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[Agents of SHIELD] S4E16 - What if... this thread reached 100 pages?

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Posts

  • HounHoun Registered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

  • FroThulhuFroThulhu Registered User regular
    It would appear so

  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Have the character be well rounded and have actual characterization. Roslin had an impact on the storyline that resulted in her death, and was more than just a passive player. Fridging isn't about the scene in which the event happened, it's about the overall agency of the character.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    Until its not cliche, anyway.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    So remember that S1E1 imgur album with captions thing I posted?

    turns out they made more.

    A lot more (Note: not all of these were released in episode order, but I'm posting them that way). Note that there may be spoilers for future episodes in some, so don't read unless fully caught up.

    S1E1
    S1E2
    S1E3
    S1E4
    S1E5
    S1E6
    S1E7
    S1E8
    S1E9
    S1E10
    S1E11
    S1E12

    S3E1
    S3E2
    S3E6
    S3E7
    S3E8
    S3E9

    Bonus: Agent Carter E1

    (He's also doing Jessica Jones, but that doesn't fit here).
    Coulson quoting Bad Religion will never get old

    Jragghen on
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

    Which is why in this case it is not fridging.
    She was killed because of who she was and what she could/was going to do, to Hydra's plans.

    Ward himself killed her as a way to strike back at Coulson for what happened to that girl he cared about. It wasn't why she was killed though, it was why Ward was the one who did the killing, and killed her instead of Coulson in that situation. Remember, they also tried to kill Coulson immediately afterwards.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    Answer to what?

  • HounHoun Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

    What makes this interpretation difficult for me to agree with:
    In what story, real or otherwise, is the loss of one person to whom another was close not in some way a motivating factor? Is it not the reason that authors have characters die? To explore the effects that the severing of those bonds have on the people around them?

    Even if the opposite were to occur, and nothing changed about a lead character after the death of someone important, we'd still be examining the human condition through that particular lens and the audience's ability to either empathize or not with their lack of reaction.

    Is it a problem to set up characters just to die? No.
    Is it a problem in a society that has been historically male-dominated to primarily kill off female characters to drive a story forward? Yeah.

    Does that mean you stop killing off female characters? Hell no. To me, it means you pay attention to the state of your media, artform, and the society that informs you, and make sure you're writing a good story with fully realized characters, rather than relying upon a trope as a crutch to get your story to a place that you were not otherwise creative or skilled enough go. Rosalind was a complete character in her own right, who acted in a way consistent with her other behaviors and backstory as presented to the audience, and her death flows very naturally as a consequence of the actions of the characters around her and the ongoing events in the story's world.

    It's the author's job to ensure they approach these things with care, and have the integrity to ensure that they are doing them for the right reasons, just as it's our job as the audience to examine these things and ask ourselves if we believe that the events in the story flow naturally or if it is a cheap, unaware, or hamfisted rehash of the problematic trope. That we continue to discuss it leads me to believe it was not the later.

    I am glad we're discussing it, though! It means we all care enough to keep the showrunners honest!

    Houn on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Because people caught up in the high stakes world of super spy'ing die. A lot.

  • MuddBuddMuddBudd Registered User regular
    Jragghen wrote: »
    So remember that S1E1 imgur album with captions thing I posted?

    turns out they made more.

    A lot more (Note: not all of these were released in episode order, but I'm posting them that way). Note that there may be spoilers for future episodes in some, so don't read unless fully caught up.

    S1E1
    S1E2
    S1E3
    S1E4
    S1E5
    S1E6
    S1E7
    S1E8
    S1E9
    S1E10
    S1E11
    S1E12

    S3E1
    S3E2
    S3E6
    S3E7
    S3E8

    Bonus: Agent Carter E1

    (He's also doing Jessica Jones, but that doesn't fit here).
    Coulson quoting Bad Religion will never get old

    I am losing my shit here at work over these.

    There's no plan, there's no race to be run
    The harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun.
  • HounHoun Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Strawman. I am not a content creator, nor do I have any vested interest in pushing any particular trope to the point of commonality.
    As a media consumer, my only interest is in compelling stories. I rarely find using a problematic trope "compelling", so no, I'm not really interested in wasting time on ham-fisted fiction that is either so unaware or misogynistic as to propagate a such a thing.

    To flip it around, you didn't answer the question.

    Houn on
  • CaedwyrCaedwyr Registered User regular
    On the latest episode
    My objection when I saw it, is it felt like the writers eliminating a plotline they had no intentions of following and were clearing things away so they wouldn't have to devote anymore time to a plotline they considered dead. Both the main one everyone is talking about and the secondary one. It didn't feel earned within the story and felt off compared to the expectations the series had set up to that point. It also seemed to be an incredibly stupid plan for anyone involved who didn't want a huge amount of outside scrutiny.

    But maybe in the world of Agents of Shield, the assassination of the head of a major government agency and her second-in-command within days of each other is commonplace and not worth any investigation.

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Houn wrote: »
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

    What makes this interpretation difficult for me to agree with:
    In what story, real or otherwise, is the loss of one person to whom another was close not in some way a motivating factor? Is it not the reason that authors have characters die? To explore the effects that the severing of those bonds have on the people around them?

    Even if the opposite were to occur, and nothing changed about a lead character after the death of someone important, we'd still be examining the human condition through that particular lens and the audience's ability to either empathize or not with their lack of reaction.

    Is it a problem to set up characters just to die? No.
    Is it a problem in a society that has been historically male-dominated to primarily kill off female characters to drive a story forward? Yeah.

    Does that mean you stop killing off female characters? Hell no. To me, it means you pay attention to the state of your media, artform, and the society that informs you, and make sure you're writing a good story with fully realized characters, rather than relying upon a trope as a crutch to get your story to a place that you were not otherwise creative or skilled enough go. Rosalind was a complete character in her own right, who acted in a way consistent with her other behaviors and backstory as presented to the audience, and her death flows very naturally as a consequence of the actions of the characters around her and the ongoing events in the story's world.

    It's the author's job to ensure they approach these things with care, and have the integrity to ensure that they are doing them for the right reasons, just as it's our job as the audience to examine these things and ask ourselves if we believe that the events in the story flow naturally or if it is a cheap, unaware, or hamfisted rehash of the problematic trope. That we continue to discuss it leads me to believe it was not the later.

    I am glad we're discussing it, though! It means we all care enough to keep them showrunners honest!
    Yeah, it's why I specifically mentioned the "primarily"

    Let's say that, at the end of Season 2, Daisy had to sacrifice herself to stop Jiaying's plan. Now certainly this could provide motivation for Coulson to change how he does things in Season 3 (maybe he's more or less strict about powered people.) But the primary reason she died wasn't to motivate Coulson, it was to defeat the villain. It's an ending that primarily plays into her development as a character; of her becoming a hero and dealing with her mothers betrayal and genocidal plan.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum, let's say Jaiying kills Daisy after she refuses to aid in her dastardly plan, prompting Cal to finally realize what a monster his wife is and finally take her out. Daisy's death still plays into her character, but it's obvious that it was primarily to give Cal the motivation defeat Jaiying as that is the main effect it has the narrative. She dies so that Cal can win the day.

    Of course, in the show itself, we had both Daisy and Cal fight Jaiying and Cal eventually killed Jaiying to save Daisy's life, which is pretty close to the scenario described above. It definitely plays into Daisy's existing and developing character, but it's ultimate affect is providing Cal with motivation. A key difference here is that Daisy doesn't die from it though, so her character can grow and evolve based on the events that happen, as well as future events, which isn't something you find in the first two scenarios. In this case, while I would say motivating Cal is the majority of the reason for the event to happen, it's not as much of a majority compared to the second scenario.

    The thing with Ros's death is that, despite her being a threat to Malick, Ward (and the writers through Ward) make it abundantly clear that it was done to piss off Coulson. It's the primary reason the scene exists, rather than Ros getting iced in her office or having a car accident or sticking around in some capacity. She's killed right in front of Coulson's eyes and then taunted about it.

    Again, not a bad thing. Certainly not the end of the world, but it's worth pointing it out. The frequency that things like this wind up happening will ultimately dictate the frequency people will bring it up. So, as long as the creators don't overly rely on it, they won't have to overly listen to people lose their shit over it. :wink: (Your "overly" may vary, consult a physician)

    Undead Scottsman on
  • JragghenJragghen Registered User regular
    MuddBudd wrote: »
    Jragghen wrote: »
    So remember that S1E1 imgur album with captions thing I posted?

    turns out they made more.

    A lot more (Note: not all of these were released in episode order, but I'm posting them that way). Note that there may be spoilers for future episodes in some, so don't read unless fully caught up.

    S1E1
    S1E2
    S1E3
    S1E4
    S1E5
    S1E6
    S1E7
    S1E8
    S1E9
    S1E10
    S1E11
    S1E12

    S3E1
    S3E2
    S3E6
    S3E7
    S3E8

    Bonus: Agent Carter E1

    (He's also doing Jessica Jones, but that doesn't fit here).
    Coulson quoting Bad Religion will never get old

    I am losing my shit here at work over these.

    k2y4RD2l.jpg

  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

    What makes this interpretation difficult for me to agree with:
    In what story, real or otherwise, is the loss of one person to whom another was close not in some way a motivating factor? Is it not the reason that authors have characters die? To explore the effects that the severing of those bonds have on the people around them?

    Even if the opposite were to occur, and nothing changed about a lead character after the death of someone important, we'd still be examining the human condition through that particular lens and the audience's ability to either empathize or not with their lack of reaction.

    Is it a problem to set up characters just to die? No.
    Is it a problem in a society that has been historically male-dominated to primarily kill off female characters to drive a story forward? Yeah.

    Does that mean you stop killing off female characters? Hell no. To me, it means you pay attention to the state of your media, artform, and the society that informs you, and make sure you're writing a good story with fully realized characters, rather than relying upon a trope as a crutch to get your story to a place that you were not otherwise creative or skilled enough go. Rosalind was a complete character in her own right, who acted in a way consistent with her other behaviors and backstory as presented to the audience, and her death flows very naturally as a consequence of the actions of the characters around her and the ongoing events in the story's world.

    It's the author's job to ensure they approach these things with care, and have the integrity to ensure that they are doing them for the right reasons, just as it's our job as the audience to examine these things and ask ourselves if we believe that the events in the story flow naturally or if it is a cheap, unaware, or hamfisted rehash of the problematic trope. That we continue to discuss it leads me to believe it was not the later.

    I am glad we're discussing it, though! It means we all care enough to keep them showrunners honest!
    Yeah, it's why I specifically mentioned the "primarily"

    Let's say that, at the end of Season 2, Daisy had to sacrifice herself to stop Jiaying's plan. Now certainly this could provide motivation for Coulson to change how he does things in Season 3 (maybe he's more or less strict about powered people.) But the primary reason she died wasn't to motivate Coulson, it was to defeat the villain. It's an ending that primarily plays into her development as a character; of her becoming a hero and dealing with her mothers betrayal and genocidal plan.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum, let's say Jaiying kills Daisy after she refuses to aid in her dastardly plan, prompting Cal to finally realize what a monster his wife is and finally take her out. Daisy's death still plays into her character, but it's obvious that it was primarily to give Cal the motivation defeat Jaiying as that is the main effect it has the narrative. She dies so that Cal can win the day.

    Of course, in the show itself, we had both Daisy and Cal fight Jaiying and Cal eventually killed Jaiying to save Daisy's life, which is pretty close to the scenario described above. It definitely plays into Daisy's existing and developing character, but it's ultimate affect is providing Cal with motivation. A key difference here is that Daisy doesn't die from it though, so her character can grow and evolve based on the events that happen, as well as future events, which isn't something you find in the first two scenarios. In this case, while I would say motivating Cal is the majority of the reason for the event to happen, it's not as much of a majority compared to the second scenario.

    The thing with Ros's death is that, despite her being a threat to Malick, Ward (and the writers through Ward) make it abundantly clear that it was done to piss off Coulson. It's the primary reason the scene exists, rather than Ros getting iced in her office or having a car accident or sticking around in some capacity. She's killed right in front of Coulson's eyes and then taunted about it.

    Again, not a bad thing. Certainly not the end of the world, but it's is worth pointing it out. The frequency that things like this winds up happening will ultimately dictate the frequency people will bring it up. So, as long as the creators don't overly rely on it, they won't have to overly listen to people lose their shit over it. :wink: (Your "overly" may vary, consult a physician)

    You are ignoring a fact to make your point.
    Ward did it himself, personally, to hurt and taunt Coulson. That wasn't WHY she was killed though, just the how. She was going to die regardless, another character acting completely in character with how they have been portrayed the entire time doesn't make this a trope.
    He also then sent his goons to immediately kill Coulson, because he got his personal jab in.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Because people caught up in the high stakes world of super spy'ing die. A lot.

    The concern isn't about spies.

  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    edited December 2015
    Quid wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Because people caught up in the high stakes world of super spy'ing die. A lot.

    The concern isn't about spies.

    I didn't say spies. I said the world of super spying.
    She was in a relationship with the director of the biggest spy organization in the world, while being in charge of a covert agency dealing with super human's that was being exploited by a secret terrorist organization directly opposing her boyfriends agency.

    Morkath on
  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Strawman. I am not a content creator, nor do I have any vested interest in pushing any particular trope to the point of commonality.
    As a media consumer, my only interest is in compelling stories. I rarely find using a problematic trope "compelling", so no, I'm not really interested in wasting time on ham-fisted fiction that is either so unaware or misogynistic as to propagate a such a thing.

    To flip it around, you didn't answer the question.

    I'm not answering your question I'm talking to you about the general concept. Personally as a media consumer my interest isn't limited to a single point of data. It's cool if yours is but you're gonna have to accept that others have different priorities.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Because people caught up in the high stakes world of super spy'ing die. A lot.

    The concern isn't about spies.

    I didn't say spies. I said the world of super spying.
    She was in a relationship with the director of the biggest spy organization in the world, while being in charge of a covert agency dealing with super human's that was being exploited by a secret terrorist organization directly opposing her boyfriends agency.
    Yes, and loads of people have a relationship with him while not getting assassinated. The reality of the situation is it's a fictional concept and an actual person decided what her purpose for the story would be. Which is the issue some people have.

    Quid on
  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Quid wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Because people caught up in the high stakes world of super spy'ing die. A lot.

    The concern isn't about spies.

    I didn't say spies. I said the world of super spying.
    She was in a relationship with the director of the biggest spy organization in the world, while being in charge of a covert agency dealing with super human's that was being exploited by a secret terrorist organization directly opposing her boyfriends agency.
    Yes, and loads of people have a relationship with him while not getting assassinated. The reality of the situation is it's a fictional concept and an actual person decided what her purpose for the story would be. Which is the issue some people have.
    Except you are ignoring the reason she was killed in favor of the how.

    Hydra was killing both her and Coulson, to remove their threat to the plan. Ward, as and fitting to his character, wanted to be his usually self and take a jab at someone he felt had hurt him. This is the same exact way he treats and reacts to every other situation he has been shown in.

  • QuidQuid Definitely not a banana Registered User regular
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Quid wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    Don't make it primarily for the motivation of a male character would be a good way of avoiding that. Have her death be for the sake of her character and her story.

    But again, killing a female character to motivate a male character isn't a bad thing in itself (like I said, supporting characters exist to facilitate primary characters) it's only when taken in context of it being ridiculously common in media, while the opposite isn't, is that it becomes a problem.

    So, basically, because it is common, the answer is "never, until such time as it is no longer common"?

    I mean

    Do you have a compelling reason for it to be common?

    Because people caught up in the high stakes world of super spy'ing die. A lot.

    The concern isn't about spies.

    I didn't say spies. I said the world of super spying.
    She was in a relationship with the director of the biggest spy organization in the world, while being in charge of a covert agency dealing with super human's that was being exploited by a secret terrorist organization directly opposing her boyfriends agency.
    Yes, and loads of people have a relationship with him while not getting assassinated. The reality of the situation is it's a fictional concept and an actual person decided what her purpose for the story would be. Which is the issue some people have.
    Except you are ignoring the reason she was killed in favor of the how.

    Hydra was killing both her and Coulson, to remove their threat to the plan. Ward, as and fitting to his character, wanted to be his usually self and take a jab at someone he felt had hurt him. This is the same exact way he treats and reacts to every other situation he has been shown in.
    Yes technically speaking it made perfect sense within the story. No one has said otherwise.

  • SenjutsuSenjutsu thot enthusiast Registered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    I'm not going to answer for anyone else, but like I said earlier, if it had been Jemma (or Daisy or May or any other woman on the show currently), it would have been fine, because those characters have had growth and story arcs and all of that. My issue is purely that this is a one-and-done throwaway character whose raison d'être was to die to motivate a man.

    It's disingenuous to claim that everyone objecting to this plotline is complaining about any woman dying ever. Hell, Jaying was a one arc character who existed purely to die at the end of the arc, and I've got zero problem with it. Because her entire plot wasn't framed solely in terms of being a love interest for a man and his reaction to her death.

  • MorkathMorkath Registered User, __BANNED USERS regular
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?
    I'm not going to answer for anyone else, but like I said earlier, if it had been Jemma (or Daisy or May or any other woman on the show currently), it would have been fine, because those characters have had growth and story arcs and all of that. My issue is purely that this is a one-and-done throwaway character whose raison d'être was to die to motivate a man.

    It's disingenuous to claim that everyone objecting to this plotline is complaining about any woman dying ever. Hell, Jaying was a one arc character who existed purely to die at the end of the arc, and I've got zero problem with it. Because her entire plot wasn't framed solely in terms of being a love interest for a man and his reaction to her death.
    And neither was Roz. She had her plot line and wasn't there just to be a love interest for Coulson. She was a more memorable and fleshed out character than Robert was, and his death and existence was even more focused on just being a reason to incite conflict.

  • JuliusJulius Captain of Serenity on my shipRegistered User regular
    Morkath wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

    What makes this interpretation difficult for me to agree with:
    In what story, real or otherwise, is the loss of one person to whom another was close not in some way a motivating factor? Is it not the reason that authors have characters die? To explore the effects that the severing of those bonds have on the people around them?

    Even if the opposite were to occur, and nothing changed about a lead character after the death of someone important, we'd still be examining the human condition through that particular lens and the audience's ability to either empathize or not with their lack of reaction.

    Is it a problem to set up characters just to die? No.
    Is it a problem in a society that has been historically male-dominated to primarily kill off female characters to drive a story forward? Yeah.

    Does that mean you stop killing off female characters? Hell no. To me, it means you pay attention to the state of your media, artform, and the society that informs you, and make sure you're writing a good story with fully realized characters, rather than relying upon a trope as a crutch to get your story to a place that you were not otherwise creative or skilled enough go. Rosalind was a complete character in her own right, who acted in a way consistent with her other behaviors and backstory as presented to the audience, and her death flows very naturally as a consequence of the actions of the characters around her and the ongoing events in the story's world.

    It's the author's job to ensure they approach these things with care, and have the integrity to ensure that they are doing them for the right reasons, just as it's our job as the audience to examine these things and ask ourselves if we believe that the events in the story flow naturally or if it is a cheap, unaware, or hamfisted rehash of the problematic trope. That we continue to discuss it leads me to believe it was not the later.

    I am glad we're discussing it, though! It means we all care enough to keep them showrunners honest!
    Yeah, it's why I specifically mentioned the "primarily"

    Let's say that, at the end of Season 2, Daisy had to sacrifice herself to stop Jiaying's plan. Now certainly this could provide motivation for Coulson to change how he does things in Season 3 (maybe he's more or less strict about powered people.) But the primary reason she died wasn't to motivate Coulson, it was to defeat the villain. It's an ending that primarily plays into her development as a character; of her becoming a hero and dealing with her mothers betrayal and genocidal plan.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum, let's say Jaiying kills Daisy after she refuses to aid in her dastardly plan, prompting Cal to finally realize what a monster his wife is and finally take her out. Daisy's death still plays into her character, but it's obvious that it was primarily to give Cal the motivation defeat Jaiying as that is the main effect it has the narrative. She dies so that Cal can win the day.

    Of course, in the show itself, we had both Daisy and Cal fight Jaiying and Cal eventually killed Jaiying to save Daisy's life, which is pretty close to the scenario described above. It definitely plays into Daisy's existing and developing character, but it's ultimate affect is providing Cal with motivation. A key difference here is that Daisy doesn't die from it though, so her character can grow and evolve based on the events that happen, as well as future events, which isn't something you find in the first two scenarios. In this case, while I would say motivating Cal is the majority of the reason for the event to happen, it's not as much of a majority compared to the second scenario.

    The thing with Ros's death is that, despite her being a threat to Malick, Ward (and the writers through Ward) make it abundantly clear that it was done to piss off Coulson. It's the primary reason the scene exists, rather than Ros getting iced in her office or having a car accident or sticking around in some capacity. She's killed right in front of Coulson's eyes and then taunted about it.

    Again, not a bad thing. Certainly not the end of the world, but it's is worth pointing it out. The frequency that things like this winds up happening will ultimately dictate the frequency people will bring it up. So, as long as the creators don't overly rely on it, they won't have to overly listen to people lose their shit over it. :wink: (Your "overly" may vary, consult a physician)

    You are ignoring a fact to make your point.
    Ward did it himself, personally, to hurt and taunt Coulson. That wasn't WHY she was killed though, just the how. She was going to die regardless, another character acting completely in character with how they have been portrayed the entire time doesn't make this a trope.
    He also then sent his goons to immediately kill Coulson, because he got his personal jab in.
    Again, the incidental why and the actual, thematically relevant why are different. Fridging has nothing to do with characters acting in character or not, nor does the in-story justification have to be about making the hero suffer. The issue would have been the same if it was some random goon who did the killing, provided it led to Coulson being motivated to do some thing. It would be a pretty useless trope if all it describes was situations where the villain kills a female to hurt the hero. (It would also fail in being a problem in that case, as hurting the hero is a perfectly valid villain motivation.) This is not about the validness of character actions.

    The "why" that is important here is the "why" you ask the writers. Why did the writers choose to kill Rosalind? And the only real answer that suggest itself is "to motivate Coulson", because it's not like the writers had to establish Ward as an unrepentant killer* or show that the stakes had increased.


    *This reminds me. Ward killed agent Hand and that was super sad but not a fridging. Not every female characters' death is a fridging.

  • Inquisitor77Inquisitor77 2 x Penny Arcade Fight Club Champion A fixed point in space and timeRegistered User regular
    I'm sorry, but
    The mere act of a female character dying to motivate a male protagonist is not in and of itself fridging. That's an analysis on par with saying that any movie which casts an Indian man as a cab driver is racist. Context matters. If the movie is literally a documentary about cab drivers, or a biopic about an Indian cab drivers, then would you still classify the movie as racist? If Jemma dies and that motivates Fitz to become a cybernetic ninja assassin badass (with companion robot monkey), does that mean Jemma was "fridged"? People are conflating the individual case with the larger aggregate societal issue. They aren't the same thing. Casting Indians predominantly as cab drivers, in total, is evidence of some sort of bias (systemic, individual, etc.). The casting of an Indian as a cab driver in a particular movie may or may not be racist within that context.

    It could be argued that any movie which casts an Indian as a cab driver is, in effect, perpetuating a larger racism in society because the mere visual creates the popular expectation. But no one seems to be directly arguing that here (there was some allusion to a tipping point in the number of female deaths to motivate males in popular media?). Instead they are saying that in this case, Ros dying is just plain fridging, period.

    You need to separate out the analysis of the cause from the effect. Or in this case, the narrative (Agents of SHIELD) and misogyny in popular media. Conflating the two just causes additional unnecessary misunderstanding and defensiveness.

  • NightslyrNightslyr Registered User regular
    Caedwyr wrote: »
    On the latest episode
    My objection when I saw it, is it felt like the writers eliminating a plotline they had no intentions of following and were clearing things away so they wouldn't have to devote anymore time to a plotline they considered dead. Both the main one everyone is talking about and the secondary one. It didn't feel earned within the story and felt off compared to the expectations the series had set up to that point. It also seemed to be an incredibly stupid plan for anyone involved who didn't want a huge amount of outside scrutiny.

    But maybe in the world of Agents of Shield, the assassination of the head of a major government agency and her second-in-command within days of each other is commonplace and not worth any investigation.

    I get the feeling that....
    Malick gives no fucks about subtlety because he feels like he's on the verge of getting his own personal boogeyman. Moreover, he was exposed by SHIELD and the head of the ATCU, so he really didn't need to play at subterfuge any longer. His window was rapidly closing, one way or the other.

  • SteevLSteevL What can I do for you? Registered User regular
    Jragghen wrote: »
    So remember that S1E1 imgur album with captions thing I posted?

    turns out they made more.

    A lot more (Note: not all of these were released in episode order, but I'm posting them that way). Note that there may be spoilers for future episodes in some, so don't read unless fully caught up.

    S1E1
    S1E2
    S1E3
    S1E4
    S1E5
    S1E6
    S1E7
    S1E8
    S1E9
    S1E10
    S1E11
    S1E12

    S3E1
    S3E2
    S3E6
    S3E7
    S3E8
    S3E9

    Bonus: Agent Carter E1

    (He's also doing Jessica Jones, but that doesn't fit here).
    Coulson quoting Bad Religion will never get old

    When I first saw Coulson in Iron Man all those years ago, I thought he kinda looked like Greg Graffin. Looks like someone else did too! I had completely forgotten about that until I saw that first one a few weeks back.
    3666432886_6d3443de0b_b.jpg

  • Undead ScottsmanUndead Scottsman Registered User regular
    Morkath wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

    What makes this interpretation difficult for me to agree with:
    In what story, real or otherwise, is the loss of one person to whom another was close not in some way a motivating factor? Is it not the reason that authors have characters die? To explore the effects that the severing of those bonds have on the people around them?

    Even if the opposite were to occur, and nothing changed about a lead character after the death of someone important, we'd still be examining the human condition through that particular lens and the audience's ability to either empathize or not with their lack of reaction.

    Is it a problem to set up characters just to die? No.
    Is it a problem in a society that has been historically male-dominated to primarily kill off female characters to drive a story forward? Yeah.

    Does that mean you stop killing off female characters? Hell no. To me, it means you pay attention to the state of your media, artform, and the society that informs you, and make sure you're writing a good story with fully realized characters, rather than relying upon a trope as a crutch to get your story to a place that you were not otherwise creative or skilled enough go. Rosalind was a complete character in her own right, who acted in a way consistent with her other behaviors and backstory as presented to the audience, and her death flows very naturally as a consequence of the actions of the characters around her and the ongoing events in the story's world.

    It's the author's job to ensure they approach these things with care, and have the integrity to ensure that they are doing them for the right reasons, just as it's our job as the audience to examine these things and ask ourselves if we believe that the events in the story flow naturally or if it is a cheap, unaware, or hamfisted rehash of the problematic trope. That we continue to discuss it leads me to believe it was not the later.

    I am glad we're discussing it, though! It means we all care enough to keep them showrunners honest!
    Yeah, it's why I specifically mentioned the "primarily"

    Let's say that, at the end of Season 2, Daisy had to sacrifice herself to stop Jiaying's plan. Now certainly this could provide motivation for Coulson to change how he does things in Season 3 (maybe he's more or less strict about powered people.) But the primary reason she died wasn't to motivate Coulson, it was to defeat the villain. It's an ending that primarily plays into her development as a character; of her becoming a hero and dealing with her mothers betrayal and genocidal plan.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum, let's say Jaiying kills Daisy after she refuses to aid in her dastardly plan, prompting Cal to finally realize what a monster his wife is and finally take her out. Daisy's death still plays into her character, but it's obvious that it was primarily to give Cal the motivation defeat Jaiying as that is the main effect it has the narrative. She dies so that Cal can win the day.

    Of course, in the show itself, we had both Daisy and Cal fight Jaiying and Cal eventually killed Jaiying to save Daisy's life, which is pretty close to the scenario described above. It definitely plays into Daisy's existing and developing character, but it's ultimate affect is providing Cal with motivation. A key difference here is that Daisy doesn't die from it though, so her character can grow and evolve based on the events that happen, as well as future events, which isn't something you find in the first two scenarios. In this case, while I would say motivating Cal is the majority of the reason for the event to happen, it's not as much of a majority compared to the second scenario.

    The thing with Ros's death is that, despite her being a threat to Malick, Ward (and the writers through Ward) make it abundantly clear that it was done to piss off Coulson. It's the primary reason the scene exists, rather than Ros getting iced in her office or having a car accident or sticking around in some capacity. She's killed right in front of Coulson's eyes and then taunted about it.

    Again, not a bad thing. Certainly not the end of the world, but it's is worth pointing it out. The frequency that things like this winds up happening will ultimately dictate the frequency people will bring it up. So, as long as the creators don't overly rely on it, they won't have to overly listen to people lose their shit over it. :wink: (Your "overly" may vary, consult a physician)

    You are ignoring a fact to make your point.
    Ward did it himself, personally, to hurt and taunt Coulson. That wasn't WHY she was killed though, just the how. She was going to die regardless, another character acting completely in character with how they have been portrayed the entire time doesn't make this a trope.
    He also then sent his goons to immediately kill Coulson, because he got his personal jab in.
    Two things.

    1. As mentioned by Juilus (and myself previously) there's a difference between story and writing. Storywise, yes it does make sense for Ward to have done those things. However, it's irrelevant to the point, because Ward is fictional and every action he takes is decided by the creators. Additionally the success of those actions and the response to those actions are also dictated by their creators. I mentioned this earlier with my point about how just because it makes sense for a character to die doesn't necessitate the character dying; it's still a choice by the creators. Why Ward (the character) killed Ros is not the same as why Ward (the narrative device) killed Ros, and Ward (the character) having a reason to kill Ros doesn't mean he will be provided the opportunity to do so or will succeed in doing so if it runs counter to the narrative they are crafting.

    2. It feels like you're equating "trope" with "bad." and that's totally not the case. A trope is just a literary device that appears frequently enough to be categorized. It would be next to impossible to write a story that didn't invoke several tropes, let alone any. Hell, you say " another character acting completely in character with how they have been portrayed the entire time" doesn't make this a trope, when in fact Ward being Ward plays into several tropes, which I won't mention because they come from the website that shall not be named.
    I'm sorry, but
    The mere act of a female character dying to motivate a male protagonist is not in and of itself fridging. That's an analysis on par with saying that any movie which casts an Indian man as a cab driver is racist. Context matters. If the movie is literally a documentary about cab drivers, or a biopic about an Indian cab drivers, then would you still classify the movie as racist? If Jemma dies and that motivates Fitz to become a cybernetic ninja assassin badass (with companion robot monkey), does that mean Jemma was "fridged"? People are conflating the individual case with the larger aggregate societal issue. They aren't the same thing. Casting Indians predominantly as cab drivers, in total, is evidence of some sort of bias (systemic, individual, etc.). The casting of an Indian as a cab driver in a particular movie may or may not be racist within that context.

    It could be argued that any movie which casts an Indian as a cab driver is, in effect, perpetuating a larger racism in society because the mere visual creates the popular expectation. But no one seems to be directly arguing that here (there was some allusion to a tipping point in the number of female deaths to motivate males in popular media?). Instead they are saying that in this case, Ros dying is just plain fridging, period.

    You need to separate out the analysis of the cause from the effect. Or in this case, the narrative (Agents of SHIELD) and misogyny in popular media. Conflating the two just causes additional unnecessary misunderstanding and defensiveness.
    You're equating "fridging" with "racism" like they're equivalent things. You're treating the word like it's poison and since you're not getting sick, this episode must not be poison! As has been mentioned MULTIPLE times so far; there's nothing inherently wrong with fridging. Certainly it's a shock word derived from one of the more blatant examples of the phenomenon, but fridging is not in itself a bad thing. Again, supporting characters are there to support (hence the name) the primary characters. The problem comes with frequency. It was a rampant problem in media and continues to be an issue today. People are going to take notice when they see it pop up again.

    It's not necessarily a bad thing that Ros got fridged (I didn't think she did before, as you may have seen in an earlier post of mine, but this deeper discussion on the matter, and actually looking in the origins of the word, changed my mind) and I don't think the question we should be asking here is whether or not she got fridged, IMO. It's whether its emblematic of a greater problem on the show, which I don't think it is. I do think its worthwhile to take note of it and bring it up for discussion though. And maybe roll ones eyes at them using a really overused cliche to take out and otherwise interesting character. Certainly if it's something one feels especially passionate about, they may want to take a more drastic action over it, but that's not a view I'm expressing.

  • DedwrekkaDedwrekka Metal Hell adjacentRegistered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Julius wrote: »
    Morkath wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Latest Episode:
    It's not fridging. Period. Nobody would give a shit about fridging if it was just a female character dying to motivate a male character. Guess what? People die. And people die in stories. Often to motivate other characters. Because characters in stories need motivation or they are fucking boring.

    The problem identified by fridging is the same problem identified by the Bechdel Test - it denotes cases where the female characters are not allowed to exist as characters in their own right, but only in relation to other (usually male) characters, or worse, as objects entirely. That the woman dies is not the problem. It's that she dies as a non-character, with no personality, motivation, agency, etc. of her own.

    The solution to this problem is not to never kill a female character in order to motivate a male character. That's like solving racism by removing everyone's skin color. The solution to this problem is to stop making shallow characters. In particular, it's to stop making shallow female characters who only die to motivate a male protagonist.

    Frankly, I think this show has gone out of its way to represent Ros as a fantastic character in her own right, with her own life, her own motivations, her own responsibilities, her own personality, her own relationships, etc. etc. etc. all of which exist outside of Coulson's or even SHIELD's orbits.
    Characters being "one-note" or "shallow" has absolutely nothing to do with the term. Taking a character with a rich history and character behind her and then primarily killing her off so that a male character will be motivated to do something is just as much a fridging as doing it with a one-dimensional character.

    What makes this interpretation difficult for me to agree with:
    In what story, real or otherwise, is the loss of one person to whom another was close not in some way a motivating factor? Is it not the reason that authors have characters die? To explore the effects that the severing of those bonds have on the people around them?

    Even if the opposite were to occur, and nothing changed about a lead character after the death of someone important, we'd still be examining the human condition through that particular lens and the audience's ability to either empathize or not with their lack of reaction.

    Is it a problem to set up characters just to die? No.
    Is it a problem in a society that has been historically male-dominated to primarily kill off female characters to drive a story forward? Yeah.

    Does that mean you stop killing off female characters? Hell no. To me, it means you pay attention to the state of your media, artform, and the society that informs you, and make sure you're writing a good story with fully realized characters, rather than relying upon a trope as a crutch to get your story to a place that you were not otherwise creative or skilled enough go. Rosalind was a complete character in her own right, who acted in a way consistent with her other behaviors and backstory as presented to the audience, and her death flows very naturally as a consequence of the actions of the characters around her and the ongoing events in the story's world.

    It's the author's job to ensure they approach these things with care, and have the integrity to ensure that they are doing them for the right reasons, just as it's our job as the audience to examine these things and ask ourselves if we believe that the events in the story flow naturally or if it is a cheap, unaware, or hamfisted rehash of the problematic trope. That we continue to discuss it leads me to believe it was not the later.

    I am glad we're discussing it, though! It means we all care enough to keep them showrunners honest!
    Yeah, it's why I specifically mentioned the "primarily"

    Let's say that, at the end of Season 2, Daisy had to sacrifice herself to stop Jiaying's plan. Now certainly this could provide motivation for Coulson to change how he does things in Season 3 (maybe he's more or less strict about powered people.) But the primary reason she died wasn't to motivate Coulson, it was to defeat the villain. It's an ending that primarily plays into her development as a character; of her becoming a hero and dealing with her mothers betrayal and genocidal plan.

    On the opposite end of the spectrum, let's say Jaiying kills Daisy after she refuses to aid in her dastardly plan, prompting Cal to finally realize what a monster his wife is and finally take her out. Daisy's death still plays into her character, but it's obvious that it was primarily to give Cal the motivation defeat Jaiying as that is the main effect it has the narrative. She dies so that Cal can win the day.

    Of course, in the show itself, we had both Daisy and Cal fight Jaiying and Cal eventually killed Jaiying to save Daisy's life, which is pretty close to the scenario described above. It definitely plays into Daisy's existing and developing character, but it's ultimate affect is providing Cal with motivation. A key difference here is that Daisy doesn't die from it though, so her character can grow and evolve based on the events that happen, as well as future events, which isn't something you find in the first two scenarios. In this case, while I would say motivating Cal is the majority of the reason for the event to happen, it's not as much of a majority compared to the second scenario.

    The thing with Ros's death is that, despite her being a threat to Malick, Ward (and the writers through Ward) make it abundantly clear that it was done to piss off Coulson. It's the primary reason the scene exists, rather than Ros getting iced in her office or having a car accident or sticking around in some capacity. She's killed right in front of Coulson's eyes and then taunted about it.

    Again, not a bad thing. Certainly not the end of the world, but it's is worth pointing it out. The frequency that things like this winds up happening will ultimately dictate the frequency people will bring it up. So, as long as the creators don't overly rely on it, they won't have to overly listen to people lose their shit over it. :wink: (Your "overly" may vary, consult a physician)

    You are ignoring a fact to make your point.
    Ward did it himself, personally, to hurt and taunt Coulson. That wasn't WHY she was killed though, just the how. She was going to die regardless, another character acting completely in character with how they have been portrayed the entire time doesn't make this a trope.
    He also then sent his goons to immediately kill Coulson, because he got his personal jab in.
    Again, the incidental why and the actual, thematically relevant why are different. Fridging has nothing to do with characters acting in character or not, nor does the in-story justification have to be about making the hero suffer. The issue would have been the same if it was some random goon who did the killing, provided it led to Coulson being motivated to do some thing. It would be a pretty useless trope if all it describes was situations where the villain kills a female to hurt the hero. (It would also fail in being a problem in that case, as hurting the hero is a perfectly valid villain motivation.) This is not about the validness of character actions.

    The "why" that is important here is the "why" you ask the writers. Why did the writers choose to kill Rosalind? And the only real answer that suggest itself is "to motivate Coulson", because it's not like the writers had to establish Ward as an unrepentant killer* or show that the stakes had increased.


    *This reminds me. Ward killed agent Hand and that was super sad but not a fridging. Not every female characters' death is a fridging.
    The "why" she died was because Malik wanted her dead because she was a loose thread. Ward says that right away. The reason why Ward was the one to do it was because he wanted to hurt Coulson and send him on a goose chase that would lead to a trap. Rosalind would have been killed either way. She was a target as soon as she had her guy help Morse. It's well built into the storyline.

    Dedwrekka on
  • Hahnsoo1Hahnsoo1 Make Ready. We Hunt.Registered User regular
    Yes, yes, Coulson is still effectively the director of SHIELD. Whatever. In my headcanon, Director Mack is the OTD (One True Director).

    Also, that "axe to grind" line. :D

    8i1dt37buh2m.png
  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?

    For me, it's pretty simple.
    "Fridging" is a common name for a possible symptom of a more core problem, the core problem being that female characters are more likely to be stripped of agency than male characters.

    What needs to be done is fairly simple: give female characters agency when you kill them.

    Picture Ros' death this way:

    She goes into work as planned. She speaks to Powers Boothe. They have a tense scene. SHIELD has her bugged (with her knowledge), so Coulson is listening to everything. She realizes that Powers Boothe probably knows that she knows. The meeting ends abruptly, and Coulson urges her to get out. She's in agreement. She has a few tense moments passing people, and then she definitely has someone coming after her. She pulls a gun. The telekinetic guy rips it from her hands and points it at her. But she notes that they're still in her facility, and she yells out a lockdown code. A steel shutter comes down between them, which we immediately see start to deform (from bullets, metalbending powers, getting hit, whatever). Coulson urges her to get to the roof, that they'll have a jet for extraction. She heads into a stairwell and starts climbing. She gets to the top of the stairs and there's Ward. He tells her to tell Coulson that his extraction plans are way too predictable. She grimaces, and she and Ward talk. Ward makes it clear that Hydra considers her very useful, and soon she'll be happy to comply. Ros tells Ward that Coulson warned her about that particular piece of Hydra tech, and that she came prepared with old fashioned spy tech. Coulson insists that he's going to get her out of there. She basically says nope, not going to take that chance. She collapses, dead from biting down on a poison capsule once she'd realized that there was no way out.

    Coulson and Ward have a conversation and you end up in about the same place. Except then you don't have Ward inexplicably not killing Couslon, you have a demonstration of Ward's competence, you have a S2 reference, you put the metalbender guy to use some more, and most importantly you show her showing agency before she dies.

    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • Nova_CNova_C I have the need The need for speedRegistered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?

    For me, it's pretty simple.
    "Fridging" is a common name for a possible symptom of a more core problem, the core problem being that female characters are more likely to be stripped of agency than male characters.

    What needs to be done is fairly simple: give female characters agency when you kill them.

    Picture Ros' death this way:

    She goes into work as planned. She speaks to Powers Boothe. They have a tense scene. SHIELD has her bugged (with her knowledge), so Coulson is listening to everything. She realizes that Powers Boothe probably knows that she knows. The meeting ends abruptly, and Coulson urges her to get out. She's in agreement. She has a few tense moments passing people, and then she definitely has someone coming after her. She pulls a gun. The telekinetic guy rips it from her hands and points it at her. But she notes that they're still in her facility, and she yells out a lockdown code. A steel shutter comes down between them, which we immediately see start to deform (from bullets, metalbending powers, getting hit, whatever). Coulson urges her to get to the roof, that they'll have a jet for extraction. She heads into a stairwell and starts climbing. She gets to the top of the stairs and there's Ward. He tells her to tell Coulson that his extraction plans are way too predictable. She grimaces, and she and Ward talk. Ward makes it clear that Hydra considers her very useful, and soon she'll be happy to comply. Ros tells Ward that Coulson warned her about that particular piece of Hydra tech, and that she came prepared with old fashioned spy tech. Coulson insists that he's going to get her out of there. She basically says nope, not going to take that chance. She collapses, dead from biting down on a poison capsule once she'd realized that there was no way out.

    Coulson and Ward have a conversation and you end up in about the same place. Except then you don't have Ward inexplicably not killing Couslon, you have a demonstration of Ward's competence, you have a S2 reference, you put the metalbender guy to use some more, and most importantly you show her showing agency before she dies.
    Ward didn't kill Coulson (directly) because Malick told him not to. Malick even gave Ward shit for risking Coulson's life by sending in his hired goons (Hired goons?). Ward showed indifference, but he clearly doesn't want to burn that bridge, at least not yet.

  • HounHoun Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?

    For me, it's pretty simple.
    "Fridging" is a common name for a possible symptom of a more core problem, the core problem being that female characters are more likely to be stripped of agency than male characters.

    What needs to be done is fairly simple: give female characters agency when you kill them.

    Picture Ros' death this way:

    She goes into work as planned. She speaks to Powers Boothe. They have a tense scene. SHIELD has her bugged (with her knowledge), so Coulson is listening to everything. She realizes that Powers Boothe probably knows that she knows. The meeting ends abruptly, and Coulson urges her to get out. She's in agreement. She has a few tense moments passing people, and then she definitely has someone coming after her. She pulls a gun. The telekinetic guy rips it from her hands and points it at her. But she notes that they're still in her facility, and she yells out a lockdown code. A steel shutter comes down between them, which we immediately see start to deform (from bullets, metalbending powers, getting hit, whatever). Coulson urges her to get to the roof, that they'll have a jet for extraction. She heads into a stairwell and starts climbing. She gets to the top of the stairs and there's Ward. He tells her to tell Coulson that his extraction plans are way too predictable. She grimaces, and she and Ward talk. Ward makes it clear that Hydra considers her very useful, and soon she'll be happy to comply. Ros tells Ward that Coulson warned her about that particular piece of Hydra tech, and that she came prepared with old fashioned spy tech. Coulson insists that he's going to get her out of there. She basically says nope, not going to take that chance. She collapses, dead from biting down on a poison capsule once she'd realized that there was no way out.

    Coulson and Ward have a conversation and you end up in about the same place. Except then you don't have Ward inexplicably not killing Couslon, you have a demonstration of Ward's competence, you have a S2 reference, you put the metalbender guy to use some more, and most importantly you show her showing agency before she dies.

    I'm being a bit reductionist here, but since the goal is to define the line where it becomes problematic:
    You're saying that it's ok for writers to kill female characters if they commit suicide, it can never be by someone else's hand. That's the line you're drawing.

  • ShadowhopeShadowhope Baa. Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Houn wrote: »
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?

    For me, it's pretty simple.
    "Fridging" is a common name for a possible symptom of a more core problem, the core problem being that female characters are more likely to be stripped of agency than male characters.

    What needs to be done is fairly simple: give female characters agency when you kill them.

    Picture Ros' death this way:

    She goes into work as planned. She speaks to Powers Boothe. They have a tense scene. SHIELD has her bugged (with her knowledge), so Coulson is listening to everything. She realizes that Powers Boothe probably knows that she knows. The meeting ends abruptly, and Coulson urges her to get out. She's in agreement. She has a few tense moments passing people, and then she definitely has someone coming after her. She pulls a gun. The telekinetic guy rips it from her hands and points it at her. But she notes that they're still in her facility, and she yells out a lockdown code. A steel shutter comes down between them, which we immediately see start to deform (from bullets, metalbending powers, getting hit, whatever). Coulson urges her to get to the roof, that they'll have a jet for extraction. She heads into a stairwell and starts climbing. She gets to the top of the stairs and there's Ward. He tells her to tell Coulson that his extraction plans are way too predictable. She grimaces, and she and Ward talk. Ward makes it clear that Hydra considers her very useful, and soon she'll be happy to comply. Ros tells Ward that Coulson warned her about that particular piece of Hydra tech, and that she came prepared with old fashioned spy tech. Coulson insists that he's going to get her out of there. She basically says nope, not going to take that chance. She collapses, dead from biting down on a poison capsule once she'd realized that there was no way out.

    Coulson and Ward have a conversation and you end up in about the same place. Except then you don't have Ward inexplicably not killing Couslon, you have a demonstration of Ward's competence, you have a S2 reference, you put the metalbender guy to use some more, and most importantly you show her showing agency before she dies.

    I'm being a bit reductionist here, but since the goal is to define the line where it becomes problematic:
    You're saying that it's ok for writers to kill female characters if they commit suicide, it can never be by someone else's hand. That's the line you're drawing.

    For me, the line is about agency. Was it there or not?
    A person can commit suicide with agency. And don't get hung up on the suicide part - if Ward had shot her trying to escape in my scenario, she would have died with agency there too because she was actively trying to do something about her fate when she died.

    Shadowhope on
    Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
  • HounHoun Registered User regular
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?

    For me, it's pretty simple.
    "Fridging" is a common name for a possible symptom of a more core problem, the core problem being that female characters are more likely to be stripped of agency than male characters.

    What needs to be done is fairly simple: give female characters agency when you kill them.

    Picture Ros' death this way:

    She goes into work as planned. She speaks to Powers Boothe. They have a tense scene. SHIELD has her bugged (with her knowledge), so Coulson is listening to everything. She realizes that Powers Boothe probably knows that she knows. The meeting ends abruptly, and Coulson urges her to get out. She's in agreement. She has a few tense moments passing people, and then she definitely has someone coming after her. She pulls a gun. The telekinetic guy rips it from her hands and points it at her. But she notes that they're still in her facility, and she yells out a lockdown code. A steel shutter comes down between them, which we immediately see start to deform (from bullets, metalbending powers, getting hit, whatever). Coulson urges her to get to the roof, that they'll have a jet for extraction. She heads into a stairwell and starts climbing. She gets to the top of the stairs and there's Ward. He tells her to tell Coulson that his extraction plans are way too predictable. She grimaces, and she and Ward talk. Ward makes it clear that Hydra considers her very useful, and soon she'll be happy to comply. Ros tells Ward that Coulson warned her about that particular piece of Hydra tech, and that she came prepared with old fashioned spy tech. Coulson insists that he's going to get her out of there. She basically says nope, not going to take that chance. She collapses, dead from biting down on a poison capsule once she'd realized that there was no way out.

    Coulson and Ward have a conversation and you end up in about the same place. Except then you don't have Ward inexplicably not killing Couslon, you have a demonstration of Ward's competence, you have a S2 reference, you put the metalbender guy to use some more, and most importantly you show her showing agency before she dies.

    I'm being a bit reductionist here, but since the goal is to define the line where it becomes problematic:
    You're saying that it's ok for writers to kill female characters if they commit suicide, it can never be by someone else's hand. That's the line you're drawing.

    For me, the line is about agency. Was it there or not?
    A person can commit suicide with agency. And don't get hung up on the suicide part - if Ward had shot her trying to escape in my scenario, she would have died with agency there too because she was actively trying to do something about her fate when she died.


    So then:
    No female can be killed without knowing it's coming first. It can't be a surprise.

    It would have been OK if Ward had called Ros first and said "I have you in my crosshairs. Say goodbye to Phil," then she shoots her when she tries to dive behind cover.

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular

    I hate when threads get dragged into conversations about this sort of stuff. The writers obviously have zero intention deliberate or otherwise of making that character appear to have no agency.
    She literally had an actual government agency. She was shown to be just as competant as Coulson in many ways (Although probably not as good of an agent overall because c'mon, it's Coulson) and her death was the result of a powerful organization not wanting her around. As a bonus, they used her death to manipulate an enemy into making a mistake. She was killed because of her position of power, not soley to motivate another character. Saying she didn't have agency and is thus a sexist trope because she got sniped in the neck is pretty stretching I think, if you take a look at any of the previous episodes with this character. Like, if Ward had shot Coulson instead no one would claim it was soley to motivate the other character, right?

  • NinjeffNinjeff Registered User regular
    edited December 2015
    Nova_C wrote: »
    Shadowhope wrote: »
    Houn wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Senjutsu wrote: »
    ElJeffe wrote: »
    Amusingly, what Ward did to Andrew was exactly an attempted fridging - specifically trying to kill a character for no other reason than to motivate another character.

    I think it's just the MO for Ward. Piss him off, and he will go after your loved ones, because he is just that fucked up.
    to me the difference is given that Andrew predates the current storyline, it doesn't feel like the only reason he was created was to die on May's conscience

    it's not super egregious but I think it's fairly clear that Ros was created to be a love interest for Coulson who gets killed off. That was her narrative role in the only arc she was given. The same isn't really true for Andrew
    Andrew has been around longer, but Ros served a lot more purpose than just a romantic interest to be offed. She introduced a new rival agency to the show, was an integral part of the ongoing storyline about how to deal with inhumans, ably provided a sympathetic voice to the other side. All this while serving as a foil for Coulson in ways that had nothing to do with romance.

    It's entirely possible that she only came into existence because someone said "let's kill a chick so Coulson gets a sad," but if so, they his it really well.

    I think a lot of the grievance around her death is specifically because she was a really interesting and well fleshed out character, which itself is inconsistent with the whole fridge thing.
    Man I guess I just do not think she was the well-fleshed out or well used in the story.

    Like I can't think of anything she really *did* in the story other than: spar with Coulson, flirt with Coulson, fuck Coulson, and die in Coulson's arms. She was seriously the least interesting part of the season to me because other than that, she wasn't really given anything to do in and of herself. I had really high hopes for her getting out from being defined in terms of her relation to Coulson and becoming the MCU's Abigail Brand.

    So just my opinion but to me she feels pretty close to the classic female accessory created to be killed off to further a male's story trope.

    This is pretty strongly contrastable with Jenny Calendar, who has a presence in Buffy plots that stands full independent of Giles.

    I'm loathe to even ask the question, but I really don't know that the discussion can continue in any meaningful fashion without doing so:
    People have defined their interpretation of what makes a death a fridge-death fairly well (given some room for personal interpretation, as these things tend not to be that clear cut.) Would a few people please describe to me the qualifications for a non-fridge female death? What steps must be taken by the writers to avoid it being classified as such?

    For me, it's pretty simple.
    "Fridging" is a common name for a possible symptom of a more core problem, the core problem being that female characters are more likely to be stripped of agency than male characters.

    What needs to be done is fairly simple: give female characters agency when you kill them.

    Picture Ros' death this way:

    She goes into work as planned. She speaks to Powers Boothe. They have a tense scene. SHIELD has her bugged (with her knowledge), so Coulson is listening to everything. She realizes that Powers Boothe probably knows that she knows. The meeting ends abruptly, and Coulson urges her to get out. She's in agreement. She has a few tense moments passing people, and then she definitely has someone coming after her. She pulls a gun. The telekinetic guy rips it from her hands and points it at her. But she notes that they're still in her facility, and she yells out a lockdown code. A steel shutter comes down between them, which we immediately see start to deform (from bullets, metalbending powers, getting hit, whatever). Coulson urges her to get to the roof, that they'll have a jet for extraction. She heads into a stairwell and starts climbing. She gets to the top of the stairs and there's Ward. He tells her to tell Coulson that his extraction plans are way too predictable. She grimaces, and she and Ward talk. Ward makes it clear that Hydra considers her very useful, and soon she'll be happy to comply. Ros tells Ward that Coulson warned her about that particular piece of Hydra tech, and that she came prepared with old fashioned spy tech. Coulson insists that he's going to get her out of there. She basically says nope, not going to take that chance. She collapses, dead from biting down on a poison capsule once she'd realized that there was no way out.

    Coulson and Ward have a conversation and you end up in about the same place. Except then you don't have Ward inexplicably not killing Couslon, you have a demonstration of Ward's competence, you have a S2 reference, you put the metalbender guy to use some more, and most importantly you show her showing agency before she dies.
    Ward didn't kill Coulson (directly) because Malick told him not to. Malick even gave Ward shit for risking Coulson's life by sending in his hired goons (Hired goons?). Ward showed indifference, but he clearly doesn't want to burn that bridge, at least not yet.
    Malick didnt want Coulson killed because they knew he'd send FitzSimmons off to do research on the portal, so that way he (Malick) could capture them, and use their expertise to get in/out of the portal. That was, indeed, the ENTIRE point. Hurting Coulson was a bonus that Ward genuinely enjoyed. Call it a "win win" for Ward. Sure enough, Coulson played right into their hands. They even mention that.

    Ninjeff on
  • Regina FongRegina Fong Allons-y, Alonso Registered User regular
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    I hate when threads get dragged into conversations about this sort of stuff. The writers obviously have zero intention deliberate or otherwise of making that character appear to have no agency.
    She literally had an actual government agency. She was shown to be just as competant as Coulson in many ways (Although probably not as good of an agent overall because c'mon, it's Coulson) and her death was the result of a powerful organization not wanting her around. As a bonus, they used her death to manipulate an enemy into making a mistake. She was killed because of her position of power, not soley to motivate another character. Saying she didn't have agency and is thus a sexist trope because she got sniped in the neck is pretty stretching I think, if you take a look at any of the previous episodes with this character. Like, if Ward had shot Coulson instead no one would claim it was soley to motivate the other character, right?

    Maybe we need a GDST for fridging.

This discussion has been closed.