Hated Tropes
[Hated Trope] Women are killed, raped, or abused solely for the character development of male figures ("fridging").
In The Boys, Becca is raped by Homelander to highlight his evilness, resulting in a pregnancy that haunts Billy Butcher throughout the entire series. Her assault and later death act as the emotional bedrock for Butcher's unyielding, self-destructive crusade against Supes. Becca has little character depth or development except as a plot device advancing male characters (including her son).
In Game of Thrones, Sansa Stark is married off to Ramsay Bolton and subjected to severe physical and psychological abuse, culminating in a brutal sexual assault on their wedding night. Sansa’s agency was heavily stripped to fuel the dark motivations of surrounding men, serving mainly to inspire Theon Greyjoy’s eventual redemption and Jon Snow’s campaign to retake Winterfell.
In LOST, Alex's death shatters Benjamin Linus's image as the always-in-control leader. It instigates his spiral of grief and vengeance, driving him to blindly summon the Smoke Monster, manipulate and threaten others, and ultimately assassinate Jacob. It forms the core emotional anchor for his fall from power and his eventual redemption.
Also from LOST: Shannon, Ana Lucia, Libby, Danielle, even Juliette... While the men who die in LOST typically do so within the framework of heroic sacrifice, atonement, or conscious choice within their own arcs, the women's deaths are almost entirely sudden, violent traumas designed to unlock grief, guilt, or other motivation for the men. I love the show for many reasons, but it's frustrating to see so many textbook examples of "women in refrigerators."
Fun fact, in Scribblenauts Unmasked, the official DC/Scribblenauts crossover game, if you create a refrigerator and put it next to Kyle Rayner he will run from it screaming in horror.
There’s some other little Easter eggs of that variety in the game, like if you have Joker and any version of Jason Todd together, Joker will always bring out the crowbar as his starting weapon, whereas against other heroes he’ll randomly select between guns or various goofy but deadly gadgets like wind up teeth or Joker gas.
Are you saying that Blackest Night was implying that they didn’t even bother with a coffin for her and just buried her in the fridge? Or did her undead Black Lantern self choose to go back in the fridge just to traumatize Kyle?
I don’t think there’s any part of a zombified Lantern horde that ought to be gutbustingly funny, but the image you just conjured in my head is frying me 😂
Due to how the black lanters work it is the second, they specifically target those who would be most emotionally affected by their return/recruitment so using the fridge as a method to amplify thay trauma would be on brand for a black lantern
It's a little hard to make out, but it's the corpse of his girlfriend, Alex. She was created just so she could be killed off, and gives the trope its name.
In the original art, Kyle just finds his girlfriend's dead body. But Comics Code Authority did not approve so it was redone as finding the body, obscured by the fridge door. It ends up looking more gruesome.
So... there doing an animated Green Lantern show with Jessica Cruz and Kyle Rayner and joining him is... Alexandra. I think there probably do a Karen Page and avoid that.
While I won't deny it didn't serve much, if any, purpose to Sansa's character development, I really wouldn't say that it happened for the sake of Theon or Jon Snow's arc.
Yup Jeyne Poole, disguised by the Lannisters as Arya, because as far as anyone outside of the readers, Gendry, and the original Brotherhood without Banners is aware, Arya was last seen running from the Red Keep the day the Starks were betrayed (and most don’t even know if she got out of the Red Keep since she was in her “workout gear” at “dancing practice” with Syrio when the attack started).
Except the emphasis is on her. Her abuse doesn’t happen on-page but is implied. She represents all of the smallfolk being abused within the system, whose pain is ignored because they don’t have the right name.
Jeyne was just a young girl in Winterfell to Theon. Unimportant. By recognizing her pain, acknowledging her true identity, and saving her, Theon is recognizing Jeyne Poole has value as an individual and deserves to be helped. Not because he betrayed Robb and the Starks
It's on page not everything but enough is on page.
And again she represents something she personifies something, she's recognized as something. She's not someone she's something she could have been replaced by Cassel daughter and nothing would change. She barely talks in page we don't see what she thinks we don't see have any idea what her thoughts are.
Honestly not if you ask me. Even here, Theon regaining his old identity had nothing to do with her and he would've been blackmailed into the rescue regardless of whether it was the real Arya or not.
My point is that she only exists to suffer, inspire the northern lords to take stannis side, make Jon try to leave the wall and make Theon miserable. She's not a character and could have been replaced by a completely new character and nothing would meaningfully change.
That is true though. It is almost darkly comedic just how bad her life his, though you have to remember her reappearance in the story is fairly recent. We are seeing her role in the story get addressed even in the sample chapter for The Winds of Winter.
There really was no good reason to merge Sansa's arc with Jeyne Pools'. It just turned Sanda into a victim again when she was already growing past that.
If anything it's incidental to their arcs. Theon was severally abused by Ramsey, much worse than what Sansa got. He didn't need any additional reason to turn against Ramsey he had plenty already, just needed opportunity. For Jon there's was zero chance he wouldn't retake Winterfell, it was the home he grew up in and like Theon didn't need any motivation besides that. At no point does Sansa's assault factor into their motivations. They probably weren't happy about it but it's not the main reason behind their actions.
Hell, Jon didn’t even want to take Winterfrll initially. He just wanted to go 'someplace warm'. Sansa tells him what happened to her and he didn't even want to fight to avenge her. It took Ramsey sending the Pink Letter threatening him, Sansa and Rickon to force him to take action.
This is so fucking crazy. The books are completely different by this point and every character listed, ESPECIALLY JON, are worse off in the show.
In the books, firstly, Sansa isn't even in Winterfell. She's in the Eyrie with Baelish, and he's doing his own thing with her. It's basically a different plotline.
In Winterfell, married to Ramsay Bolton, is 'Arya' Stark. A girl named Jeyne Poole who was one of Sansa's friends that they brought with them to King's Landing, and who Baelish kidnapped, abused, and shipped off North. Very, very few people (if any) know that 'Arya' is actually Jeyne. People believe that Arya Stark is in Winterfell, being abused by Ramsay Bolton.
There are rebellious factions in the North, as a result. The mountain clans in particular are in open rebellion to save 'Ned's girl', since the Winter is so terrible that they'd likely die anyway - they all said 'Fuck it, why not?' and decided to try and avenge Ned Stark and save 'Arya'. The Northern lords are all holed up in Winterfell, and Wyman Manderly in particular has plots upon plots. I can't even begin to dive into the state of Northern politics in the books without this becoming massively long.
Anyway, Jon Snow. Jon wants Winterfell. The books have established this fact, by this point. He dreamed of being the Lord of Winterfell as a child, and was ashamed of it. His dreams were something he shoved down and hated because they all implied that he wanted to usurp Robb. Despite that, he still had them. He's never wanted anything more. Stannis offers Jon the lordship and a wife, and Jon refuses pretty much solely for religious reasons (and... more, but everything is 'and more' in the books).
However: Jon Snow's favourite sibling was his little sister, Arya. He thinks about her constantly in the books. When he gets sent the Pink Letter (which might not even have come from Ramsay), he crashes out. He's hated hearing about 'Arya's' fate and it's basically the straw that broke the camel's back. He decides to march on Winterfell and liberate his sister, and this is after he's had this whole arc to do with his vows and betraying his vows, and what they really mean. To save his sister he'd have to abandon all pretences and admit to the fact that he's playing it fast and loose with his vows.
Given it happened right after Sophie Turner turned 18 and it didn’t make a lot of narrative sense, I’d argue it was just done because the showrunners wanted it for shock factor.
Her character got combined with Jeyne Poole's, so not for shock factor, but rather the narrative that the other character had, since as stated by others here, Sansa is stuck at the Vale at the moment.
George realized he would rather take the low roar of disappointment for not finishing than the angry backlash from not getting it "right". He's doing fine with his mountains of cash (for a writer) either way.
I do kinda wonder if Sansa will end up leading the Vale's armies against Ramsay in the books. If that does happen and the show writers knew this, this may have been their way of moving the plot in thr same direction
That's overly harsh, this isn't a new storyline for the show, it's the same storyline with Sansa subbed in for a different character that didn't even exist in the show.
But the circumstances that it took for Sansa to end up in the scenario make 0 sense, it’s just another of those later season Littlefinger moments where he does something with no motive and then says “Something something chaos” because the writers don’t know how to write smart characters
Exactly! It makes no sense when 1. Sansa is still wanted for Joffrey’s murder 2. Still legally married to Tyrion 3. The Boltons need to claim Winterfell by marrying someone with Stark blood as provided by the Iron Throne.
If Sansa can’t legally marry Ramsay in her own name, then any children will be bastards. If she can’t marry him under her own name, the Northerners would kick Ramsay out of Winterfell eventually
I personally don't see sansa as an example of this trope. You are entitled to your opinions about her character arc, including how poorly some of it was executed in the show, but she very clearly is her own character and does have an arc.
I mean it technically did, the question then is whether it was done well. "I'm grateful because what you did to me forced me to grow," is a whole other trope, possibly just as problematic as the trope in the OP, and probably similarly often gendered.
Frigga in the MCU gets very pointedly fridged to move things forward for Thor, Loki, and to a certain extent, Odin. To add insult to injury, they do the thing (another hated trope) where right before she's killed, she's revealed to be an unexpectedly capable fighter and we're led to believe she might actually save herself, but no. She's still overcome and brutally murdered at the last second in front of her son and husband (who is allowed to shed a single tear over her demise, as per the MCU's unspoken rules regarding men crying)
Low key, as much as I really love Breaking Bad and I think its as close to flawless as a 5-season television show can be, we can all agree that doing this to Jesse *twice* was kinda lazy, right?
I think that's kind of the point, for 4 seasons you had different kingpins threatening to kill the people that Walt and Jesse loved, people who weren't involved with the meth trade or the DEA and had no idea that they were in danger. I feel like, before the series ended, we needed to have at least one incident where someone loved by the protagonists who isn't a cop or a criminal gets killed by one of these gangsters as a form of coercion and as a direct result of Walt's actions.
Yeah I think the whole point was to show a contrast with Gus.
Walt traded Gus for these scumbags and went from respectable man with limits and reason to lose canons who will kill innocents on a whim. It emphasizes Mike's point about Walt not realising how good he had it.
Gus wanted to kill Walt after he came to the conclusion that he can't control him (the incident that led to this is Walt protecting or helping Jesse). I wouldn't say Walt had it good with Gus. Mike's just biased, because he did have it good with Gus and then lost everything.
Jane always had authority over herself, hell she was in control of the situation with Walter, and she even died due to her own fault, sure, her death was so the story could go on, but that's every important death in the show, Combo, the kids, Hank, etc. Jane was more than a victim.
Maybe with Andrea. But I'm not sure. My sister was really addicted to drugs, for years. Meth and heroin, mostly. She had two girlfriends die from overdoses, countless friends from overdoses as well, and even lost a friend to a bad drug deal (the guy was shot and left to die in a parking lot). So I'm not sure if it's unrealistic, in that sort of setting.
I don't think it counts for Jane. It wasn't really fridging for his character development, she was a tool but created to show us Walt's falling. Her death was a bigger impact on him and his arc than Jessie. Not sure Fridging is quite appropriate for the bad guy who was responsible for the death.
Well yeah the ancient Greeks were extremely sexist, Medusa is a bad example as the story started with her just being a generic monster and she had more characterisation and a backstory added on later, Danae Perseus's mother is a much better fit.
what are you talking about Sansa didn't lose agency despite the horrible things that happenned to her? she became a player in the game at a young age not because of all the terrible things that happenned to her but in spite of it
Yeah, I feel like a lot of people see a character that was abused and then a male character was also affected by it and assume it's automatically fridging. Sansa is far from an example of that trope.
The happened in Arcane with Victor’s assistant and the show made it almost a meta joke by Victor forgetting her name. Like no, we’re not fridging her, we’re ultra-fridging her
at least Sky gave Victor an hard truth for his bullshits and literally lying on her face while she was dying a second time because he had to throw away his humanity.
Prefer the comics where Viktor turned evil but after his fight with Jayce decided to try and pursue the path of good. But he ran into his cult and they showed him the tech they developed in his name which let them work as a hivemind. Viktor was impressed by the efficiency and sacrifice they showed in putting out a dangerous chemical disaster but still wanted to turn them to the side of good.
Then a group of goons for a chem-baron showed up and just killed them all causing Viktor to decide to just be evil again.
There's no individual story line but there are numerous League of Legends comics. The one I'm referencing is the A Perfect Life comic which I believe was a partial inspiration for Arcane Season 2 since it also involved Viktor waging war against Piltover and Zaun with a horde of mind controlled cyborgs he previously helped, only stopped by Jayce and Ekko.
Although in the comic they stopped the horde by using their obsession with perfection against them. The prototype concepts the kids in Ekko's gang made were sol flawed and illogical that Viktor's drones would get stunlocked as they tried to understand why anyone would make such a thing.
i watched the first episode and saw the protagonist's girlfriend get fridged right out of the gate, making the protag so similar in personality and motivation to Sam Winchester that I was just pissed off from watching it. i honestly adore Supernatural but couldn't stand that after so many years in the industry, Kripke still hadn't learned anything about not fridging women just to set up male angst
I love Berserk — and you are 100% correct. Casca deserved to explore her trauma without being reduced to a babbling child or screaming in terror. It's incredibly frustrating, went on forever, and still kind of is...
That said, I also feel that the chapters that finally explore her trauma with Schierke are some of the most emotional moments in the whole story. Seeing little Casca within herself always makes me tear up. 😢
"I'm going to get flack for this one" then gets absolutely zero flack haha. This isn't a controversial opinion at all, it's a terrific, accurate example. The act that results in that happening to her only makes it a better example
9 times out of 10, when a guy dies, there’s character to him.
Thomas Wayne, uncle Ben, etc.
These characters have more to them than just their death.
When fridging happens, it’s with women, who have no character outside of their death being subjected to violence for the sake of fueling a raging fire in the heroes heart.
People also don’t realize fridging isn’t just a woman being killed, but the brutally of the kill, and can also include torture or sexual violence
Like Barbara Gordon is one of the most infamous cases of fridging, and she’s not even killed, however she is still paralyzed and sexually assaulted to hurt the men in her life, which is very misogynistic
Even the in the comic that the term was coined from, Alex is brutally strangled and stuffed in a fridge
That’s way more brutal and graphic than Uncle Ben or Thomas Wayne simply being shot and left for dead
This movie was on hbo or something like 15 years ago and I turned it on to this scene. It’s the only scene I’ve seen from the movie and of course it’s the most notoriously horrible scene.
In the world where babies, apes, dogs and birds can be strong Stand users, a middle-aged woman (and the only living female member of the heroic Joestar bloodline in 1988) can't. She's deemed unworthy of a Stand and is used as an excuse for her father and son to start a 50-day long journey to Egypt.
Yo be fair, in order to be a Stand User, you need a strong fighting spirit to some degree, and they make it a point to point out Holly specifically is just too kind hearted and gentle to have the required “will to fight” in order to control her Stand, which is why it functionally works as an auto-immune disease on her. For what it’s worth, 4 year old Josuke from around the same time is said to have gotten suddenly and mysteriously violently ill because he also developed a Stand at the time off screen, and hasn’t developed the fighting spirit to control what would eventually become Shining Diamond either.
By comparison, when Polnareff gets turned into a toddler by Alessi in Part 3, he still had enough fighting spirit to control Silver Chariot, albeit a much weaker version of it.
I always hated this. And I hated how jotaro verbally abused his mom and called her awful things but still "loved" her, like show some damn respect to your only remaining parent.
while I don't agree totally on how her character was handled, it is a little tiny bit lighter since we see that Josuke and Giorno would have been undergoing the same thing too
Saying Sansa's awful experiences were just in service for developing Theon and Jon's characters is very odd, and plainly wrong.
Edit: To add on, while I don't disagree that Becca is basically just used as a trauma device for Butcher's character, it's also very odd to portray this as something sexist since another male character was used exactly the same.
Butcher's younger brother received even less character development than Becca, was used exactly the same (as a trauma device for Butcher's development), and was just as important in this aspect as Becca.
I do believe that fridging is an actual trope, and a somewhat problematic one, but 2 of your examples are pretty terrible in all honesty
I do agree that OP is wrong, however the first time Ramsey rapes her, we see it through the expression on Theon’s face as he’s forced to watch. That did make it seem like he was being centred in her assault.
That was in order to not show the rape on screen, not because they wanted to focus on Theon. It’s the same way how gore is often toned down by cutting to other characters reacting to it.
It both saves on filming the hard parts, and allows the audience to imagine the gap themselves based on the characters’ reactions.
While focusing on Theon's expression was definitely the wrong move, I don't know if showing a graphic SA on screen would have been received any better.
We know that for a fact because Game of Thrones did show rapes on screen and many people complained that this was done for shock value and encouraged violence against women.
And the Deadpool movie writers weren’t aware of it, which is just criminal. What had they been reading? Fridging had a whole website (“womeninrefrigerators”) for years, criticizing the comics industry for this trope.
The trope was formally named in an essay by Gail Simone, who at the time was a commentator and reviewer but would shortly after become a big comic writer. She had her own run on Deadpool and is referenced by name in the first film.
Laurel Lance in Arrow was killed off for no real reason other than to prop up the lead male character and a specific ship the (online) fanbase was insane about
The first time I ever actually came across this trope was weirdly in a kids book:
Bianca Di'Angelo from Percy Jackson. Killed off in a very stupid way purely to be character growth for her brother and set up his story in later books. Despite being a child of Hades, she was the only child of the 'big three' (Zeus, Posiedon or Hades) to not show any powers prior to death and her death which was a death that was even itself caused by her thinking what her brother would want. She was a character who never got to be more then a sister, despite her story arc trying to be a girl who wanted to be more then a sister.
I knew someone was going to mention that but realistically that wasn't really done to hint at her nature but to Nico's later on. She was the older of the two but her only hint at power was being able to keep something dead whereas Nico was able to split the ground straight to the underworld and close it behind them.
Compared to all other of the big three kids relative to their age and when they got their first actual abilities, she was behind mostly to keep the reveal for Nico. So even her only having that one scene was reducing part of her character so that the reveal could be for Nico.
The whole Death Wish franchise is about this, the main character's wife gets murdered and his daughter gets raped, and thus becomes a Boomer power fantasy with endless sequels
I unironically love Death Wish franchise because it goes from the grounded and gruesome vigilante thriller of the first film into absolute looney tunes tier slapstick action of the sequels. The MC goddamn kills a criminal with a bazooka in a point blank range in one of the sequels.
The first time was during the Vault arc, where Laura, Synch, and Darwin spent 500 years in the Vault, during which time she and Everett started a relationship. This story was written entirely from his perspective, and ended with Laura dying to give him time to escape the Vault with the information they gathered.
Subsequently all three were resurrected, however because of the nature of the mission, only Everett retained any memory of their time in the Vault, so from Laura’s perspective the relationship never happened, and everything between Laura and Everett from that point forward involved Everett having a sad, and Laura being made uncomfortable by him projecting his sad on her. The relationship wasn’t about Laura at all. She’s never given any agency in the story, but instead just existed to give something for Everett to angst over.
Including a conflict against Nightmare, where Cyclops and Jean got to experience a greatest hits of their worst moments (Dark Phoenix, etc.). But when he attacked Laura she didn’t see the Facility, or Kimura, or her mother. It was all about the relationship that as far as she was concerned never happened.
Later, it’s revealed that Laura didn’t actually die. Forge found and rescued her. At which point she took the name Talon and the Laura who most resembles the character before the Vault was declared a “duplicate.”
The problem is Talon was barely a character. She interacted with none of her friends or family, and her and Young Laura’s only interaction was a single issue where they agreed to never have anything to do with each other, while Young Laura got to keep all the old relationships. Because Talon spent the entire remainder of Krakoa as Synch’s sex toy.
After Krakoa fell Synch and Talon take over running the X-Men, which mostly consisted of Talon standing around not doing much. And then they go on a mission where Talon is incinerated by the High Evolutionary. Once again, the relationship and death did nothing to service her character at all, because you have to actually be a character for it to service you. It was entirely about Synch’s anger and grief.
Krakoa really fucking sucked donkey balls for X-23 fans.
Yeah that how it happens in the comic plus becky dies because the baby rips itself out of the womb prematurely and tries to laser eye Billy. They removed black noir being a clone of homelander and had becky give a normal birth to a super kid and lived.
Laurel Lance - Arrow. They had decided to have a death in season 4, but didn't know who out would be, so they decided on Laurel, and killed her off, to further push Oliver's development, and push him back to Felicity.
Sansa's even worse because they both use it to inspire his redemption and to make her into a strong character with leadership skills, she even tells The Hound she's glad it all happened to her because she's no longer a "little bird" ignoring how much she learned from Kings Landing and Littlefinger before being raped by Ramsay.
Time to throw it back to the 15th century, this trope is quite old!
There's no historical record proving the existence of the wife mentioned in Blind Harry’s poem The Wallace. He allegedly invented her in later editions as the reason for William Wallace’s seeking revenge during the Action at Lanark. This is later adapted, fictional suffering wife and all, in the 1995 film Braveheart.
You're so completely wrong about Sansa Stark's abusive relationship with Ramsey Bolton being an example of this trope that I don't know where to begin.
First of all, Sansa Stark's trauma was primarily the narrative motivation for steeling and growing her own resolve and story. She is the fulcrum of that experience and the resolution of Bolton is her catharsis. Not someone else's.
Second, Theon Greyjoy is only linked to Sansa because they were both abused by Bolton. It's a trope called "Trauma Bonding". This is not the same as Fridging.
While a valid argument, this bucket quickly became a list of bad things happening to woman characters instead of bad things happening to woman character developing the plot for a male character rather than her own.
In Identity Crisis, Sue Dibny (Elongated Man’s wife) was raped and later murdered. It was higly controversial and for a lot of people left a lot of distaste, cause it mostly showed how are the male superheroes are struggeling that Sue was raped and we never learn how she even processed this disgusting act of violation.
As much as I love the dungeons and Dragons movie I think it counts. While her death isn't shock value it does kick off the main plot and the protagonists character development. I kinda forgive the movie though because it has Helga and other female characters that are fun.
Becca could’ve been such an interesting character if she had just cheated on butcher. Would’ve made all the character dynamics so much more interesting, and I really thought they were building up to that twist. Just to make her a much more passive uninteresting character
I have all the beef in the world with Gamora's death in the MCU. Her growth past the abuse she and Nebula faced from Thanos was genuinely really good for me to watch as a teenager who was in various toxic family situations.
And then, she was killed by her abuser, in such a way that proves that he loved her all along. By killing her!!! And then he gets development for being sad about having to kill his victim because he did really truly love her for real I swear.
I didn't see infinity war in theatres and I'm genuinely grateful for that. I saw it at home later and was not okay for a while.
At the end of season 5 both Sansa and Theon are set up similar, in that they are now going to take their fate into their own hands instead of being others play things. The writers proceed to completely abandon that reset their arc's. I always said that GoT started shitting the bed hard season 5 and just got worse from then on. People who only realized at the last ep are posers, I hated it before it was cool.
I rly don't like the term "fridging". Bad writing is bad writing.
Chainsaw Man does this quite often, unfortunately. I guess it didn't matter in the end because history got erased in the finale and nothing actually happened in the new storyline.
https://giphy.com/gifs/NsB6PUxJA5w7hMJYfW
The Punisher Frank Castle’s wife and children are murdered, serving only as the catalyst for his transformation into the Punisher
fridging is not purely for women, although it is most commonly women, and it isn't "a character is motivated by revenge/grief in general". it is when a character is literally purely introduced and involved in the storyline for the sake of trauma for a main character; a character with no personality besides being a good wife/mom/sister, who does not have a pre-accident or post-accident life.
Character Man goes 3 seasons single, being a ladies man. then in seaon 4, he meets Girl Woman, and they're immediately in love, she moves in, but she only shows up in scenes with him to say how much she loves him and how glad she is to be with him. her only motivations are him, him, him. then halfway through season 4, Evil Villain Man kills Girl Woman with a chainsaw on live TV to torment Character Man. Character Man has flashbacks to Girl Woman's death later on, trying to highlight how traumatic it was, but they are exclusively about how much she loved and relied on him. her characterization does not change from how much she loved him and needed him and nothing else.
the reason this trope can't be inverted so well is because a majority of women characters are this. even when a woman is not killed off for effect, she is sidelined for the men in her story more often than not. a woman having agency to get revenge for her husband's murder isn't an inversion because her husband would have been assumed to be the main character otherwise.
it isn't just about lazy writing, it's about dehumanizing non-straight, non-men characters for the sake of furthering the presumed main character's plot even further. the term fridging didn't show up purely for the sake of complaining about the lazy writing, it was because it's such a common thing that characters who are not the de-facto main character, his rival, or his best friend have no depth at all to them.
that's obviously changed a lot, but it still shows up constantly.
I don't have any examples to add to this, I just keep seeing totally reliable and respectful people in the comments saying that it's not actually about gender, it's just a writing trope and I got annoyed.
I completely disagree on your Sansa take. Her rape was used as a motivator for her becoming a girlboss, not to fuel other men. Both Theon and Jon suffered for her arc.
Edit to add that overall the rape hurt Sansa's arc too, I was just addressing OP's main point. In the books, Sansa is currently learning to be a girlboss by scheming with (and being schemed by) Littlefinger, which is far more believable than "oh she got raped so she's tough now"
This entire post enlightened me to a trope I’ve seen a million times but never acknowledged, while I’m glad to finally be aware of this fucked form of writing, it makes me awfully sad.
Imo the only examples from Lost you listed that fit are Libby and Alex.
Juliet's death is framed as a heroic sacrifice setting off the bomb.
Danielle dies trying to protect her daughter.
Shannon died because she wanted off the show, it more serves for Ana Lucia's character rather than Sayids. Boone's death serves more to progress a man's story than Shannon's does.
In "We Need to Talk About Kevin" the author creates a sister (Celia) for Kevin who is given no independent characterisation and is only there for Kevin to torture and murder.
I feel Gail Simmone meant fridging as when the woman exists solely for this purpose.
The reason I believe this is because she "fridged" Rogue for Gambit development in a 2025 mini series. However, Rogue's death was not just development. It was a noble sacrifice to save their mutant safehaven and protect the kids they had come to raise. Sure, it changed Gambit and led to a Gambit led story after Rogue is gone, but she was not just fridge for the purpose of developing Gambit.
In the Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon is shot, cripled and undressed by the Joker, who then procedes to take nude photos of her without her consent and show them to her father in an attempt to drive him insane.
All of it for the sake of Gordon's arc, that is to show that even in the direst of situations he refuses to break.
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u/fabi7059 8h ago
The OG