This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Gus: Your annoyances may vary.
Seth: Wow indexy
Ununnilium: Took out the Faux Action Girl link, because Peach is really the opposite of that — she's a Distressed Damsel who can temporarily transform into a true Action Girl if the game creators decide they need a playable female character from the Super Mario Bros franchise. It's weird.
Scrounge: I've come to the conclusion that Peach just likes being rescued. There's probably some sort of technical name for it, some variety of complex or the other, but in a nutshell? She's there waiting calmly at the end of the gam because she knows that she can fend for herself if she has to, but she'd feel much better letting Mario sweep her off her feet and carry her off into the sunset. Seriously, what other explanation is there?
Lale: Call her a Genre Savvy Neutral Female.
Bob La Rice: "Doesn't work as well if the audience has grown annoyed by the character and doesn't mind her dying (Fred on Angel, episode "Shells"), "
Boooooo.
Chris X: Shouldn't Ion be placed in James Bondage, considering... well... he's a guy? He's really girly, I know, but he's still a guy.
So It Begins: Funny, but everyone seems to forget the subversion where the villain pretends to be a Damsel in Distress.
Nerem: Editted out the Lamia Loveless example, because that's an example of Brainwashed and Crazy, with a heaping helping of her being a huge pain to fight. She is in no way distressed or a damsel, and she rescues herself both times, with minimal help.
- Chris X: Again I ask... WHEN? First time, Kyosuke pulled her out. Second time, Axel pulled her out. Minimal Help Indeed. And maybe it's just this experience, but she was NEVER a pain to fight against.
Moved the Ion and Richter Belmont examples to the James Bondage page.
Cromage: Changed the Die Hard and Pirates Of The Caribbean examples, which aren't really subversions so much as straight examples that have been updated to "modern" tastes. Lucy and first-movie Elizabeth still play the role of damsel-in-distress, even if they don't like it.
Chris X: Further more... I suppose being just Brainwashed and Crazy and needs to be rescued DOES count as a distress. If Richter becomes counted as James Bondage when all he does was getting Brainwashed and Crazy by Dracula's followers, Lamia should've counted as well. It's practically the SAME THING.
So, if there is no protest so far, I shall re-add Lamia. If you want to delete it again, be sure to remove Richter from the James Bondage entry, because apparently, being Brainwashed and Crazy and urges your friend to save you does not count being a Distressed Damsel or James Bondage.
Johnny E: Is there a reason
Damsel in Distress isn't the main title? I don't see how
Distressed Damsel is a better title, and not just different for difference's sake.
Reecer6: I lean more towards the title being The Peach. Because Princess Peach is the queen of Damsels in Distress.
Dragon Quest Z: I changed the picture because it doesn't really show the trope that much. Not that the character isn't an example, just the picture doesn't show the concept that well. But I am keeping it here if someone finds a page it does fit.
Vampire Buddha: I removed a lot of
natter, unfunny 'jokes', and non-examples from the video game folder, as well as doing a general cleanup of hat section.
What I done did removing
- Like Zelda mentioned below, Peach in the Paper Mario games doesn't just sit idly by. She utilizes Twink (and TEC in Thousand-Year Door) to send mission-vital information and items to Mario. Maybe one of these days she'll orchestrate her own escape (The Deus ex Machina in Super Paper Mario doesn't count).
- Peach also does this in Super Mario Brothers 3, sending useful power-ups to help Mario and Luigi. Bowser doesn't kidnap her until the player enters World 8.
- Adaptations in other media tend to make Princess Toadstool into a Faux Action Girl. The problem is that the author may sincerely want to make her into a real Action Girl, but the Princess's tendency to get captured by Bowser is too much a part of the Mario tradition, and is quite hard to work around. But every once in a while, someone will manage to get it right
- Maybe she secretly digs Bowser. Lord knows he's hardly a scary villain anymore.
- There was one episode of the Super Mario Brothers Super Show that pulled it off. Mario, Luigi and Toad's attempts to rescue the Princess were repeatedly thwarted by the Hammer Brothers. When they finally defeated the Hammer Brothers and found their way into Bowser's fortress, Mario, Luigi and Toad were surrounded by Bowser and his guards. It seemed like Bowser would win until the Princess obtained a Starman, defeating Bowser and his army and saving both herself and the Mario brothers in the process.
- Super Mario RPG has the characters, particularly Peach herself, lampshading the harmless predictability of Bowser's abductions so much that one gets the impression she just doesn't consider Bowser a threat.
- At this point, Peach might find the occasional kidnapping and being "held against her will" as a welcome distraction from the business of, er... princessing a kingdom with a ruler of debatable competence (her father, the King).
- Thus making her the only Distressed Damsel to be both a pirate and a ninja.
- A Ninja Pirate Princess?
- Not quite; remember she's a Legacy Character. The pirate Zelda descended from the ninja one.
- To be fair, she actually aids Alexander in his final battle by stabbing the Wizier in his shoulder when she sees the opportunity.
- Of course, in Tales of Symphonia nearly every character is captured repeatedly. Lloyd Irving is held prisoner early on. Raine and Genis Sage are taken to be executed. The entire cast of eight is tossed into prison near the end, and every character except Lloyd and Colette is trapped in a world of illusions. The only characters who help themselves are Lloyd (escaped his cell, though friends still had to save him in the end), Colette (forces out the villain possessing her before anyone arrives), and Regal (destroys prison bars).
- To be fair, though, Kairi's body was in distress for most of the first game. Her heart was not.
- Namine wasn't exactly played straight either, considering that Sora wouldn't have been in any position to save her if she hadn't taken an opportunity to tell him the truth about his memories.
- Metroid series is a MAJOR subversion: not only is the main character a female, she also has a reputation as one of the greatest (if not the greatest) Bounty Hunters in the entire universe. On only a handful of occasions does Samus need any sort of asistance, and in most of those few cases she could probably could have gotten out of the jam on her own.
Close What I done did removing
