WIR? (Spoilers)
Good call. Besides the egocentricity and fragile self-esteem, narcissists have a tendency to attach themselves to important groups or institutions, e.g. the Midnight Club, to improve their own standing. That doesn't preclude male chauvinism as another of Praetorian Percy's many issues, of course.
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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.
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All this talk about Alexis's death affecting States and Manticore, and none mentioning a certain daughter with, shall we say, poor impulse control and her own personal army. Her death may be a plot point, but this is going to have repercussions all over the place.
And I won't even go into looking for happy cheery endings in a story called 'Who Will Die'. I already have my suspicions as to who might be behind it all, and if I'm right there'll be a massive threadstorm once that's revealed.
All this talk about Alexis's death affecting States and Manticore, and none mentioning a certain daughter with, shall we say, poor impulse control and her own personal army. Her death may be a plot point, but this is going to have repercussions all over the place.
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This is a running problem with all the surviving Eight, as a point of fact. BABs probably has it the worst. He shows up in ONE mission where his personality is irrelevant as Crimson Revenant could work for any signature hero, and then... I don't know anything else about him. I've seen it written that he fought a war on drugs at some point for some reason, but that's all in background info on the site that I last read seven years ago. Apparently Manticore is supposed to be sarcastic, at least judging by the Manticore Automaton, but I haven't noticed. I haven't the foggiest who Numina is supposed to be as I don't even remember the one missions she shows up in, Synapse shows up to throw meta-game jokes at me and ask me if I'm using inspirations and... I honestly don't even remember the Statesman showing up at all, aside from the Silos TF where everyone shows up and no-one has any real characterisation.
My point is that... Yeah, we keep forgetting about these people and the intricate interplay among them, because no-one saw it fit to ESTABLISH these characters because we starter threatening to kill them. I didn't read the comic books, I haven't read the novels, I don't know who these people are, aside from "important." I know more about frikkin' Fusionette than I do about any of these guys. I know more about DILLO!
I guess that's part of why SSA3 comes off like so much torture porn - because we're being given these one-dimensional, one-note characters (as far as I can deduce) and we're being TOLD that this is horrible and we should feel horrible and oh, no, woe betide poor Statesman! Won't someone think of poor unfortunate Mary Sue! But as much as I don't know about the Freedom Phalanx... I know even less about Alexis. I know she's a damsel in distress that I've been given little reason to care about, whose death is going to hurt other people I've been given little reason to care about. It comes off as mean, because rather than grace these characters with character development, we're tossing their bones in the grinder to fuel the kind of superficial drama which hinges on shock value.
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.
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Oh boo-hoo-hoo... so a redshirt died. No one throws a fit when Ensign Johnson dies. Oh, but I forgot... this is because of some bogus trope about women in refrigerators. Remember, only Men Are the Expendable Gender. We don't want to upset the sensitive feminists and chivalrists by letting a fictional woman die.
![](http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy70/KojiroJames/neversurrendersig.jpg)
All this talk about Alexis's death affecting States and Manticore, and none mentioning a certain daughter with, shall we say, poor impulse control and her own personal army. Her death may be a plot point, but this is going to have repercussions all over the place.
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![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
As an interesting point, how many other people did the hero side version of SSA 3 and blink at the mission send-off text for the final mission?
You know, the bit where the contact tells you that you'll have to go and rescue Alexis Cole-Duncan and defeat Malaise?
When I read it, I had to double-take, because Malaise hadn't cropped up in the arc at all before that (as far as I could tell), so I have no idea how the contact knew he was going to be there.
The wisdom of Shadowe: Ghostraptor: The Shadowe is wise ...; FFM: Shadowe is no longer wise.
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
![Wink](images/smilies/wink.gif)
Oh boo-hoo-hoo... so a redshirt died. No one throws a fit when Ensign Johnson dies. Oh, but I forgot... this is because of some bogus trope about women in refrigerators. Remember, only Men Are the Expendable Gender. We don't want to upset the sensitive feminists and chivalrists by letting a fictional woman die.
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Brawling Cactus from a distant planet.
It's an example of a Woman in refrigerator trope when the death is soly to motivate another character (usually male), had she died for some other reason than to motivate Manticore or Statesman it wouldn't be a WIR.
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So the point is, get over it, everything can be linked to a trope.
![Stick Out Tongue](images/smilies/tongue.gif)
BrandX Future Staff Fighter
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The BrandX Collection
So if it was a male, then it would of been an entirely different trope.
So the point is, get over it, everything can be linked to a trope. ![]() |
Not all tropes are value-neutral. Some are so problematic that they need to be retired.
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.
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Dry your tears, old chap. You may be rather late to this thread, but you can still attempt to troll it if you put more effort into your posts.
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It's an example of a Woman in refrigerator trope when the death is soly to motivate another character (usually male), had she died for some other reason than to motivate Manticore or Statesman it wouldn't be a WIR.
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So if it was a male, then it would of been an entirely different trope.
So the point is, get over it, everything can be linked to a trope. ![]() |
"The black guy always dies first" is also a trope.
Not all tropes are value-neutral. Some are so problematic that they need to be retired. |
Concerning the Black Dude Dies First, it's becoming something of a Discredited Trope these days. As the page states:
Studios had also finally accepted that white audiences are not generally as racist as was once assumed, and do not need to have a white protagonist. In other words, if you're gonna go after the black man nowadays, you might want to check the credits to see who's playing him. If it's no one you've actually heard of, they're probably fair game. Tony Todd? Go for it. Samuel L. Jackson? You can take your chances, but I don't like your odds. Rosario Dawson? Yeah, good luck on that. Denzel Washington? Bad idea. Morgan Freeman? You should give up. Will Smith? Run away and hide. |
And that highlights a big problem about the hero signature characters in this game: They don't have any characterization. Stealing Sam's words, I know about Fusionette more than I know about any existing member of the Freedom Phalanx or Vindicators. They're completely empty personalities. Hell, characterization is one of the things CoV actually got right: I know just about everything about Lord Recluse and his lieutenants there is to know, because they're characters that're actually fleshed out. Same goes for the Praetorians. But Statesman?
He might as well be a cardboard standie.
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I'm here to ridicule hypocrisy and promote equal opportunity death
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Are you sure you're here for an argument?
So it's pure irony that you're constantly linking to TV Tropes to promote your agenda when that site's entry for the phenomenon lists an overwhelming proportion of female examples from comics? That's hardly equal opportunity.
Are you sure you're here for an argument? |
Note that trope also highlights Throwaway Countries and Doomed Hometowns as examples, so unless you're saying that these countries and towns are predominantly female, I'm finding "WiR" even more ludicrous.
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Yet you're the only one who's trying to argue that. Trying to reframe the phenomenon into an either/or proposition simply doesn't hold water.
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It's all silliness, really, and that's why when I write stuff, the Grim Reaper isn't picky in who or how they die.
![](http://i778.photobucket.com/albums/yy70/KojiroJames/neversurrendersig.jpg)
Really? Because Smersh was naming practically every female death as fridging. Even if the death didn't motivate anyone.
It's all silliness, really, and that's why when I write stuff, the Grim Reaper isn't picky in who or how they die. |
Please quote where it appears I said that, because that's certainly not what I intended to say.
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)
I have never claimed that all female deaths are fridging.
Please quote where it appears I said that, because that's certainly not what I intended to say. |
To be perfectly fair, I cast the WIR problem as wider than other people do. As pointed out earlier in the thread, I count Gwen Stacy as being 'fridged,' because her death was primarily put in (in my opinion) to drive Peter Parker's character growth. I will grant that Gwen Stacy is a debatable example.
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. In terms of your Wikipedia definition, I tend to focus much more on the first sentence than the second. I also am known to talk about refrigerators in genres other than comic books. Definition one: the use of the death or injury of a female comic book character as a plot device in a story starring a male comic book character. Definition two: the depowerment or elimination of a female comic book character within a comic book universe. Amazingly, here, in the SSA - Alexis Cole-Duncan fits BOTH categories. And, in the villain-side version of the arc (which I ran this morning), your character has the opportunity to put her in the fridge yourself, with explicit dialogue from Malaise pointing out how the two of you were going to hang out to see Manticore's expression when you open the fridge door for him yourselves. Why must Alexis Cole-Duncan die? To screw with Statesman and Manticore. No other reason. Not to mention that she's a depowered former superhero who can't fight back and spends the entire arc cowering. |
I'll take the opportunity to point out that I hated the First Ward as well. The Praetorian Seer network is an industrial-scale refrigerator. The 'hilarious' Master Midnight is so misogynistic that I would have rather chosen sides against him, even if the result would have been becoming an unwilling member of the Carnival of Vengeance. Sorceress Serene's cabal is stuffed in a fridge as a part of her backstory. We get to put Katie Douglass back into her refrigerator.
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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)
Ah, so you admit that I didn't say what you said I did, and that you are wrong. Glad to hear it.
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And really, when did you start to think Gwen Stacey was a WIR? It's a pretty new trope and all.
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The BrandX Collection
On a related note, has anyone else actually read the TV Tropes page for COH? Some of them are kinda fun. (And we're a Trope Namer - Homing Boulders is courtesy of us.)
Michelle
aka
Samuraiko/Dark_Respite
THE COURSE OF SUPERHERO ROMANCE CONTINUES!
Book I: A Tale of Nerd Flirting! ~*~ Book II: Courtship and Crime Fighting - Chap Nine live!
MA Arcs - 3430: Hell Hath No Fury / 3515: Positron Gets Some / 6600: Dyne of the Times / 351572: For All the Wrong Reasons
378944: Too Clever by Half / 459581: Kill or Cure / 551680: Clerical Errors (NEW!)
On a related note, has anyone else actually read the TV Tropes page for COH? Some of them are kinda fun. (And we're a Trope Namer - Homing Boulders is courtesy of us.)
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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
You still thought Gwen Stacey was WIR. So you were wrong. And thusly everything you say is wrong.
And really, when did you start to think Gwen Stacey was a WIR? It's a pretty new trope and all. |
(For the record, if female characters are defined primarily by their relationship to the male protagonist and are killed off primarily to spur character growth, I consider that a fridging. It's more egregious if the character exists in the plot only to die and spur character growth, but that is not the only example. The awesome rampage of John Clark in Without Remorse? Caused by a fridging.)
You may choose to debate my definition of fridging. But since you are not the final arbiter of what constitutes a refrigerator (nor am I), you don't get to say with impunity that I am wrong. Show me I am wrong. Prove that I'm wrong. Don't assert it without backing it up.
Also, I consider twelve and a half years to not be new. Therefore, you are wrong about everything you say, if that's the standard you wish to apply.
Forgive me if I didn't take notes about when I decided to categorize a particular comic book story under a particular trope - it's not something that I mark on my calendar. It has been some time, perhaps four or five years.
To put it very simply: I can think of a half-dozen examples off the top of my head wherein a male protagonist comes home to find his wife/girlfriend/daughter tortured/kidnapped/violated/dead with a taunting note from the antagonist. I cannot think of a gender-flipped version off the top of my head. Hence, women in refrigerators.
(It's arguable that Uncle Ben was, in fact, stuffed in a fridge by my standards. That's another debate entirely.)
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)
Ah, so you admit that I didn't say what you said I did, and that you are wrong. Glad to hear it.
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No.
This. Seriously. This so much.
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