WIR? (Spoilers)

On the contrary, these are examples of "WiR Syndrome", especially the example of Elektra, which had a distinct impact on Daredevil. (Supergirl's death's impact on Superman was partially muted because it happened in a cross-series mini-series that involved the destruction of nearly all parallel earth universes (implying uncounted billions dead) and the more explicit death of dozens of well-known costumed heroes.)

I don't understand where this notion that the trope only applies to crappy deaths comes from. From the Wikipedia entry on "WiR Syndrome" (with working citation link).

What this says to me is that examples of WiR Syndrome can indeed include dying a heroic death. What matters is that it's a woman, and that often the death serves to propel development of a male character with whom the female was associated. She can be taken out wimpering or go down fighting, it's still an example of this trope.

So what your saying is anything bad that happens to a female character is WIR when mentioned at all by any other character.

In that case, you're right. If they're going to have any female character in any continuity except their own, single universe, any and all female deaths are WIR!

Therefore it goes back to, WIR is the stupidest trope they ever thought of.

Batman has "died" or taken out of commission and it effected everyone. They also continue to mention it, when it happens.

Yup. people looking way to much into things trying to find problems in something where there is none then.

While you and I are broadly on the same side here, that's not at all what I said, nor is that what the trope comes down to.

I don't know how you get that from what I said (or quoted).

Edit: There are a lot of tropes documented, and there sheer quantity makes some of them perhaps questionable variations on one another. I don't have a problem with this trope - I think it has enough examples where it fits to justify its existence. What I don't agree with is the automatic assumption that (a) the existence of the trope is direct evidence of sexism, in or out of comics, or (b) that any given occurrence of it automatically implies sexist tendencies (accidental or not) on the part of the author. I think its seeming prevalence in comics may be a symptom of the fact that comics are written predominantly for male readers primarily by male writers, leading to a predominance of male lead characters. Whether it's then intentional that this trope's plot element might resonate with that audience specifically, as a story element any use "fridging" is automatically going to be gender biased because male characters are most likely to be depicted as emotionally attached to female characters. Only depicting villains harming a hero's children would probably create stronger tension or hate, and most costumed crime fighters don't have kids.

Hm, a fair point. That didn't stop him from going out any less a punk and winding up in a Klingon fridge.

You said heroic deaths were cases of it too, as they made use of Superman using Supergirls death to further the character, the same with Elektra.

WIR seems to be gails way of saying "women don't read comics because..." when it seems to me, people are reading less and less, and this is a medium generally (now a days anyways) considered for kids.

Which is likely why the reboots continue to happen. New audience the other generation is moving on!

Sure, I did. But then you said:

What you said there isn't what I said before it. You omitted the parts about it specifically serving to motivate the surviving character to some action or development, and that surviving character usually being male. Someone "just mentioning" a female character's death probably wouldn't count, because as a general statement, it lacks those distinguishing elements.

Now I'm picturing a scene of Star Trek featuring a Klingon opening a fridge, pulling out a hunk of meat and walking away going "Man, this Kirkson is GREAT!"

Best served cold.

Ah, Wikipedia, not necessarily a bad place to start researching, but not a substitute for primary documents. Too often it's just used as Cliff Notes for the Internet's hive mind.

As discussed earlier in this thread, here's how Gail Simone came to view the WIR Syndrome:

To recapitulate, from her examples and others, several criteria emerge for a female character's death to count as getting fridged:

(A) The female character goes down like a chump, because she's ambushed, outclassed, depowered, or otherwise behaving out of character;
(B) The death* is "shocking", because of extreme violence or from-out-of-nowhere unpredictability, if not both;
(C) Another character, typically but not exclusively male, "benefits" in terms of development, from the hero receiving additional motivation or undergoing "growth" to the villain confirming evil nature and/or dangerous threat status; and
(D) Male characters rarely if ever receive the same treatment under similar circumstances (their deaths are more often heroic sacrifices, constantly mourned, or only temporary setbacks).

* In the original definition of the WIR Syndrome, sexual assault, torture, maiming, depowering, etc. also counted for qualification, but those are not applicable to this discussion about Miss Liberty's killing.

The heroic deaths of Supergirl, Elektra, Elasti-Girl, and Phoenix do not count as examples of Women in Refrigerators. I wish I could provide additional notable examples, but those are the only A-List ones I could think of off the top of my head.

Doing each other the courtesy of reading the posts in a thread before commenting in turn is the only way to prevent threads from turning into merry-go-rounds of repeated quotes.

Such a pleasant way of dismissing my point!

Perhaps it should occur to you that the accepted use of something can have evolved beyond the specific nature attributed to it by the person who coined the term. I did read that quote before. I did not take it as the accepted definition of "WiR Syndrome" by broader users of the term, exactly because it is not the definition quoted elsewhere, of which Wikipedia was simply a well-known example. Just as "WiR Syndrome" has gained a life of its own beyond the more broad concept of "WiR" (which seemingly pertains to any violent death or depowerment of a female character), so to I believe has the "Syndrome" version. Despite the fact that Gail Simone originated it with that quote and subsequent definition, others have distilled the essence of the term (based on her origination) differently (and more broadly) after she explained it.

What this makes clear to me is that there is simply going to be no agreement over what constitutes an example of WiR (Syndrome). You can quite reasonably argue that you only accept the "original" version, while I feel I can quite reasonably argue I only accept the version "most people" are exposed to (via sites like Wikipedia and TVTropes). We could both argue we only care about "Syndrome" versions and not the "core" WiR.

I reject your inclusion of (A) as a requirement. All the others I accept.

So, if it's not out of character for the person in question to get, say, ambushed and/or outclassed (for instance, an ex-heroine who passed the mantle - literally - years ago being mugged by an exceptionally powerful villain) it's not fridging?

One would think that a veteran heroine with several decades of experience wouldn't set herself up to be sucker-punched by an up-and-coming Anarchnos goon. What was Miss Liberty doing all those years, fighting grey-conned mobs in Atlas Park?

The real problem with determining what's in or out of character for Miss Liberty is that she doesn't have much of one established in the game. As Mr. Grey points out, her in-game appearances are few and do not sync with her reputation as a great heroine:
Her importance in the game is mainly defined by her relationships, i.e. Statesman's daughter and Ms. Liberty's mother. That makes her a great motivator for those NPCs but not much in her own right.

Well, I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt that you'd missed those posts rather than rejected them out of hand.

The double standard at work in WIR Syndrome is accepted by numerous comics critics. Wikipedia merely needs to be edited - and no doubt anyone with an agenda in the other direction will edit it again. That's why it's a fascinating resource, but not an authority.

If you won't accept Simone's original criteria, perhaps you'll give some credit to the well-regarded comics critic Brian Cronin of Comic Book Resources:

While "the same death/maiming/torture/r*pe would have occurred had the female character been a male" is fairly broad, it covers the double standard at work. That double standard also applies to why female deaths in cases of fridging are always that much less heroic.

If anything, narrowing the criteria for the purposes of this discussion should focus the issue on how Miss Liberty is treated in-game by the devs, which was the OP's intent when he contrasted her arbitrary death with Praetorian Vanessa's heroic one.

They absolutely did. All in WWD1 and WWD2, they are talking about targeting people with "the right stuff". When you catch up to Liberty, guess what. She's being all ritualified. You don't ritualify some random schlub off the street unless its a really boring ritual, or you have like 50 schlubs. One Liberty-babe is all the schlub you need for an awesome ritual, and thats what they got. Keep in mind (omitted) was there in WWD1 at the end, and at the end of WWD3. In the same clothes. Talking about nuking powerful people. For some nefarious reason. You did read all the text, right? And you did see the big huge powerful zong-zong aura thing going on at the ritual sacrifice place, right?

Kill two birds, one stone. Its villainy in efficiency.

Having not seen that quote before, I do appreciate it. Here's what confuses me. I read it as agreeing with me and not with you. Not one thing in that quote leads me to infer that the death needs to be "lame" in the sense that the character didn't put up a fight and "went down like a chump."

That is an example of a double standard that goes beyond what Brian Cronin says there. It extends the standard as he explains it: that it's a woman who buys the farm for the sake of a male character's further story. Now on top you're adding the additional sexist overtone that a woman won't get to act heroic in that situation, but that's not present in Cronin's criteria. Its it likely to be included if it's really sexist leanings that are motivating the author? Perhaps, but not inherent in Cronin's definition of the trope.

I'm OK with that. I think she was treated as a kind of brand-name "red shirt". She's someone with no dimensionality killed for pure shock value, probably easily chosen because it seems more shocking to kill someone about whom there is (some) existing lore, but easy to deal with because that lore is minor.

I don't defend it as good writing at all.

(So far, it's not abundantly clear it will fulfill bullet (1) in mister Cronin's list, but I think it probably will.)

The only part of this I agree with is that no one is quoting Derrida or using language only a philosophy grad student would understand. It's definitely an exercise in deconstructionism, reading meanings into texts that aren't there. It is definitely an exercise in feminist theory; that's the basis of the complaint. Saying it isn't is completely ludicrous; subtract the gender distinction and the entire issue vanishes in a puff of logic.

Actually they have not; no one can agree on which deaths count as "fridging".

No it isn't. Anyone who doesn't toe the party line on WiR is instantly set upon as at the very least arguing in bad faith. Do you seriously expect a writer at Marvel or DC could say something dismissive about the portrayal of women in comics and keep his job?

Fortunately I don't have that problem, so let me break it down for you. The people who write superhero comics are writing them to suit the aesthetic preferences of the people who actually buy them, which would be adolescent males. Before the women around here start hurling their copies of The Feminine Mystique at me, yes, there are exceptions but not enough to really matter, thus why they're called "exceptions". Publishers have tried making superhero comics for women; they don't sell. Not enough women want them. Someone upstream mentioned that even Wonder Woman doesn't actually sell well enough to warrant publication. DC only keeps it in print because of their wacky licensing agreement with her creator's estate. (AFAIK: if they stop publishing WW for one year, the rights revert and while her book may not sell she's too ensconced in the DC mythos for them to lose the character.) If you change a superhero comic enough to make it palatable to women it won't be a superhero comic any more, just like if I changed those trashy romance novels my mother reads enough to make them something a man would consider reading they wouldn't be trashy romance novels any more. They'd look like they were written by Mickey Spillane.

This isn't something that can be changed from the inside. DC and Marvel don't set social policy, they just publish funny books. If Ms. Simone wants girls to read superhero comics she should stop writing them and become a teacher or politician or the like. In the meanwhile, feminist culture police and their oh-so-sensitive fellow travelers should get over themselves and move on.

* * *

The word has no non-philosophical meaning. It was coined by Derrida.

No. It is a reduction, or a reductionist analysis. Calling it deconstruction brings in all the (faux) philosophical baggage.

If you think that "I do not believe that the same death/maiming/torture/r*pe would have occurred had the female character been a male." means simply 'would not have occurred' rather than 'occurred the same way', then that's your interpretation. The issue has emphasized the latter from Simone to the present, however, whenever it's been discussed at length or in any depth. It really isn't controversial.

Factually in error, or this conversation (the whole thread, not just you and I) would not be on the tack it is

Clearly, I do not add that extra meaning to it that you do, and I reject that the extra meaning it is clearly the "correct" interpretation.

Edit: From the opening comments on Brian's page, which you linked to for the previously provided quote...

Yellow emphasis mine.

Edit2: Whoops, in hurry and forgot to explain - I think this quote makes pretty clear that this "trope" is awfully mutable based on the perspective of the speaker, and arguing about what constitutes an example is going to lead to circular arguments. Which of course it already has here.

Except that we've tried to avoid assigning meaning by leaving out authorial intent in this discussion. When Dave Sim does something wretched to a female character, it's not a stretch to raise misogyny as an issue since he's accumulated a lengthy record of not only saying horrible things about women but also patching together a homemade philosophy about living under fascist feminism. When Grant Morrison cited Brad Meltzer for fridging Sue Dibny, he refrained from attributing motives for it. Likewise, nobody's attributing direct motives to the devs over Miss Liberty's death, particularly since no red names have posted in this thread.

The WIR Syndrome exists as a phenomenon in mainstream superhero comics, but the factors contributing to this are numerous (and probably best left for a more detailed discussion in the Comic and Hero/Villain Culture forum). The plain fact is that too often female characters' deaths are treated differently from male ones', e.g. for shock value.

Who's brought any flavor of feminist theory into this discussion? Is anyone quoting Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick or Andrea Dworkin? Does Simone somehow count because she's a woman in addition to being a comics writer?

Simone was clear about what common features she noted in her list, and we've narrowed the criteria even further for the purposes of this thread, e.g. not including maiming or sexual assault (to say nothing of shifting goal posts).

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/deconstruct

de•con•struct tr.v. de•con•struct•ed, de•con•struct•ing, de•con•structs
1. To break down into components; dismantle.
2. To write about or analyze (a literary text, for example), following the tenets of deconstruction.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deconstruct

deconstruct — vb
1. to apply the theories of deconstruction to (a text, film, etc)
2. to expose or dismantle the existing structure in (a system, organization, etc)

Google "Define Deconstruct"

de•con•struct

Verb:
• Analyze (a text or a linguistic or conceptual system) by deconstruction, typically in order to expose its hidden internal assumptions...
• (in general use) Dismantle.

Yellow highlight for emphasis on the rather clearly recognized definition I was using.

You've certainly seen through Cronin's attempt to articulate a useable definition from the contentious reaction that immediately greeted Simone's original letter on Internet comics fan boards everywhere.

Hmmm...

If it was Statesman son versus his daughter, do you think it would trigger the same reaction from Statesman?

If it was Ms. Liberty's father versus her mother, do you think it would trigger the same reaction from Ms. Liberty?

If Statesman and Ms Liberty only close family member was male (and had magic running through the veins to go along with the story) do you think they would have killed him?

Since I think the same reaction would of happened if Miss Liberty was Mr Liberty, this isn't a case of fridging. This is a case of, Statesman only had one other relative alive besides Ms Liberty.

While she may of had a past in lore, it wasn't a character that anyone really knew about and never had a major part. She's more of a red shirt. An expendable character.

If this was a level 1-10 arc, you might have a point. However, this is a level 30+ arc. The villain that attacks her is 30+. Well past the 'goon' stage (you get the global threat badge at level 5). Meanwhile, Miss Liberty might be all sorts of great at martial arts, but she has no powers. She's a civilian. She cons gray to us.

We can argue about whether she should have an escape plan. Whether she should be decked out in Ballista bodyguards. Why her mediporter doesn't work (which I think is well established, those only work when the plot wants them to - read: when the writer remembers to take them into account). All those may be plot holes, inconsistencies or bad writing. But taking her down without a fight? That I can absolutely live with (in fact, as a primarily red-side player, I find it oddly refreshing).

I'm just surprised Blue Steel didn't show up at the end to undo everything you've accomplished. But I guess there's still time. The arc isn't over yet.

As a side note, I can vaguely recall a couple of other examples of ex-heroes that are taken out without a fight in CoH. But the ones I remember are all male, so I guess it doesn't matter.

1) Has this actually happened? Has there been a 'reaction from a male character' at this point, or are we assuming there will be one later? And would everyone be happier if Miss Liberty was murdered and Statesman/Manticore/whomever just went "meh, whatever" from fear of "WiR syndrome"?

2) This is, at best, wild conjecture. Personally, I think it would have been exactly the same if Miss Liberty had been 'Mr Liberty' instead. I also think they would still have picked that character to off to make whatever plot point they are going for. You may assume it would have been all different, but the fact remains: We can never know (short of going to Portal Corp and find the alternate earth where Jack decided Statesman should have a son instead of a daughter). It basically comes down to "I think the writers are jerks" vs. "I don't think the writers are jerks." Whichever assumption you pick say more about you than the writers.