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The Cutie

http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/supercutelol_4746.jpg
D'aww. (Both of 'em!)

Jayne: Captain, can you stop her from bein' cheerful, please?
Mal: I don't believe there is a power in the 'verse that can stop Kaylee from being cheerful. Sometimes you just wanna duct tape her mouth and dump her in the hold for a month.
Kaylee: [kisses Mal on the cheek] I love my captain.
— Firefly, "Serenity"

The Cutie is a character who is known for being sweet and lovable, more comic relief than anything, who likes nothing more than to pet little puppies. They make you adore them, root for them and love them. Or they can make your teeth rot.

They are known for being very idealistic, cute and innocent. Some of them even may act in a childlike manner to emphasize their innocence with an upbeat and positive attitude. They also tend to be genuinely nice, loving, caring, and kind to whoever is with them. They tend to take the most peaceful solution to a conflict and hardly ever (if ever) harm others in any way (though you really ought to watch out). They're most often female, though younger boys can also be this.

Their innocence and purity draws the sympathy of the audience for them. For this reason they tend to become The Woobie when bad things happen to them.

Related to Break the Cutie, Kill the Cutie, The Fake Cutie, and Corrupt the Cutie, but if these things happen they don't need to be mentioned here. Compare Moe, The Pollyanna, and All-Loving Hero. Also referred to as a "Cinnamon Roll" in the slang of some media fandom circles.

Examples

    open/close all folders 

     Anime and Manga  

    Comics 
  • Betty Cooper from Archie Comics, a competitor for Archie's affections. Betty often takes time for caring about others especially nurturing Archie. In an episode, she had to excuse herself as she was tutoring elementary students at the local library. Veronica discovers this as spies on her thinking Archie was cheating on her.
  • Bode from Locke & Key is six years old, Curious as a Monkey, and adorable. Whether he's experimenting with the newest magic Key he's found, looking for treasure in the pond (using a toy fishing rod he "invented himself"), or even wearing a pot on his head as a helmet when he's being attacked by shadow-creatures, he's just so cute.
  • Molly Hayes and Klara Prast take turns being the Cutie among the Runaways, particularly when drawn by Takeshi Miyazawa or Humberto Ramos. The former is famous for her love of adorable little animal-themed hats and Malaproper tendencies, while the latter is almost always sweet and cheerful.

    Film 
  • Despicable Me has Margo, Edith, and Agnes. Agnes, in particular, is the most innocent child to hit the screen in a long time, and she's adorable.
  • Disney Animated Canon:
    • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs:
      • Snow White is very loveable and endearing, and her cuteness is purposefully emphasized nowadays in contrast to some of the most elegant or tough princesses.
      • Dopey was made to be cute. His namesake means he always has a grin on his face is acting silly.
    • Tangled: Rapunzel. She's more cute than beautiful, and her mannerisms and personality make her the one of the most adorable Disney Princesses.
    • Zootopia: Judy Hopps. But the thing is you're not allowed to call her cute. Unless you're a rabbit.
  • James Bond: Every now and then the women of the franchise fall into this. The best example is Ms. Caruso, the Innocent Fanservice Girl of Italian origin, caught in bed with Bond in the opening of Live And Let Die.
  • Pollyanna is all but the Trope Namer of The Pollyanna, an archetype which is used to describe irrepressibly cheerful characters. She lives in a town of bitter and angry people and slowly makes them cheery.
  • One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: A rare male example is awkward, stuttering Billy Bibbit. He's the most innocent, gentle character in the movie and one of the few non-Jerkasses. which makes his suicide the more tragic.
  • X-Men Film Series: This is how Charles is characterized in X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Apocalypse. He's sweet, compassionate, naïve, peace-loving and cheerful. His Pretty Boy features highlight his childlike attributes, and he retains the puppyish enthusiasm that he had as a kid. Even the aloof and grumpy Erik melts under Xavier's charm and affectionately labels him as "adorable." Charles is given more comedic lines in Apocalypse than in previous movies to increase his Adorkable factor. His official temporary emoji◊ is modeled on the gleeful boyishness that James McAvoy brings to the role. The younger Professor X is often called "bae" (which is an informal term for "baby") on Tumblr because he's so endearing.

    Literature 
  • Knight and Rogue Series: Michael manages to be this while also being the muscle, because he's so chivalrous and innocent that he can't even tell a white lie. It helps that the other main character is a snarky con man.
  • Warrior Cats: Leafpool is one of the cutest kitties in the forest in terms of overall sweetness, next to Spottedleaf.
  • Journey to Chaos: Mia is a pretty and sunny girl who likes giving hugs. She's chipper first thing in the morning, when Eric and Nolien are groggy.
  • In The Elenium, the goddess Aphrael prefers to take on the physical form of a five-year-old girl, the better to wrap people (and gods) around her little finger. With 30,000 years of experience, she is very, very good at being an adorable five-year-old.
  • April in Stranger & Stranger is the most cheerful and bubbly of all of Ainslee's friends, very much playing the opposite to Shawna.

     Live Action TV  
  • Firefly: Kaylee is by far the most cheerful character on Serenity's crew which is why she provides the page quote.
  • Willow Rosenberg of Buffy the Vampire Slayer due to the "shy bookworm" thing she had going on in the earlier seasons.
  • The Big Bang Theory:
    • Raj in the early years. He was very shy, a Cute Mute around women, and he has been described in-universe as "a cutie-pie".
    • Bernadette is an adorable petite blonde with a squeaky voice. She's usually sweet and polite to everyone, unless you make her angry.
  • How I Met Your Mother:
    • Downplayed with Lily. She's a kindergarten teacher, and very cute, short and bubbly (and she was a Perky Goth in her younger days), but has a manipulative streak and she is far from innocent.
    • Played straight with the titular Mother. She's sweet, funny, Adorkable, and always upbeat.
  • Merlin: Merlin and Guinevere. Both are sweet, kind, socially-awkward wide-eyed idealists.
  • Murdoch Mysteries: Anna Fulford is a very sweet and very kind young English woman and Detective Murdoch's Temporary Love Interest. Even Julia, who should be jealous of her, says that Anna's lovely and seems to really mean it.
  • 'Allo 'Allo! has quite an unlikely Cutie, because Lieutenant Gruber is a Wehrmacht officer in the occupied France. Yet he's sweet, well-mannered, polite, civil, enthusiastic, a great pianist and has a crush on René, which is unfortunately a case of Incompatible Orientation. He keeps apologizing whenever he's forced to search people or carry out orders he's uncomfortable with. He likes his "little tank" and only he can make "Heil Hitler!" sound adorable.
  • Cat Valentine from Victorious and later Sam & Cat is a lovable, ditzy, cheerful Genki Girl played by Ariana Grande. She also can be flirty but in a cute, innocent way.

     Professional Wrestling 

     Radio 
  • An adult male example in New Dynamic English: Described as "upbeat and peppy", Max talks in a more cheerful way than the other men in New Dynamic English. It seems that other characters treat him this way as well, as Elizabeth and Kathy would occasionally copy his way of talking when they talk to him.

     Stand-Up Comedy 

     Video Games 
  • Pokémon
    • Both incarnations of Biance; A Nice Girl that's always running late and has an adorable victory dance.
    • For Pokémon X and Y, Shauna, fulfills this role. From the moment she meets your player character, she instantly wants to be your friend and only really wants to go on a Pokemon journey for having wonderful memories.
  • Advanced V.G.: Manami is meant to appeal to fans of the "moe" character type, despite being 16 years old. That's because she's short and childish, with an insatiable Sweet Tooth and a love for cute cuddly objects (best seen at 0:39-2:12).
  • BioWare tends to include one of these as a love interest in each of their games.
    • Aerie in Baldur's Gate II; by the end, you will either want to marry her or strangle her.
    • Tali in Mass Effect is a petite engineering prodigy who becomes adorably flustered if romanced.
    • Leliana in Dragon Age: Origins is a cheerful bard and former Chantry sister who enjoys lightly ribbing her companions. She's cute enough that she can get away with teasing Sten after catching playing with a kitten.
    • Merrill in Dragon Age II has big, trusting eyes and a kindhearted nature. She's also endearingly awkward.
  • Flonne from Disgaea is so sweet and wholeheartedly lovable that she is a Love Freak.
  • Duel Savior Destiny: Nanashi is the cutest/cutesiest and most innocent character in the story. She frequently uses the third person and has her own verbal tic. She's very hands on and affectionate. She's also undead, so the main character wants nothing to do with her or her affections.
  • Fallout 3: Moira Brown, Megaton's shopkeeper and tinkerer in science . She sticks out for being perpetually cheery and upbeat in a blasted post-apocalyptic wasteland.
  • Max Caulfield, Chloe Price, and Kate Marsh in Life Is Strange are respectively extremely cute, kind (Chloe before her father's death and her alternate) and had a lot of Break the Cutie and, for the latters, Kill the Cutie moments when the later episodes progressed, can be Averted by choice.
  • The "Lazy" class of villagers from Animal Crossing act like prepubescent children, despite being at least young adults. They also dress cute at times, like the villager Bob who wears a cute pink shirt. They also cry a lot and talk about food, sleeping, and playing with you. D'aww...
  • Final Fantasy
    • In the early game of Final Fantasy IV, seven-year-old Rydia's suffering is the final straw for Cecil and Kain to break with Baron's Evil-Empirish ways, her 3D summon animation is a childish twirl, and it's stated that she's good at summoning because she's so innocent. Then she spends some time in the Feymarch and comes back as Ms. Fanservice.
    • Krile from Final Fantasy V. She has a cheery, teasing personality that keeps events of the late game (which get pretty dire) from getting too terrible, and her job classes are clearly designed to be as adorable as possible.
    • Rinoa from Final Fantasy VIII. Reportedly, Tetsuya Nomura, the head character designer for Square at the time, specifically wanted her to give off a "cute" vibe, and built her character around this idea.
    • Final Fantasy IX: Vivi, the adorable little black mage was so loved by fans, he made a cameo in Kingdom Hearts 2. Throughout the game he acts like Zidane's kid brother and fidgets with his hat when nervous.
    • Final Fantasy X: Rikku, the adorable Wrench Wench Al Bhed girl, has some endearingly cute qualities to her. You just want to hug her on the Thunder Plains where she's absolutely terrified of lightning.
    • Final Fantasy XIII:
      • Vanille all but skips through the game. She's easily the motivator of The Team (along with Snow) and has various moments of Badass Adorable.
      • Serah, a sweet girl and Snow's finance.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Sora from is a male variant. He's idealistic and innocent, a contrast to many other characters in the series.
    • Kairi counts, what with being a Princess of Purest Heart and all.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • The Cutie is a common characteristic for female units in that starts out feeble but becomes a powerhorse if trained. This includes but not limited to most early obtained pegasus knights like Shanna and Florina, the "heroines" like Caeda and Lilina and "Est" archetypes like Nino and Amelia. Cute and innocent characters tend to make babying units much least onerous.
    • Young male characters are sometimes this too. Dew from the fourth game is a plucky, comical thief, Franz from the eighth is New Meat to Renais' army and on the receiving end of Big Brother Instinct from Forde, and Lugh from the sixth game exists to feed baked goods to Tsunderes and soldiers.
    • While she may act tough on the outside, your Hoshidan sister (actually not related to you) Hinoka is a total cutie on the inside when it's revealed she was a crybaby as a child when the avatar was kidnapped by King Garon, she's also very idealistic and is one of the few characters to not be that angry about your betrayal should the player choose to side with Nohr. Not to mention she is a down to earth nature lover as shown by her coddling her pegasus and especially in some support conversations when she opens up and reveals she's not as mentally tough as nails as she lets on.
      • Also from Fates this time on the Conquest Nohrian side is the young teenage (we think)) Elise who all but skips through the game in a manner similar to Vanille from Final Fantasy XIII, extremely endearing and idealistic, affectionately refers to you should you marry her in the Revelation or Conquest path as her "hubby", refers to her children as "gumdrops", and is an all around Nice Girl who is the only one of the Nohrians to not feel betrayed should you side with Hoshido. She even takes a strike meant for you from Xander, her older brother which is especially heart-wrenching.
  • Eternal Sonata has the kids Beat and March (Puppy Love and Nice Hats) but there's also a young teen example in golden haired Polka.
  • Cream the Rabbit from Sonic the Hedgehog. She's one of the sweetest, kindest, most innocent characters in the whole series.
  • Suikoden V: Mikakis serves as Princess Lymsleia's eccentric bodyguard. At first one might think she's a little young for such a position, but she's actually 22 years old. She just doesn't act like it most of the time (seen at 0:37-1:22).
  • Tales of Vesperia: Princes Estelle is Spoiled Sweet and she adores animals (but the feeling isn't mutual). And since she's been sheltered most of her life, she knows little of the outside world, other than what she's read in books. So she's somewhat Literal-Minded - like the time she actually expected Rita to "eat her words."

     Visual Novels  
  • While the Ace Attorney series is generally comedic with plenty of serious moments, these characters in particular stand out as being adorable and idealistic:
    • Regina Berry from case 2-3. She is a young circus darling beloved by almost everyone in the circus with the naivete of a much younger child. Though it was her father Russell Berry that made her that way by telling her "When people die, they become a star in the sky". She's clueless about a lot of things being sheltered from most of the "real world" and has charmed at least four men older than her (aside from maybe one little Jerk Ass puppet) and doesn't even realize the gravity of her father's death, or Acro's vengeance until Phoenix figures it out.
    • Sasha Buckler from the fifth game. For one, she's very genki and energetic like Maya and Pearly, has been a Heartwarming Orphan adopted by Jack Shipley at a young age, sings sea shanties with her whale, who she communicates to using an anchor-shaped whistle, and is a Friend to All Living Things much like Acro and the "murderer" of this case. She even wears purple and black arm floaties and all but dances her way through life.
    • Trucy Wright, a 15-year-old magician who turns around Apollo's otherwise bland life with genkiness. Enter Athena Cykes, who she's friends with, and her youthful girliness stands out even more.
    • Pearl Fey, an adorable child who blushes every time she talks about Maya and Phoenix's "relationship". She often shows a lot of excitement when agreeing to do something with those two, and would do anything for her cousin Maya.
    • Vera Misham is a pretty Shy Blue-Haired Girl who rarely speaks due to her disconnection with the outer world. She only shows emotions via smileys in sketches she makes on the spot. Then you find out she adopted this behavior because she was kidnapped as a kid, and she becomes even cuter.

     Webcomics 

     Web Original 
  • The Annoying Orange: Marshmallow loves puppies, kittens, unicorns, rainbows, and is nice to everyone, unless you insult any of the above, in which case watch out.
  • Film Conscience: Ringo represent the more cheerful, optimistic side of Kinley.
  • The Lizzie Bennet Diaries : Jane Bennet is universally loved and admired. She's adorable and nice to everybody, and genuine in her sweetness. Interesting how a woman in her mid twenties can pull this off.
  • Nella from The Nostalgia Chick, to contrast with the other oft-psychotic Broken Bird characters on the show.
  • Clover of the Whateley Universe. One of the youngest kids at Superhero School Whateley Academy, she's a naive wizardess-wannabe with the cutest puppy ever. And a witch hat she's sure will give her magic powers. She also happens to be a powerful Reality Warper and her puppy Buttons can turn into a monstrous dog the size of a pony.
  • The SCP Foundation
    • Surprisingly it has this in Cassy, an animate drawing of a sweet and friendly young woman who everyone at the Foundation adores. Unfortunately she found out about her two-dimensional condition and has been in depression ever since.
    • There's also SCP-054 a friendly entity made of water that likes to play with personnel. Unfortunately frequent experimentation on her (mostly by men) has caused her to resent men and be fearful of them.
    • Despite their dangerous effects and general creepiness, most of the "little girl" SCP items, such as SCP-053, SCP-040, and SCP-134 are genuinely sweet, innocent children who don't mean any (deliberate) harm. Even SCP-239, a Keter-Class, is a sweet girl despite her apocalyptic reality-bending powers.
  • Madison from Deadly Space Action is the crew's ditzy and happy mechanic, who remains optimistic in everything she does despite a complete lack of competence.
  • Noob has its Kindhearted Simpleton and Man Child Sparadrap and Couette, a mild Kawaiiko who was his Distaff Counterpart before gradual Divergent Character Evolution took place. The two are given child-like designs in the comic rendering of the franchise.

     Western Animation  
  • Avatar: The Last Airbender has Ty Lee, a bubbly pink loving acrobat who loves performing for a crowd.
  • The Legend of Korra : Aang's grandchildren could all count as Cuties, but none more so then Ikki. "Be the leaf!"
  • Codename: Kids Next Door:
    • Kuki Sanban/Numbuh Three is a spacy Nice Girl who's always carrying around stuffed animals.
    • Betty Gilligan is a lovably cheerful woman, if a bit oblivious.
  • Futurama: Amy Wong was once caught in a fire that burnt off most of her hair. Her reaction? "Look! My hair got singed into an even cuter 'do!"
  • Gorillaz gives us an interesting example with 2D; whilst his wholly black eyes and Uncanny Valley appearance can make him look terrifying, he's actually a harmless Kind Hearted Simpleton. Being The Woobie helps.
  • Blythe Baxter and Penny Ling from Littlest Pet Shop (2012).
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Any mare or stallion is likely really cute, in appearance if not in deed.
    • Fluttershy is a Shrinking Violet known for her kindness. There's a reason she provides the page image for this trope.
    • Pinkie Pie, a Genki Girl known for being very cheerful and positive. Her cutie mark is balloons and her Goal in Life is to make everyone happy.
    • Apple Bloom's first appearance cemented her as a cute little sister.
    • Sweetie Belle is this in every way. Voice squeaks? Adorable mane? Cute face? Yup, definitely fits with her.
    • In a show with adorable ponies as the main cast, the Mane Six in general have their moments of being total cuties. Although they seem to consider Spike this.
    • Pound Cake and Pumpkin Cake. They're Ridiculously Cute Critters, being magical baby ponies and all.
  • Bubbles from The Powerpuff Girls. The theme song says she is "the joy and the laughter". The burglar robbing the Utonium home in "Burglar Alarmed" even calls Bubbles a cutie upon seeing a photo of her.
  • South Park:
    • In the season 1 character commercials, Stan was labeled as "The cute one".
    • Butters is a sweet, naive Cheerful Child and by far the most innocent character on the show.
  • Teen Titans: Starfire is a girl that wants to make friends with everybody, sees beauty in almost everything, has a fondness to cute things and has a general Moe attitude. Her sweet voice, innocence and No Social Skills are a good source of humor in the show. She also tends to apologize when attacking enemies, but she is also a brave warrior that would do anything to protect the earth and her friends, so don't mess with her.
  • The Simpsons: Invoked when Lisa is asked to throw the National Spelling Bee in favor of her main rival, Alex, a younger boy who is genuinely so sweet and innocent that the spelling bee organizer belives having him as their champion would help bring mainstream attention to the competition. Alex is unaware of this and ends up winning legitimatly when Lisa accidently screws up her final word while exposing the attempted rigging.
  • Total Drama:
    • Bridgette (a Nice Girl that love animals and surf) and Lindsay (an adorable Brainless Beauty and Spoiled Sweet).
    • Sierra. She has a high-pitched, sweet, childish voice and constantly comments on things being cute (even a leech on her face), that is, until someone pushes her Berserk Button. Then she becomes Cute and Psycho.
    • Dawn, a mysterious nature lover. Dawn appears to be good-hearted and very helpful, although she comes across as creepy to the others.
    • Ella, a songbird with a personality as angelic as her singing voice. One of the nicest, if not the nicest character in the whole series.
  • Miss Martian in Young Justice invokes this trope. Though genuinely kind, her mannerism and appearance were constructed from a short-lived cheesy sitcom called "Hello Megan", and her true form is a horrific monster. She almost betrayed her friends to keep the truth hidden, and in the second season develops a very dark tendency for Mind Rape.
  • Animaniacs:
    Yakko: I'm Yakko.
    Wakko: I'm Wakko.
    Dot: And I'm cute!
  • Sonic Sat Am Tails is really sweet, but can put up a fight when called for, especially when harm is given to Sonic and Sally.
  • Timothy Goes to School: Yoko, Lilly and Juanita are all very sweet and kind characters. But Yoko takes the cake due to her being sweet-natured and caring about others. Especially with her best friend Timothy.
  • Randy Cunningham: 9th Grade Ninja:

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