This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Do we have ANY examples of this trope that didn't originate in Japan? Because if not, the page needs updating to indicate that it's a reflection of one specific culture and not a universal constant.
Fanti Sci: I think someone (Scooter007?) brought up an older sci fi show where the hero burst on to the scene and instantly seized command from the female captain as if it was his right to do so (and she just stood there and accepted his superiority). Was it Roy Rogers or Flash Gordon..? Can anyone remember the original YKTTW? I think you'll mainly find it in older shows in Western culture. I've seen it happen once or twice to senior female police officers, but since my shoddy memory can't come up with specific shows, I'm reluctant to mention it in the main article. Unless New Tricks counts, and that's more a parody of the topic.
Scooter007: That was Flash Gordon. And it was from back in the 30s or 40s. I'll have to check the DVD again to get details before I add it to the examples list.
LATER: Oops, I meant Buck Rogers. I don't know what I was thinking. <.< ...aaaand added.
Oh and here's a maybe example, one not involving rank so much as character derailment: in Beginning Of The End, leading lady Peggy Castle is built up as a resourceful, independent, capable woman who deals deftly and professionally with the situation as she investigates, until she meets The Hero and then the primary menace is revealed; from that point on (though the film doesn't actually acknowledge it) she degenerates into a typical Monster Movie female, all clingy and needy, with nothing to add to the plot except her cleavage.
Coolnut: I remember a Magic The Gathering (Ice Age) comic from about 1995 or so where there was a character just like this (Freyalise?), from "prodigy" to "dead in a meaningless duel", making room for the male main character. Can anyone recall this? Thank you.
Randallw: I'm wondering about the second season of Dexter. The new female lieutenant takes over but it turns out she isn't suitable because all she can think about is her boyfriend being unfaithful and she has forensics test his clothes. So the Captain gives the job back to La Guerta. Of course it turns out she set the whole thing up anyway. Deconstruction?
Mercy: The article contains this passage: "Note that most of these examples are either from Eastern culture or before the feminist movement". What? First-wave feminism began in the late 19th century with campaigns to change the law so that married women could own property separately from their husbands, and moved on to campaigning for such basic civil rights for women as the vote. Cinema, radio and TV post-date feminism, and all those cringe-inducing (I hope!) treatments of women in those media up to, well, now, were created after, and in spite of, the struggle for equal rights for women.
Antheia: As you said, that was the first wave. More things happened after that.
Antheia: Pulled Discussion In The Main Page (from the Castlevania example):
- Actually, MarySuenia was a Retcon as well. The "first Belmont to fight Dracula" was established to be Trevor C. Belmont.
- And then Leon got retconned in in her place later on.
- While Leon knew Dracula, he never fought Dracula, the official first Belmont to have fought Dracula is still Trevor.
- This troper is a female, and has followed the Castlevania series for quite awhile. Sonia's retcon ended up making a lot more sense in the long run. As mentioned above, it's usually offed as sexist by folks who don't do the homework. In that game, Castlevania Legends, it was hinted at the end that Sonia and Alucard had become an item...which, thus, would end up sticking Dracula genes in the Belmonts-which, later on, just didn't happen. It also would have taken some explaining how Trevor didn't know he was adventuring with his father in Dracula's Curse. It was, in this tropers opinion, a lot easier, and made more sense, to retcon her out of the official timeline. Keep in mind, Circle of the Moon(which had a single male protagonist), and Castlevania 64(which had three guys and a girl) were ALSO retconned out of the official timeline, so Sonia wasn't the only retcon 'casualty', if you will; the male Belmont that was supposed to be with Sonia in the DC game was ALSO retconned out(I don't think he was even really 'born' totally.) Maria, a female-a summoner, yes, but still brave, and Sypha, who might be a mage, but a mage brave enough to go fight Dracula, are still alive and well in the continuity(Sypha marrying Trevor, and Trevor mentioning even in Curse of Darkness that he did not defeat Dracula alone, but had many brave warriors with him.) It should be noted there ARE several stories floating around about this Ret Con of the games, but the 'it just didn't make sense in the current timeline' is the most popular and the one the troper tends to believe, as, in the end...it wouldn't have made sense.
Rebochan: I'm sorry, this trope seems to be yet another round of Straw Feminist whining. Almost every example on this page simply portrays a situation that is extremely common - the mentor moving down so the hero can take the lead. Precious few actually imply that her gender alone is the reason. Simply saying "It's because she's a woman" when the story clearly makes no indication of such is insane.
Rebochan: Pulled the Quistis example:
- Quistis of Final Fantasy VIII seems to have been a bit of a prodigy, having been granted mercenary status at the age of 15 while even the protagonist, Squall, is still a cadet at 17. Yet she loses her instructor status at the academy because one of her students is a loose cannon. Oh, and she apparently lacks "leadership qualities." So an anti-social male loner (Squall) is clearly better suited to lead people than a cheerfully social female. Not to worry; after her demotion she sticks around as part of the party, taking orders from her former student.
- Her later decision to abandon her post in the middle of an important mission may reflect on why she was demoted. She also openly flirted with Squall, her student, in the beginning of the game and repeatedly abused her authority to do so. Even before that, other instructors complained about Quistis' inability to command her students. Meanwhile, Squall was initially placed in command of only two people on a mercenary mission of low-importance and Quistis was still in charge of him and giving him orders simply because of her seniority.
- To be fair, Quistis is not exactly portrayed in a negative light for it. On one hand, her training managed to breed two of the two greatest See Ds ever (even though one went rogue). On the other hand, she seemed appropriately bitter about it. She was portrayed as something more of a skilled instructor who has resignedly decided she doesn't want to have to deal with the obstructive bureaucracy anymore.
Quistis is not taking order from Squall on the first disc. He takes orders and direction from her because she has seniority. As the situation progresses and Squall gradually takes the lead on his own, then she is taking orders from him. She is still a senior, respected See D - but she does in fact fail to control her emotions and crosses several professional boundaries. They only pull her instructor license however - not her See D status. Also, considering that she and Squall are only a year apart, suggesting that Squall could not possibly be qualified when Quistis was herself a "prodigy" is contradictory - the game tells us that students can have talent at a young enough age.
This example is one of many on this page that don't actually have anything to do with the gender of the mentor and everything to do with a troper deciding that because the mentor is a woman, it must be a matter of sexism.
And the same with this one:
- Mia Fey, an accomplished defense attorney, is killed in the second case of the first Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney game so the male hero can take control of the law firm. Despite this setback, she still manages to serve as The Obi-Wan, competently advising and guiding the main character from beyond the grave. No matter how you cut it, though, she still gets knocked down from the head of the law firm to a strictly supporting role, even if it's a supporting role she's very good at.
- You do get to play as her for a few flashback cases in Trials and Tribulations, although these have her as a Phoenix-level rookie rather than the confident and experienced attorney she was right before she died and may not technically count.
Mia is an extremely important character in the series. Being dead is not a demotion and she was a supporting character even when she was running the firm. Furthermore, this series has a long tradition of having mentors die or have other circumstances befall them - but I note that this page has determined that only female mentors are significant. Is it then perfectly okay to ignore that Mia's own mentor died on her and Apollo's is in prison, both to allow each character to take the lead on their own?
I also pulled the Radiant Dawn example because...seriously, the game has several main characters. Also, Ike was the main character in the previous game and is more experienced and powerful than Micaiah. By this trope's supposed standards, that alone should make Ike the main character.
Rebochan: Looking at this trope a little more thoroughly, several of these examples are aping The Obi-Wan, making them "The Obi-Wan - but sexist because it's a GIRL!". Beyond that, there are plenty of cases of male mentors suffering identical demotions to get them out of the way for the hero, so I don't see why this page insists on taking a female-only approach when most of the time sexism isn't involved at all. It can be sexist. But it's not automatically sexist because the mentor getting booted out of the way has breasts. I propose setting up a gender-neutral trope stripped of the automatic assumption of sexism, moving this page's examples that aren't just copies of "The Obi-Wan" there, and then adding the male examples. The new page could also have a paragraph that under some circumstances, the mentor is removed from power entirely over sexism - because yes, it does happen. But it's not the only reason that a woman in a mentor role is demoted.
Fanti Sci: Good grief, calm down. The difference in this trope is that while The Obi-Wan is bumped off, it is clear that he is heroic, noble and, most importantly, competent. He just happened to get on the wrong end of a knife/sword/loaded weapon/enraged unicorn. The Quickly-Demoted Woman, however, is shuffled aside because of incompetence or, as in many of the examples, because her "feminine attributes" (emotions, love, sense of compassion and all that other stuff that women are supposed to have more of than men get in the way of a "masculine" job. You are right on Mia - she doesn't belong here, she's an Obi Wan. The others, however, all screwed up in some way that warranted a demotion. It's been a while since I played FFVIII, but I seem to remember that Quistis got the boot for mucking up a mission. You have to admit, it's more common for a male mentor character to get fired because of questionable morals or devious schemes than because their superiors decided that they suck at their job.
Rebochan: First off, I did make the YKTTW entry right here
for "Quickly Demoted Mentor". I've gotten one response that also pointed out this is not terribly distinct from The Obi-Wan.
Second, I've just been playing FFVIII - Quistis had a lot more problems than just one mission going wrong, almost all of which related to her unprofessionalism. Her gender was never called into question and you even see her with other female instructors that are far more professional that comment on how she isn't. The mission that cost her the license wasn't her first issue with her tactics as an instructor, and as I pointed out, she was flirting with a student and later in the game showed incredibly poor judgement to abandon her post (something several other female characters would never do). Her gender is never a problem and in fact, one of the other instructors is a woman. It's just Quistis. The game also doesn't necessarily present the loss of her license as a great loss, since Quistis is much more mobile and less restricted by the Obstructive Bureaucracy without it. Also, Squall is not immediately placed in power over her and in fact, for much of the early game, she ''still' has seniority over him simply because she's more experienced and he is expected to take orders from her regardless of whether she's a teacher. Squall doesn't start giving her orders until the situation changes and after he shows significant leadership capabilities in terrible situations. He still looks to Quistis for advice during the game.
By the way, The Obi-Wan really is dangeorusly close to this - the only difference between this and that is the insistence of this trope that the character have a demotion - something that could easily just be added to The Obi-Wan without making a separate page. But otherwise, there's plenty of male characters who do get demoted for sucking at their jobs or otherwise ceding command. There may be certain gender-specific versions that play out, but that's all the more reason why if this stays, it needs to be a gender-neutral page that notes the trope can play out differently for different genders.
Seriously, most of the examples on this page have nothing to do with gender - they are simply "The Obi-Wan For Girls". Take a look at Rukia - how many shows open up with a powerful mentor ceding their abilities to The Hero after getting a severe ass-kicking? Magical Lyrical Nanoha does this with a man giving power to a girl. So does Pretear, with an entire army of men. Why is Rukia playing the exact same role suddenly sexism when the exact same thing happens all the time with other gender make-ups? Why is Rukia suddenly the weak female forced to cede authority to a strongman when Yuuno or Himeno's knights aren't suddenly emasculated losers for having to give up power to girls? The few examples of actual sexism, such as the stuff from Suikoden, just look like a pure Stay in the Kitchen scenario ("The women, they can't fight!") rather than a separate trope.
Rebochan: Exported several examples to The Obi-Wrong, to get this trope focused on sexist examples only. While it technically is "The Obi Wrong For Girls", the sexist version is a little too prevalent to be filed under that. I'm also trying to get feedback on a rename to make it a little clearer that the sexism is the key factor.
EDIT: Rename discussion started on the boards. Please contribute.
By the way, I think the Buck Rogers example needs more elaboration - it's not really clear whether they simply let Buck take over for having manly parts or not. It also doesn't say anything about why the 70s version was just as bad. I also pulled the Goodkind example for not really seeming to be this trope at all - the character as introduced was already demoted. I don't deny the absolutely wretched values towards women in that series though - I think that example needs to go on a different trope page somewhere.
Rebochan: I pulled the Doctor Who example because it really stretches it. Harriet didn't get demoted for being female, and she'd actually been promoted to Prime Minister in her first appearance. She didn't really serve as anyone's mentor either and her gender wasn't the reason. Whether it was right for the Doctor to do that is debatable, but it doesn't seem to fall within the realm of this trope since sexism wasn't the reason.
Can someone please explain what the TOE in the Stargate example means? I've tried Google, Wikipedia, and Urban Dictionary with no luck.
