How to Kill Off a Female Character Without it Being Gratuitous?

Jesus...ok well, back on Earth...

The point is, that yes some characters, gender be damned, are just stock characters and have no genuine existence beyond serving as a plot point. If we suddenly say that this is somehow "offensive" when it applies to female characters or minority characters the entire concept of a background character evaporates save for White men I guess, who seem to be the favorite go-to villain anyway so why not?

And all of this goes back to my original statement, mirroring one I made when the subject of "sensitivity editing" came up: EVERYTHING offends someone, no matter what it is or who writes it or why. It is literally impossible to write anything that is "inoffensive" since there is some -ism or -ist out there waiting for you. So divorce yourself from any semblance of "sensitivity" or attempt at "diversity" and just write a story that functions on an internal level. And the moment someone says they're offended look them in the eye and say, good for you, and I care...why?

 

Yeah, it does. And I'm not walking back anything. I took aim at the sentiment. If that sentiment isn't what you intended your words to come off as, fine. But my point towards the sentiment itself stands.

Considering that element is the only common criticism of the work, I'm pretty sure it would. It would certainly craft a stronger story.

Acknowledge. You've refused to even entertain any ideas other than your own here. So you think treating a quarter of your cast as a prop is good writing? Leaving a major plot thread completely unaddressed is good writing? I've thoroughly explained my reasoning here.

A writer knows their own work--what they meant and why they chose to do something--better than anyone else in the world. Suggesting their insight is only worth as much as any random person's is ridiculous.

If this is all you think Ben Parker is, I'm not sure you've got a great grasp on the source material.

 

The point is that a lot of people like crap. Defending something purely on its popularity just makes you a defender of crap, not someone interested in making better/more interesting literature. Without the people that make the effort to point to quality and promote it when it isn't popular, all we'd have to read are Buck Rogers and Danielle Steele.

Well, no. If you've been paying attention, fridging is when a new character is introduced, not really developed and killed off just to provide some rage for the Green Lantern. Gwen Stacey, Electra and Batgirl weren't fridged - they had extensive storyline dedicated to them before anything happened. Ben Parker and the Bruce Wayne's parents were't fridged - they have extensive backstory with the main character in his past and are not providing new motivation - they provide core principles of the character. I'm beginning to wonder if you are arguing about this because you just don't understand the issue.

Does it taint the literature? Does "It was a dark and stormy night" taint a mystery? Yes, unrealistic and overused hoary tropes subtract from the quality and enjoyment of literature, as well has having negative effects on reader's attitudes toward real people. Your attitude seems to be that nothing is every poor/bad/junk as long as somebody likes it.

This sentence doesn't really make any sense. "The fact that no one can see how many were created is absurd." Huh? Care to revise?

I think this is the kind of discussion that is hard to have with someone who doesn't really have a very broad background, experience or education. I was referring to women being treated as unclean in a social sense, not dirty maxi pads. There is a lot of garbage even modern first world people are hauling around with them that doesn't need to get reinforced just for the convenience of a lazy author.

It isn't that you have taken some sort of unpopular stand against people being too sensitive, you just don't sound like you understand what is being discussed.

 

Name a male character that has a short duration relationship with the main character who's brutal death motivates the hero to new levels of anger and motivation.

Ben Parker? Nope. Raised Peter.

 

I have to say that your "poor men" thesis is a little much. If men and women committed violent crimes in anywhere near equal proportion it would be interesting if they were sentenced different - but they don't so it isn't possible to compare.

People aren't sympathetic to Incels because they are male - they are unsympathetic because Incels promote hate for having the exact same problem as lonely women do, who don't get on the internet to fantasize about violence. An Incel isn't just a lonely guy any more than a KKK member is just someone with a poor attitude about minorities. They are self identified hate groups.

As a military officer who worked extensively with women, I'd be interested to read this study you're talking about. It doesn't sound like an actual study but an opinion piece.

 

It absolutely doesn't, and I've already pointed out why it doesn't. And so what if your point towards something I didn't say "still stands?" Are you giving yourself points now for arguing with yourself?

Considering Babs being maimed for shock value is a critical piece of the story, I'm "pretty sure" it wouldn't. Regardless, neither you or I know either way. And if Moore had wrote TKJ closer to your preferences, the only things that would "certainly" happen, is that you would like the book more, and that I would like the book less.

That's a lie.

I have no doubt it can be. My position is that an author should use their fictional characters however the story they envision calls for.

I think Moore was right on the money with how he handled Babs. The Joker too for that matter.

I never suggested that. How many times are you going to claim that I've argued something that I haven't? If you're unsure, ask, for Christ's sake. An author's insight can be valuable. But their judgement of their own work, including how they've handled characters, plots, and relationships—is in no way more valuable than anyone else's judgement on those elements.

 

You appear to be confused: you aren't an authority on what's crap and what isn't. You can make judgements for yourself, that's fine. But believe it or not, folks will disagree with many of your judgements. And hopefully you'll have the realization at some point, that there's no objective way to adjudicate who's right and who's wrong.

That's the moment you'll realize that when you say something is crap, all I hear you say is "I don't like this thing."

 

Oh, is THAT what he was talking about? I thought he was engaging in random free-association. ("Women! Menstruation! Maxi pads!")

 

I have no problem with Babs getting shot and crippled, I have a problem with the rest of the story completely ignoring her humanity. I've made this clear multiple times. Like I said, simply acknowledging she's just been through a terrible ordeal in the hospital scene (as the panels from Batgirl 2011 do) would've gone a long way. But as it stands, Jim's the focus of that scene. Despite not even being there.

Is it? Because you've rejected the notion that fridging could even be a thing throughout this thread.

An author's judgement of their own work is far more valuable than anyone else's when it comes to judging whether they hit their intended mark. Nobody else can know exactly what they intended.

Someone once asked Moore at a con or something whether Joker raped Babs, and he was taken aback, because he'd never considered the way the story was set up might give that impression. He's very firmly said "no" on that point, but I think it's emblematic of this part of the discussion. Moore feels like he mishandled the whole matter as far as his own goals are concerned. And that opinion right there has far more weight than mine, yours, or anyone else's.

 

I like plenty of things that I know are not high quality, original or excellent. They are some of the things I liked as a child, like hot dogs. But as an adult I have expanded my sensibilities and become able to appreciate the art, food, literature, music that a child wouldn't like.

It isn't that everyone has to like the same things, but it is crazy not to acknowledge that there are genuine levels of quality. And you can acknowledge that something is greater without swearing off the lesser. Everything isn't equal just because people like stuff.

 

I see Braveheart as fair to middling adequate. 'Beloved' is not a word that comes to mind.

 

I think you might be making the issue more confusing by bringing up something that isn't fridging to argue about fridging.

Batgirl's story may apply very well to the OP, but is a much more subtle thing than fridging.

 

It's meh. It has a couple of moments, but it's not great and the historical inaccuracies are pretty distracting. Plus, characterization is not it's strong suit. The villain is very two dimensional. It's almost like the whole film was basically a vehicle for Mel Gibson to try on a terrible accent.

 

It's the kind of movie that I sometimes put on in the background while cleaning the house, because it won't distract me much.

 

Except the TKJ incident involving Babs is part of the original Women in Refrigerators list, and it's the second most well known example of fridging after the trope namer itself.

Ignoring the character's humanity is a key piece of what makes it fridging. Nobody calls Bane breaking Batman's back fridging. Why? Because the story still treats him like a person and doesn't use him as an accessory to provide someone else motivation.

 

Babs' humanity is well established. The only way to treat it as fridging is to pretend that the Killing Joke is an independent novel, not a chapter in a story that is was already 50 years old when published.

It may be useful to disconnect the Killing Joke from the overall story if you want to use it for discussion alone. But to call it fridging presumes that Babs' life before and after that particular series was going to disappear, and that was neither Alan Moore's nor the publishers intent. She continued to be published and was later retconned back to health. I can't see how she isn't a fully formed character in her own right, which is how the term was originally defined.

I get her inclusion because Killing Joke is so nasty in its treatment of Babs, but it just doesn't match up very well.

 

Previous characterization doesn't matter much when the piece in which the incident occurs doesn't treat the character like a person. And considering TKJ was originally meant as a standalone, the point grows stronger.

Like I said, the past counts little when the present is framed this way. As for the future, Moore didn't plan to make her "after" disappear (this did start out a standalone, after all), but the publisher is another matter. They left her hanging until Yale and Ostrander made her into Oracle, and if that hadn't happened it's possible she would've been permanently shelved.

She's a fully formed character in her own right, yes, but that previous full form doesn't get carried into TKJ well at all. Which is the problem.

 

I agree that her role in TKJ is problematic. The issue I see is that it gets hard to sell a thesis that women characters are being mistreated in a specific way if the articulation of the problem is diluted by a constantly changing definition. The fridging incident in Green Lantern is a very specific problem of treating person as a plot lever despite putting enormous brutality on that person with no balancing humanity. TKJ is a very different problem of DC providing a character that is fully formed and very human, yet was disposed of in a manner that the publisher wouldn't subject a popular male character to.

Smashing those two together ends up sounding less like a well articulated thesis but a general complaint of misogyny that is too unspecific for someone interested in avoiding the issue to address. And, as we see in this thread, opens the thesis up to criticism because the vagueness of it invites picking it apart by pointing to any male death or injury as equivalent. I understand the overall issue, but it is better to frame the issue with distinctly delineated categories so it is both more teachable and actionable.

 

IMO, they're two expressions of the same phenomenon, related but different. You've got the Alex DeWitt types, who are almost entirely a plot lever from the start. And you've got the Barbara Gordon types, who are fully formed characters reduced to a plot lever.

 

I'm not sure that it's productive to focus the discussion on the goal of thwarting those determined to avoid/deny the issue. That so often drowns out any actual discussion of the issue.

If your primary goal is persuading the unpersuaded, then that's your goal. But sometimes it would be nice to be able to just discuss, without allowing the unpersuaded to hijack that discussion.

 

I agree, which is why I think it is important to be able to articulate those two expressions as separate, addressable pillars of a broader issue.

 

I agree, but the hijack is pretty much what the discussion has become and it keeps going because we aren't sticking to concrete concepts.

But yeah, let's get back to the OP.

 

I agree totally. It's not that it's 'wrong' to kill off a character just to provide motivation. It's just a ho-hum way to create interest.

Remember the Star Trek 'ensign' syndrome. Whenever anything was happening, it was the new person in uniform who got killed. Every time. And this provided motivation for the crew we DID already know to ...do whatever the plot required. It was a joke. We could easily spot the character who was going to die on any mission. The new guy/girl.

And then ...then they killed off Tasha Yar.

A main cast member. And she died so quickly and so unnecessarily. I remember being TOTALLY shocked, and assuming, because it was Star Trek, that she'd probably be brought back to life. (Another trope that gets annoying.) And hey ho, no—she stayed dead.

Beyond the shock and sadness brought about by her death (both to the viewers and the other crew members) what resulted was a real sense of jeopardy for the entire rest of the series. They killed off Tasha. Nobody is safe. So every time death threatened one of the other major cast members, we wondered ...is this another one who is going to die? The possibility always existed, and that ramped up the suspense a great deal.

It's a lesson I learned. Kill off a main character, and your audience will be hooked. Kill off a token character, and it's ho-hum, so what's the detective going to do about it, eh? If you want that first response from your readers rather than the second, make sure the character you kill off actually matters as a person. Make them somebody whom the reader has formed a bond with. Somebody who causes the reader to think oh noooo! when the death occurs.

It's not so much whether the dead person matters to another character. It's whether the dead person matters to the reader. Neither is 'wrong,' but if the dead person mattered to the reader, the impact of that person's death will be a lot stronger.

 

I think most people at the time understood that Tasha was written out just like Valerie Harper was - because of issues that have little to do with narrative but labor disputes. Crosby didn't feel her character was being developed, and Yar wasn't very interesting. My feeling at the time was that her departure eliminated a weak character, not that it depicted jeopardy for a central figures.

 

That might well have been the reason for writing the cast member out of the series, but that's not the impact it had on me as a viewer of the story. (They could just as easily written her out for lots of other reasons that would have had less impact.) Her death affected me, while the deaths of the token 'ensigns' never did.

I wasn't aware that there was a labour dispute surrounding her departure, so that didn't figure into the way I saw the story unfold at all.

The sudden death of a major character—story-wise—had a huge effect on the way I saw the series from then on. If Tasha could die, well, so could Riker, or Deanna, or Beverly, or ...even Picard himself. It's the imaginary characters and story development that I find relevant to this thread here, not real-life difficulties faced by TV series filming, or the real lives of the actors who played the characters.