spoils him? How is he sheltered? Naive, optimistic, popular? Spoiled Sweet are not Upper Class Twits. If you read the description of Spoiled Sweet with in him in mind, how does he fit?
Richie Rich having no friends his own age was the initial premise, but as with Casper, gained a great many friends as his series went on, and hasn't qualified as a Lonely Rich Kid in some time. Also the description doesn't say anything about needing to be a teen. Richie has all the other personality traits you mention, and is quite popular.
George's family sent him to Cambridge. He often speaks of a great number of doting aunts and upper-class functions.
I think the problem here is a Missing Supertrope — Spoiled Sweet sounds like it should just be an inversion of Spoiled Brat, but instead has several apparently quite strict requirements that Spoiled Brat doesn't which aren't indicated by the name or by the fact that it's on the Always Female index. If the pampering has to be ongoing, for example, if the character has to be sheltered — it's difficult from the description as written to tell what elements of the archetype mandatory versus what parts can be flexible.
Missing supertrope might be the case, but I'm really not convinced that Richie Rich fits this trope.
I mean, he's rich, pampered, sheltered, naive, optimistic, genuinely nice to everyone, and popular, with an abundance of friends. Not sure what else you want.
He's a small boy. I want him to be a girl. :-D
Sorry, but "rich kid who is not a jerk" or "rich child who is not a spoiled brat" is not a distinct trope.
I hate to play the mod card, but we have three moderators telling us that child/male examples are shoe-horns (Shima in that TRS, Septimus in ATT) and Fighteer saying that it's not distinct enough to be defined as a trope or that Richie is not portrayed as invariably sweet to everyone.
Nothing in your write-up suggested that he's pampered or sheltered. How is he naive? What makes him optimistic? With whom is her popular?
Also: Tropes are tools. More tropes does not mean the work is better. From what I read on the page, he fits Lonely Rich Kid in some incarnations and Uncle Pennybags in others.
You're not really giving a reason, though — Fighteer admits he's not familiar with the character, and Shimaspawn last spoke before Richie Rich was even mentioned. I'm saying here's one who meets all your other criteria, you say he doesn't count because he's not female, and ask that his example be written to include information many of the existing examples don't.
Many of the existing examples on Spoiled Sweet don't actually list exactly how they're pampered or by who, who all their popular friends are, or how they're sheltered — they're rich, they live in luxury and away from hardship, surrounded by friends, and it's a visible part of their surroundings. Being invariably nice isn't even part of the description, which actually says they may be somewhat shallow or even selfish at times.
I can rewrite the example, but I feel you're moving goalposts at this point. A lot of these requirements are far from stringently enforced other than the Always Female one.
Edited by Unsung
I hope that one day Jack Spicer becomes like this after his Heel-Face Turn.
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Unlikely, Chiti Mouse. This trope is Always Female. There was a long discussion about it, and so far there are no accurate male examples (except one work that specifically gender-flips tropes and men are treated like women in all respects).
You may check this TRS discussion: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1412334385040515600&page=1
Basically, there are no accurate male examples. They all fall into shoehorning. Except one — there is one valid male example in literature. The book has a world where men are a rare gender and therefore treated more like women in the past in real life.
Edited by XFllo
What about Richie Rich? He seems to be missing from this category and it there is anyone who is spoiled sweet, it's him and he definitely seems to be heading towards uncle penny bags category
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Meant to create a new comment and misclicked. Disregard.
Edited by Arawn999
There is no Planet B
Removed:
- The Tams in Firefly are something of a subversion. They are both likable despite their rich upbringing (though Simon is rather ponderous), but River and Simon both geniuses and quite competent at killing people and healing people respectively.
Reasons:
- Examples Are Not Arguable (phrases like "sort of", "something of an example", "they almost fit").
- Example cannot be partially subverted.
- Insufficient context explaining how they are sweet or likeable;
Deleted (as Examples Are Not Arguable):
- Felicia Hardy from the 90s Spider-Man series arguably fits this trope. Although introduced as a rich girl who likes to get her way, she's surprisingly polite most of the time. And then of course, she becomes Black Cat.
Those two fit better Lovable Alpha Bitch:
- Rachel Green from Friends. Her parents are willing to bail her out any time she messes up, but she so badly wants to make it on her own. She finds it really hard to break out of her Gilded Cage at first, being so attached to her credit cards, and has a tendency to mess up tasks that most people do easily (one of her more infamous instances being the Shepherd's Trifle Incident), but eventually she adjusts to having a normal life. In flashbacks, she's shown to have been the most popular girl in high school who was a close friend with a fat Monica. Rachel's nice and loyal to people she likes, but sometimes she has Alpha Bitch tendencies.
- Muffy Crosswire from Arthur floats between a Spoiled Sweet and an Alpha Bitch. While she is undeniably selfish and arrogant, she really does care about her friends and (usually) means well. Prunella may be a more straight example. She's not as rich as Muffy, but she is more likely to lord things over the other students, while Muffy is generally oblivious of how others interpret what she says.
Removed. Misuse — male example, not pampered, earned his money himself.
- Fix-It Felix Jr. from Wreck It Ralph is a rather unusual example, both for being male and for working full time in a blue-collar job, but he fits the pattern. While the handyman of a high-end apartment building that is regularly destroyed by Ralph as part of the gameplay could reasonably be expected to make a pretty decent living in Real Life, one wouldn't normally associate the job with being "spoiled," but as the hero and title character of an old school arcade game, Felix gets to live in the penthouse suite of said building and has a Hundred Percent Adoration Rating from the tenants, who shower him with praise, medals and freshly-baked pies. And the spoiled aspect does show at times when he sometimes acts Innocently Insensitive towards Ralph, at least to begin with. But nonetheless, he is a genuinely good guy ("hardwired for niceness," according to his official biography), to the extent of sometimes being an Extreme Doormat at first. He even apologizes for swearing after literally saying "boo" and can't bring himself to say anything harsher to Ralph than that he is "so cross" with him for endangering the entire arcade. He also doesn't hesitate to put himself in danger to protect others and feels duty-bound to help fix the damage Ralph has unintentionally caused by jumping games.
- In Cinderella, by the third movie Anastasia becomes Spoiled Sweet, or maybe a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. The third movie shows her to be not quite the Alpha Bitch in the first movie; not only does she apologize and say "I didn't mean that!" when she accidentally petrifies the Fairy Godmother, but she gives up her chance to marry Prince Charming because she doesn't want to marry him if he didn't love her. And in the second, which gives the story its conclusion, [[spoiler:the circle comes to an end as Anastasia falls for a commoner (the local baker boy and Big Beautiful Man, Dimitri), finally confronts Lady Tremaine in her bullcrap, gets to marry the man she loves and fully reconciles herself with Cindy and the Prince.]
She is either a jerk with a heart of gold or spoilt sweet. She cannot be both.
Is there an equivalent trope that can apply to males? Just out of curiosity.
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I don't think so...
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
You may go to the TRS discussion. There are some ideas about similar concepts that are not gender specific.
There is no Planet B
[[folder:Music]]
- Rare Male Example is Larry from Sir Mix A Lot's Posse On Broadway. He's a rich white real estate investor who hangs out with Sir Mix A Lot and is part of his posse.
Removed for not enough context, see Zero Context Examples. It doesn't state what makes him spoiled. If it's him who is the investor and not his parents, he's most likely earning his wealth himself. The charcter also must be shown to be nice and likeable to everybody, not just one group of people. I don't know the song, but from this write-up, it seems iffy. Spoiled Sweet is Always Female for a reason. There are other tropes on Rich People index that might fit better, like Uncle Pennybags or Wealthy Philanthropist.
Edited by XFllo
Should the Rarity example from MLP:FIM be deleted? Some things say this trope has to be a rich person and as noted in the example, she isn't particularly rich. Does the descritpion or the example need to be edited?
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It's about spoiled people, not rich ones. Sure, there is a correlation but the second is not part of the trope.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
I call for the elimination of the entire "real life" category. It is far, far too subjective, and too vulnerable to lack of information on the celebrities in question.
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I quite agree. This issue is resolved in Real Life section maintenance.
Oh come on, Britney Spears??? She's no role model, not to anyone with any sense.
Deleted the thing on Mimi of Digimon Adventure for being false. She was Spoiled Sweet from the start, but was just sheltered and immature so she had to grow up over the course of the series. The only time she was a Spoiled Brat was as the Gekkomon Princess since that was all part of Demidevimon's plan.
Edited by ManwiththePlan
cody jones in tmnt fast foward, who is very rich but nice to his friends and decent guy!!
y hello thar
Does anyone feel that the pic is off? Sure, Charlotte is a fairly good example, but it's just a face and a caption. And she looks rather mean in the picture.
OH SHI-
How could Gwen Stacy be a GOOD example? I think MJ is more spoiled then her.
Should this include a line or two too mention how the character will be self-centered, but not selfish?
I really think this page has an issue. There's way too many examples listed of "rich but very nice", which isn't the trope. I think there needs to be a greater emphasis that "no material worries, exceptionally nice, and not selfish, entitled, or oblivious at all" isn't the point of the trope. Or maybe there needs to be a new trope.