Kitsune9tails

True.

But 'difficult' is equally far from 'impossible'.

Making the Winter Event accessible from the LFG queue did not require removing the um, present method.

Adding iTrials impacts low level alts, but so does adding any content at all that can't be done by levels 1-5. Even at that, they could (and probably should) add missions that team Incarnates and low level characters; what better way to get Freems and Preems to want to go VIP?

Et Cetera.

To quote Luthor:
Wrong!

If done correctly, it is usually possible to add elements that Alice will like to a story or game without removing the elements that Bob likes.

Now, Bob may not like the fact that Alice-elements have been added to the game, but that is a seperate issue, and Bob's issue, really. Adding anything to the game might have the same effect of ticking off Bob.

Nope; still active, still appealing. That was just character development.

The Fridge takes you out of action for the foreseeable futures, such as when Wonder Woman was killed for a year or so. Her earlier depowerment that lasted for a decade also doesn't count because she was still portrayed as a likeable and capable character during that time.

Barbara Gordon went into the fridge for a while after the Killing Joke, then came back out when she became Oracle.

I'd say that it takes at least 3 months of 'this is a permanent change, and this character can no longer function as a hero' to count as a fridging. Changing to a villain does not count as a fridging.

I am only talking about death/depowerment here, not various forms of violation.

The above is IMHO.

Even with the massive disadvantage of having been played by Hayden Christiansen, Darth Vader is still a more compelling character than Darth Maul.

I rest my case.

It's a false dichotomy, fortunately, because you don't have to change, say, The Punisher to appeal more to girls.

All I am asking for is that for every Katma Tui/Green Lantern or Stephanie Brown/Robin that you fridge, please make a couple new cool heroines for those fans to follow.

Now if you also have the budget and publisher support to experiment with creating 12 new comics starring superheroines, you have my permission.

Right now, though, it's all about the web. Writers who want to create cool new female characters can create away without having to deal with the editorial mandates endemic to a large corporation like DC or Marvel. Arguably, their output can reach more people that way, too.

True, but that isn't what this particular thread is about.

The whole concept of WiR only has what little relevence it has in reference to Western superhero comic books, which seem to be in a self-perpetuating spiral when it comes to having popular female heroes.

Comic books about individual heroines don't sell well historically. That doesn't mean you should not create more female superheroes. Maybe more ensemble books with multiple strong female characters is the answer.

The whole thing doesn't make sense to me.

Comic book businessmen should be attempting to increase their sales demographics, which should include, oh, the female half of the planet.

The mantra is 'girls don't like comic books' but girls love manga, which are comic books. And I don't just mean slice of life and romance, I also mean manga with an action/violence aspect, which includes a lot of stuff by CLAMP (Card Captor Sakura and Sailor Moon). Rumiko Takahashi (Inuyasha and Ranma 1/2) and many more.

Girls like these because of many things, like differences in the art style or storytelling, but another reason is likely that there is a lot to choose from.

Naturally, a LOT of characters get fridged in manga. But for every one that falls, there are more to attach to.

No one to my understanding is saying that fridging is the only reason that girls don't like comics.

No one to my understanding is saying that make characters don't suffer vile fates in comics.

What I am saying is that (to make up a statistic) for every 100 guys that like comics, there are 10 girls:

Looking just at the JLA as an example, the guys have several role models, styles, and icons to look at and build a connection to: Superman, Batman, Green Lantern (who is sometimes black), the Flash, the Atom, even Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter (who sometimes pretends to be black).

Girls have Wonder Woman.

Sure you can expand the roster by tossing in Black Canary and others, but then you still end up with 4x as many guy heroes.

So if you fridge half of the guys, there are still plenty of unfridged heroes for the guys to cater to. If you fridge Wonder Woman, you are now out of female heroes, and theoretically out of potential female readers.

Naturally, this is a big exaggeration, but I think it illustrates the point.

If anything, IMHO, it means that there should be more female superheroes created in the first place.

In the Surviving 8, we have 5 males, 2 females, and 1 robot. So far, I think all of them have crawled out of a fridge at some point. Except Numina, who dwells in the fridge permanently, I suppose .

Someone else is lined up to get the permafridge. If it is one of the males, that leaves 4 left. If it is one of the females, that leaves 1 left.

I'm not sure we want to be concerned about having fewer role models for robots yet.

That was not Gail's point.

Her point was (if I may do my own bit of interpreting and paraphrasing):

1: In general, girls don't like superhero comics.
2: This is partly because there are not a lot of prominent, admirable girl superheroes.
3: The girl superheroes that are around tend to die in particularly gruesome or unheroic ways.
4: Go to 1: above.

Now there may indeed be a gender disproportiate amount of fridging going on, but that may say less about the bias of the writers and more about the fact that there are fewer girl superheroes to begin with, which loops right back into 1, again.

In any case, a list of heroes that have been fridged is anecdotal at best.

If you were going to do a statistical analysis, you'd have to compile data on every superhero comic that was produced between say, Jan 1 2010 and Jan 1 2011 by a given company, say DC, and analyze those.

A bit of accompanying data that might be interesting is how many female superheroes existed in said company at said time versus the number of males.

Booster Gold?

Really?

In any case, are you saying Ice would have been the target regardless of what the editor said? Are there any male JLA members from that era that would have been better choices?

If the situation was "I am going to write a story about the death of a superheroine, Ice, and the impact on the rest of the JLA. I am going to have the Overmaster perform the deed. Any objections?" I could respect that.

This description sounds more like, "I am going to write a story where Overmaster kills off a member of the JLA. Who should it be?"

Of course, it would have been even better if Ice had died pulling a heroic sacrifice, or a mutual destruction with Overmaster, or something rather than "I fry you with a single bolt! Wait, why didn't I try that on Batman?"

YMMV, but:

In many cases, killing off a recently-introduced loved one of the protagonist is a sign of a story that has run out of compelling ways to motivate a character. More egregiously, it's often wasted: the death of the loved one does not truly change the character and ends up maybe adding a little impetus to the eventual fist-in-the-face scene. However, all of this applies regardless of the sex of the characters involved.

In stories where the death of a female loved one is specifically treated as worse than the similar death of a male loved one, it might be bad writing. However, perhaps a specific point is being made about a characters' relationship, sexism/chivalry, or other qualities. This can make the story better by giving us more understanding of the character.

For instance, it might make more sense for Steve Rogers/Captain America to become more determined to defeat a bad guy because he is threatening a woman than it does for Wonder Woman. The fact that Rogers is holding to certain 1940s attitudes despite his time in the modern era can give depth to his character. Sure, the same can be done in other ways, but this way is equally legitimate.

What I object to when I see what I call fridging is when I am robbed of a chance to feel something for a character because the character is killed off-screen/while helpless/suddenly in a manner meant to shock you with the aftermath of the loss, rather than with a proper dramatic buildup and denouement.

Gale Simone's own point behind the entire Women In Refrigerators site is simply stated: Simone maintained that her, "... simple point (had) always been: if you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won't read comics. That's it!"[5]

Miss Liberty's death is a fridging, but it is not a poor death scene because it is a fridging. It is a poor death scene that happens to also be a fridging. Fridging is not a practice to be avoided at all costs, but it should be done with care, because female heroic characters are at a premium, and 'permanent' deaths of those characters are more consequential by simple demographics than the similar death of a male character.

It may be sexist, but it is also true.