“What about I write a whole prologue chapter about the absolute genocide of an entire town only populated by single mothers?”
“Kill the daughter instead, got it.”
“Dunno why you're gendering it. Dead dads and dead both-parents are also very common.”
“Often in stories there are few female characters. Should they all be immortal at all times?”
“But if the narrative calls for one of those 3 characters to die should they tell a narratively dissapointing story? I think the first point is the more valid criticism that we should try to fix (and it's not impossible there are works with many female characters).”
“
“Calling the story of God of War (2018) uninteresting? That’s a take.”
“Her ashes serve as a symbol of Atreus and Kratos’ relationship shown explicitly when Kratos finally lets him hold her. Hell the very beginning of the game is Kratos and Atreus making her funeral pyre. Her ashes are incredibly important and to call it just a prop is a massive disservice to the story. You may as well call any source of motivation a prop in any story.
Prior you cite Avatar as an example of the trope being interesting but the situation is fundamentally the same. Katara’s mother dies before the story starts and serves as motivation for Katara wanting to end the war. Did we not see how Faye’s death affect Kratos and Atreus? Did it not affect the plot? Is Kya’s necklace not just as much of a “prop” as Faye’s ashes?
Faye is supposed to be a mysterious character and not seeing her in GOW 2018 doesn’t make her character any less important. Despite that we still learn much about her through Kratos and Atreus. In my opinion, that’s effective storytelling.
Do we often see a journey to spread ashes as the plot to a story that employs the dead parent trope in pop culture? If not I’d consider that fairly unique.”
“If you admit you can call anything a prop then there’s no significance in calling the ashes a prop. It’s a nothing statement.
To say that Faye’s relationship with either Kratos or Atreus wasn’t explored is simply not true. That’s what the entire sequence in the light of alfheim showed. Every time Kratos and Atreus talk about her, their relationship is explored. A character doesn’t need to be physically present to have that in a story.
Kya’s necklace is used to further Katara’s relationship with Paku, Aang, Zuko, Haru, and Jet and maybe a few other characters I’m not remembering. Katara’s relationship with her mother herself is only deeply explored until season 3. Kya was only given a personality and character in season 3. I assume you think Faye was only given a personality or character in Ragnarok. So again I ask, what’s the difference here?”
“Yeah, kill the father or husband at the start, better yet kill the mc at the start and have a story about people dealing with his death and end it there during the funeral”
“He is still the main character because the story TECHNICALLY still revolves around him, you can have his family members move on, grow up, and lead a better life, thank him, for all the goodness he did for them, he is still the mc just not there anymore”
“I don't see how killing off the father or husband changes anything. It is still a cheap shortcut to establish a motivation.”
“How come people only complain and call it fridging when it's a female character?”
“Tons of movies about a dad or a boyfriend/husband dying, like Atomic Blonde or Kill Bill. Not to mention stories where both parents die. It's just easy, straightforward storytelling.”
“Kinda off topic but can someone explain how the a woman being fridged is different from characters being killed to motivate other characters? cause I'm pretty sure half superhero origins involve parents biting the dust”
“It's different because you can act self-righteous about it more easily. Just point at the female character dying, yell something like "male authors don't view women as people, only tools and objects!" and hope nobody realizes that using characters to achieve some effect is just how storytelling works.
When it's a male character getting killed to motivate another character, you need to actually explain why you think his death is detrimental to the story and have an actual, possibly non-toxic discussion. And what's the point of that?”
“
“Story's have a finite amount of time, often cliches exist to speed up story telling, the mother is often not important as a character, what's important is it makes the protagonist relatable.
“Nah. I want them dead. The more brutal the death the better. Hell, kill the main love interest. Don't discriminate. We need more TV shows that ends with absolute despair with an unsatisfying ending that will make fans send death threats.”
“You trolling mate? Make a better post.”
It’s sad really how when someone complains over something being overused, many idiots come to defense and claim it is what it is and they shouldn’t be complaining about it otherwise they’re “trolls”, killing women is justified but not for men, yet will complain how men get the same treatment (when they usually don’t) and that “butthurt feminists” are only hysterically screaming “male workers don’t care about women” just to be self-righteous and seek attention.
As one comment rightfully puts all the massive drama this way:
“ITT: Everybody in the comments being the most willfully obtuse, sarcastic jackasses of all time, purposefully misrepresenting OP’s point. So typical day on r/CharacterRant.”
Well said bud. Well said.
I am personally tired of the dead mom trope myself, not that I hate it, it’s just that most takes are done poorly. It’s easy to claim that you want to move on to better and more important characters, but there’s a problem with representation. Unfortunately people tend to undermine it and claim that women want more than they think they should get. Hence the “feminists want to scream “FRIDGE LOGIC!!!” and accuse men of misogyny just to soothe their egos” ideal.
Honestly I much rather prefer having an adult protagonist going after a person who killed their child or friend, Taken is a good example of this, and I know there’s several others that do the same thing that I’m unable to think of right now.
That’s all I have to say. I’m just getting sick and tired of people undermining such personal complaints.
“Kill the daughter instead, got it.”
“Dunno why you're gendering it. Dead dads and dead both-parents are also very common.”
“Often in stories there are few female characters. Should they all be immortal at all times?”
“But if the narrative calls for one of those 3 characters to die should they tell a narratively dissapointing story? I think the first point is the more valid criticism that we should try to fix (and it's not impossible there are works with many female characters).”
“
Snow White, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, God of War (PS4). Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. Bambi. How to Train Your Dragon. Finding Nemo.
No it isn't.
If it doesn't make narrative sense, then that is the critcism.
And that is the issue that should be fixed. You have as much power to change this as you have removing a subtrope of the dead parents trope.”
“Calling the story of God of War (2018) uninteresting? That’s a take.”
“Her ashes serve as a symbol of Atreus and Kratos’ relationship shown explicitly when Kratos finally lets him hold her. Hell the very beginning of the game is Kratos and Atreus making her funeral pyre. Her ashes are incredibly important and to call it just a prop is a massive disservice to the story. You may as well call any source of motivation a prop in any story.
Prior you cite Avatar as an example of the trope being interesting but the situation is fundamentally the same. Katara’s mother dies before the story starts and serves as motivation for Katara wanting to end the war. Did we not see how Faye’s death affect Kratos and Atreus? Did it not affect the plot? Is Kya’s necklace not just as much of a “prop” as Faye’s ashes?
Faye is supposed to be a mysterious character and not seeing her in GOW 2018 doesn’t make her character any less important. Despite that we still learn much about her through Kratos and Atreus. In my opinion, that’s effective storytelling.
Do we often see a journey to spread ashes as the plot to a story that employs the dead parent trope in pop culture? If not I’d consider that fairly unique.”
“If you admit you can call anything a prop then there’s no significance in calling the ashes a prop. It’s a nothing statement.
To say that Faye’s relationship with either Kratos or Atreus wasn’t explored is simply not true. That’s what the entire sequence in the light of alfheim showed. Every time Kratos and Atreus talk about her, their relationship is explored. A character doesn’t need to be physically present to have that in a story.
Kya’s necklace is used to further Katara’s relationship with Paku, Aang, Zuko, Haru, and Jet and maybe a few other characters I’m not remembering. Katara’s relationship with her mother herself is only deeply explored until season 3. Kya was only given a personality and character in season 3. I assume you think Faye was only given a personality or character in Ragnarok. So again I ask, what’s the difference here?”
“Yeah, kill the father or husband at the start, better yet kill the mc at the start and have a story about people dealing with his death and end it there during the funeral”
“He is still the main character because the story TECHNICALLY still revolves around him, you can have his family members move on, grow up, and lead a better life, thank him, for all the goodness he did for them, he is still the mc just not there anymore”
“I don't see how killing off the father or husband changes anything. It is still a cheap shortcut to establish a motivation.”
“How come people only complain and call it fridging when it's a female character?”
“Tons of movies about a dad or a boyfriend/husband dying, like Atomic Blonde or Kill Bill. Not to mention stories where both parents die. It's just easy, straightforward storytelling.”
“Kinda off topic but can someone explain how the a woman being fridged is different from characters being killed to motivate other characters? cause I'm pretty sure half superhero origins involve parents biting the dust”
“It's different because you can act self-righteous about it more easily. Just point at the female character dying, yell something like "male authors don't view women as people, only tools and objects!" and hope nobody realizes that using characters to achieve some effect is just how storytelling works.
When it's a male character getting killed to motivate another character, you need to actually explain why you think his death is detrimental to the story and have an actual, possibly non-toxic discussion. And what's the point of that?”
“
You're literally contradicting yourself.”
“Story's have a finite amount of time, often cliches exist to speed up story telling, the mother is often not important as a character, what's important is it makes the protagonist relatable.
Will doing this everyone time make a story better? They do this in Demon Slayer and it works there because seeing the journey to the afterlife is recurring theme, but in most stories I would rather they just move on with the story and focus on characters that matter.”
“Nah. I want them dead. The more brutal the death the better. Hell, kill the main love interest. Don't discriminate. We need more TV shows that ends with absolute despair with an unsatisfying ending that will make fans send death threats.”
“You trolling mate? Make a better post.”
It’s sad really how when someone complains over something being overused, many idiots come to defense and claim it is what it is and they shouldn’t be complaining about it otherwise they’re “trolls”, killing women is justified but not for men, yet will complain how men get the same treatment (when they usually don’t) and that “butthurt feminists” are only hysterically screaming “male workers don’t care about women” just to be self-righteous and seek attention.
As one comment rightfully puts all the massive drama this way:
“ITT: Everybody in the comments being the most willfully obtuse, sarcastic jackasses of all time, purposefully misrepresenting OP’s point. So typical day on r/CharacterRant.”
Well said bud. Well said.
I am personally tired of the dead mom trope myself, not that I hate it, it’s just that most takes are done poorly. It’s easy to claim that you want to move on to better and more important characters, but there’s a problem with representation. Unfortunately people tend to undermine it and claim that women want more than they think they should get. Hence the “feminists want to scream “FRIDGE LOGIC!!!” and accuse men of misogyny just to soothe their egos” ideal.
Honestly I much rather prefer having an adult protagonist going after a person who killed their child or friend, Taken is a good example of this, and I know there’s several others that do the same thing that I’m unable to think of right now.
That’s all I have to say. I’m just getting sick and tired of people undermining such personal complaints.
