Oedipus_Tex

I personally think there is often more to it than that. IMO in a large number of cases where the wife or girlfriend is a target it's because she is the person closest to the lead character. If you killed the best friend instead, the reaction might not be "Why are you upset" but "Men shouldn't grieve men, get over it." The alternative to the wife or girlfriend is a child or young person in the lead character's care. Kidnapping/torturing/brain washing children is also extremely common--especially if the authors can offload these scenes on a character who is now of age and show them as "flashbacks."

Anyway, playing the deconstruction game, I could say that maybe WiR really is a common phenomenon, but its actual implication is that men's conflicts and irrationality leads to violence against innocent people who are at their heart morally superior. I feel this reading is somewhat dishonest, but no less so than the alternative ones proposed as the "true" answer. The text is wide open to interpretation. The mere fact that you observe a trend (real or not) doesn't provide you a definitive interpretation of what it actually means.

I should add that I think it is really weird to talk about women in refrigerators in general fiction without talking about the most obvious genre where discarding characters is the entire point: horror. You could fill the internet listing examples and counter examples of conflict.

If we had to list every time one character died to motivate another, that page would be overloaded just from episodes of Murder, She Wrote. I also see notice no one bothered to list horror movies, war movies, disaster movies, murder mysteries, thrillers, or any kind of movie where the entire premise is that one or more characters get introduced specifically to die.

IMO the trope site is kind of fun. But one of my main objections to criticism-by-trope is that grouping things into tropes and genres is the equivalent of skimming. I am very skeptical of criticism that says details don't matter, context doesn't matter, stories are not individual, what matters is overarching themes, and in particular themes that can be retrofitted to semi-conscious social evils. Analysis that is unconcerned with detail is inherently problematic.

Deconstruction is a similarly fun but potentially dangerous tool. When critics become more concerned with secret social messages than with the literal content of a work there is a risk of losing the work altogether. Deconstruction can be useful, but it can also be the equivalent of self congratulatory babble, no better than a Freudian psychoanalysis that reads the current century's prevailing moral code into innocuous or at least ambiguous text. At its worst, deconstruction is pseudo-scholarship and a system of distributing labels, not far removed from in its pursuit of truth from an Internet snark site like somethingawful.com.

IMO a total disregard of truth is not helpful, especially when it is potentially destructive for the author. Personally, I am a left-leaning, pro-feminist, gay, sometime-vegetarian atheist. But I demand truth in my scholarship. If we're going to label a piece of fiction as socially destructive, I think the standard of evidence needs to be rigorous.

Since we've been in a quoting mood, I'll conclude with what Noam Chomsky had to say about some of the lead proponents of deconstruction.

I'd say the same is true of careless criticism and overwrought deconstruction that is loaded with self congratulations. I'd bother to refute actual points if I didn't feel like, at this point, I'm just arguing with an ego.

I hope you don't employ the same sarcasm when you make claims about sexist writing. Unlike you, the writer of the arc doesn't get to walk away easily from this thread without a sense of having been publicly reprimanded.

Thank you for sharing the quotes. They are interesting, but for me they do not settle the issue. Even if WiR exists in mainstream comics, it is a) not clear to me that CoX storylines have a direct connection to mainstream comic book stories capable of continuing a previously existing trend and b) that the death of Liberty #2 in particular would qualify even if that clear line were established.

With no offense meant to the CoX story writers, to me CoX is not mainstream comics. It mimics mainstream comic structure, kind of, but at the same time every story is really just a set piece to move the player into a warehouse crowded with enemies. If it is unfair to pull in examples of movies or books that are not mainstream comics as examples of this trope being subverted, then I question whether it is fair to pull in an MMO.

Ultimately I think most people involved in this discussion have good intentions. On the other hand, I tend not to take the charge of sexism lightly. From a sheer sense of self preservation it's tempting to me to just agree that the death of this character is part of a malicious trend, and accept the kudos I might receive for being among the liberated. On the other hand, doing that kind of leaves the authors to a fate I don't think they deserve. I doubt I'd even agree with the rest of the WiR group about what a "correct" rewrite would even look like.


I'll drink to that.

Killing off supporting characters to further character development, and, in particular, establish consequences while underlying the fact that "there is no turning back now" is age old. Just a couple of examples off the top of my head from movies, TV, and literature (some sort of spoilers contained) follow. I gathered from a number of different genres, time periods, and mediums to illustrate how often characters are motivated by the deaths of minor characters, or sometimes major ones.


Who Framed Roger Rabbit: Eddie Valiant became a toon-hating alcoholic after his brother had a piano dropped on his head. His resolution comes only after confronting the killer, who taunts him about the murder during the final act (leading to the infamous nightmare fuel sequence that begins when the villain shouts, "When I killed your brother...")

Original Star Wars trilogy: Luke's family, a planet, and both of his mentors are killed in the service of establishing consequences and forcing the lead character down his path without an opportunity to turn back.

Saving Private Ryan: The deaths of three brothers motivate a plan to save the fourth.

Flatliners: Julia Robert's character is haunted by memories of her father committing suicide when she was a child, a scene the audience witnesses first hand. Keifer Sutherland's character is haunted by the ghost of a boy he acidentally killed.

Watchmen (comic version): The original Night Owl, now an old man, is beaten to death by thugs, leaving the new Night Owl with no one to confide in.

Jaws 2: In a somewhat accidentally comical incident, the kids realize they are really in trouble when the shark eats the helicopter and its pilot, who had represented escape. The pilot character had no reason to exist except to get eaten (like many characters in this type of movie).

Hamlet: After receiving a message from his father's ghost, Hamlet plots to kill his uncle Claudius. Claudius is not only suspected of having killed his father, but has also married his mother.

Story of St. Peter: Or nearly any historical saint figure whether male or female. Set into motion by the death of someone pretty historically important, no matter what your beliefs are. I'd talk more about this but will probably run afoul of the monitors.

Batman: Already mentioned elsewhere. Both parents killed. Comedy send up viewable here: http://www.memecenter.com/search/bat...mp%20genie%20p

True Blood: Sookie's and Jason's parents, then (especially) grandmother are killed in the service of giving the lead character something to fret about, as a well as a house to use for supernatural hook ups.

Menace 2 Society: The murder of the shopkeepers in the opening scene of the movie serves to characterize the lead character's friend as a dangerous criminal and create a rapidly devolving situation for the protagonist when the cops link him to the murder site.



None of this is to say it's not possible to have misogyny in a movie/film/comic/video game, but I do think the term is bandied around a bit too freely. IMO just dying in the service of a plot is not a uniquely female characteristic. That is something support characters do pretty regularly.

Because hitting enemies with your mind tornado from across the room makes a lot more sense.

While it can do this, it should be noted that the way of doing it classically in some of these TFs involves just confusing an enemy and standing around while it beats down the other AVs, with a sleep kept up on them to keep them from reacting. Basically the way the LRSF is "soloed" is to watch 7 AVs beat each other up and then killing the last. I think the last time someone did a Master run it it took about 9 hours. This trick notably doesn't work in any of the incarnate content.

I consider the definition nebulous but to generally include anything that is long lasting and prevents counter attacks even if the enemy is struck. So, long lasting stuns, holds, and confuses, mainly.

Arctic Air provides a confuse but I don't consider it hard control because it has frequent breaks. Same with stuff like Choking Cloud. In Mind Control I wouldn't count Terrify, because enemies attack you at the actual moment you cast it and every time they are struck thereafter; while the damage is nice it's actually a bit more dangerous than Dark Miasma's similar power in this regard.

Because you can cast Stalagmites, Seeds of Confusion, or Flashfire 4 times in the time it takes for Mass Confusion to recharge. Mass Hypnosis and Terrify are good for what they are, but Domination just means you are catching bosses in addition to everything else. You can already stack mag quietly with Mind control so all you're really gaining is time, and the Controller version of Mass Hypnosis already has a 50/50 chance to catch a boss on the first shot. You aren't gaining as much as a lot people think... especially relative to other Dominators, who tend to just be pretty farmer-ific at high levels in general.

The Cold Reader character in my sig is both a Mind/Cold Controller and a Mind/Ice Dominator. Neither one is "better" than the other because they play completely differently. And the Mind Dom isn't appreciably better than other Dominators either. He can do a few neat things and really sucks at some other things too, in particular, reliable hard control like my Plant Dom can do much more often despite having far fewer powers that technically "Dominate." It just takes 1 or 2 good powers to make Domination shine, and if they are up every 15 seconds it counts for a lot.

Nerf? What nerf? This is a straight up buff to almost every one of my ranged characters with knockback.

I still haven't tested to see what happens with Repulsion Field, but Telekinetic Blast is suddenly great because enemies more or less fall over where they stand. My only complaint is that Psychic Tornado no longer plays the cool looking "knock enemy for a loop" animation, although enemies still fall.




Yes/no/kind of. They have the same origin statistic in powers but knockdown is often a specific animation and not just a low range knockback. The difference is subtle, but if you watch a power like Ice Slick you'll note it isn't just a super low range knockdown, but instead the same exact animation playing over and over. Specifically, you'll notice that enemies that fall on Ice Slick never rag doll. Of course, players don't rag doll either.

What appears to have changed specifically with this bug?/feature? is the distance an enemy is thrown. It used to be that mag 1 knockback started at a minimum distance of around 10ft, and now it is much shorter. I haven't tested high powered knockback powers yet to see how they are affected.

No, the Atlas Park trainer is fine. There is/was another character with a very similar name (Ms. versus Miss) who actually doesn't figure into the game much at all, and doesn't actually wear a costume or refer to herself by her super hero name. That's the one who died.

In fairness, EVERYTHING that happens in this game is part of some plot to make Statesman or one of his clones do something or other. Killing this z-list, incidentally female, character wouldn't be an example of WiR so much as a continuation of the Statesman is Most Important of All thread going on since forever. Man I hope he is the one who dies--except that if it IS him, it will no doubt be the Worst Death Ever Suffered in History, and we'll have to hear about THAT for the rest of our gaming lives too.

This is not the interpretation I get from the original author. It's possible I'm reading the wrong source material, but the list provided here simply lists every bad thing that happened to any female character ever: http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/women.html . The full explanation of the intentions behind the term are here: http://www.unheardtaunts.com/wir/r-gsimone.html .

Under those qualifications, Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart, and Marilyn Monroe are examples of a WiR just due to the context of their biographies. So is Wendy, a real life friend of mine who was murdered during a botched mugging, who I have occasionally alluded to in my character's biographies as a motivational force for the character.

I see that there are some internet materials for a WiR "Syndrome" which does seem to speak to relationships with men, but the original incarnation doesn't have that requirement.

Yeah those guys. I'm sure they would have said their names are social constructs anyway.