#Women In Refrigerators

[velvet4510]

A Rant about the Wasted Potential of Nina Gurzsky and Why The Fridging Trope Needs To Die

Most days I hate and deny everything about X-Men: Apocalypse, especially Magneto’s storyline - but on the rare day where I let myself notice it, I find myself all the more horrified at the injustice of how Nina Gurzsky is written. The writers had something there, and then totally dropped the ball with it. If Erik absolutely had to settle down and have a family in Poland, despite how unbelievably out of character that is for him, then Nina should’ve been an actual character. She should’ve survived the movie and had her own role as one of the most unique and memorable mutants in the series.

Because she really is. Erik’s young daughter has one of the most amazing and unique mutations ever depicted on film: animal communication. And the film does next to nothing with it because of the outdated tropes she is forced into.

Think of the potential of her superpower. It’s actually really insane.

Any place in the world that has animals in it is a safe space for Nina, and a dangerous place for anyone who dares to try to give her a hard time. She can communicate with the animals, understand them, and soothe them enough to befriend them, thus protecting herself from the inevitable attacks by certain animals that anyone else would be faced with. She can also prompt the animals to ambush anyone she doesn’t like. That is a simultaneously beautiful and terrifying superpower.

And we’re only given the tiniest glimpse of that power onscreen. There are so many other angles and dimensions to her mutation that could’ve been explored, questions that could’ve been answered.

In what form is this communication? Is Nina controlling/coercing them against their will to come closer to her or to attack her enemies? Is she merely an empath who can share feelings and sensations with animals? Does this extend to telepathy? Can she hear animals’ thoughts? How are animals’ thoughts and emotions different from those of people? Can she tell the difference? Does her power extend to people in any way? Is she an unlimited empath who can sense the feelings of people and animals equally?

When the deer approaches her, is it doing so because it just feels like it? Because it’s drawn to her like a trance? Because she asked him to come?

When those ravens attack the Polish police, is she brainwashing them into doing it? Or are they freely choosing to do it because she is reaching out and asking them for help?

What about that chilling moment when her eyes turn white/pale blue as the ravens approach? Was this a permanent color change and part of the full manifestation of her mutation? Would the color change only happen when she forcibly controls an animal? Or when she’s reaching out to a huge number of animals at once?

Remember this mutation was invented for the film. Magneto’s daughter in the comics is a human with a different name. The writers of Apocalypse chose to invent this mutation for her.

But also think past her mutation.

What about Nina’s personality? Her lifestyle? How does her animal connection affect the way she lives? Does she follow a vegetarian, or completely vegan, diet? How does she feel about other people who eat meat and fish? Would she use her mutation for advocacy and activism? Would she take a level of action that only she could take to prevent poaching and save as many animals as possible from being turned into human clothes and food? How does she feel about violence, especially as compared to her father’s feelings about violence? Does her connection to animal nature give her a perspective of violence that ordinary humans do not have? How does that translate to the human-filled world around her in which she lives? Would it prompt her to side with her father’s philosophy? Or would it drive her to move away from violence and toward Professor X’s philosophy?

What about Nina’s relationships? How would she feel knowing the truth about her father’s past? If she were to survive the police scene but her mother did not, how would that loss affect her? How would she feel learning that she has a super-fast older half-brother? How would Peter Maximoff feel upon meeting a little sister who has been raised by their dad, whereas he grew up without their dad? What would those relationships look like, and how would they grow? How would she feel about Charles Xavier, who has a very similar psychic/emotional connection to his own powers? Would she prefer communicating with him telepathically? Is this comfortably similar to how she communicates with animals? Do they have more in common than they realize? What about Hank McCoy, a man with an animal inside of him, as an extension of himself? How would Nina feel about that? What might she reach in Hank that nobody else could reach?

What about her life in Poland that she’d have to abandon at such a young age due to her father’s past? How would she feel about emigrating to America, to Charles’ school, learning new languages, adapting to a new culture? How would she respond to Charles’ training? Who would she make friends with?

What about her adulthood? How would her mutation and personality develop as she grew, living as a Polish immigrant in the U.S. as the daughter of a convicted felon? How would she forge an identity for herself?

The writers already deviated from the comics in creating Nina the way she is in the first place. But did they go all the way? Did they follow through on what they started? Did they let her be a character with a personality and relationships and goals and 3 dimensions?

Nope. They fridged her.

They created a powerful mutant female character with enormous potential and then they fridged her 2 seconds later.

They chose to give her the most outdated and misogynistic trope treatment possible rather than allow her to be a character, allow the films to move further away from the comics and build their own identities.

They chose to write yet another generic “grieving for the loss of a female loved one” motivation for Magneto rather than develop the contrast between him parenting and raising a young girl and discovering his fatherhood of a teenage boy he’s only met a few times.

They chose to make Hollywood’s 4,765th “save the world from absolute destruction” CGI action fest rather than follow up on First Class and Days of Future Past’s remarkable uses of character development.

Rather than allow Nina to be the developed character that she deserved to be.

Fortunately there are many great fanfics that save Nina and give her real characterization (especially this one). But the thing is - this should NOT be the sort of thing left for fanfiction writers to work on. Professional screenwriters working in Hollywood in the 21st century should be the ones doing this stuff. Fridging is a trope that should’ve been DOA. It is absolutely appalling that it is still happening in blockbuster films today for the whole world to see, that writers would still rather kill a female character than build a well-developed and iconic female character, which I know Nina could’ve been, in the right hands.

You deserved better, Nina Gurzsky.

[incorrect-green-lantern-quotes]

Gonna write a GL-centric fic to post on AO3 just so I can tag it with “no beta we get fridged like women”

[invisible-pink-toast]

“The woman dies.

She dies to provide a plot twist. She dies to develop the narrative. She dies for cathartic effect. She dies because no one could think of what else to do with her. Dies because there weren’t any better story ideas around. Dies because her death was the very best idea that anyone could come up with.

‘I’ve got it! Let’s kill her off!’

‘Yes! Her death will solve everything!’

‘Okay! Let’s hit the pub!’

And so, the woman dies. The woman dies so the man can be sad about it. The woman dies so the man can suffer. She dies to give him a destiny. Dies so he can fall to the dark side. Dies so he can lament her death. As he stands there, brimming with grief, brimming with life, the woman lies there in silence. The woman dies for him. We watch it happen. We read about it happening. We come to know it well.”

- The Woman Dies by Aoko Matsuda (translated by Polly Barton)

[glitter-stained]

Something impressive about the Arkham Knight is the amount of women they manage to put into a fridge in a single video game. Like at that point, it's a performance. The better question is, who didn't they fridge? Nyssa, Harley, maybe that Jokerized lady doesn't fit the criteria though she does die.

Barbara? Severe case of fridging (+bonus point for dating Tim, who thought it would be a good idea honestly)

Selina? Who thought it would be a good idea to put a collar on Selina and put you in a mindset where having to save her all through the game becomes an annoyance and distraction?

Nora Fries the OG freezer victim (ik it wasn't actually her but damn if that isn't a fun pun). Liked that they took her out of the freezer and microwaved her though.

Talia isn't even here???! Fridging talia when she hasn't even appeared like i get she died last game but her being mentioned for the first time in the whole game when Joker needs ammo to torture Bruce is so wild

Poison Ivy walks through the whole game with her pussy out and a single spinach lead over her boobs, gets fridged on first appearance and then dies, that's it that's her arc

Francine, Manbat's wife, appears just long enough to give us a reason to empathize with the guy and then brutally, immediately dies (thank you for pointing it out! ) also there's something Mileva Einstein-ish about her dedicating her life to research for her husband's disability, working with him as a partner, only to be mauled to death by him as a result of their own research. This is why we don't have enough famous women in STEM.

___________________________

Bonus:

Bruce: That can't be Harley's plan, she's not smart enough for that

Me: yeah well one of you got through medschool asshole, and it wasn't you

[theblogwithoutfear]

So I was reading Daredevil (vol. 1, issue 364) and I noticed something interesting about the cover.

Obviously there's a lot of superhero girlfriends that get thrown off buildings. But I think the most famous is probably Gwen Stacy. So immediately I started thinking about that, and I noticed that Karen is wearing Gwen's death outfit—just in inverted colors (The Amazing Spider-man, vol. 1, issue 121).

I also think it's interesting, comparing these two images, to look at the titles. "The Night Gwen Stacy Died" is one of the most famous Spider-man titles of all time

So to call this DD issue "Taking Back the Night" is really interesting to me, calling back to "The Night" title of the Spider-man issue. This DD issue is from 1997, and obviously feminism had progressed further than it had in 1973, when Gwen Stacy died. And though there was still a long way to go, I think writers were (sometimes) doing a (slightly) better job at treating female characters like actual people, rather than props.

So to me, the title "Taking Back the Night" along with putting Karen in an inverted version of Gwen's outfit seems to be making a very clear statement to the reader. It's an argument against fridging female characters (though obviously, that term wasn't being used yet).

This is especially interesting in the context of Daredevil. Only 24 issues before this one (vol. 1, issue 340), Glorianna O'Breen was thrown off a roof and died, and it had barely any plot significance at all. It was, imo, an even worse fridging than Gwen Stacy, because Glorianna hadn't even been in Daredevil for literal years at that point. She was only there so that she could be killed off.

(it's also worth noting that Glorianna is also wearing the short skirt and trenchcoat ensemble here)

There's this really interesting idea being played with in late '90s Daredevil, especially in conversation with "The Night Gwen Stacy Died." The idea is that the Daredevil writers are "taking back the night"; that is, taking back the night Gwen Stacy died. It feels like they're trying to reverse this trope, or retire it (though obviously, the trope didn't stay retired for long). It feels especially significant within the larger context of Daredevil. I mean, he's lost so many girlfriends over the years that it's a running joke at this point.

So to have Karen Page in the same position as Glorianna O'Breen, and in the same position as Gwen Stacy, but with a different outcome, feels really progressive to me (at least for the time). There's a few factors here:

She puts up a fight. Obviously in the end, she's still saved by a man—but in the meantime she's not waiting around like a passive victim.

She's being targeted on her own merit. She's in danger because she's tangled up in some shady business at work; this fight has nothing to do with Daredevil. She isn't being used as a plot motivator for Matt.

The villain who throws Karen off the roof is a woman, not a man.

Karen survives, where the others have died.

Did the writers succeed in "taking back" what they did to Gwen Stacy and Glorianna O'Breen? I don't know. It was certainly an attempt, and it definitely reflects the attitudes of the time in which it was written. It certainly feels like a step forward.

But the fact remains, all of this is undercut by the fact that only 21 issues later, Karen is killed off anyway (Daredevil vol. 2, issue 5).

Anyway, all of this is just fascinating to me. I'm trying to get into more academic/critical comic studies lately, doing close readings and analyses of the texts, and the intersection of Daredevil and feminism is especially interesting to me. I have a different academic Daredevil paper I'm trying to put together for a conference next year, but maybe at some point I'll write more about the women of Daredevil as a reflection of women in comics more generally.

[alpaca-clouds]

Let me talk about Women in Refrigerators

You know what? This is a thing that is kinda annoying me in the Castlevania fandom. How everyone is screaming about Women in Refrigerators, while folks so clearly do not understand what the trope actually is about and why it is a bad trope.

Like, there is not a single death of a named woman in Castlevania, that not at least someone has called "fridged". Alright, maybe Drolta. But other than that... yeah, folks definitely have called Lenore and Carmilla fridged. And... No, people, you misunderstand the trope.

The name of the trope was coined based on Green Lantern vol. 3 #54 (from the 90s), in which Green Lantern finds his death girlfriend stuffed in a refrigerator - mostly for shock value in the reader. Mind you, this was the 90s, when superhero comics were really, really edgy and stuff. And in fact the kind of story happened a lot of times during this time. Female characters being killed, raped and tortured for pure shock value, with the story not featuring any idea of what this did to the female character, but rather focusing on what this does to the male characters. (And mind you: Yes, a woman can be considered fridged and still survive the ordeal. A lot of folks do consider Barbara in The Killing Joke fridged as well.)

So, what does "Fridging" in terms of the trope mean? Basically it means that a female character suffers a horrible fate just so that another (most probably male) character can be motivated to do something and react to this thing happening, setting in motion a character arc for the surviving character - or even setting into motion the plot.

In many examples it should also be noticed that at times the female characters mostly just exist to meet their horrible end. Supernatural as a show is really bad in this regard. Like, within the first episode of the show THREE FUCKING WOMEN get fridged, just so that the brothers can travel together and start the plot.

So, let's move back to Castlevania.

Lisa is fridged. There is no way around it. Yes, it does not feel like it, because they still managed to make her a character of sorts, but yeah, she definitely is fridged. She dies a horrible death and that death is what motivates the plot, as well as what motivates both Alucard and Dracula. That is very classical fridging no way around it.

Carmilla and Lenore, though? Yeah, they are not fridged. They are characters who just die. Their death is not used to motivate another character. Their death is also not random, like most fridging deaths. Especially Carmilla is basically asking for her death, of course. She is a villain and gets the same death as all other villains. And while it is a bit different with Lenore, she definitely is not fridged either, giving that she literally dies in the last episode with no plot or development happening because of her death.

In Nocturne it gets a bit more complicated. Is Julia fridged? In a way, I would argue, she is, mostly on the value that she exists as a character to die and for her death to be the basis for Richter's character arc, giving him the trauma he needs to overcome.

Esther meanwhile does not feel fridged to me. Because Annette's trauma is not deeply linked to her death, rather than the entire slavery experience in general.

Tera? Well, for Tera it is too early to tell. I still assume that her change into a vampire is going to be used to have the characters realize, that vampires are not inherently evil, and to give us a view into what vampire society looks like. At least that is what I assume.

By the way: The fridging of female characters is my big issue with the PS2 Castlevania games. Like, in Lament of Innocence both Sara and Elisabetha are getting fridged to motivate Leon and Mathias. And the same is true for Rosalie in Curse of Darkness, who as a character only exists to motivate Hector. I mean, she is so replacable as a character, that Hector fucking replaces her by the end of the game.

[micahbellfan]

@airebeam New rule no more edge lord writers. Only wholesome writers with legit passion for good superhero stories.

[evilwickedme]

It's very frustrating to talk about fridging bc the original point of it was like a very specific criticism of how minorities are treated in comic books in particular and it's now been universalized so much people think it means "killing a woman off because she's a woman" or "killing any character to motivate another character" (the definition according to tvtropes fyi, kill it with fire kill kill kill kill). Fridging isn't bad because you're killing a character as motivation, and it's not bad because you're killing a minority off, it's bad because it's a pattern of behavior from an industry overrun by white men writing and drawing and editing those stories. You're allowed to kill a woman off if it suits your story, but the issue was that women are constantly getting hurt or depowered or raped or killed off to motivate other, non-coincidentally male characters.

The problem that stood behind the original women in refrigerators website was that the narrative that the comic book industry at large was telling was that the purpose of female characters was to get hurt in order to motivate some other guy. Kyle Rayner's girlfriend gets stuffed in a fridge, we're not sad because her life got taken from her too soon, we're sad because Kyle Rayner just lost his girlfriend. Gwen Stacy gets killed by the Green Goblin, we're not sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life, we're sad because she didn't get to live a full happy life with Peter Parker. That is not to say that the story doesn't still get told. Peter going after the Green Goblin is horrific and terrible and amazing and leads to some great plot and character development. But the choice was not to hurt Peter himself, not even to threaten his loved ones but not actually harm them, the choice - CHOICE! - the writers in the comic book industry consistently made was to hurt a character who was already part of a marginalized group, and to do that for the benefit of a (presumably) white male cishet able bodied main character's narrative.

I speak mostly in past tense because once fridging took hold in the collective popular consciousness it didn't disappear completely, but it did fall out of favor in being used so blatantly. It became isolated cases rather than the main feature of one of the best selling batman books of all time. Characters get killed off occasionally, and those characters are even sometimes members of minority groups, and biases still inform those writing choices, but I'm struggling to remember reading a comic in the last couple of years that specifically fulfills the criteria for fridging.

Anyway if you're reading this in context, you know that at the end of this month (may 2023) Marvel is planning to celebrate the most famous fridging of all time by absolutely not learning their lesson and fridging another character. They're being lazy about it, too - they've decided to do it to Kamala Khan in Peter Parker's book, two characters that mean close to nothing to each other, and being extra awful by making it a Pakistani Muslim woman being killed off during AAPI month, and so far the information we have doesn't even involve Kamala's own friends and family and superhero team mourning her at all. It's supposed to motivate Peter, because it's part of his book, and it's also supposed to parallel Gwen Stacy, and they chose to do... This. Kamala is a wildly popular and beloved character who deserves better, and frankly Peter deserves better too. If you're going to fridge, at least do it well.

But I'm also already seeing white men, who supposedly agree with me and think this is bad, saying, well it's for MCU synergy, not "because she's a female" or "because she's not a white character" (direct quotes don't @ me). And firstly, ok, way to assume the rest of us didn't also catch up to the obvious conclusion that marvel comics is doing MCU synergy, AGAIN. The thing is that those aren't separate concepts at all? Or well, they are, but they don't negate each other. They're trying to do MCU synergy and make Kamala into a mutant, but they could've done that a million other ways, just as cheap and not as offensive - a simple retcon would've sufficed, they just did that a few years ago with Franklin Richards.

They chose to do it by killing her off, and they chose to kill her off in somebody else's book to motivate him rather than tell a story about her, and they chose to do it while celebrating Gwen's fridging for some fucking reason. This is context that, when removed from the situation, makes the whole thing meaningless. And you can say a lot about Gail Simone, but that she didn't have a Goddamn point is not one of them.

[samasmith23]

The ACTUAL heck?! Not Kamala! Please don't permanently kill off Kamala Khan Marvel!

Wait... WWWHHHAAATTT???!!! This can't be for real! This honestly cannot be real! Apparently there was a leak for the upcoming issue of Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #26 by Zeb Wells & John Romita Jr. in which they apparently kill off Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan)?!

This has honestly got to be some kind of fake-out or misdirection. It would be absolutely stupid and insulting for Marvel to kill off not only their most prominent South Asian Muslim female super hero in a white male superhero's book (which not only feeds into the misogynistic "women in refrigerators" trope, but is also rather racist and Islamophobic...), but one of the most popular and successful characters Marvel has created in recent memory! Plus, Kamala did actually die already once in the pages of Champions (2019) #2, but she was immediately resurrected in the exact same issue through a deal Miles Morales made with Mephisto (though sadly someone else died in Kamala's place because making a deal with the Devil is the equivalent of making a wish on the Monkey's Paw)!

So what exactly would motivate Marvel to do this?! Given how popular and successful Kamala's character has been both in and outside of comics, permanently killing her off in a completely separate character's series seems like an incredibly bad business decision that will only serve piss fans off!

Overall, I'm desperately hoping that this alleged death for Kamala is either a complete fake-out or just temporary on the Spider-Man author's part. But I'm still really nervous considering that Marvel is also going to be releasing a one-shot issue titled, Fallen Friend: The Death of Ms. Marvel (with some of her original writers like Saladin Ahmed & Mark Waid attached to it)...

Just... why is this happening?!

But as deeply disappointed and frustrated as I am by this leak and news, I strongly condemn any person who tries to harass or send death threats to Zeb Wells or any other of the creators involved with this terrible decision!

In the immortal words of Linkara, we can criticize a bad story without becoming supervillains ourselves. Harassment and death threats are NEVER acceptable under any circumstances, no matter how bad you think a story is!

[paradisechid800]

Okay, but everyone keeps saying "Poor Honzo", "He can't catch a break" and I'm sitting over here like "Poor Harumi". Because she gets killed mercilessly in every damn thing she's in. She could just be sitting there, existing, and the writers just go "Not today bitch". Who the hell did she piss off so much that they want her dead in every excruciating way possible. In Scorpion's invasion cutscene, they literally made the most cruel and sadistic ways to kill her. Like, when will it end?

[velvet4510]

Why Magneto’s Storyline in X-Men: Apocalypse is The Worst (it’s not just Cherik)

Ok I just need to vent because this has been chewing away at my brain for far too long.

Cherik is far from the only reason why Erik’s family plotline in X-Men: Apocalypse is some of the stupidest, sloppiest, and most character-ruining pieces of writing I’ve ever seen. Haters may say “oh you’re just upset because he married someone who wasn’t Charles.” But, like, aside from the fact that the original timeline already established that Erik’s top priority was always the fight for mutantkind and he had no interest in settling down - whether that had anything to do with his feelings for Charles or not - the problems with the Apocalypse writing go WAY beyond just him & Charles:

Erik would never abandon his cause at this point. By the end of DOFP, Erik has just been imprisoned for a full 10 years thanks to the JFK situation. Meaning he has spent a full decade being forcibly inactive in the fight for mutants. And he just learned that all of his fears about humans and mutants came to pass in the future to the level where a time-traveler had to be sent to change the past. And he was so set on averting that future that he tried to kill his friend and the sister of the man he loved, and then made a whole speech on international TV begging for the mutants of the world to fight alongside him. This is the POLAR OPPOSITE of a man who would feel like settling down and walking away from the fight within the next decade. The Sentinels being cancelled did NOT make mutant life easy overnight; Stryker was still up to no good, and there is no way that there weren’t others like him doing the same. Yes, Raven’s actions made a very positive difference, but I think we have enough brain cells to agree that this did not mean things for mutants immediately became sunshine and rainbows to the level where Erik - the most (understandably) paranoid character in the X-Men series - would even consider taking a break, let alone giving up the fight permanently. Knowing what he did about the possibilities of the future would’ve made the Erik we know double down on his commitment to his cause and follow up on his actions in Washington.

Erik wouldn’t risk starting a young family at this moment in his life. Erik was a Holocaust prisoner, his people were massacred, his mom was shot when he couldn’t move the coin, and then Charles was shot when Erik accidentally deflected a bullet into him, and then every member of his Brotherhood save Raven were captured and killed. Not only is this more than enough grief for one character to have, but the man wouldn’t dare risk having a new family of his own when everyone he’s ever loved has gotten hurt (largely because of him), and when he’s an international fugitive. That is no time to risk being selfish, and he would know. He would’ve been the first to realize that a potential spouse and child would also end up killed, and so he’d avoid that altogether. In fact, he wouldn’t even consider it, because, as mentioned, he wouldn’t leave his cause behind. You know, if he was actually in character.

Magda is a human. At this point, Erik hates humans. Again, he has just been imprisoned by humans for 10 years for trying to save a mutant, and he just learned that in the future, humans would’ve wiped out mutants, exactly as he feared. Everything that happened in DOFP would only further inflame his already-passionate hatred of humans. He is not in the mental state to even begin to consider Charles’ philosophy and give a human a chance at a relationship, let alone marry a human.

The family lives in Poland. The country where Auschwitz is. The country where Erik and his family and people was imprisoned, tortured, and executed. The country where Erik had to watch Shaw kill his mother. Basically the LAST country in the freaking WORLD that Erik would want to ever see again, let alone spend the rest of his life in. Erik is fluent in multiple languages - he is shown to easily converse in French and Spanish in First Class - and has been all over the world thanks to his Nazi hunting, so if he really needed to flee the U.S., there were a hundred other countries he could’ve gone to and blended into (Canada, France, Mexico, anywhere in South America, heck, he even could’ve discovered Genosha during this time). But in the original timeline, he didn’t leave the U.S. at all despite being a national fugitive after escaping his plastic prison, and he never did get caught again, so….

Erik’s first meeting with Magda is completely OOC for him. Erik mentions that he told Magda who he was the first night they met and he trusted her then. EXCUSE ME??? Erik Lehnsherr does not trust strangers. Erik Lehnsherr does not tell the complete truth about himself and his past to just anyone; look at how deeply Charles had to probe before Erik opened up to him. This stupid line was obviously shoehorned in just to make their relationship seem like perfect soulmates and thus ensure it is doubly tragic when she gets thrown in the fridge 5 minutes later (more on that in a sec). Obviously the intention is for the audience to go “aww, he instantly trusted her, she instantly accepted him, this is true love…” Give me a break. You’re really telling me that Magda met this stranger one night, found out he was none other than the international fugitive who apparently killed the U.S. president and just tried to kill another president on live TV, and went “oh, no problem, honey, let’s make a baby and live the cottagecore dream!” That’s some BS if I’ve ever heard it, and I’m convinced the writers subconsciously knew it; there’s a reason that is revealed in a throwaway line rather than shown onscreen, because then nobody would’ve bought it.

Fridging. Magda and Nina exist in the movie for one reason and one reason only: To get brutally killed and give Erik even more grief and trauma so that he’ll seek revenge on the entire world, aka do what the plot demands of him, aka have the same journey as he did in First Class (more on that in a sec). That’s all. Neither of them are any more than one-dimensional plot devices. They are not characters at all. Magda isn’t even named in the actual movie (he doesn’t even say her name when she dies) - it’s so obvious they didn’t even know what her name would be when they made the movie. This is textbook fridging, and one of the worst examples of it of all time. It’s all the worse considering that Erik never met Magda in the original pre-DOFP timeline, meaning Magda originally most likely lived a long happy life and died old in bed. But now, she gets fridged just because the writers didn’t know what more to do with Erik. It’s misogyny of the highest level.

A parenthood story for Erik was already set up. DOFP already hinted at Erik being a father, with Peter’s comment about his mom. So if the writers wanted to show Erik as a father, and to include Magda, they already had a solution that would seamlessly flow from the previous film - make Erik and Peter’s relationship one of the centerpieces of the story, and let Magda be Peter’s mom! (You know, like she is in the comics!)

It doesn’t contribute anything new to Erik’s character development. From a screenwriting POV, this is unforgivable. May I remind you that Erik’s entire storyline in First Class revolved around grief and trauma for the loss of his family and people, especially his mom, and seeking revenge for it. Giving him a wife and daughter just so they can get killed too adds absolutely NOTHING to his character development. It’s merely retreading everything that already happened in his arc: he loses his family and goes on a roaring rampage of revenge. Completely superfluous, right down to Charles insisting that there’s good in him beyond the pain. The redundancy becomes apparent even in the dialogue, where Charles literally says “I told you since I first met you there’s good in you too.” The script itself can’t help but point out that all of this has happened before and literally nothing new has been added to Erik’s character arc.

See? It’s not just because of Cherik. Erik’s story in X-Men: Apocalypse is an atrocity in basic screenwriting and character development, on every level. And I will never accept it.

(Please tell me I’m not the only one who feels this way…)

[racefortheironthrone]

Do you think the term 'fridging' has become overused, and if Brienne does sacrifice herself for Jaime, would that not count?

I think that one of the useful things about the term fridging is that the website "Women in Refrigerators" is still up so we can know exactly what Gail Simone wrote when she coined the term back in the 90s. To quote her:

"Hi. This is a list I made when it occurred to me that it's not that healthy to be a female character in comics. I'm curious to find out if this list seems somewhat disproportionate, and if so, what it means, really. These are superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator. I know I missed a bunch. Some have been revived, even improved -- although the question remains as to why they were thrown in the wood chipper in the first place. I know I missed a bunch -- I just don't know my comics deaths the way I should. I'm not editorializing -- I'm just curious to find out what you guys think it means, if anything. The preceding letter was written and sent by me when I realized one day that most of my favorite female comics characters had met untimely and often icky ends. The history of the idea and this site are listed here, and the responses from various comics professionals are listed here. An important point: This isn't about assessing blame about an individual story or the treatment of an individual character and it's certainly not about personal attacks on the creators who kindly shared their thoughts on this phenomenon. It's about the trend, its meaning and relevance, if any. Plus, it's just fun to talk about refrigerators with dead people in them. I don't know why.

In Simone's original meaning, "fridging" specifically applied to superhero comics, it involved a spectrum of violence from depowering to sexual assault to physical assault to mutiliation to murder, and it was disproportionately gendered. Notably, the qualification that "fridging" is done in order to motivate the (disproportionately male) protagonist rather than as part of a heroic character arc for the woman being fridged, came around a little later, mostly from those creators who were responding to Simone's initial provocation. However, you can see that this particular qualification was an idea floating in the aether at the time Simone was writing her first foray.

Do I think the term has become overused? It's certainly spread to more genres outside of superheroes, but I don't think that's an over-extension, since we're usually talking about the same phenomenon happening in "heroic" subgenres of fantasy, sci-fi, romance, etc.

Does this apply to Brienne sacrificing herself to save Jaime?

No.

Brienne's self-sacrifice is the logical and emotional climax of her own character arc, one rooted in chivalric romance in which Brienne seeks to play the role of the tragic knight. She is introduced as an existential true knight, someone who finds life in Westerosi society a constant trial and humiliation but who longs to escape into a world of song and story through glorious deeds:

"Because it will not last," Catelyn answered, sadly. "Because they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming." "Lady Catelyn, you are wrong." Brienne regarded her with eyes as blue as her armor. "Winter will never come for the likes of us. Should we die in battle, they will surely sing of us, and it's always summer in the songs. In the songs all knights are gallant, all maids are beautiful, and the sun is always shining."

As in real-world chivalric romance, the structures of Westerosi chivalric romance are built around tragedy: the Dragonknight doesn't get to settle down with Naerys, but gives up his life to save King Aegon IV, and it's the doomed chaste romannce and the stubborn attachment to duty that makes it all so damn chivalrous.

Thus, from Brienne's introduction to now, we see Brienne looking for someone worthy to sacrifice her life to save:

she starts with Renly, except that she can't save him from the magic (although that does mean that she doesn't learn how unworthy he was) and becomes blamed for his death instead.

then she shifts to Catelyn, except that she can't save her because Catelyn sends her away so she's not there during the Red Wedding.

Jaime and Brienne's ASOS trek across the Riverlands, from the revelations of his backstory to him jumping into the bear pit to his quest-giving at the end, is entirely about setting him up as the third of three lord/lady-coded characters that Brienne could sacrifice herself for. And lo and behold, we have a situation where Jaime and Brienne are about to come face-to-face with Lady Stoneheart, a scenario we've already seen be grounded in questions of sacrifice and honor.

So unless GRRM somehow fucks up and makes the conclusion of Brienne's arc more about Jaime than Brienne, it's not a case of fridging.

[flock-of-cassowaries]

I just realized that the writers of Hannibal literally fridged Beverley Katz.

I’m not sure what to do with that.

[glitter-stained]

Listen: Bigender Bisexual Schroedinger Kyle Rayner who is trapped into a fridge that might or may not be broken enough to allow oxygen to get in and save her. His boyfriend and girlfriend have both made their trauma about his death into a turning point in their life and motivation to be a hero and stop this tragedy from happening to anyone ever again, but they're also perfectly fine and chilling because she's okay. He is simultaneously alive and dead. His girlfriend keeps his picture in a necklace around her neck to remind herself of the one person she couldn't protect. All three of them are grabbing coffee next thursday.

[cantsayidont]

SUPACELL (2024– ): Interesting but uneven Black British superhero drama, created by Rapman, about five seemingly unrelated South Londoners — delivery driver Michael (Tosin Cole), nurse Sabrina (Nadine Mills), ex-con Andre (Eric Kofi Abrefa), pot dealer Rodney (Calvin Demba), and gang leader Tazer (Josh Tedeku) — who discover that they have superhuman powers. Michael sets out to find the others after getting a glimpse of the near future in which he learns that his fiancée Dionne (Adelayo Adedayo) will soon be killed. However, Andre is more concerned with reconnecting with his teenage son (Ky-Mani Carty) and finding a job, Sabrina is desperately trying to keep hers while also trying to keep her sister Sharleen (Rayxia Ojo) out of trouble, Rodney is using his super-speed powers to run London's fastest weed delivery service, and Tazer is enmeshed in an escalating gang war against his former mentor Krazy (Ghetts).

The cast is great (Abrefa, Tedeku, Ghetts, and Ojo are especially good), the characters are engaging, the dialogue and setting are convincing, and there are some clever touches (including the eventual explanation of the title in Ep. 6). However, while watching the ways the characters' emerging powers impact their lives is engrossing, the actual superhero plot (which has distinct echoes of the late and unlamented HEROES) feels a bit stale, the characters' powers are not always clearly delineated, the big fight scenes are sometimes blah, and there are some hokey touches (like over-use of the glowing eyes effect seen on the poster image above).

More concerningly, SUPACELL's attitude toward and treatment of Black women is frequently troubling. The very talented Adedayo is wasted — I hated the way the narrative treated Dionne, which at points had me tempted to nope out — and most of the show's Black female characters consistently get very rough treatment with noticeably less sympathy than the men, which cast a gloomy pall over an otherwise compelling series.

CONTAINS LESBIANS? Not that I noticed, and given the show's attitude toward women, I fear any wlw would meet bad ends in short order. VERDICT: Given how relentlessly most nerd media marginalizes and mistreats Black characters and cast, it's great to see Black characters centered in a story like this, but while much of SUPACELL is really quite good, the misogyny left a bad taste.

[deven895]

Kyle sobbing over his dead girlfriend's fridge emote

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