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[QUOTE=Grinning Soul;5778301]I think my suggestion is general enough so we don't start nitpicking the gender or importance of the roles of the characters, but specific enough for the term to still mean something. I'm not saying it's perfect criteria, but it may help finding common ground between the posters easier, so they can discuss if fridging is getting popular again.
I hope it's useful.[/QUOTE]
I absolutely agree w/ your criteria btw, I think it works perfectly in taking important factors while ignoring ones that don't matter.My question was more about mass acceptance.
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[QUOTE=Spiderfan001;5778314]I absolutely agree w/ your criteria btw, I think it works perfectly in taking important factors while ignoring ones that don't matter.My question was more about mass acceptance.[/QUOTE]
As far as I understand, Simone wasn't trying to coin a term [I]per se[/I], just making a list of female characters who went through horrible things simply to advance the plot/development of a male character. People picked up on the idea and started to expand it on their own and now we have this blurred concept and a lot of disagreement around it. I don't think we'll ever get to the point of "mass acceptance" until someone writes a serious dissertation about it and people accept the arguments in it.
But I suppose you could settle to reaching an agreement between the posters who are currently engaged in this thread.
I don't know, Spidey, that was my contribution already. If anyone can use or improve on it, great. All I can do is hope it's the start of a more productive discussion.
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[QUOTE=Spiderfan001;5778168]His death is used as cheap anger/sadness for Lorna, heck even for Emma. "'Fridging' is the practice of killing off or hurting a minor character in order to motivate or torture a main character."
This is def. fridging and better than many examples in this thread, y'all will do everything to invalidate male characters being misused, huh?[/QUOTE]
You seem pretty defensive there - I didn't count Rockslide fully as a fridging because I didn't really hear much about anyone's reaction to his death except in the immediate aftermath (and what relationship did Lorna have with Rockslide - did they interact at all before the issue he dies in?). It came across more as an excuse to up the stakes by taking the resurrection protocols off the table than anything else - was there much of a reaction to his death after the event was over? The relevant trope here is C-List Fodder (basically redshirting an established, but underused character).
Likewise, I don't count any death as part of the origin story as fridging either - Superman's parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, the family of the Martian Manhunter, Katherine Summers - we never really get to know these characters enough for them to count as characters - they are basically anthromorphized plot points who cease to exit in the same issue they first appeared in.
Remember that the whole point of fridging is that the death serves [B]no other purpose[/B] than to cause emotional pain for someone else. If a death is primarily for some other narrative purpose (even if that purpose is stupid and the death is poorly done) it isn't a fridging.
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[QUOTE=Grinning Soul;5778261]Thanks for replying. I think all of your points are arguable, actually, not factual. But I respect your perspective and since I don't really want to get into this particular discussion, I'll leave it at that.[/QUOTE]
Fair enough but if you change your mind I’d be interested to hear your counter points.
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[QUOTE=Grinning Soul;5778301]I think my suggestion is general enough so we don't start nitpicking the gender or importance of the roles of the characters, but specific enough for the term to still mean something. I'm not saying it's perfect criteria, but it may help finding common ground between the posters easier, so they can discuss if fridging is getting popular again.
I hope it's useful.[/QUOTE]
But you can't really ignore the gender aspect of it
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[QUOTE=Wolverine12;5778611]Fair enough but if you change your mind I’d be interested to hear your counter points.[/QUOTE]
Like I said, I think you could argue both ways, so…
Besides, I know you’re cool, but public conversations can always invite other people to jump in and be obnoxious (especially when it comes to a character as polarising as Jean) and I’m just not really up for it. I hope you understand.
[QUOTE=CosmiComic;5778640]But you can't really ignore the gender aspect of it[/QUOTE]
The term has been used to refer to other media than comic books and male characters as well:
“A loved one is hurt, killed, maimed, assaulted, or otherwise traumatized in order to motivate another character or move their plot forward. (…) It should be noted that while the term most commonly applies to a male character's female love interest, it can actually be used in numerous different scenarios of all genders and different relations from romantic, platonic and familial. The core part is that one character is killed (or at least, has something very bad happen to them) for the sake of causing emotional trauma for the target, with said victim often acting as a plot device more than a real character in the worst-case scenarios.”
[url]https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/StuffedIntoTheFridge[/url]
You may disagree with it, but it won’t change the fact that people will use differently.
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fridging is a trope that got named to bring up a bigger issue that was prevalent in comics, specifically the treatment of women within the medium, but does not mean the trope itself is purely restricted to its name origins as examples have existed centuries before it ever got named.
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It can refer to both genders but, as has been pointed out, male characters have been better treated by comics
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[QUOTE=RamaBird;5775627]Ooh, can a kid be fridged?
It's not like you can give a little child much personality, depth, drive and motivation right?
So it's not like you can rob them of that?
According to the "fridging rules", if a character has depth drive and motivation in their own death/story then they can't be fridged... right? How do you give a little kid all that in their death scene?[/QUOTE]
Talking about age instead of gender... Bucky Barnes death was something that haunted Steve before he returned as Nomad (Nomad 80's version), even when he came back older, and after the return. But they weren't written without personalities being partly support cast and perhaps there to die. As they have done. DC has done it as well with Batman sidekicks. There was Supergirl on the Superman side but despite being called girl she was closer to a woman.
[QUOTE=sunofdarkchild;5778217]When has the trope ever been limited to romantic interests? In the 80s no one had ever thought to use Barbara Gordon as a romantic interest for Bruce Wayne or her own father. Nowadays that's an actual thing, unfortunately, but it wasn't when The Killing Joke first came out.
Part of the problem with event comics is that there is an assumption that characters have to die in them. Someone had to die to set up the stakes that death in Otherworld was permanent in X of Swords. Second Coming made a plot point that the enemy was systematically killing off the teleporters to ensure the mutants would be trapped. Nightcrawler got a heroic sacrifice but the others were unceremoniously killed except for Pixie and Magik. I guess I feel like these sorts of deaths are closer to deaths in Game of Thrones than to typical fridging, but that doesn't necessarily make them good.[/QUOTE]
Yet even with NC it was actually part of Logans journey and he could not stop referencing him like some wife (not meant as an insult nor was it a vote). Side kick is a no-no approach - They joined at the same time and they saw each other as equals.
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[QUOTE=CosmiComic;5779088]It can refer to both genders but, as has been pointed out, male characters have been better treated by comics[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=CosmiComic;5778640]But you can't really ignore the gender aspect of it[/QUOTE]
Main characters, which happen to be male more than females.Gender is a factor, but in this case we have a bigger factor(main/side characters) that makes more sense for said situation.
[QUOTE=Gray Lensman;5778434]You seem pretty defensive there - I didn't count Rockslide fully as a fridging because I didn't really hear much about anyone's reaction to his death except in the immediate aftermath (and what relationship did Lorna have with Rockslide - did they interact at all before the issue he dies in?). It came across more as an excuse to up the stakes by taking the resurrection protocols off the table than anything else - was there much of a reaction to his death after the event was over? The relevant trope here is C-List Fodder (basically redshirting an established, but underused character).
Likewise, I don't count any death as part of the origin story as fridging either - Superman's parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, the family of the Martian Manhunter, Katherine Summers - we never really get to know these characters enough for them to count as characters - they are basically anthromorphized plot points who cease to exit in the same issue they first appeared in.
Remember that the whole point of fridging is that the death serves [B]no other purpose[/B] than to cause emotional pain for someone else. If a death is primarily for some other narrative purpose (even if that purpose is stupid and the death is poorly done) it isn't a fridging.[/QUOTE]
Lorna was shook, so was Emma and the others were hurt as well.The purpose is another trope poorly executed, so I'd say it's fridging.Kayla death was also used to show how big a threat the puppet control thing on colossus is, and that things are serious yet it is also fridging.
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Can we post articles from other sites here? I forget... But an article came out defending the writers/creative team, saying that even though it is a fridging it was only done to call out the trope in the first place. Lol, seems TPTB are trying to spin it.
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[QUOTE=RamaBird;5781817]Can we post articles from other sites here? I forget... But an article came out defending the writers/creative team, saying that even though it is a fridging it was only done to call out the trope in the first place. Lol, seems TPTB are trying to spin it.[/QUOTE]
Please share!