WIR? (Spoilers)
I agree with all of this. What I was disagreeing with was what I perceived as your describing how this being her seemingly sole reason for appearing in the story as making it an even stronger example of WiR.
Let me drill in very narrowly. You seem to me to be linking that her lack of other role made this a classic case of WiR. I'm not saying it's not a case of WiR, just that whether or not she had any other story role doesn't affect that. This may be a stark example of it, because it's not supported by any other plot elements, but it doesn't make it more of an example, from what I can see. |
There are levels of WIR. I consider the characters who exist to be stuffed into refrigerators the worst case of WIR. They are not the only cases of WIR.
Consider also Max Payne's wife. Fridged, exists to be fridged, to make Max an angsty anti-hero. Contrast with Gwen Stacy (a borderline fridge case), who was an actual character who happened to be put in the fridge. Much less egregious, and why Gwen Stacy as WIR is up for debate, whereas Alex DeWitt is not.
Comrade Smersh, KGB Special Section 8 50 Inv/Fire, Fire/Rad, BS/WP, SD/SS, AR/EM
Other 50s: Plant/Thorn, Bots/Traps, DB/SR, MA/Regen, Rad/Dark - All on Virtue.
![](http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v489/baisleac/Sig%20Requests/ComSmersh.png)
It wasn't exploitative in the least. She's showed up for all of 1 mission which odds are good you haven't done because it's an Oro task force, and that was her in the past. There's literally no emotion to exploit there apart from "someone died".
|
Actually, scratch that. Alexis' death strikes me more as similar to Lian Harper's death from Cry for Justice or the Wasp's death from Ultimatum - pointless, aimless shock deaths superficially intended to outrage their loved ones but practically intended to outrage ME as the audience. It's emotional blackmail because you have a character built up as good, yet this character's sole reason to exist in the story is to die horribly so as to torture others.
I never approved of the "Yay! We are going to kill an established character! Ratings!" mentality behind the SSAs, but at least I figured that something bad like this would make for a stronger story, like the death of Lt. Sefu Tendaji. Nope. We're diving head first into malicious comic book tropes of murdering, maining and ****** people (not yet, but soon, I have no doubt) for the sake of audience shock. Pass.
I didn't have to pay for these stories, and I'm glad for it.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
I just think think this makes it absolutely clear that the meme applies. To me, the meme is what it is. Having a character who exists solely to facilitate the meme doesn't make the meme any more applicable. It just makes the meme the only thing that character had going on.
In broad, sweeping terms, I do think that approach to writing a story is not as good as it could be. I think it's a mark of a good writer to make us care about the death of a character on grounds deeper than some tribal/societal/genetic level of distaste. But if they fail to do that, I don't think they applied the meme "harder".
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
That's precisely WHY it's exploitative. They introduced this woman into the game proper, did what they could to make her sympathetic, all with the sole reason of killing her off as a shock (or obvious, as the case may be) death. This is not good storytelling. It's little more than emotional blackmail. It strikes with me a similar cord to the young children in Soldier being forced to watch I think it was dogs beaten to death for no reason other than because it was gruesome and likely to sock them, which was something they were intended to become desensitised to.
|
I don't mind this element missing if the story is about something else. I don't need a monster that I want to hate in every story. But if the story is about a confrontation with a villain, I want to hate the villain, and not just their goals.
I'm not saying the SSA was a good story, or that it achieved what I'm talking about in a meaningful way. I'm just saying that I find it interesting that you would rail against it so for even trying, when I would appreciate if it did so successfully.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
By the standards of radical deconstruction, the hagiography of Joan of Arc qualifies as a WiR situation. IMO it's just a hopelessly broad classification. I can just feel Jacques Foucault wagging his intertextual finger, absorbed in the human-condition-ness of it all.
There are entire genres, including sub-sets of the superhero genre, where the primary purpose of most supporting characters is to turn up dead. This is the operating premise of horror movies, murder mysteries, and disaster movies, as well as some police procedurals, sci-fis, action movies, and dramas, as well as anything that is imitating (permanently or temporarily) these genres. Sometimes the characters in these stories are called "expendables," "must-dies," or just "plot fodder," but the intent is the same. Having characters in a story with the primary purpose of killing them is not necessarily a bad thing (not that I even think that is what turned out here).
Ms. Liberty barely even qualifies as a minor supporting character. Who cares if she is dead. Lots of other sub-minor characters have been killed before her.
The only "negative meme" I saw in this SSA was that they handled the death of a character in a relatively clumsy and ham-fisted way. If that means you can (or want to) shoehorn the WIR meme into this situation to help explain what was essentially just a badly handled comic book story (regardless of the sex of the characters involved) then have fun with that. Personally I don't see any need to add this arc to the overall controversy surrounding that decades-debated issue. *shrugs*
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
All characters that are not protagonists within all stories exist to set tone and context. Many, many characters are introduced into stories only so that they can die, setting tone and context.
|
Labeling their death "misogynist" solely because they were both an example of this and a female character is an extremist interpretation of what constitutes misogyny. |
I consider the examples especially egregious when the character being fridged is defined primarily by their relationship to our (usually male) protagonist. If you describe Peter Parker in one sentence, you would probably say something about how he's Spiderman. If I asked you to describe Gwen Stacy in one sentence, that sentence would most likely be about her being Peter Parker's girlfriend.
|
Miss Liberty's presence in CoH, in contrast, has been so limited that most players would be hard pressed to come up with any particular adjective to describe her.
These tropes are largely based around traditional notions of how women are supposed to act. They are also largely aimed at a predominantly male audience, which CoH's audience isn't.
|
And that's where the misogynistic bias lies, not simply with the character's death. If a female character's purpose in a plot is merely to be killed suddenly and dramatically without properly establishing either the character's depth and roundness or her death within the story's themes (except maybe to provide other characters with some motivation or pathos), then the writer has a potential problem with misogyny.
|
Having characters introduced solely for the purpose of being killed of is just poor story telling. The gender of the character is largely immaterial to it, women tend to be more common in this role because males are more common as protagonists but that is a separate issue. The real solution is to have more female protagonists in fiction as a whole.
Quote:
|
I can just feel Jacques Foucault wagging his intertextual finger, absorbed in the human-condition-ness of it all. |
IMO it's just a hopelessly broad classification. |
Current Blog Post: "Why I am an Atheist..."
"And I say now these kittens, they do not get trained/As we did in the days when Victoria reigned!" -- T. S. Eliot, "Gus, the Theatre Cat"
Clearly, you rail against this sort of thing. I, on the other hand, appreciate it. Things like this make me hate villains. I like hating the villain, and I enjoy it more when they get their *** kicked if I hate them. The worst thing a story can do is make me not feel the antagonist is very villainous, in which case I will care less if they are defeated, and ultimately be less invested in a story which revolves around that goal.
|
1. I WAS that villain in this story. It's kind of hard to play a game in which I hate the character I made. That's why I've always rallied against requests for "more villainy" that comes down to GTA/Saint's Row random violence against innocent people. Ultimately, I still have to play through this game, and I won't if I'm disgusted.
2. If a story is too unpleasant, I won't get to its end. Period. I have a hard time hating villains, because the approach most authors take to making villains I'm supposed to hate makes me hate the authors more than the villains. And indeed, I am no longer interested in the SSA. If I could, I'd trade the Paragon Points these would have cost for something else, instead.
3. I, personally, have never been interested in villains I'm supposed to hate. They come off as two-dimensional cartoon characters, and it feels like the author is beating me over the head with what I'm supposed to feel. Once I realise that a villain is evil and he's supposed to fall, the story is essentially over. Unless the finale is right there, right then (and for the SSAs, that won't be for another five months), I'm no longer interested. Everything is clear, everything is decided, there is nothing more for the story to deliver but to repeat itself and to try to gross me out more.
When it comes to a good "hero vs. villain" story, I'm interested in complex, interesting characters on BOTH sides. I want a hero I can root for openly, and I want a villain I can envy secretly. I want a hero whose cause is justifiable, but whose motivation is still personal. I want a villain whose cause is wrong and reprehensible, but who's nevertheless so cool that I can't help wanting to see more of. I don't like one-sided narrative that tells me who I'm supposed to hate and who I'm supposed to like. I want a narrative that's fair to everybody, such that I want all of these guys - good and bad - to make it to the end and have an epic brawl right up to the credits. When a story makes me wish a character would just die RIGHT NOW in the middle of it, that's story is essentially over for me, and any length of time thereafter is simply unpleasant.
Building good stories through unpleasant plot twists is not something I'm interested. If a plot twist is unpleasant, the whole story becomes unpleasant, and if I'm expected to sit through it and hope for a resolution which never comes (and it won't, if someone HAS to die because the gods of the Final Destination movies will make it happen), that simply won't happen. When a comic book has a nasty plot twist, I flip ahead to see if it's resolved within the same issue. If a story is unpleasant, I skip ahead to see if it becomes less so. If a movie hurts me, I fast forward to see if it gets better. And if the result is either "no" or "not for a very long while" (as in Naruto, not for another five years and not for another 350+ episodes), then I find something better to do with my time that doesn't leave me walking away from my computer disgusted and depressed.
I don't need fiction to depress me. I actually do have a life outside this game, and that's plenty good enough to depress me and to give me people I hate. I don't know why Paragon Stuidos writing has been in the emo mode gutter since Going Rogue, but I'm simply not interested, and I never will be. That's not dramatic, it's just mean. So much for new content.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
The problem I have with this line of thought is that if it is true then the inverse has to also be accepted as true. If a male character exists only to be killed then is the writer guilty of misandry?
|
Is it even a debate that there's an overall problem with male writers in contemporary superhero comics creating well defined female characters with plausible motivations?
In fact, I've made a special effort to note examples in this thread of when female characters' deaths are handled well and thus avoid the WIR Syndrome.
|
Similarly, while I believe the "movement" (such as it might be) behind this meme are concerned that the prevalence of this meme may indicate misogyny, I believe whether it's handled in a misogynistic way is also separate from the meme itself, particularly in cases of supporting characters, like those we've been focusing on. What's done to lead female characters, independent of their relationship to a male character, is perhaps worthy of separate debate. (This from the Wikipedia quote about the meme applying to "depowering" or eliminating female characters.)
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I don't need fiction to depress me. I actually do have a life outside this game, and that's plenty good enough to depress me and to give me people I hate. I don't know why Paragon Stuidos writing has been in the emo mode gutter since Going Rogue, but I'm simply not interested, and I never will be. That's not dramatic, it's just mean. So much for new content.
|
For what it's worth, I don't play bloodthirsty villains either. I'm far more of a Rogue-centric player. I like the way they portray Rogues. I think this needed a more Rogue-ish story branch option.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
CoH does a good job of doing violence to everyone regardless of race, creed, or gender. That's kinda the point of a Superhero game, really. However, a few people are starting to call 'Women in Refrigerators' on the recent in-game events.
For an in depth look at the phenomenon, visit the above link. However, a brief description is having BAD THINGS happen to female characters in order to move the story along, be it to give major male characters grief to emote against or a reason to strike at their enemies. Some people simply call 'Misogyny'. However, one of the more common, more reasonable explanations is that since most comic writers are male, it's easier to write for male characters than it is to write for females. They get more mileage out of griefing their male leads by heaping torment upon their female leads than the other way around. Murder, ****, and other kinds of torture are doled out to be reacted to. Barbara Gordon's crippling and subsequent sexual harassment at the hands of the Joker in 'The Killing Joke' solely as a measure to torment Jim Gordon stands out as the most prominent example in my mind, but there are many, many others. (CoH spoilers ahead) Certain in-game deaths in the last few pieces of content released seem to focus more heavily upon female characters than male characters. Praetorian Vanessa's death seems rather heroic rather than pointless. She died for the sake of getting the truth out. However... Miss Liberty's death (and Manticore's reaction to its possibility) seems rather pointless and plotted solely to grief Statesman and spur him to possibly irrational action in future episodes of 'Who Will Die?'. I don't know that this is 'Women in Refrigerators', but I think it may be coming close. Is it intentional on the part of the writers, say purposefully reflecting the phenomenon in comics? Is it simply one of many minor characters who are about to tally their bucket lists? What do you think? |
![](http://img265.imageshack.us/img265/9043/notsureifserious2.jpg)
Virtue: @Santorican
![](http://i.imgur.com/dmfLZ.jpg)
Dark/Shield Build Thread
I just don't buy into the idea that how their deaths are handled is a part of the meme. I believe the meme describes any case where a female character is killed to trigger a developmental shift in a male character. How well it's handled simply doesn't apply. You can have a case of WiR that's well written into the story, a case where it's not, and everything in between.
Similarly, while I believe the "movement" (such as it might be) behind this meme are concerned that the prevalence of this meme may indicate misogyny, I believe whether it's handled in a misogynistic way is also separate from the meme itself, particularly in cases of supporting characters, like those we've been focusing on. What's done to lead female characters, independent of their relationship to a male character, is perhaps worthy of separate debate. (This from the Wikipedia quote about the meme applying to "depowering" or eliminating female characters.) |
I think you do in fact have to consider whether there's at least some element of misogyny involved before you can lump every "female death" story into the realm of the WIR meme. How the death is "handled" is an intrinsic part of the meme. The problem, which this ongoing thread so adequately shows us, is that the degree of how much misogyny is involved in a given story is often a very debatable point.
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
Sure, maybe. Perhaps you could furnish some examples of female writers in mainstream superhero comics doing this? I'd be willing to wager that the list will be shorter than the one on the WIR website.
Is it even a debate that there's an overall problem with male writers in contemporary superhero comics creating well defined female characters with plausible motivations? |
They're doing it because they were asked to. CoV was cartoon villainy. This is dark villainy. Everything is going to lie somewhere on the spectrum. Could they have chosen some other spot in the spectrum? Yeah. Could they give us (more of) a choice? Yeah. To me, that about execution, and less about the goal they were shooting for. I don't think this had great execution. But I think the target was where people have been asking them to shoot for a long time. I get that it might not appeal to you, but I also think that might just be unavoidable.
|
My gripe is that we DON'T have a choice, because all new content for the last year has been depressing. And, yes, you could say "Well, they're just making up for lost ground!" but I don't buy it. It seems to me that this is just what whoever is writing the stories thinks is "edgy" and "dramatic" because if that weren't the case, then maybe we'd have seen SOMETHING less depressing for a change, but we just haven't. In fact, the First Ward was so depressing that I have no interest in replaying it, and the SSAs are right next in line.
People keep telling me how much better the game is becoming and how much more content we have now, yet I see the content I actually want to play has only diminished. And the future looks to bring the same.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
I think your definition of the WIR meme is so vaguely defined that it could literally apply to any story that has both males and females in it and one of those females is killed for any reason. A meme only really has meaning when it's used to describe something that's uniquely distinct from some other aspect of a story. If you let it apply to effectively every story imaginable then it fails to serve any purpose as a point of distinction.
|
That is not vaguely defined, and it does not apply to females killed "for any reason".
How the death is "handled" is an intrinsic part of the meme. |
Show me a quote from the people who have assembled documentation on the meme showing something to the contrary if you want to debate that. I am taking that as one of two major categories of the meme from online sources about the meme, including the WiR website.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Frankly I don't know, and don't particularly care (since I don't actually read superhero comics). The view from where I sit is that the devs wrote an arc killing off a a minor character and expect me to care. The gender of the character is largely irrelevant to that, I'm just irritated by them killing someone off and expecting me to care when they've given me no reason to care about the character in question. The emotional impact of the arc is roughly equivalent to Red Shirt #5 dieing in an episode of Star Trek.
|
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
Frankly I don't know, and don't particularly care (since I don't actually read superhero comics). The view from where I sit is that the devs wrote an arc killing off a a minor character and expect me to care. The gender of the character is largely irrelevant to that, I'm just irritated by them killing someone off and expecting me to care when they've given me no reason to care about the character in question. The emotional impact of the arc is roughly equivalent to Red Shirt #5 dieing in an episode of Star Trek.
|
Edit: It's OT for this thread, but some folks are of the opinion that because the SSAs are "paid for" content, that they should be a step above in fiction. I can't say this view is wrong, but that's not the only mark of something that, in theory, had money "set aside" for its development. Time was clearly invested in these arcs in terms of creating contacts, mission environments, applying unusual mechanics, and yes, writing a story that's (for better or worse) more complex than normal. I think it's completely fair that we should expect that time to be invested well, but the balance is going to be all over the map in what each of us thinks should have gotten most of the investment. Should it be the writing? The mission map tilesets? The critters and their powersets? I am not jumping out of my seat about what we got here, but I don't hate it, and I don't expect great shakes from its fiction. There are things I'd like done differently in the future. Hopefully the creators are reading these threads and will improve them over time. If not, well ... I guess VIPs will probably still play them and gripe, and Premiums won't buy them.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
That's obviously false. It is a death (generally, other bad things might apply) that happens to a female character for the express purpose of providing character development or plot action by a male character. The reason for why something bad happened to the female is expressly because she has a relationship to the male.
That is not vaguely defined, and it does not apply to females killed "for any reason". No, only how it relates to the development of the story defines whether the meme applies. How the story handles it is a separate question. Show me a quote from the people who have assembled documentation on the meme showing something to the contrary if you want to debate that. I am taking that as one of two major categories of the meme from online sources about the meme, including the WiR website. |
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
Your attempt to disassociate the sexual undercurrents from the meme itself is admirable but ultimately futile.
Loth 50 Fire/Rad Controller [1392 Badges] [300 non-AE Souvenirs]
Ryver 50 Ele� Blaster [1392 Badges]
Silandra 50 Peacebringer [1138 Badges] [No Redside Badges]
--{=====> Virtue ♀
The only reason the WIR meme exists as meme which has been debated for decades at all has been because there has always been an undercurrent of misogyny associated with how it's been applied to various stories.
|
If we were just talking about a meme that had no loaded sexual connotations to it it would not be (rather dramatically) called the "woman in refrigerator" meme. Even the name of the meme itself is full of shock value designed to spur in exactly this kind of dissent and debate. ![]() |
Your attempt to disassociate the sexual undercurrents from the meme itself is admirable but ultimately futile. |
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Edit: It's OT for this thread, but some folks are of the opinion that because the SSAs are "paid for" content, that they should be a step above in fiction. I can't say this view is wrong, but that's not the only mark of something that, in theory, had money "set aside" for its development. Time was clearly invested in these arcs in terms of creating contacts, mission environments, applying unusual mechanics, and yes, writing a story that's (for better or worse) more complex than normal. I think it's completely fair that we should expect that time to be invested well, but the balance is going to be all over the map in what each of us thinks should have gotten most of the investment. Should it be the writing? The mission map tilesets? The critters and their powersets? I am not jumping out of my seat about what we got here, but I don't hate it, and I don't expect great shakes from its fiction. There are things I'd like done differently in the future. Hopefully the creators are reading these threads and will improve them over time. If not, well ... I guess VIPs will probably still play them and gripe, and Premiums won't buy them.
|
But what seems to have come of them is even less than I expected. It's not necessarily "bad," in the sense that these arcs clearly had very high production values, but like Spider-Man 3, they seem to have focused too much on sensationalism in both design and storytelling and too little on making something that we'll remember fondly and, above all else, go back to. We have deaths of established (sometimes) characters, we have large extravagant custom maps, we have unique gimmicks galore, but it all comes off like a shock and awe thrill ride in an amusement part - lots of fanfare, but very little substance.
In essence, the SSAs are trying so hard to shock me, they shocked me out of my desire to play them. At one point I might have accused the writers of not trying hard enough, but now that I've seen them try way too hard... It's actually worse.
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
|
Giving a Caucasian lead character an East-Asian or African supporting character who exists solely to die is not intrinsically racist. It all depends on how it's handled in the story.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA