ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ก.ค. 2024
- Today we are going to talk about fridging - the trope in which female characters are harmed only to further another (male) character's story. I've been watching Last of Us recently and it's got me thinking a lot about the trope... and when and why we may be over using the term. And then I started thinking of Wheel of Time...as one does. As always, leave your thoughts below!
Chapters
00:00 - Intro
01:31 - Origin of the trope
03:14 - Comparing WoT to Last of Us
08:07 - Negative tropes and enjoyment
09:57 - Conclusion
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0:23 To me The Last of Us's second episode doesn't feel like fridging because the setting is in a Zombie Apocalypse and you feel like everyone could die at any moment.
Yeah I bring that up a little further on! Like in this setting since everyone is dying it really lessens the feeling of it being fridging. We expect MOST characters to die
I like that Gail mentioned it shouldn't be used to punish people or call people out. You'd be hardpressed to find a story that doesn't have at least one problematic thing. Some are way worse than others, but most authors do it by accident without any malintent. I recently made a video about Far Cry 3 and it's white savior tropes that it tries to subvert it but ends up being the trope anyway. We can have situations like that where the author is straight up intending to critique a problem trope and just mess it up. I'd wouldn't think he should have been boycotted, cancelled, fired. I don't think people who like the story are racist either, especially since the majority of people know very little about tropes and deconstructing stories, so they don't even know there's a racist trope in the game anyway.
YES. that’s why I read her statement in full. It was SUCH a good statement. Basically “look let’s discuss this but we aren’t condemning those stories”. That’s how I always feel about these discussionsn
I think the reason it works in the Last of Us for Sara is because both in the game and show she's the character we're following. She's developed as a character in her own right and honestly feels like the protagonist until her death. For Tess, she's pushing her own goals in the story by pushing Joel and Ellie together before she dies and when she sacrifices herself.
Dresden Files is a series on the complete other side of that coin, seemingly trying to break a record for the number of women in fridges.
No babe.
@@chand911 sure darling. Defend the super sexist series beloved by teenage boys everywhere.
I think for me it comes down to the question, "Is this a character or is this a prop?" I think it's fine as a writer to kill off a character for another character's growth - the gender of the characters aside. If you ask yourself, "What was the role of this character," and if the answer is to die in service of this guy's character growth and nothing else, that's bad writing. Who cares if you kill off a lampshade?
Yep, you NAILED it. I think we rarely notice these tropes when they are done WELL, because the writer is skilled at making a character feel like a full person - and when someone feels real, then they no longer feel like a prop to simply propel a story.
But, what's wrong with that if it sets our main character on a epic journey?
I went to a talk at a writer's conference last year where the speaker went on a rather passionate rant about fridging, and I remember disagreeing with a lot of her framing (among other things, she asserted that a certain major female character's death in Avengers Endgame was fridging and basically an immoral choice on the part of the writers; she thought that her male companion should have died instead). You're much more even-handed here than she was!
My general feeling is that a lot of people get a bit too legalistic about this. I don't disagree that fridging (by which I mean 2-dimensional characters who exist primarily to die and motivate and another character) is generally not good storytelling. However, a lot of people assert that any use of the trope is actually *immoral*, and that's where I take issue. Some go further and expand the notion of fridging, getting upset about any instance of a female character dying while male characters live, and I think that's kind of ridiculous. I just want interesting characters who live or die in interesting ways; I don't want writers to feel like they're walking on eggshells when they're figuring out the best way for their story to accomplish that.
You’ve hit something that bothers me a lot about discussion of works in general: the moralization of it! We should absolutely be able to talk about potentially harmful or overused tropes without condemning the work in question or claiming it was a moral decision.
Also the endgame argument is stupid because if it’s the character I think it is, she was a fully fleshed our character with her own motivations: it didn’t just motivate a male character. Anyway, I digress 🤣
I agree with you that it’s more about good writing and making good characters than anything else
Amazon fantasy productions really struggle with fridging, it seems. I noticed Rings of Power had the same issue.
In the books, Tolkien would often casually mention a female character but not flesh them out (not ideal, but at least a thread to get started with). But instead of running with that, the showrunners chose to simply kill off or ignore these female characters. The most notable instance of this is Elendil's wife, who's mysteriously dead in the show and is only used as a plot point for Isildur and Elendil's development. They also removed other female characters like Galadriel's daughter, Celebrian and Miriel's grandmother, Queen Inzilbeth.
My husband is a big WOT fan and was deeply disappointed in it's adaptation (he quit after the first episode); I had high hopes for ROP since it had a bigger budget behind it. Unfortunately writing flaws can't be covered by budget alone.
The most confusing things about Rings of Power is they removed existing female characters in favor of made up ones...that didn't do anything?? Look, I could fill a novel with what RoP failed at so it's hard to pinpoint just one thing lol
I think “Fridging” is best used to describe a female character whose *sole* purpose is to die for a male character’s story or arc. When a female character is used like that, as you said yourself, she is essentially just a prop. Fridging dehumanizes the character and victimizes her for nothing more than a gut punch or emotional manipulation. I mean, while we may feel sad to see the female character perish, the real reason we’re supposed to be upset is because the male character is upset by her death. Even in death it’s not about her, it’s about him.
Lol what is this for? Did you just not watch the video but come down here to bless us with your opinion?
@@chand911Damn, you’re right. I didn’t watch this video because she never even mentions the word “Fridging” or what it means, especially not within the first twenty seconds of the video. I guess I just love going around on TH-cam posting comments about “Fridging” on random videos for my own amusement. People just need to know what it means to me. You got me, Internet Troll. Now go back underneath the bridge from whence you came.
I just finished my reread of Red Rising. I realized fridging is a main part of the story. It's very well done in the sense that it impacts the entire series and it's very impactful, but still I was shocked because it's like the definition of fridging.haha
The early death of someone the main character deeply cares about is indeed a very common trope. Comic books and video games traditionally had a male dominated audience, so maybe that's one reason a lot of female characters were portrayed as victims in those stories.
But lately I would argue that it's a lot more diversified who meets an early untimely death.
Would you agree that the death of Finrod fills this role to build up Galadriel?
Arya stark; her little brother gets maimed, then she watches her fathers beheading, then her older brother gets brutally murdered and it does not stop there. So it's understandable when her mind gravitates towards really dark places.
John Wick went on a killing spree when they killed his dog. Just a few examples on top of my head.
We'd have to look at the data! It would be interesting to look at comic book death in particular, since that's where the trope originated from. As a reminder, fridging isn't claiming that EVERY character that dies to only further a plot point is female, but rather that they are -disproportionately- female. I do think the first argument is interesting; does audience matter when it comes to fridging? It's hard to collect that data.
This is a neat talking point as well. It seems like killing off a beloved friend or family is just a really simple way of giving the story some high stakes early on.
@@Bookborn In comics the term among the fans is being ''Uncle Ben'd'' in reference to Spiderman's uncle.
As someone who never read nor watched Wheel of Time, "fridging" seems to have a direct correlation to agency of characterization, specifically the depth of it, in general. Not just for the female character(s) being bridged but all the characters in a cast. If there is not a sense of agency or nuance in even a main character, and it's a very plot driven story, it would (unfortunately) make sense that any female characters that are killed off for the sake of a male character are just that, because even the male character that she's "dying for" doesn't really even have that much, if any, agency or motivation.
Yes yes YES Evie. Exactly it. I think all of these tropes always boil down to one thing: are you a good writer? Are you a good story teller? That's basically it. Because if you are, if you know how to make characters feel real, then anything that happens to them will ALSO feel real.
Reasonable analysis. Examining "fridging" is similar to applying the Bechdel test; neither is meant to take account of the quality of the work in question. They are simply tools to examine the frequency of a particular occasion as a data point for additional analysis and extrapolation. Excellent books and films can have the death of female characters affect male characters just like cruddy books and films can.
YES, well said. The Bechdel Test cannot tell you everything about representation, it can only tell you a small part; same with any trope.
What an interesting topic!! And what a phenomenal video also. Big yes to everything
I have some things to say. First, absolutely agree with the overuse of the trope names in basically every piece of media. I’m this example it can be easily seen as not every time a character dies and another character gets affected by that death is fridging. Also, while it obviously happens more often with female characters, I think there has also been a ton of fridging of male characters, where their only purpose and reason to exist was to motivate another character to do something. But, if not every time a character dies is fridging, and fridging is not just exclusive to female characters, how can we distinguish when it’s fridging and when it is not?
I think it was in a video of Overly Sarcastic Productions of this topic where I got this idea: the worse part of the fridging trope is that the character killed has their agency and autonomy stolen from them, they are reduced to move the plot forward or to be a character’s motivation. Who they were, what ambitions did they have, what they did on their own, becomes no longer important, they are reduced to their deaths, and we know people are not how they die but more often how they live. If you kill a character, and that death serves to motivate another character, but the character killed had agency, motivations, personality etc., I’d say that’s not fridging, that’s just how the story went. I think that’s the main point here, the agency of the character killed.
Agreed to everything stated here. The interesting thing about fridging is that at some point we could hopefully retire the trope name, you know? I'm not sure we are quite there yet, but I do think in the last 20 years since we named the trope, media has changed a LOT and perhaps we could now be like "look it isn't happening that way anymore, we don't need to have our sensors go up EVERY time a female character dies."
But like your second paragraph said, it ultimately comes down to good writing. When characters feel real, then their deaths don't feel manufactured for another character's benefit. They influence the world in more than one way.
Always love your trope analyses! Fridging is a trope I've become more aware of in recent years but I never compared different versions of it like this. Also I will say that Greatcoats (by Sebastien de Castell) is my all-time favorite series but it has not-so-well-done fridging in my opinion. It's one where I wish we'd had more time to get to know the female character as her own entity, like you talked about.
Not only did they create a sacrificial character in WoT, they did it because they didn't think the audience would buy a genuine, noble character like Perrin in the books. I think they just didn't trust the audience to buy the motivation that Perrin, Rand, and Mat were just good guys. So they had to construct this bizarre motivation for Perrin. It was like they just didn't understand characters, their audience, or human nature in general.
I think they did it to age them up buuut it backfires because the original innocence is what makes the rest of the world a contrast.
@@Bookborn Exactly. By aging them up they killed a lot of the
magic. I just don't see how it was a good idea to have them not be wide-eyed virgins.
This was a great video! It's funny how I noticed the fridging in WoT immediately, whereas in TLoU I was just distraught that a character I cared about died
Agreed - the Wheel of Time was a horrible example of fridging, largely because wasn't even deeply explored or fleshed out. Seeing the screentime difference is very telling here. She was a prop to hurt Perrin, which in itself isn't bad (it could have been Master Luhan as a prop) but exploring the ramifications of killing your pregnant wife just wasn't done. In contrast, relationships is at the center of The Last of Us and the ramifications are explored.
I think it felt less egregious because she wasn't just a damsel that was lost. She was a force in her own right and made the choice in that moment to even help. This will always exist though, especially when most narratives are focused on certain characters. The other characters all more or less will act in service of developing the main character's story arc.
Certain tropes being so widespread that they become cliche crutches can be annoying and lazy writing, especially when rooted in certain prejudices. It's a very similar conversation with exploitation. Very interesting subject that's not so clear-cut as one might think.
Exactly. If a character is well-written, killing them off won't feel quite like a prop. We probably mostly notice negative tropes when they are done poorly: when they are done well, they don't feel like tropes.
I am against bad writing. I'm okay with white savior and fridging when done well.
@@Bookborn The woman who was literally fridged, was the main character's love interest for years, possibly more than a decade; she clearly was never just a prop. So clearly Gail did not intend that only applies when women are just props.
Besides which, there are even more men, even just props, that get killed to further the main character's story than women, so if you are to be consistent, and not sexist, you have to say men can't be killed for the sake of the story of a main character either.
I mostly dislike fridging in cases where it is solely used as a plot hook/inciting incident/raising the stakes.
Yep, "shock value". Which is another reason why WoT didn't work for me.
Completely agree with what you said. It's definitely over used in Indian movies. Since it got very tropey, later they changed it to killing off male friends of main characters. Because of seeing this sooo often, I hate this trope sooo much with every fiber of my being.
Does it make it any better when it's the male best friend? I feel like it's probably a problem in not giving the killed-off character enough of a personality to begin with, male or female!
@@Bookborn As you said, it depends on the agency of the killed-off character. In most cases, male friends would have some character development and some purpose. If that's not the case, if they are also just a damsel, it would bother me.
I honestly don't even consider the WoT show an adaptation. It's more like a parody.
It's hurts right! It's a show that had a built in storyline, all they had to do was follow the books!
It's funny because it's true!
@Been there done that! yeah like some of the extra scenes would have been cool if they had also covered the source material but instead we just got a jumbled mess that makes little to no sense.
I really struggled with that first episode of WoT. So much so that I didn't even bother to watch it again. I think Perrin killing his wife, albeit unintentionally, would have fundamentally changed him so much.
As a whole I think at times it can work when one character dies it can lead to growth for another. It does seem heavily skewed, from my limited knowledge, towards females doing the dying to grow characters. I think if it is to be done than we need to start seeing the characters who die have some interesting characteristics and see their dynamics. Too often it just feels like another red shirt dying to show the danger of an enemy or to change a character. The problem I see is that too often we can't comprehend the loss because we have no background in their relationship.
Love the use of redshirt here because that's exactly it - when a female character dies who has a full character/personality, it doesn't feel as bad because they were a full person.
This was a great analysis. It shows the nuance to be had in the conversation about a negative trope. I think it's best to avoid them if possible, but they can be done with skill. The challenge is, does the writer actually have the skill to pull it off?
Good point: I think almost ANY trope comes down to skill. If you write in a way that makes characters feel full and 3D, killing one off isn't going to seem as big of a deal, or as trivial.
It's about agency. If she exists to get killed it's Fridging. People die, but if we get to see her as a full character before her death, and her death is a thing in itself and not a launching pad for another Character's(mostly male) development then we have a natural thing happening in your world. More female characters definitely does help too as you said.
And with WOT, like, Lews Therin's murdering his family is right there. It's still Fridging in my opinion, Ilyena has no character at the start of the EotW, but at least it ties into the story and what the Dark One did to Saidin. Why not use that instead of creating another character, killing her off, and locking her husband in an understandably depressed mood for the whole series? How do you develop a character with this much trauma at the start of his arc?
It will NEVER make sense to me why they didn't include the prologue in the beginning if they wanted a darker tone for the show, rather than aging up/making the characters less innocent. And you're right, her murder is still fridging but at least Lews Therin isn't the main character (well he is and isn't but you know what I mean) and so I think it works a little better because nobody is fleshed out at that point.
In The Last of Us, Joel's companion character(s) always dies (apart from Ellie of course). He has Sarah, Sarah dies, he has Tess, Tess dies, [spoilers for future episodes]
he has Henry and Sam, they both die, etc. Bill and Frank were also companions to Joel in a way, since they helped him out with things earlier in the outbreak and stayed in touch.
Yes, it's funny, I wrote this after episode 2, but then the next two episodes the male characters died LOL! But I think my point stands that the first two episodes still didn't feel like fridging because those characters had agency and personality beyond just being plot points for Joel.
Great video, and an interesting discussion!
I think it's easy to default to thinking of the male characters' stories as more interesting and dynamic, and female characters dying and suffering is just a byproduct of that, rather than a deliberate act, in most cases.
I also see it happen a lot now with books that have female protagonists, usually a sister or the like dying in the beginning of the book to fuel the MC and start their journey. Sometimes we meet her briefly, sometimes we're just told about it, and the character only exists for that purpose, and nothing more. I find it kind of sad, because a lot of the time those books have heavy themes of feminism in them otherwise.
I agree that obviously the solution isn't to not kill female characters ever; a lot of these worlds are brutal, and people die. Also it's natural to want your MC or other characters to experience losses and opportunity for growth. It can be tough to pull it off, but I also very much agree that you have to give these female characters agency, and a story of their own.
(Spoilers for Mistborn Era 1 and Gentleman Bastards)
I personally didn't find Tindwyl's death very frustrating, even though it technically fits the trope. I think it helped that she was first introduced as a character of her own right, and then later became a love interest in addition to that.
However, it didn't care for Ezri's death at all in Red Seas, and could see how that story would end from the very first time she appeared.
Great video. Thanks. Before I never really unterstood what fringing means.
I love how balanced this discussion was. To me, the issue is connected with MCs as a whole. Having more female MCs opens up space to have more male side characters who can be killed off (because it's a lot harder to kill the MC haha). It's obviously harder to sex change an MC in adaptations, but I love that you're having this discussion because it helps people keep these tropes in mind when coming up with original content. Oh, you should totally play The Last of Us btw. It's a masterfully unique experience that is way more immersive than any show could ever be! (And I'm saying this as someone who is enjoying the show 😁)
I honestly don't think I could handle the Last of Us video game 🤣I have never played a zombie game because the idea of zombies just popping up out of nowhere in a dark game is the opposite of a fun time for me LOL
Hahaha, fair enough!
Good analysis, i agree the last of us has more constraints and i agree with the motives for what they did to perrin. I did not know you were watching the last of us! I am not a gamer but very much enjoying the show.
The show is a bit brutal for me (especially with child harm 😭) but its just SO well done I can't help but watch!
@@Bookborn Agreed, i think GOT desensitised me to brutal TV a bit
I agree with u on WOT. I want to like the show so much and will give it a ton of leeway because of my love for the books but this example u give about Perrin's 'wife' is excellent on a miss for the show(it is not a major miss but the little things add up to make overall 'feel' of show a miss). I will still watch S2 and hope for best, a lot of first seasons have growing pains
I agree that Perrin's wife wasn't enough to think it was bad! It was a LOT of little things like that, that ended up adding up over time, like you said. I will also be watching season 2 - I still have hope for it!
It's less of a miss and more of a deliberate "shot themselves in the foot" imo. It was entirely unnecessary to begin with.
I recommend listening to the Last of us podcast, hosted by both directors of the series and the game respectively, and the voice of Joel from the game. The directors work together to make the story similar yet different. I think it's really interesting to hear their thoughts and ideas.
Great video, btw!
Thanks for the rec!
For some reason, I always thought the fridging trope was more about a romantic interest, and I can’t remember from the TV show, but at least in the games I don’t think Tess was ever an active, romantic partner, but they might have had some kind of romantic history.
I didn’t really see the comparisons though, until you pointed them out. But for me, I think the reason it works so well in the last of us is especially with the daughter, the entire show from start to finish, is reminding you of that moment, as we see, Joel learn to deal with that trauma of losing her. In some of the more bad uses of the trope, the death is usually just a kicking off point to get the hero moving, but then the plot usually is much bigger than that. Similar to the wheel of time, where we forgot that the characters wife even existed by the end of the season. I think Tess could kind of fall into this category, but the fact that she was well developed and went out on her own terms as a hero I think makes a difference too
In the show she's definitely a romantic interest, but that's super interesting that it wasn't like that in the games! I also agree that it's clear the daughter's death really changed Joel; I think its important if it's going to affect someone that it actually DOES affect someone.
@@Bookborn actually in the game it is implied but its very subtle (and yes might just have meant a past brief romance, but they def care for each other). I wont spoil it in case you plan on playing the games or watching a play through. It is very much implied but its much more subtle. Basically the game gets to get away with some things being more under the radar on this and other points because you can essentially explore and find clues and plus well its a 20 hour game so longer time with characters. Plus its a game so agency yada yada.
I would like some feedback on a fantasy story idea I have that involves a child motivated by his mother's death. Here's the premise: A family loses their mother to sickness (this is inspired by my real-life dad losing his mother to cancer). The older brother struggles with grief and wants to find a way to communicate with his dead mother. He believes she is in a realm called the sleeping world where people go after death. Humans are at war with creatures from the sleeping world, so the son joins the army to see if he can get one of the enemy creatures to help him reach his mom. The boy gets captured, and the creatures keep him alive for reasons that I won't go into detail about here. The rest of the story is about his siblings, father, and stepmother going on an epic quest to find him.
I realized that this is fridging, but it is also basically the plot of "Onward" with more things I want to add. Is there a way to retain the emotional impact and motivation of grieving a dead mother you want back, without fridging? Is it necessary to change the dead parent to a father? Or are dead parents too overdone in general? Would love anyone's thoughts.
P.S. Bookborn, you pick some of the best topics to discuss!
Definitely agree with your last point on how to mitigate the trope by just having more female characters. Seanan McGuire said something in an interview along the same lines - if you only have one female, Black, queer, etc character and you kill them off, that plays into a lot of tired tropes and can come off the wrong way. But the solution to that isn't to just avoid killing those characters - you can just add more of them instead. WoT still really annoyed me though lol
Yeah it's funny because I realize that WoT has a lot of great female characters still, but I think it was just that they ADDED her. It was just so unnecessary!
Tess was so AWEsome I hoped they would pull a Shane…(Walking Dead comic, Shane is killed within 5-6 issues, TV show Shane was developed & lasted 2 seasons); but the show is called ‘The Last Of Us’.
I know I wish she could've lasted longer, but it's pretty much the point of the show that everyone dies (which is why deaths aren't as fridgy, either, imo, when you know pretty much everyone is going to die)
I love that she says it shouldn't be used as an attack - Have you read Kameron Hurley's "Geek Feminist Revolution?" It's not fridging, but she talks about "burying your gays." In an essay she recalls how despite her best efforts, she realized as one of her books was being printed that she had a gay male character who largely existed for a death by beating. It was too late to change it, and it was interesting how diligent she is about being aware of bias and still having something just honestly slip by.
It is uniquely frustrating though when things are *added* to the source material. Lovecraft Country did this, *adding* a gay character who murders an intersex character who was on screen for minutes. *Adding* An asian woman in the Koean war who seduces male soldiers and kills with sex. I could go on, but it was kind of astounding seeing the choices the show made as compared with the book.
Geek Feminist Revolution though - there's some great essays - one of my favorites is how a facet of Die hard is a 1980s male trying to find where he and his masculinity fit in a world where his wife is an exec at a global company - "Die Hard, Hetaerae, and Problematic Pin-Ups: A Rant."
Burying your gays and fridging I feel like are very similar in the way they are used for SURE. And I'm going to have to read those essays, they sound super enlightening. I think ultimately any work we do may have tropes in them...like she said, it's just going to happen. The idea is awareness, not like...some moral judgement that everything that has a trope is bad or unworthy!
Really like your analysis. I am curious if you have watched your husband play the last of us? If not I would definitely be very interested in your views on how the show develops. If you have , then maybe a comparison on adaptations would be interesting. On your question as someone who played the game I felt both Sarah's and Tess's deaths were for lack of a better word cannon for me while Perrin's wife is not. To be honest on wot it didnt bother me thaat much (but I am male) but it did seem kinda pointless with the whole Egwene triangle introduced later yes. Seemed like extra stuff added for no real payoff for both the wife death and love triangle.
I didn’t watch him play - I’m a gamer myself but haven’t played because I worry it’ll be too stressful 🤣 I usually don’t play zombie games but more open world like dragon age or Skyrim.
The wot thing didn’t bother me from a female perspective; more from a stupid writing perspective LOL. I just hate that killing his wife was thrown away as if it wasn’t a super traumatic event.
@@Bookborn ah last of us is very linear so might not be up your alley in that case . I am very curious about your views on the story progression then . It uses tropes but imo the game characters pull it off and show so far also so if you have time /interest! :)
I've heard someone complain about that trope being overused but never noticed it myself (but that's possibly because Fantasy isn't my main genre, I tend to read mostly classics). That analysis was very fascinating to me and now I'm genuinely wondering if there are examples where that same trope has been used to further a female character's plot, or if we have deeper reasons to think there might be a misogynistic bias in such choices (though it sounds mostly lazy to me and like some sort of emotional manipulation).
I think its as simple as Perrins wife not driving the plot or really being relevant at all. That combined with your points of screentime just make it laughable instead of impactful. I also think they were trying to say he was "going beserk" but I never got that. Just seemed like normal fighting chaos to me. Friendly fire is probably super common and just not talked about. Especially in the scenario shown of non fighters in an ambush in tight corners.
To redeem the trope they would have to make it way more impactful in the story almost in line with battleing the darkone. It should define Perrin and consume him. It should flashback everytime he touches his axe, everytime he kills. Also would benefit from more setup. Maybe just more scenes of them together and talk about future plans. Maybe have prophecy help with plot and tie in. Maybe mention that the darkone is trying to stop the wheel from turning which would stop his wife from being reborn? Anything to make her matter or make Perrins motivation make sense.
I see Joel and Ellie, I click.
I've played Last of Us when it first released. The trope in that case is well used because of the target audience. People outside looking in (like those watching the adaptation) could see it as overused, but honestly...
They can have their opinion, it's up to the author and what the story they want to tell. As an example there is a light novel (Japanese young adult book) that over uses certain crimes against his female characters. When his work was adapted into an anime during an interview he was asked about why he did that. His reply was simple and very telling, "people care about what happens to women it illicit emotions in the audience."
i agree with you on the WOT Fridging, because it is something that is added to the story, but in a very lazy way. also the scene itself is just for shock value, it doesn't add anything else to the story. in the last of us, both scenes tell a story besides motivate joel. where his daughter is shot shows a harsh reality that is forced upon people. soldiers having to make hard discisions, orders given by higher ups, and her being death being the driving point of joel and ellies storyline. in the tess death scene the infected embraces tess affectionally, giving her a "Deaths kiss" almost welcoming her in the fold of the cordyceps. and one of the major themes in the last of us series is love. which is shown here in a horrifying way.
YES such a good point! I was very annoyed at an article I read about that scene with Tess - they said it was "violating her and they wouldn't have done it with a male character" and I couldn't have disagreed more. That scene totally could've worked with a male or female character - it was showing the hive-mind of the "fold", as you say. It was a great, HAUNTING scene.
When I think of fridging, I think of it under a larger category of killing off a side character to set up an arc or give motivation for a main character. Kvothe's parents are basically fridged. Finrod was fridged in the RoP. Kaladin had that one kid in his squad die to set him up for an arc I believe. I think having a female character die for a male character's arc/motivation is more so connected to an oversaturation of male protagonists than anything else. I don't think I'd call it inherently sexist but possibly overused. Yet like any trope, it can work if done well.
I didn't realize this trope existed until I recently started Voice of War and was really glad Iriel didn't die 1) during the first chapter 2) during childbirth and immediately thereafter, and 3) hopefully ever as I realized how often (seemingly) wives/mothers are killed to give plot progression. I'm sure like most tropes this can be handled well but it almost always feels like low hanging fruit for a plot point and I can definitely live without it. Glad I know the name for it now as I wasn't even sure it was a thing until now.
One of my husband's big sticking points of the series is how healthy marriage relationships are rarely shown and so it was important to him to keep Iriel and Chrys as a team!
I have never heard this term before. Would the death of Eo in Red Rising be an example?
yes haha! People often use that one as an example.
WoT adaptation
I HATED the fridging, BUT I do think it does work better with Perrin's character. I'm doing my first re-read, using audiobooks, and I'm on The Shadow Rising, and I can already see the birth of "Faile's wife" starting up. That plotline makes more sense if there is something motivating him to keep her alive and out of danger, let alone himself, if something happened in the past. I say this because the book instead featured was a massive regression of his character. He gets darker, like Rand too, but his motivations become so selfish and singular that the King Perrin in TSR felt like a flash in the pan, rather than a real building and growing of his character. It literally took Sanderson dedicating a whole book on Perrin one final time to fix his lack of actual development, only for it to be even worse off after the recent Sanderson revelation concerning Lanfear. Perrin is just the worst and most frustrating ta'veren overall.
I got my issues with Mat, big time, but at least with Rand, with pressure of saving an ungrateful world, at least his devolution, revolution, resolution was incredibly satisfying to behold.
I think this is a really nice take! One edge case I am curious what you think about is young adult fantasy novels, when the parent figures inevitably die so that the main character is forced to be independent. For some reason a mother figure dying in this situation doesn't feel like fridging to me, even though it fits the literal definition of a female character dying with the intent of supporting the growth of the main character. You could maybe argue that since usually two parents, a father and mother, die, it's not gender specific. But you could have the same trope with lesbian parents or a single mother and I don't think that would push this scenario into feeling like fridging. Maybe I'm off base and this also is a classic example of fridging, but I'm just curious what you think of this situation.
I'm not sure how this comment reads but it's meant in a genuine way. Generally I don't like fridging when it happens in media. But it feels like there are also some story archetypes where "death to support the growth of a main character" is so baked in that it almost doesn't feel like it counts. I'm interested in that tension.
Your comment absolutely sounds genuine! I think the parent-killing off (or mothers in general) falls under a different category because it's mostly done off-screen. When it isn't done off screen, it could technically fall under fridging, but I find that it's less to motivate a protagonist and more to...get the parents out of the way 🤣 I think a lot of authors have a hard time imagining how their very young protag's can do anything if they had there-for-them parents. It's an issue, for sure, but feels different in motivation than fridging. And honestly, it's an issue I understand.
A good point. Another advantage to an orphaned protagonist is that he/she is not bound by familial requirements, so has more freedom within that world. Think of Taran Wanderer in the Lloyd Alexander Prydain pentalogy.
Very thoughtful and comprehensive. Just out of curiosity, is there a term for the dead parent trope? I’d never heard of fridging and think it’s an interesting term.
I guess you could find a trope on every story, like the dead son or for example, in the movie P.S. I love you it's the opposite to fridging.
I think "the orphan" is a trope? or maybe it's just "dead parents". That's def a trop, especially in Middle grade and YA, when authors can't figure out how to get their protagonist out the door if they had loving parents lol
As someone who never played TLOU, but is rather watching it for entertainment purposes, I don’t necessarily see the fridging component overdone or unnecessary in this particular case. While the show has been very true to the video game so far (from what I understand), the show’s creators discussed on their podcast how Sarah’s death is essentially a catalyst for the choices Joel makes from that point on. And I would assume same goes for Tess’s death. Joel makes her a promise to bring Ellie to where their may be hope for a cure or whatever it may be. I would say it’s a case of well-done fridging I suppose 😂
Yeah maybe I’m giving it too much credit, but I feel like Joel would’ve still brought Ellie even if Tess didn’t die. I got the feeling Tess was interested in following it through with Ellie, and I’m convinced she could’ve convinced Joel without her death. That, for me anyway, means her death wasn’t the only thing needed for Joel. Idk if I’m making sense haha
@@Bookborn
I do agree in some capacity. Keeping Tess and her storyline alive would have made for a fantastic diversion from the game and an interesting plot line/essentially new character. But I feel Joel was very on the fence about taking Ellie where she needed to go and her voicing last wishes before she died to Joel placed him on the “right path.”
While she didn’t need to have died, her death did, like you pointed out, further Joel’s plotline.
It’s honestly all such an interesting concept:
-Does fridging promote misogyny in that case?
-Does furthering the male plotline through the death of women demean women?
-OR does it signify the strength of the bond between men and women; and show that the death of these women in the men’s lives are important enough TO catapult life-altering character choices??
What a fantastic video! Lots of great discussion points and comments section. 🙂
Interesting topic. It would take a lot of work and effort to go through all sorts of media to identify which characters that were created solely for the purpose of dying in order to be a motivation for another character. I would be curious to know how many movies or books out there use pets for fridging. John Wick was entirely based on some assholes killing his dog, but the funny thing is, his dying wife was the one who gifted him that puppy! So is that like a double-fridging? Killing the symbolic gift that he cared for due to his late wife?
I would argue that... in the WoT tv series, because a male mentor dying would have been less traumatic, that is precisely why it _had_ to be Perrin's wife and not a male mentor of his(Because it wouldn't have made as much sense for it to have affected him to the extreme way that it did if it hadn't been someone immediately understandable just how much more important and/or closer to him they were than anyone else was[ even without personally getting to know them or their personal dynamic together very well] like a wife is). I would also argue that his wife's death definitely did not have zero impact on the story overall-I think it shaped literally everything about his actions in every scene he was in, after it happened. I also don't recall him ever actually talking about another love interest, himself? I know other characters around him accused him of being in love with someone else, and accused him of having been so possibly since even before he got together with his wife, but I don't recall Perrin ever actually doing anything except insisting that they were mistaken and that it wasn't actually like that-but maybe I just missed &/or am somehow forgetting something?. The only thing that maybe could have been construed as him admitting to it was when he and Rand were apologizing to each other or such, but I thought that was because Perrin had finally admitted what he'd actually been keeping from the group(about the death of his wife) and was apologizing for having kept that to himself and not having told them sooner.
But, for example, I mean..the fact that Perrin initially doesn't want to stay with the group...he basically wants to go back and not care if it gets himself killed(because his guilt makes him devalue the worth of his own life), and the only reason he doesn't actually do that is specifically because he also doesn't want to be responsible for getting anyone else in the town killed so he's basically only reluctantly preserving his own life(because he already knows painfully-intimately just how unbearably heavily being responsible for the deaths of others weighs on him personally .. to the point where he doesn't know if he can actually even bear it). But, at the same time, he is always super withdrawn and hanging back as far on the outskirts of the group he's traveling with as he can(because he doesn't trust himself not to accidentally turn on them in the heat of battle either). Every time you see people talking to him or talking about his wife, you can see how badly the guilt is eating him up inside; how badly he wants to confess what happened(wants to scream at them to stop talking about what a great guy he is / wants to tell them that HE's actually why she died not the enemies that attacked them) but is also simultaneously _both_ afraid of being rejected by them for it the way that he's already rejecting himself _and_ uncomfortable with the possibility of being forgiven by them for it(specifically because of how he can't even forgive himself), and that is reflected in literally everything he does or says or not in response to everything else around him. And the whole entire reason he ends up getting so close with the other character that he gets accused of being in love with her in the first place is because when it was just the two of them traveling alone together he was forced to confront his fear of hurting the people he cares about a little bit specifically so he could keep fighting alongside her because there was literally no one else who could do so right then except him unless he just threw his hands up and simply abandoned her to fight all by herself(which he simply couldn't in good conscience ever do..even though he also struggled almost as much with jeopardizing her himself in good conscience by letting her be around him at all in battle too)...and he ends up confiding to her, first, about what he did well before confessing what he did to anyone else; because it was essentially just them against the world, when it was only the two of them together[ not knowing for sure if they would or wouldn't ever see the rest of their group again], and that made it uniquely imperative they trusted and were honest with each other[ and that also made it impossible for him to just fade away and hide or disappear into the background like he'd been doing with the rest of the group before it was just the two of them where no one would notice that there was something he wasn't telling them or that anything was obviously bothering him so much more than just the fact that he'd lost his wife]...which meant that she understood how certain things that other people were saying were eating at him even when everyone else was still completely clueless and missing the fact that anything even was eating at him at all, and she kind of hung back with him to have his back and reassure him or whatever even after they reunited with the rest of their group. Which lead to the wild assumption that they'd gotten involved romantically or something, even though that wasn't actually what was going on at all. ((.. Or maybe that was just me and my ability to headcanon between the lines, idk.. .))
Not sure why I couldn't get into this show after first ep, but I'll give it another try.
So, fridging is basically killing a female character that the audience has actually met, right? The male MC of my novel is grieving over the loss of his daughter. That's how the story opens, him having shut out the world. We learn more about her in retrospect as the story progresses. 🤔..... I guess that wouldn't be fridging, at all, since she wasn't actually his motivation for taking the actions that he does in the story; the loss of her affects his mental state, but he's not driven by vengeance... at least not initially.
I guess a better example would be a female character I introduced in book 1 is murdered in book 2--a team of mercenaries was trying to kill her _and_ my MC. She's a soldier, so she put her life on the line: she died while protecting him and a child. Of course, this was part of his motivation to taking the actions that he does, but it's also a key part of a conspiracy. *Would that be considered fridging?* Any insight on this would be _greatly_ appreciated.
I think it comes down to a few things in this situation: one, remembering that female characters will be dead or die and that can’t ALL be considered fridging. Your main characters daughter is dead; that is a real circumstance in real life that will happen and affect somebody. What happens next is the more important parts: do you have female characters in your story that are used for more than just the MCs motivation? Are they full and developed people?
@@Bookborn My story is *chuck full* of women (I feel like Mitt Romney, after saying that 😅). I haven't done a full count, but I would say that women outnumber men over the series, especially in the current WIP. And, yes, I do spend considerable time on their individual stories. To me, each character, regardless of who and what they are, must feel like they have their own lives. Otherwise, the characters would be interchangeable, making the story feel flat.
Even so, we dudes need to check our biases when new info comes along, so thank you very much for your guidance 👍
Oh, and... uh... hmm......... I shudder to plug, but if you're at all curious about my handling of this, my novel is *"Loophole of the Gods"*
When they introduced Perrin's wife just to kill her off, I was instantly done with the series. It did NOT get better, but I watched it anyway...
I always associated this trope with Mad Max. I wonder how far back you could go and still see storylines like this.
I've never understood what the problem was unless it is simply that the fridged woman or women were the only women appearing in the story, and that was a big trend. How many female protagonists have been motivated by the death of a male character? Is it not the same proportion? I don't know, I'm just wondering. Is the problem actually just taking underdeveloped characters of any sex and killing them off for a cheap emotional impact? Would killing John Wick's puppy be considered fridging, because it's basically the same thing, just with a non-human. I'm curious because I am writing a number of stories where women are harmed or killed, but then again, so are men. Some tropes confuse me as to what I should do - sanitize my stories so realistic atrocities like rape and murder do not occur and do not form a springboard for someone else's motivation or be sexist about it and only avoid it if it motivates a man. It seems natural for people to be motivated into action due to the untimely death or severe mistreatment of a loved one.
I had low expectations for The Last of Us show because I don't really see the point in video game adaptations and TLoU is one of my favourite games of all-time but so far I'm enjoying it.
Video game adaptations are usually just a fun time, from the ones I've seen - this one is def more serious and is working very well for me personally, even though I never played the game. I think they are doing a great job!
TLOU also killing Male characters for female growth (sam and henry in the last episode, and Spoiler for game 2). So its balance.
Right, but I analyzed this after the first two episodes - and just balancing it out with male characters wouldn't be enough for me to say it wasn't fridging. It's not fridging because both female characters had agency, personality, and storylines apart from the male character - that's what makes it work and feel less prop like!
I have a lot of thoughts on the Whee of Time. Especially since I thoroughly enjoyed the show. I understand why they killed her off. But I think that was TOO traumatic all at once, especially the way they handle the “love triangle” (I’m of the opinion he didn’t have feelings for Egwene). I think they could have had a more meaningful less difficult to deal with the ramifications if they killed off his mentor. He still would have the grief and pain of going Bizzark and killing someone but it’s something we would accept especially since he doesn’t talk about it. I think doing that then adding him brutally killing a white cloak would have lended well to show his struggle with the hammer or the axe.
Yeah, tbh, the more I think about it, he could've honestly killed *anyone* and it would've been traumatic. Like the point of Emond's field is that they are very close knit and nothing happens there. Just killing ANYONE he knew would've been trauma and would've made him question himself. I agree that it was mostly for shock factor
@@Bookborn yep absolutely. Literally anyone but his wife. Because killing the wife has a much much different pain that has to be handled well.
@Bookborn The books do kill his wife, but not by his hand, she dies saving him. He is also very very messed uo behind her, through the entire series he is broken over his wife.
They definitely show his and [my phone won't let me type her name without correcting it] Eugene, lol, sorry, the wrong way , he loved her as a sister a close and trusted friend, someone skilled in listening to the wind.
The first season is speeding through the source material. It is my biggest issue with the show. The mental and emotional pain of that attack never fades from our team of heros, men or the women, and it also falls to show the absolute fear, respect, and love the female's of the town , or tribe were held in. By no means were they weak, and by no means would the men replace them, especially my boy here, he's to loyal for all that, he only left to get revenge for his wife and safety for his children.
@@beentheredonethat5908 the books absolutely don’t kill his wife lol perrin is not married in the eye of the world. I am a giant WoT fan, so I am absolutely positive about this. He doesn’t marry until later in the series.
@@beentheredonethat5908 bro have you even read the books I don’t what series you’re reading but Perrin marries a girl named Faile not Egwene
I feel it is ok to call a story out when it constantly returns to the fridging well. Eg the Bourne series. I really enjoyed the first Bourne movie. Was stunned when they then killed Bourne's love interest in the early part of the sequel which did diminish my enjoyment of it, but ok, it was a choice. But then we have later Bourne movies returning to the trope of killing female characters to motivate Jason Bourne.
Today I learnt about the term fridging, I'm now worse off for it.
Fridging always drives me crazy. It's so prolific in 90's fantasy books and 2000 YA, it's one of the reasons as a teenager I only liked YA and fantasy books with female leads, can't fridge your main lead. Great video and well said
Oh man, read some of the comments. A lot of people seem personally offended that the term fridging even exists. Doesn't matter how softly and respectfully views on female characters and feelings are mentioned and discussed, some people just feel attacked, yikes. I don't know if there could be a more constructive way to discuss this topic than your video does.
Speaking about women dying (not sexual trauma, don’t like that to further plot), I don’t consider this a problematic trope. It’s a cliche for sure and should be done well, but not really problematic. Definitely have seen this with flipped genders in stories with a female lead. Male leads have been the more popular in past so I think women’s tragic death for story development is more popular. Often at least a third of a book’s cast is prop characters, often dying, for a specific purpose whatever their gender might be.
Regardless of gender, this logic works. I don't think gender should come with plot armor which I know you'd agree, and I also don't think authors have to be careful based on gender. BUT, I hate fridging. And I hate it for any gender. If it was done with a male, we'd still run into a red shirt issue.
Awesome video, it's very well said. I do think friding has been a thing for a long time because we have been conditioned as a society to think about the woman being the linchpin in a male character's arc. Women have been portrayed as the gender men must protect. Women are our hearts, and therefore, when one is killed, our hearts are ripped out.
That being said, as a writer, when I kill off a character, I want it to be more in line with Last of Us. I don't care which gender dies, just as long as it serves the story.
In real life, when I was just a little kid, a close family member was murdered by her abusive husband. This has been a stain on my family ever since. Fast forward to now, to me, losing someone you love is a very big deal. And it's egregious to the story if a death scene that's supposed to be important falls flat. Which is exactly what frigers do when they fridge.
Looking back at some of my favorite death scenes, they have mostly been women, but they were also done very well, and served the story. And since it was my Aunt of whom I lost, I admit, I can feel that connection when it's a woman more than when it's a man. That's not to say I can't feel connection if the scene is written well.
Wheel of Time meant well, but they did fridge that scene.
The problem with *criticism* of fridging (or similarly ANY concerns with representation of women in media) is that the people doing it most prominently SEEM to focus their examples against some supposed ideal representation offered to men. The one that really does not exist. There are TONNES of negative tropes and stereotypes that mostly target men, and violence targeting men in particular is seemingly COMPLETELY invisible in such discussions.
I'd offer Game of Thrones as the most glaring example.
Certain people complained of the violence against women in the show, pointing out sexual violence in particular. Obvious evidence of... something...? But such people didn't seem to remember that the show features an entire army of castrated men, several prominent male characters are subjected to horrific violence (Theon, anyone?) and the setting is generally kind of awful to live in :P
I only point this out as I'm continually disappointed when people attack tropes for PERCIEVED bias who are committing FAR more egregious and explicit bias in their analysis.
Tropes are not INHERENTLY good or bad. Even the most "problematic" trope can be fun, or be used well, or have rendered in an artful way (I saw somebody in comments talking about "white saviour" tropes. While they can certainly be condescending... they can also be accurate. Privileged people acting to help disadvantaged people has been the ONLY way to overcome disadvantage throughout history. Examine any civil rights struggle, or even revolution, and you will find sympathisers amongst the elite without whom progress would not have been achieved. Like it or not, reality is often "problematic" if you look at it too long through an ideological lens. ANY ideological lens :P)
I genuinely HATED the WoT fridging, though I think you make the best defence for it rather eloquently. But tragedy to fuel the heroes story IS foundational. The trope isn't bad. How it is USED can be bad. (Bookborn favourite Kelsier faces tragedy at the loss of both his mother and his wife. Both are foundational in the periods of his life that follow. I don't think those are done badly and I'd hate to see that backstory changed to appease critics in an adaptation)
I understand that there is a sociological / historical difference between male and female representation which makes topics like these more complicated, but fundamentally i don't think there are 'bad' or 'good' tropes, there is only 'bad' or 'good' execution of story elements. A 'bad' fridging example of a female character whose only part of the story if being a plot device would still work the same if it was a man being 'fridged' all else equal. What makes it more effective and 'good execution' is also similar in both potentials, the character having an actual character, there being a real dynamic with the character who gets influenced by this demise. From a purely mechanical pov, there is no difference between either case, there is only 'good storytelling' and 'bad storytelling' (ofc not a binary either).
In the case of TLOU, sarah's feels fully organic and necessary for joel's story, she could have been a boy, he could have been a woman, it would function the same way. Tess' case i found a little weaker insofar that the storybeat itself (getting bitten, yada yada yada) is so generic at this point, though i largely agree with the points you make when it comes to character agency / personality, etc.
Another good video, thoughtful and nuanced!
The death of Perrin's wife in the first episode of Wheel Of Time is doubly bad imho. They literally invented a character to fridge her to push Perrin's story precisely nowhere. Perrin's story has a pretty good development path within the Wheel Of Time books already. A lot like Mat's story development seems to be changing drastically for no real reason just because they wanted to make it look like he is a bad guy??
At least with Sarah in The Last Of Us, she had always been there as a developmental point for Joel as a character. If anything the show runners handled Sarah better than the game developers did as in the game Sarah was a blink and you'll miss her character that people generally saw her and was like immediately "Oh she's gonna die in like 5 mins to drive his story forwards"
I think sometimes, fridging is actually something necessary for the development of a character. For example - Joel in The Last Of Us his relationship and bond and development throughout the game (and TV show) storyline is because although he initially looks at Ellie as cargo and tells her as much, he a man who has for the past 20 years of his life shut his emotional vulnerability caused by the loss of Sarah down he's become cold and in his own words - not a good person. His journey with Ellie re-awakens these paternal feelings he shoves down and becomes the focus of his story. He becomes a father to Ellie despite everything, he is given this second chance of being a dad and it's about how when push comes to shove his decisions are those of a father (for those who aren't familiar with the end of The Last Of Us 1 - I won't spoil it). This is why in a way, his dismissal in The Last Of Us 2 felt like such a gut punch to those who completed the first game. He was barely present, yes the second game was more about Ellie's development as a person but the complete removal of Joel in the method they chose was basically fridging as well and it didn't need to be really.
Does Joel die in the Last of Us 2? I think I spoiled that for myself online while I was researching for this video, and I saw a lot of people upset about it. I would be upset about it too, and I haven't even played the game lol. Does Joel really need to die for Ellie to come into her own? IDK, I guess I'll make more of a judgement when we get there. I don't think it would be fridging in this case because Joel is a complete character - a main character even - so he doesn't JUST exist to forward Ellie's plotpoint. I'd say it was just a stupid death 😂
@@Bookborn It's a bit of a spoiler I suppose but yes. In The Last Of Us 2's opening chapters, Joel is murdered.
Abby, the main antagonist of The Last OF Us 2 is the daughter of a scientist/doctor Joel killed when rescuing Ellie at the end of the first game from the Fireflies. The guy was in the process of actively trying to kill Ellie at the time. Abby's act of revenge is the driving force behind the behaviour of Ellie in The Last Of Us 2 and the reason she develops the way she does. He is quite literally fridged for this purpose by being beaten to death with a golf club in front of Ellie.
The Perrin scene was particularly bad. I find some reviewers seem to be overly sensitive to any story with a male protagonist and something bad happens to a women and they just call it out as fridging. I think it also depens on the genre. I think it's hard to criticize a mystery/thriller as fridging when the inciting incident is expected to be a murder or person gone missing. Other genres, I think it's fair to expect more character development and agency.
Ahh, very good point about bringing in genre. We definitely expect that some genres (especially thrillers) need an inciting incident. I'd say thrillers more often than not also start with a male death when they have a female main character - I've certainly seen a decent amount.
What about giving birth to female characters for male growth? I've seen incredible masculine growth from immaturity to manhood in friends of mine who have had daughters and came to understand more of the female side of the human experience.
As always, great video. I don't understand why this bother some people. If a protagonist/hero cares about another character, and something happens them (regardless of their gender), it's a great way to develop our hero. I don't care if the one that dies or suffers some terrible fate is a woman, a child, a parent, a partner, a friend... it's tragic and that's what makes it meaningful. What happens when is reversed? when the one who dies is a male? or straight (because I also disagree with the "kill your gays" trope). I'm on the camp of thinking that Tara from Buffy needed to die, just like Angel had to become angelus, just like Padme had to die, they are the reasons we have timeless, powerful and meaningful stories because everybody can relate to losing a loved one.
I think TLOU is borderline fridging, maybe not even. I see fridging as having that female character _solely_ for the purpose of killing her off to further the male's plot. (It should be said that genders can be swapped, but seldom are). However, in TLOU they give us enough time with Sarah to establish she has a full and healthy relationship with Joel and we fall in love with her character quickly. I think the only reason Joel's child is female is simply because we tend to find father/daughter relationships more endearing than father/son ones. (Father/son relationships come off as buddy, buddy more often than loving/protective father, even though they are much the same). But I think the father/daughter link accelerates your feeling of warm fuzzies with the characters involved. Essentially, Joel's child could have been male or female and it would have worked pretty much the same because it was more about a parent having their worst nightmare realized, losing their child.
Unlike most fridging scenarios where this immediately provides a launching platform for the main character, in TLOU it actually shuts down our main character, and it's only through Ellie persistently weedling her way into cracks of his personality that he moves forward. Joel's feelings being shut down is evidenced through the scene early on when they're disposing of infected bodies into the fires and the woman he's working with, seeing the next body is the young boy, says she just can't cope with it and Joel, being so shut down and desensitized carries out the task with no feeling. The death of his daughter has completely shut him down and at this point his character isn't moving forward at all, just floating along in existence. (In fact, the only thing moving him forward is his search for his brother and finding the means to get to him).
So I tend to feel Sarah's death isn't really a fridging as it's more to move the story forward than the character. Tess dying, however, is a well done fridging, but again in this case, her being female wouldn't have made a difference because it wasn't about Joel losing his relationship with her that is now driving his character forward, (In fact, they feel much more like a relationship of convenience and survival, maybe with benefits, than a full and healthy, loving relationship). She was, in this case, convenient for Joel because he could throw the responsibility of caring for Ellie more onto her while being able to remain distant and focused on his perceived task. Her dying simply throws Joel, against his will, to have to deal with Ellie on his own and face his inner turmoil head on. So not quite the troped fridging we expect here either.
In WoT, however, it's 100% fridging. Laila was added for only two reasons, I feel. 1. Fridging her, and 2. creating a tense love triangle between Rand, Perrin and Egwene. But, even though in my past comments I've railed against Rafe's decisions, we might have to give him the benefit of the doubt here...a little, maybe only a smidge. He's mentioned in a couple interviews, or has at least alluded to, the fact that he seems to have entered the series actually thinking he'd have more episodes than eight. He mentions a mad scramble to rewrite things to fit into the more narrow schedule. However, even though I know he had more screen time planned for Laila, I don't think it would have helped much because I feel she was just there to move along the jealous love triangle. Because these early scenes were cut, this is why it's so very jarring when the love triangle scene shows up in Episode 7.
The other issue with Rafe is, he's planning things on a "big picture" scale. He's mentioned several times that he's "set up" things in season one for future seasons. And, unfortunately, Perrin's progression is one of these, I feel. I truly believe we'll see Perrin's arc in season two. (Even though I feel it's a weak arc at this point, simply because of the weak set up). I feel too many writers are doing this now, they are writing for "streamed" shows and not TV. And here's where I think, once again, TLOU, and also The House of the Dragon, kind of shine in comparison, because they're written for TV, and HBO writers still write for TV. The Difference? I feel those writing for streaming services ultimately believe their show is best viewed by binge watching the series, hence they write their story to span across all episodes. Whereas writers for TV still give each episode a proper arc, as well as continuing the main story throughout the whole series. Writing for TV is still driven by the "We have to make them come back next week!" mentality. In comparison, I feel writers for streaming services feel they can tell the story more progressively with less side arcs because, most often, the series are watched quickly in succession and they rely on that to keep the viewer's interest.
That's my take on these two series!
I think the trope is fairly overused although understandable as it is sort of hard to argue that protecting people in their lives, particularly female partners or female family members, isn't a deeply strong driver in a lot of straight men's lives in the real world. So it would be fair to say that the same would likely happen in a fantasy world or setting as well.
It's an easy way to write conflict but it isn't wholly unreal essentially is what I'm saying. When it is badly done it really does grate at me, when it is well done I barely notice it.
Yep, I meant to mention this - like people protect the ones they love in real life too, and death and hurt DO change the course of peoples lives. The trick is making sure the female character is ALSO a person - just like they’d be in real life
I went into a comic book shop after the infamous Green Lantern comic came out that created the meme.
The shop owner looked devastated. It affected him so badly that he said he would never read another Green Lantern comic... and that he regretted opening his store as he would never want kids reading that kind of thing.
That seems like a grand overreaction, but hey, I'm not a comic reader so I don't know how it actually affected people.
@@Bookborn he was a decent guy who has just opened up the shop less than a year before. I'm sure it was an overreaction, but it was pretty jarring. There was no lead up, no foreshadowing that the book was changing direction so drastically.
All of a sudden, it's, "dead girlfriend chopped up into pieces and in the fridge".
DC comics parted ways from the Comic Code Authority in 2011, so 3 years from safe and censored to dismemberment in a formerly kid friendly comic
@@Briaaanz OH interesting, I didn't know it was a huge change in direction! I assumed the comics had alway been gritty like that (you can tell I'm not a comic person, I really don't know much about it at all!) I think that would be upsetting if it was a drastic tone change
The Boys tv show has the record for the fastest fridging ever 😂like within two minutes.
If we can’t name; we r not going 2 improve it.
Is it (or any other trope) overused?
Well, there are millions of stories written, comics drawn and movies shot. Creators try a lot of different ideas, and if something becomes "overused", it's probably because it creates the right reaction in the audience.
If you make a revenge story with a lot of action, there is a lot of violence, a lot of killing. So the killing or other violent act that is avenged must be something special. When you hear about real life violence, they often point out that there are many women and children among the victims, like male victims are a lesser tragedy. And when a ship sinks, women and children have to be saved first. I guess that's hard-wired within the human brain, going all the way back to the hunter gatherers. (Women can only have a small number of children, men have no limit here. So if your tribe loses a lot of women, it may never recover.)
As an author, you want the audience to take your protagonist's side, thus to feel the emotion behind his desire for revenge. If the victim is a man, like a father or mentor, you have to build up this character before killing him. This takes time, and if your screen time or comic pages are limited, you may take the shortcut. Thus you kill a woman (or even a child, if that's not "too much" for the audience or the censors) or maybe a little dog.
I think, in an individual story and if you aren't limited by some sort of "higher up", you can do better. But what is the trend is decided by the millions of customers who pick this type of story over another.
Is there a term for killing off a male character to advance a female character's story or provide motivation for that female character? I wonder how often it happens...?
I wanna know is their a male version to this where a male character dies to further a female main character story ??
So the thing about a trope like this, is it was named to give voice to the fact that females were dying disproportionately and in more violent ways in comic books than their male counterparts. It’s not trying to claim male characters have never died to motivate a female characters, which is an important distinction!
Oh I didn't know fridging was just female character! I thought it was just mostly female characters. lol
I've always viewed fridging as characters whose only role in the story is to die and motivate someone else, usually a woman motivating a man. Like WoT was disgusting because not only was a new character added, she was very obviously just added to be killed. The inciting incident wasn't necessary, I think the town burning down was enough.
I think being critical of these more problematic tropes is important, even if you enjoy the media. Kill your gays is another one, for example. If we aren't critical of these things, writers won't have a need to adjust their styles, and the cycle will perpetuate.
I totally agree! It's nice to be aware of it. I'm going to work on a video about negative tropes in general where I talk about burying your gays a bit - it's not about NEVER using that, it's about the WAY in which it's used! Same with fridging, or really anything.
This is probably splitting hairs but I don't think Laila Aybara was pregnant. Maybe it was something the writers were thinking about but then dropped. Perrin would have said something about it to Egwene when he confessed he killed Laila. That's just my take.
OHh that's definitely possible! I interpreted the way he grabbed her stomach as pregnant, but you're right in that it was never confirmed and so I probably shouldn't say that's how it was!
Yes, Perrin touching her stomach made me think that, too but when it wasn't ever mentioned I assumed that wasn't the case. Who knows, maybe they'll mention in S2 and we can all complain how it wasn't confirmed in S1.
I'd love to get your thoughts on this!
SPOILERS FOR MISTBORN ERA 2 BELOW!!
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So in January I read Mistborn Era 2 for the first time. I reviewed in on my channel and said that the fridging of the female character in the prologue of the Alloy of Law really left a sour taste in my mouth for the rest of the book. I continued on with the series and gave a spoiler-free review all four books in my January wrap up. Then I had a viewer comment that it wasn't fridging because said female character didn't actually die and reappears in a later book, and because it was important to her own plotline irrespective of the main character and that I wasn't giving the story the credit it deserved.
I tend to disagree, because regardless of what happens in later books, the first book could be read on its own, and it felt icky to me. I do like what Sanderson did with that storyline eventually, but it doesn't make me feel less icky about that decision in book 1.
Would love to know your take on it.
I'm super divided on it. Era 2...one of my least favorite Cosmere stuff, so I'm definitely not one to go and defend it haha. On the one hand, in book one, it feels just straight up fridging with really zero personality given. And it's worse because HE kills her, which sometimes just feels unnecessary. On the other, she DOES get developed later in the story in a really satisfactory way, and I hesitate to condemn book one since it isn't a stand alone and I think we need to give authors time to develop their stories over multiple books and not give anything away right away.
So...both? Wish it wasn't there and also think it ends up not being fridging in the end? lol I realize this is the least helpful answer EVER.
I think ultimately with fridging is I don't think there is a hard and fast rule. Something might feel icky to you and it won't to others and that's okay. I think just having the conversation about it is important and we don't all always have to agree whether it's "ok" or not!
@@Bookborn Definitely! Thanks for the thoughtful reply. Always love your content!
Maybe balance it out by having more women who are greatly affected by men around them dying
Maybe! Or it could be simply a skill in writing: when characters feel fully formed, like they are their own people, killing them doesn't feel as trivial.
If there was no tragedy then would we even have a story? It doesn't always have to be a female character, it could be a male character's death to help develop a female protagonist. Either way, I feel it is necessary to make a story. Without tragedy what would motivate the protagonist to go on the Hero's journey?
I think the question is HOW the tragedy is done, rather than IF it is done
@@Bookborn fair point
Disney is definitely the biggest criminal when it comes to fridging. HOW MANY MOMS NEED TO DIE FOR YOU DISNEY?!
Most of those moms are dead of screen though, I don't know if that qualifies; I tend to think the dead mom/parent trope in Disney is because they can't think of original reasons for their too-young protag to go out and do things without a parent being absent 😂
@@Bookborn Ok fine, let's call it minifridging then =p
The main character of the Last of us is female as well. As for WOT I think it's a case study on how to not adapt something.
I would say Joel is the main character, particularly in the first two episodes. There is argument that Ellie is now an equal main character as it’s gone on though.
@@Bookborn Yeah I'll agree for the first part of the show. But as the story goes I think she gets more of the spotlight
I'm not saying Fridging is not a thing. In partial probably unintended but still... But isn't the toll of dead/injured men way higher in books and TV than women? Every hero women, be it the lame "Better at everything" type or the "struggling to survive in a bad world" type, usually has a lot more male victims on her path. When I went to school girls thought in was a fun thing to kick boys in the balls for miniscule reasons. It is such a casual thing in all kinds of Films. They just thought it was normal behaviour. A woman on a playground told her daughter to punch my son in the face, because he took her ball. Problem was he was barely two years old at the time and had just picked it up, with no conception of what belonging even means. In any case: Punching someone in the face seams rather of an overreaction. But thats women today. They get brought up that men are for punching.
Male Heroes usually grow on others (enemies) they leave beaten down...And so do female heroines. I think wringing out the fridging towards female characters has a point, especially in the past, but you could definitely find multiple examples that go the other way round. Especially nowadays.
Your example is a little strange of kids on the playground, because girls also grew up with "if a boy kicks you then he likes you" sort of thing. Now, what you are talking about that haunts adult men is the lack of seriousness in which people take abuse towards men - something that upsets me as well - but is a very different topic than fridging.
Fridging isn't about the death toll *it self* but rather the ways in which the deaths are *used*, in context. Violence against women is often perpetrated in fantasy as a throw-away to traumatize male heroes; it's the lack of agency and characterization to the throw-away characters, and the prevalence for which it happens. I think an interesting rebuttal could be the question on whether in female-dominated genres - such as romance, for example - if the trend reverses. I don't read those genres much so I can't really comment on it.
7 ?
Characters can die, fine, I get that. But when it's gratuitous, and it's a female character whose death seems to serve no purpose but to give the menfolk something to shed a single manly tear over after going on a manly rampage while feeling manly feels, it's just... lazy. Tacky. Looking at you, Spider Man: No Way Home. And Supernatural, home of the Vaginocalypse (TM); I'm still convinced the show only ended because they realized they had hired and killed off literally every actress in Canada.
The trope is a load of nonsense. It is not, "killing a woman to further a man's story", it is "killing a secondary character to further a main character's story." Aka Good Writing 101.
Male secondary characters get killed all the time to further a main character, whether that main character is male or female. Indeed, just like in real life, more men get killed, and the violence done to them is usually far worse. Case in point, to stick to the DC Universe, the proper name of the plot device should be, "The Joker kills Robin", because the Joker killed a Robin twice, while a woman's corpse was stuffed in a fridge only once.
Indeed, the lack of care for male characters getting murdered, and getting murdered brutally, where men and their suffering are invisible to women, is how the trope name came to be in the first place. No one who knows even a little of writing, and has read some books, to whom male suffering is invisible, would ever think to purport that male writers like to kill of female characters to further male characters story, it is patently ridiculous. Female characters get disproportionately protect from the trope.
The only way you can consistently criticize killing a secondary character to further a main character's story, and being for equality, is if you advocate that neither male nor female characters maybe killed to further a main character's story; if you only do that for female characters... well, you're sexist.
I dunno - color me skeptical about a 'trope' that was described in 1999. A lame plot point? Lazy writing? Heck, Star Trek 'redshirted' way back in 1969 and I don't even call that a 'trope'. Its definitely a thing and you may like/dislike it but to me a trope is much more ingrained. I mean is Sydney Whiplash tying women to a rail way the 'trope' or is it instead making a parody of the damsel in distress?
I mean I think we got a *name* for it in 1999 but I think it was happening a long time before that. Of course, some people want to only use the word trope to talk about positive story elements (such as things in the hero’s journey). “Bury your gays” is another relatively new term but id still say is an important thing to notice and discuss. Redshirts is indeed older but has a different connotation, imo n
@@Bookborn I definitely agree with you but up to a certain extent. The difficulty I have is this: Is it only a 'trope' when done poorly (like WoT in your example) and a 'plot device' when done well (Last of Us)? I mean the having a protagonist an orphan has been around for a while (I mean King Arthur was an orphan) and some do it well such as Oliver Twist/Batman/Harry Potter and some not so well (no need to list them). So are we just using 'trope' as a short cut for saying the author(s) didn't do a good job?
You know my feelings on the Wheel of Time adaptation- it was terrible and the addition of the wife was equally terrible.
I think ..... this is all nonesense of overreacting people who tend to read the same stuff to much!
Let's take a look at reality: there are probably 100 Gezillion stories around and 0.001% of them have this ... "trope". So no, there is no "movement" of "frigging".
Sometimes writers/producers do it this way (Terminator - killing the male for the female, Mad Max - disabeling the male for the female ect) sometime they do it the other way.
Depends and what gender your main character should be. In the distant past (1980s) male characters had been the norm so it's simple logic "frigging" occurs more often in that time.
However, here's another angle to look at this nonesense and point out the sheer insanity of thinking that way:
"fridging - the trope in which female characters are harmed only to further another (male) character's story" - yeah, and the male is so exited about his dead girlfriend he is really empowered now!
You seriously need to think about the definition and see the madness therein. The male character does not get hurt by loosing his loved one? Sure ... he might not be dead . great thing, thanks a lot!
Little Bruce Wayne should be greatful he's still alive, right?
And the Swamp Thing. It's not so bad being a deformd montrosity not able to speak. At least he's still alive.
Elrik of Melnibone. Come on Elrik, you're still good after killing your loved one and suck her soul with your sword that is bound to you, no problem.
This is nothing but general story telling methods, so general it's not even worth mentioning.
So going into this I actually groaned, the term "Fridging" is an overused term created by a bit of a hack writer. And it isn't limited to just female characters either. Having a loved one, a father, mother, sister, brother, husband, wife, child die can be an extraordinarily potent motivation for a character and one heck of a hook for the audience. I love that you did compair WoT to TLoU as I think those are great contrasts on how to utilize the death of a character who is important to the main cast.
I think the term "Fridging" is... too laborious of a term to use. I prefer "red shirt" as coined from the og Star Trek. Which there is a great book writen by John Skalz called "Red Shirt" that actually deals with this very concept but in a less gendered way and more viable for discussion imo. Basically it takes the concept of a death being a motivation for someone and how that's actually fine, it just can't be a meaningless death of someone the audiace doesn't know or care about. Death needs to be treated with care and rationality. Like, there could be a show where all the female characters die and I would be fine with that, if it made sense. I would also be fine if all the male characters died, if it made sense. Or any mix in between, as long as it makes sense. I just personally think reducing things to numbers (check lists) isn't helpful.
But to engage roughly with a thing you said near the end, I think I want to take a step back and ask. If infact female (not protagonist) characters die more often in stories, why? Like why does that happen more often? What is the psychological effect on us the audiance? Do we just naturally care more about a wife, sister, daughter dieing than a male character? If so why is that? If we actually care in equal amounts, then why are females portrayed as being the "Red Shirt" for the protagonist? (Re watching the video I realized you even pointed out that Sanderson said having a male mentor die would have been less traumatic, which I agree with. Also i agree with developeing the character or relationship before their death. But just strait up think that adding more females isn't, unless it makes sense for the story to do so, which in that case they would have already be in the story. I just personally have a strong adversion to check lists and dogmatic adhearnce to things like "show dont tell", show when it makes sense to show, tell when it makes sense to tell, and do it all with quality in mind.)
Also small rant. I was so irrate when they gave him a pregnant wife then had him kill her.... then 3 episodes in still not adress it... like holy cow! I stopped watching because of that. You can't do something like that then act as if it has no baring!
I've actually read Redshirts and grew up watching Star Trek! I think Redshirts and Fridging have different connotations though - Redshirts is about random people dying for no reason, as a way to make stakes feel higher without killing of main characters, while fridging usually refers to the specific death to MOTIVATE a main character. There probably could be arguments that some redshirts are used for motivation, but I haven't seen it nearly as often.
Ultimately, with any term, I think it's a way to categorize and analyze the stories we have. A comic writer noticed that it was terrible to be a female love interest in comics, and she wanted to ask "why". It's not a value statement on those stories, just something to examine, I think.
"A bit of a hack writer" said about one of the most well liked women writers in comics, EVER. You don't need to like her but calling her a hack just looks bad.
@@Bookborn different sides to the same coin? i think it all boils down to cheap death to raise stakes. Paren's wife was absolutely a cheap death to rasie the stakes. maybe not a "oh now Paren could die" kind of way, but still was supposed to elevate the viewers emotions like "oh they could die" does.
And thats fair, got no problem with asking why and agree its not a value statement. i just dont think she was actually paying attention to the reason why it was the case, rather just saw the stories in isolation and saw a bunch of female love interests getting killed. i think it makes sense for more female love interests to die in comics because the majority of the protag characters in comics are male. because thats what the audience, which was male, was buying. again not assigning value, just stating what i think the reality is.
@@kristofferrosvall8709 I using hack for the deffinition of producing quantities of mediocre content. Which she does. The handful of things of hers I've read was fine at best, and while she may be the most well liked "female comic writers" is a caveat you have to add because there have been less than a thousand female writers in DC and marvel, compared to the over 4 thousand male writers. If you toss her into the mix she doesn't even come into the top 1k. I'm not hating on her, I don't know her from Joe Blow, I'm just saying she makes alot of mediocre stuff then gets her ego inflated by individuals that look at gender and not quality. If she was the best writer in comics I'd be singing her praises. But instead I'd lump her into the pile of mediocre writers where people like Tom King are.
That is a very loose definition of Fridging.
What’s your definition?
I have to disagree. I think this topic comes from a society that is too judgmental. Every author, must use their own experiences to create emotional impact, jKR kills off Harry’s parents. It works. Our society values the lives of women more than men. That is why they are not allowed to fight in combat. So, when a woman character dies, it has more impact to the emotional state of the reader. In order to consider frigdging an actual trope, you’d have to analyze who dies more? Men side characters, or women side characters. In Star Trek, it was whoever went down to the planet, man or woman.
I have to disagree that our society values the lives of women more than men - there are a lot of arguments against that (like what is currently happening with women and health care, or how nobody believes women when they are assaulted). The point here is to not say that NO female characters can die, but rather examine how they are dying and what characteristics have been given to them.
Did I slip and fall into a portal to 1950 or are there women in the military now?
@@Bookborn
I’m a woman but I actually agree with the giant ratt. Regardless of how we may feel about current domestic issues, historically women’s lives have always been more valued than men. Men were the hunters, they went to war, they take the risks building cities, and they were expected to die protecting their families. Their deaths were expected and often considered heroic. It is not the same for women. When a woman dies it’s not only a tragedy but often considered a failure on the man’s part. Not only is there loss for the man but also feelings of guilt- a lot to draw from for backstory which is part of why it’s so popular.
@@readbykyle3082 Women are still not a part of the draft, and even today people would feel very different forcing an 18 year old girl on a battle field vs and 18 year old boy…
@@maddz8586 I mean that's a strawman, "do people feel differently about young women being in the military" is not part of the question "are there women in the military" which is what the guy above suggested. I do agree that people have a different mindset about younger women vs younger men and that definitely extends to military as well. But that doesn't mean ignoring facts like the fact that women do in fact fight in war lol
have seen a lot of quality videos from this channel, but this video thumbnail seems to have spoilers to both the series, pls avoid spoilers in title and thumbnails, especially for WOT since ppl invest a lot of time in reading such a big series
I mean the death in WoT isn’t in the books, so I didn’t spoil the books; otherwise knowing a female character dies in a zombie show but not which one does not feel particularly spoilery, imo, which is why I felt safe using the images in the thumbnail. (To be clear, to someone not watching the show, they’d have no context on which episode the death happens so it doesn’t point to a specific character)
@@Bookborn thanks for clarifying about WOT, will partially agree about the zombie show image.
I did not think people actually define "fridging" as just a female character dying to progress a male character arc. For me, fridging is a negative trope associated with sexism, but I mean, every character death should alter or better progress a character arc or plot. Fridging for me is just one of many ways to badly handle a character death. Since the deaths in Last of Us were handled very well, it never occurred to me, that this could be seen as fridging or a comparable situation.
Well, the origins of the term fridging are specifically about female characters and in a negative, or over used way. So in this case, I think it directly applies to killing off female characters. However, the crux of it is what you said: if something is written or done well, we rarely notice it as a trope because it doesn't feel overdone or tired.
Wait until they get to Last 2's storyline, all out the window. Men sacrifice themselves all the time, as Tess did, is that considered a harmful trope? What if it's both a male and a female, a group of people, parent's...harmful trope? Gail should simply look to actual human history, as apposed to her ideology, as to why men are driven to action by seeing women and children being in distress/harmed, and why it is used to build male hero characters.
Hmmm I think you’ve missed the point a bit here. In her statement she specifically says she’s not trying to make a moral judgement, but rather was simply pointed out storylines that happened disproportionately to female characters. If you feel frustrated or attacked by that, you may want to ask yourself why? The idea of the video is to talk about when that trope can be harmful and when it isn’t; not to condemn any death of a female character or to claim it doesn’t happen to male characters.
@@Bookborn Thanks for responding. I suggested that Gail's angle is informed by feminism, which, if I go by her twitter history, it is. As I said, wait til they get to part 2, you won't even know who is a girl or who is a boy that is sacrificing themselves.
Considering the number of relatable male characters (e.g. Frank, Bill, Sam, Henry) that are killed during The Last of Us, I am not sure why you are making an issue of there being two relatable female characters killed. The story is about a man and a young girl developing a father-daughter relationship in a futuristic hellscape. Every event in the story is ultimately in support of that character arc.
Did you watch the video 😭 I make the exact argument that it’s not fridging
You are kidding right? LOL It's the complete opposite. Males are neutered, emasculated and made to look like incompetent fools. This is even true for characters who were previously portrayed as strong and confident. Joel in the series is way less masculine than he is in the game. Women are being elevated, often at the expence of male characters in current times.
How is Joel less masculine? How is he being made less of because of female characters? He's in control in every way in this show. (Also...I'm pretty sure you didn't watch the video because nothing about this is about competence.)
@@Bookborn He is more laid back in the series. I am honestly shocked that anyone would think the trend for the better part of the past decade has not been to weaken make characters to elevate female ones.
@@Bookborn How Modern Western Media Ruins Strong Female Characters ( Video Essay ) Search for this on youtube
Yo you people just pick at everything, just looking for something to be mad about
Gonna say you didn’t watch the video :)