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Narrative
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Does Kerrigan from Starcraft really subvert this? In the official SC 2 writeup for Jim Raynor
 it states:
"Today Raynor seems to be losing faith: he's drinking heavily and blames himself for Kerrigan's being taken by the zerg."
It seems she's still a motive for him to "do his job". And even though she's alive and much more powerful, she does end up becoming much less heroic as a result of her tragedy. And of course, by becoming "Queen of Blades" she goes from victim to becoming The Vamp in Brood War.
Generi Troper: this whole trope bugs me. Why is it automatically assumed it's all about sexism and double standard? Killing women could just as easily be a stock Rape The Dog moment for the villain(s), instantaneously establishing pity in viewers for the otherwise unremarkable victim and raising Deserved Hatred versus the bad guy(s). Scientivore: Interesting. I initially made this as just a redirect for Stuffed Into The Fridge because Women In Refrigerators is a much better-known phrase, with its own website and Wikipedia entry and everything. I see that Jisu found another use for it. Cool. Jisu: I figured I'd try to please everyone and let Wiki Magic do the rest. Allandrel: Cut out the description of Kyle Rayner's girlfriend as being stuffed "Piece by piece" into the fridge, as she had actually not been dismembered. The script originally called for a panel showing her intact body in the refrigerator, but the editors thought that was too gruesome, so had it changed not to show her directly. Naturally, this backfired by making readers assume that the scene was even more gruesome that it was meant to be. Tricky Pacifist: "The common counterargument is this occurs objectively: female characters tend to hold Distaff Counterparts / Sidekicks / C List Fodder status, making them more vulnerable to being treated as props." I'd really like to ask proponents of this argument if they have an objective reason why female characters tend to hold such secondary, deathbaiting status in the first place. This logic appears to run "Killing her off isn't sexist, it's just that the show's already sexist."
Removed the Casca example. Why? Because not only was she kept alive, but she is still very much a part of the story, and not just for giving Guts a reason to hate Griffith. In fact, her mind being cured is the primary goal and focus of Guts and his new group, and she aids Farnese in recognizing her new strength (at first as Casca's protector but eventually as a potential magic user). Not to mention that rather than put her in a comatose state that many other authors would have, she still has a mind of her own (albeit one of a small child) and even defends herself against a rapist at one point, as Casca in her sane state of being would have—a possible hint that, even with her memory lost, a part of her former self still lingers. Coolnut: I put it back. WIR does not mean the female in question has to die — per the third paragraph in the trope definition, she could also be depowered and humiliated in a misogynistic flair, etc. What she did afterward in a chick-like state is beside the point. And considering that Casca hasn't gotten her mind back (it's a question of if, I cynically think, rather than when), well... I still don't see how she qualifies as a WIR. As I said before, though she's "depowered", she's seldom shown to be "weak" or "feminine"—merely curious and childlike, with hints of her previous self still lingering. And as I also said before, her state may not be permanent and her mind being cured is the primary objective of the group; in the most recent chapters, they're currently sailing to the island that is said to carry the cure for Casca's state. Her being alive and the promise of her being cured is what is keeping Guts from going mad. She's not someone who "could have" been important, she's someone who is important. Dave: Is there any way we can add something for a specific writer and his shameless killing of love interests to forward the plot? I'm sure it doesn't really need to be said who I'm thinking about, but let's just say he falls mainly under TV, recently a bit in comics and a certain singalong blog Coolnut: See Author Appeal if you haven't checked already :) Gnatlet: Since the entry is per se about sexism and women, is it apropos to mention male characters killed for the sole purpose of motivating a female Action Girl? Twin Bird: Score one for Completely Missing The Point. These are not duplications of anything. Rather, they are differentiated from other Death Tropes by...you guessed it...the gender/sexuality of the victim! The point is that these characters' deaths tend to be well telegraphed by the fact itself, and treated in similar ways by the plot (as "punishment," or just insufficiently). By this logic, you might cut all the Death Tropes since they're just the same thing - someone dies. (Yes, this is copy-pasted, but what's wrong with that? It's the same objection each time.) Dragon Quest Z: And it's not even always about death. It's also about how comic writers tend to give women the shaft in stories. At least that's how a lot of the examples seem to come across. Black Humor: Dead Kennedy, you seem to be doing this a lot. I'm sure we have this guideline here somewhere but this was easier to find.
Dead Kennedy: So why is there no Men In Refrigerators trope? I mean seriously, do one of you REALLY want to make the claim that writers NEVER give men the shaft in stories? I mean REALLY? From The Gospels to Hamlet to John Woo's The Killer, media is full of examples male characters getting the shaft. That's what happens in literature! PEOPLE (gender-inclusive) get the shaft.
Nornagest: This is getting tiresome. I realize that endless debates over our treatment of race/class/gender issues are a time-honored tradition of this site, one which I've occasionally participated in, but do we have to spread the debate out over five or so discussion pages? Isn't this one of the things YKTTW, or the forums, is for?
(rest of argument deleted)
Semiapies: This page needs clean-up. I'm going to make a major revision to the trope explanation, so here's why, in case people go WTF: The problem here is a serious lack of clarity and agreement. "A combination of Double Standard and Stuffed Into The Fridge", the current opening of this trope, would imply a straight death-trope, referring only to deaths of female supporting characters with the Unfortunate Implication that there's nothing remarkable or objectionable about these deaths except for people reacting to the fact that female characters died. However, there are rather a few minimally (and unhelpfully) explained references to the message of the "Women in Refrigerators" list and the particular critique behind it, which is not merely that somewhere, somehow, a female supporting character died or even that the character's death provoked vengeance. The examples are an ugly mix of these two concepts; I'm not going to touch those now. But I'm going to try to give a concise explanation of what this idea is beyond the one-sentence pitch. The Nifty: Urrgh, I also can't believe just how bad the examples are on this page; at least 50% of them are just "this show has a female character die", which is NOT what this trope is about. Unless someone can tell me how any of these fit the trope, I'm cutting them:
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