So you have an Action Girl. She rocks. There's only one problem: she's also the only female in the main cast, and you don't have a Non-Action Guy or other similar balancing factor to counterbalance this. Where are you going to get your Designated Victim for the team to save every episode? What's an executive to do? Completely replace her tough image and capabilities with something more fitting to the Distressed Damsel you need, someone who tends to Stay in the Kitchen or not do anything rather than go out and fight, whether by punching people alongside the others or analyzing the scenario and figuring out a solution so she can help others punch people.
Chickification differs from Faux Action Girl. The latter is just about a so-called Action Girl who never lives up to her reputation once the plot hits the fan. Chickification involves a genuine Action Girl who was badass at one point, but was derailed into a weak and helpless (or at least significantly less badass) character, without any in-universe justification for such a change. The lack of in-universe justification is key to this trope. If the Action Girl is changed as the result of physical and/or emotional trauma, that's just character development.
This trope is not about any Action Girlwho shows those icky and bad 'female' emotions. Remember, being The Chick is notautomatically a bad thing.
The term "chickification" itself was invented by, of all people, Rush Limbaugh and is used to describe the devaluation of both masculinity and femininity in an effort to create an androgynous society.
May involve the Standard Female Grab Area.
The inverse of this trope is Xenafication (where the girl becomes a super Action Girl... without any Character Development), and to more general extent Took a Level in Badass, although that's not limited to female characters. Also see Adrenaline Makeover, where The Chick gradually gets out of her shell and develops physically, emotionally and mentally. This trope can be a result of meeting a more interesting boyfriend
If this is done to a male character in a Slash Fic, it may be part of Wimpification.
Although it is distressingly easy to imagine combining it with this trope, turning a male character into a female is a separate trope: see Gender Bender and Mandys Law Of Anime Gender Bending.
Be warned, this page is a lightning rod for people to start complaining about fandoms you don't like, so make sure to give specific explanations when referring to certain fandom activities.
Not to be confused with that guy. You know, him. Also compare with Girliness Upgrade, in which the girl becomes more feminine but doesn't lose her backbone.
But try telling that to the "feminist fangirls" who keep falsely accusing Hungary of being Austria's Shallow Female Love Interest and nothing else, apparently because she doesn't think she's a boy anymore. Never mind that as a tomboyish kid she was not seen as super invincible (in fact, she gets beaten up badly by the Ottoman Empire at least twice), meaning that even if she doesn't fight as actively as in the past, the Older and WiserMeido Hungary is physically stronger than her Skilled, but NaiveBokukko self.
Blue Dragon In series, Kluke is changed from a self-confident, mature girl who's virtually raised herself since the deaths of her parents to your stereotypical damsel in distress with no explanation. She doesn't even get her powers until near the end of the series.
Subverted: In the first season, Haruna Kisaragibecame a Corrector like her best friend Yui, but due to ending up Brainwashed and Crazy, she ultimately returned to the sidelines and act as Dr. Inukai's assistant during the season finale. Cue to second season and having Yui being turned into rock in the Net.com and rendered comatose in the real world: without any ounce of hesitation, Haruna returns to be a Corrector, and in her first real fight she uses the four Elemental suits perfectly and teams up with the morally ambiguous Corrector Ai to save Yui, Freeze and other victims. She's remained a Corrector ever since and even was there for Yui, Ai and the other Correctors in the Grand Finale.
Contrary to what a portion of the fandom believes, this is totally averted (to the point of deconstruction) with Casca from Berserk, who after being graphically raped ON SCREEN, and by Femto who is none other than her former commander and idol Griffith AND in front of Guts, the man she loved who did everything in order to save her but failed and was Forced To Watch her be tortured and humiliated, came down with a case of Rape Trauma Syndrome so severe that she became insane and incapable of taking care of herself. Therefore it's NOT about an invisible and unjustified treatment, but about a trauma that was so big that the poor woman's body, mind and soul simply splintered. Really Heartbreaking.
Happen to the eponymous character of Puella Magi Madoka Magica, but it's not immediately obvious due to the way the story is told. During the first few iterations, Madoka is a very powerful Magical Girl who fights as Mami's equal, who is a veteran, and can take down Walburger Night without succumbing to her witch-form, even if she dies doing that. However, due to Homura's wish to avert this fate, time is forced to keep on repeating, each time making Madoka weaker and weaker compared to how she was in previous iterations due to karma (or something), while Homura grow (ridiculously) stronger and stronger.
Comic Books
Most of the female X-Men were temporarily hit hard by this when Chris Claremont left for the first time.
The accomplished leader Storm, one who upon losing her weather-warping abilities simply operated as a Badass Normal, relegated to background scenery and occasional artillery when the romantic/heartbreak subplot got dumped.
Psylocke not only becoming all but useless at range (her telepathy aside from a fist-range brain-fry being routinely overwhelmed when she remembers to use it at all) but getting gutted by an opponent she held off before she gained her supposedly nightmarish kung-fu skills. The pointless love triangle she was shoehorned into as the vamp/homewrecker did not help either.
Rogue, despite being strong enough to bench-press tanks and capable of outflying almost any weapons she cannot laugh off, being repeatedly pummeled by far less formidable foes and at least once screamed for help from a boyfriend that was barely a step above Badass Normal. Her psychological fortitude went down the tubes to boot.
Inverted in the French Space Opera comic series Valerian and Laureline, where Laureline starts out as mostly tagging along with Valerian but becomes a more active, heroic character as the story arc goes on. There was actually a period in which Valerian would lose his competence to give room for the now active Laureline to the take the initiative.
Black Canary is still capable, but not in her own book. While Birds of Prey and Justice League of America (which she is the leader of) both feature her kicking ass, Green Arrow/Black Canary has her being attacked, held hostage, injured, and inflicted with a level of ineptitude that should bar her from operating a car, much less being a superhero. All so that her husband, Green Arrow, can look cool.
Parodied a couple of times, and Lampshaded at other times (but by no means averted) in the Prince Valiant stories where competent, resourceful girls deliberately make themselves out to be less so in order to be more appealing to the men.
Similarly, despite Character Development leading to her being the Avenger giving orders to Captain America more often than not by the 80s; the Wasp's intelligence, combat effectiveness, levelheadedness, and leadership abilities seem to vary inversely with the degree to which the writer plays up her relationship with her ex-husband Henry Pym. After a few years as more or less The Load, they apparently gave up and stuffed her in the fridge so Hank could have more guilt.
Snow White from Fables, Legends in Exile. First she gets shot in the head and has her brain blown to bits, and now has to use a cane for the rest of her very long life. However, that's not the worst part of what the writers do to her. They then have her sleep with her possible love interest while brainwashed, and bare six of his hald-wolf children! It's like something our of a trash-fic written by a furry.
After being depicted as a reckless, fiery Badass Damsel throughout the 1940s, Lois Lane was chickified into a useless Damsel Scrappy who constantly needed saving and couldn't handle anything on her own in the Silver Age. Even attempts at improving her character during the Bronze Age fell flat, with her Earth-2 counterpart Lois Kent far outstripping her in badassery. Fortunately, the Post Crisis reboot of the Superman mythos restored her Golden Age persona, with an added side order of army brat and combat training.
Princess Sally Acorn of Sonic the Hedgehog was hit with this hard. The process started around issue 60, after King Acorn retook control of the kingdom and Ken Penders started trying to shove her further into the background. She hit rock bottom at issue 134 when she has an epic freak out over Sonic's decision not to stay by Sally's side and continue fighting against Dr. Eggman when she slugs him in the face and breaks up with him right there, calling him "selfish". It isn't until Ian Flynn takes over that Sally starts straightening up.
In The Muppet Show, Janice was the Electric Mayhem's lead guitarist (Floyd was on bass). In The Muppet Show Comic Book, she seems to have been relegated to tambourine.
Fanfiction
Harry Potter Used in the terrible Hogwarts Exposed series, in which Hermione (who was, by the fanfiction's own admission, one of three to defeat Voldemort) goes to be some saintly nunnish person who adopts a Mary Sue student, scolds Ginny for wearing an outfit she thought was too revealing, quickly hooks up with Harry and marries him by the second fanfiction while being extremely lovey-dovey, and at one point shaves her nether regions just because he tells her he finds that more appealing. Possibly one of the worst scenes in the first fanfiction is when Neville begins to stroke her thigh while they're attending a concert and does not realize that she is bothered by this (don't ask). As he moves his hand closer to her crotch, she frets over what to do, afraid that hitting him or leaving early will garner unwanted attention from the press who are in the audience. Apparently Hermione, who solved so many traps and riddles in the series, was unable to think to just push Neville's hand away, or whisper "Stop it". Ginny gets it too. Besides the aforementioned revealing dress scene, it was mentioned that she slept with countless Muggles and wizards, including Snape. And like Hermione, she shows no signs of her magical skills, loyalty, or toughness from the series.
Well, Ginny was MEANT to be portrayed as extremely promiscuous; HE is a Harry/Hermione fanfiction, and those tend to involve demonizing Ron, Ginny or both. It's even lampshaded by an in-character Ginny during one of the Das Mervin sporkings on LiveJournal.
"A Harmonian badfic, you say? So am I a whore or dead in this one?"
"The former."
"Figured as much."
There are many, MANY fics in which Hermione, one of the smartest and pro-active females in Harry Potter canon and possibly of English literature in general, is a poor battered and weepy victim wife to Ron the Death Eater who abuses, beats, rapes, etc. her so Harry will sweep her off her feet and they'll team up to bloodily murder him and Ginny, who is likely to be written as a fat and ugly bitch who totally doesn't deserve Harry's love since the fanworker makes her lose her good looks as soon as she married him - while Hermione, despite all the Domestic Abuse, is angelically beautiful and perfect and all. The Last War is among the best examples of such crap.
PokémonCori Fallsloves doing this to poor Jessie in her fics. Sure, the girl's still allowed to kick some ass, but more often than not she's crying or swooning in James's arms or needing to be rescued from perverts or an evil queen on the Astral Plane or blushing prettily.
Valkyrie Profile There's an entire disturbing Fanfic community dedicated to doing this to Lenneth so that Lezard can be the dominant one of the "relationship". Yet it leaves Hrist and Silmeria alone to be as tough as nails as ever.
The infamous Hetalia fic All He Ever Wanted pulls this on the aforementioned Hungary, whom Prussia brutally rapes at some point to both force into a Face Heel Turnand "teach a lesson" to her beloved ex-husband Austria, whom Prussia is holding hostage.
That's barely the only one. In many, many Prussia/Hungary works, the sweet and gentle meido who managed to avert this trope in canon is portrayed as a weepy mess who secretly pines for Prussia after being forced to marry Austria via the Austro-Hungarian Compromise and/or is abused in many ways by Austria so Prussia must hop in to rescue her and show her what true love is. Yes, Hungary has been shown to be physically more powerful than both Prussia and Austria, but in these fanfics she wails and wangsts endlessly before even trying to do something to defend herself. For worse, considering the main couple in these fics, it's mixed with Die for Our Ship since Austria is portrayed as a Jerk Ass or even a Complete Monster to make Prussia look better.
The other girls also go through this often in some shipping fanfics, leading to the untrue and unfair assumption from the most rabidYaoi Fangirlsand "feminist fans" about all the Hetalia girls being Shallow Love Interestsin canon. The more frequent victims of this are Belarus (who goes from an hilariously creepy Yandere and Knife Nut who chases after Russia and breaks Liet's fingers, to either Russia or America's blushy and passive/passive-aggressive bride) and Taiwan (who isn't action-geared and is comfy with her uber girliness, but is still a GenkiPlucky Girl... and yet she ends up as a Yamato Nadeshiko caricature who only wants to be Japan's child bride).
In Digimon fanfiction, you'll be hard-pressed to find a fic that has Rika/Ruki acting anything like herself, preferring instead to make her a weak, weeping wallflower who can't handle any aspect of life without being rescued by Takato/Jenrya/Ryo. Even people who don't like Yuri Genre or Interspecies Romance wind up preferring stories pairing her with Renamon because they're the fics in which she's more likely to be capable of being in a romance and acting something like herself at the same time.
While it's safe to say that the entire casts of both Mass Effect games experience varying degrees of chickification in fanfiction at some point or another; Garrus Vakarian (in a rare male example of this trope seen near exclusively in het fic where he's paired with Female Shepard), Commander Shepard (usually Female Shepard, though Male Shepard is not immune either), Tali'Zorah and Liara T'Soni experience the heaviest levels of this trope more often than the others.
The infamous Avatar: The Last Airbender fan-comic How I Became Yours does this to both Azula and Toph. Azula? The Magnificent Bitch with a Jerk Ass Woobie streak becomes a sort of Yue copycat who does almost nothing but whine and cry after getting amnesia and has a super Sue-fied love story with Sokka. Toph? She goes from a devil-may-care Badass Adorable who still didn't mind a makeover once, to a soft-spoken and nervous flower of a girl who willingly bottoms to a guy she calls "twinkle-toes" and is a borderline maidservant to Katara.
Pulled on Katara too. She goes from an Action GirlTeam Mom with mood swings and Hidden Depths into a whiny, weepy, selfish bitch whom everyone mollycoddles, who cares more about being Zuko's pasted-on love interest and babymama than anything, and only shows her Action Girl skills when she bloodily and horribly kills Mai in revenge.
All characters in Touhou are prone to this due to their Moe qualities, but Remilia Scarlet and her sister Flandre are particularly common targets due to fanartists' tendency to exaggerate their childishness.
Film - Animated
In Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo there is an example of this. In the series Starfire can at least hold her own in a fight and despite being a girly, happy kind of character she's still an Action Girl. However in the movie she has about as much backbone as a wet noodle and is seen on several occasions being helpless before Robin has to save her. In one of the first scenes she's falling and then he catches her by her wrist and pulls her onto his bike(somehow she doesn't hit the ground?), even though she could have flown to stop herself falling.
In the movie, Mulan was a noble Action Girl who will stop at nothing to save her people from invaders from a neighboring land. But in the film's tie-in merchandise, she is a "princess" who did nothing but long for her prince (actually China's resident Army general). The merchandise completely ignores all of the events of the movie she was in, and that she is always shown wearing the same pink dress she wore to the Matchmaker instead of her father's battle armor like during most of her movie. And most of the spinoff stories based of this franchise is actually all about her frolicking with several younger girls in her village instead of say, fighting off villains who constantly raid said village.
Film - Live-Action
Mina Harker in the many film adaptations of Dracula, but most drastically in the Bela Lugosi version. In the novel, she's an independent school teacher who travels to meet her fiance Jonathon Harker and nurse him back to health after he's nearly driven insane from being imprisoned in Dracula's Castle. In the film, she's merely Doctor Seward's daughter, and once Dracula shows up, spends most of the movie weeping hysterically.
This is Zig-Zagged in Bram Stoker's Dracula. Though physically inactive and still rather waifish, she is the one understands Dracula's story the most completely and provides the resolution.
Gone Baby Gone shamelessly Chickifies the Angie character, who was much tougher in the novel.
Johnny Mnemonic Happens to the character Molly (renamed Jane) in between the short story and the movie.
Princess Katy in A Kid in King Arthur's Court is shown to be a skilled fighter during Calvin's training montage, but is then easily kidnapped by the bad guys, doing absolutely nothing to try to fight them off despite the fact that she should be able to. Furthermore, when Calvin and King Arthur come to rescue her, Katy, the most capable fighter of the trio, gets herself captured again while Arthur, a weak old man, and Calvin, a barely trained swordsman, fight off the guards and save her again.
Subverted in the same film by her sister, Princess Sarah, who spends the entire movie appearing to be your standard beautiful maiden — and is revealed in the end to be the secret identity of the Black Knight, the Bad Ass who has been defending the kingdom and wins the tournament.
The Last Airbender: Between the movie and the TV show it's based on. In the series, Katara is a powerful, skilled, and competent teenager who spends a good part of Season 1 developing her later badassery. Cut to the movie adaptation, and Katara seems to do nothing but look like she's about to cry. In her climatic battle with Zuko, she winds up getting her ass handed to her despite the weeks of training. Contrast the series, in which Katara actually matches and then defeats Zuko in the initial part of the fight, only to lose when he gets a Second Wind from the sunrise.
In her defense, she does pull off a Big Damn Heroes moment later, and in the beginning of the film, she almost tries to attack the soldiers raiding her village when they take her grandmother, something Katara didn't do in the cartoon. She's also shown fighting without bending in one scene and quite a bit in the deleted scenes, something Katara also didn't do in the cartoon. For everything else, blame M Night.
Mortal Kombat: The Movie: Sonya Blade in the first film proves herself to be as capable as her male counterparts (even breaking a man's neck with her legs), yet turns into a shrieky pile of useless jelly when the Big Bad grabs her by the hair and drags her into another dimension (where she apparently allowed herself to be dressed in a cute little leather tunic-miniskirt combo and have her hair teased before being shackled).
To be fair, anyone whose played the games can tell you that ShangTsung is much more dangerous than Kano, so it's justified that he could capture Sonya so easily. After all, he was able to steal someone's soul just by looking at them, so it makes sense that he could easily terrify and overpower Sonya.
Star Wars Episode III Revenge of the Sith Padmé Amidala. The same woman both smart enough to both debate the finer points of Robert's Rules of Order and Bad Ass enough to personally lead the raiding party to bring down the brutal occupation of her homeland in Episode 1 spends almost all of Episode 3 crying and wondering when her husband is going to come home.
To be fair, she was pregnant. But then again, she could've at least kicked Anakin in the groin and attempt to put him back in place.
Padmé always was more of a politician than an Action Girl, and while her pregnancy makes getting into physical fights a less viable option than it was before she still stays a senator, being one of the few (out of thousands) not to get hoodwinked by Palpatine painting the transformation of the Republic into an Empire as a good thing. She's also one of the progenitors of the freaking Rebel Alliance! There is still no excuse to her being a weepy doormat in regards to her husband, however. So, partial example.
Terminator Salvation has Moon Bloodgood's character made out to be this massive Action Girl, more than capable of holding her own, yet as soon as she gets assistance with a fight from Marcus due to being somewhat overwhelmed (by a hair pull of all things )and he beats them all senseless, suddenly her persona changes and she's all over him, literally. It also has somewhat disturbing tones of Me Love You Long Time to an extent.
WhiteoutGreg Rucka complained about Carrie Stetko being made weak in the film adaptation, although "At least they got rid of the scene in the script where she - a U.S. Marshall - hears someone following her and runs away. What's she gonna do, call the cops?"
Jean Grey in the X-Men film series suffers from a special case of this. The Phoenix storyline is major Never Live It Down material for her, so she got some major movements of power-spiking leading up to her Phoenix debut... but the rest of the time, she suffers as mentioned down in Western Animation. So she spends movie one as love interest and gets beaten by the Toad. The. Freaking. Toad. Movie two, she uses her powers in ways that would be perfectly unremarkable in the comics when nothing remotely Phoenix-y is going on, and everyone's amazed and a bit scared. *
Okay, maybe holding back the full fury of Scott's Eye Beams with her TK was impressive even by her comic self's standards...
Movie three, she ascends into full Phoenix mode... and does nothing but be the MacGuffin of the story, sought after by the male leads (Wolverine to save her, and Magneto to make her his Dragon — a role in which she basically just stands around.) Even the final rampage adds little to the actual plot and only exists so Wolverine can angst about having to Shoot the Dog. There's Chickification, and then there's turning a god of death and rebirth into a living prop.
It's inevitable, though. That's always been the problem of Phoenix, she's far too powerful for the setting and the world she operates in, in both comics and movies, she either has to be a prop or she becomes the entire story, rendering the rest of the cast and events irrelevant. Even back in the day, the writers realized they had to either depower her (anticlimactic) or kill her off, and bringing her back in X-Factor #1 was a big, big mistake. She should have been left dead, since otherwise the Dark Phoenix Saga overhangs the character forever, as we've seen.
The World of Henry Orient ends with the feisty and willful teenage heroines ditching their elaborate and imaginative fantasy life for an equally crazy obsession with fashion and boys.
Literature
The Encyclopedia Brown books. Inverted with Sally Kimball. When she is first introduced, not only is she described as the toughest kid on the block, but also has a brain comparable to Encyclopedia's, nearly defeating him in a brain-teaser competition. After that, however, though she becomes his bodyguard and retains all of her fighting skills, she becomes considerably less astute, and only plays a role in solving cases when it has something to do with etiquette (the one area she retains intelligence in.)
His Dark Materials Lyra. All the active stuff is taken over by Will, and she spends much of the third book asleep.
Hotel Transylvania Madelaine starts out as, while not particularly an Action Girl, having both the smarts and the nerves to foil a couple of kidnapping attempts by the villains. However, when she is eventually captured, she doesn't even make an attempt to get free, and has to be saved from A Fate Worse Than Death by her Friendly Neighborhood Vampire boyfriend Saint-Germain.
The Phantom of the Opera The Christine Daaé of Gaston Leroux's novel is a daydreamer but also a plucky, stubborn Well, Excuse Me, Princess! who has no qualms about standing up for herself — especially to Raoul, which alternately confuses and intimidates him at first. However, this has caused many fans to see her as a Jerk Sue. He has no such problem misjudging Christine in the musicals, of course, where she's simply the passive Ingenue, eerily similar to the novel's Decoy Protagonist La Sorelli.
The Puppet Masters by Robert A. Heinlein. Mary, a fellow agent in the unnamed intelligence service the protagonist works for, carries an excessive amount of firepower and is certainly willing to use it. After marrying the protagonist halfway through the book, she becomes an instant "Yes dear" housewife, though it's unclear whether this is Values Dissonance on Heinlein's part (The Puppet Masters was written in the 1950's) or if he's just playing the situation for its humorous aspects.
Universums öde by George Johansson. Done in a big way to Love Interest Amalthea. At the start of the series, she is introduced as vocally feminist and Len's equal. However, in the third book, she and Len have barely landed on New Earth when she is attacked by a predator bird and develops a phobia of violence that means that she has to Stay In The Hut while Len does the hunting.
Viola undergoes a little bit of this in the Stationery Voyagers episode "Qua Locus Poena," where she realizes the gravity of what has happened to her and her family. She is reduced from the smack-talking and resourceful soul sister trolling the desert in "Indomitable" to a blubbering mess, barely able to function as a Guile Hero. She showed signs of Badass Decay already in "Choice After All;" having gone from a self-chosenAction Girl able to hold her own against a small band of armed terrorists, to a whiny worrywart that can barely throw an (invisible) punch to save the life of her poisoned boyfriend from a small pack of Depraved Homosexuals - who were working as extras for a music video. And to make it worse, they weren't even the Crooked Rainbow elites from the mob that originally kidnapped him. (The ones armed with molotovs.) Filforth finally has to save everyone - by torching the film extras. At least Pinkella was always the Team Mom.
Cindy Martius goes from slaughtering murderous rum runners and holding her own in World War II; towards a path of fawning over Liquidon, and nearly crying every time he hurts himself. Granted, she can still kick plenty of Aviatet tail; and is not above creative use of a Fantastic Slur or two. But her role from interesting side character worthy of a spin-off to Love Martyr for just one of ten total main protagonists is noticeable. She shines the most when Liquidon gets himself in trouble. In these cases, she can snap back temporarily and become a Violently Protective Girlfriend.
The gender-inverted version: Marlack becomes a much more domesticated family man after meeting Neone. Before, his thoughts were much darker: being bent on getting revenge on the man who raped his sister.
Live Action TV
American Gothic. This happened to Gail Emory. At the start of the show, while not exactly an Action Girl, she was certainly a female Determinator who, as an Intrepid Reporter, was determined to find out the truth of her parents' deaths and bring their murderer to justice. But as soon as she learned her parents were not the paragons of virtue she thought them to be, her Belated Backstory was dropped and she seemed to flounder about with nothing to do. By the end of the series, she's morphed almost completely into a Distressed Damsel, having to rely on Buck himself for protection, and in her last scene is left in a hospital bed, crying piteously over the baby she's lost—even though she didn't want it in the first place, seeing as it was the son of Satan (as depicted graphically via ultrasound—or maybe not). At least some of this may be due to Executive Meddling in order to pair up the major male and female leads, or a result of the show being Screwed by the Network so that Shaun Cassidy had to wrap everything up far too quickly and nonsensically. But some surely isn't.
Days of Our Lives Stephanie Johnson is one of the most blatant cases. When the character first returned to the show as an adult she was played by redhead Shayna Rose and appeared as a tough girl race car driver. After Rose was fired, the character was recast with brunette former beauty queen Shelley Hennig as a rather uninteresting fashion plate character with little or no real character.
Merlin's Guinevere in the BBC version. She kicks some serious ass for the first season, teaching Merlin how to put Arthur's armour on properly, going into battle to defend Ealdor, facing her own execution bravely; but the moment Arthur notices in season two that he might just fancy her, she gets kidnapped and can do nothing but trip over her own feet and foul up two attempts to rescue her.
Power Rangers Both of Tommy's girlfriends. Kimberly single-handedly defeated monsters such as the Terror Toad and the Snizard, and Kat(herine) was instrumental in nearly bringing down the Rangers themselves while under Rita's spell. When they started dating Tommy, it seemed that not one episode could go by without one of them screaming "TOMMY!" at the top of their lungs. (On the other hand, given how often Tommy wound upin need of rescue...).
Robin Hood Happened to both Marian and Djaq to some extent. Marian is shown to be a capable fighter throughout most of the show, but towards the end of season two she is hit in the face with the Distress Ball and ends up as the Distressed Damsel on numerous occasions. In her final appearance, just before Gisborne stabs her to death the writers ensure that our intrepid heroine is denied the opportunity to wield a sword in her defense of the king, and she's reduced to simply flailing her arms around. Djaq kicks ass right to the end, but many were put off by her abrupt declarations of love for Will Scarlett, and the fact that she spent the rest of the finale behaving like a gooey-eyed teenager before opting to stay in the Holy Land to raise pigeons with him.
Sanctuary has an unusual male version of this, not surprising, since the show likes to genderfliptropes. Will starts out as a Badass Bookworm and ends up the Designated Victim. Strangely, only slightly less annoying than the usual way around.
Chyna, although hers was more enforced from above. She came in as a bodyguard (not valet, Bodyguard) to Triple H. She then went on to feuding with the male wrestlers, had absolutely no interest in the Women's Championship, and was the first woman to hold a man's wrestling title (not counting the Hardcore Title, but that's another story.) Toward the end, after she ended up the hypotenuse in the Chyna / Triple H / Stephanie McMahon triangle, she was pushed back into the Women's Division.
She lost a lot of her muscle mass and is now doing hardcore porn.
Natalya suffered from this. She debuted as a powerful heel and was put into contention for the new Divas' Championship but was quickly dropped from that and eventually became a manager for the Hart Dynasty where the most she usually did was slap her guys' opponents a little. This got reversed when they brought in The Usos to feud with them who had a woman as their valet. When they split, Natalya became a prominent part of the women's division and even won the title.
Inverted with Jacqueline Moore. She was introduced as Marc Mero's valet and, although winning the reinstated Women's Championship, was booked rather weakly and lumped together with the non-wrestler divas such as Terri and Sable. Fast forward about a year and she gets to show off the full extent of her wrestling ability, even competing in intergender matches and winning the male Cruiserweight title.
It could be said that this is consistently happening to WWE's entire women's divison ever since Trish Stratus and Lita retired. Upon leaving WWE for the second time, Gail Kim has claimed, among other things, that WWE wants the division to be more "girly" and have barred the Divas from things like punching and kicking.
Barring them from kicking and punching? Then what else are they gonna do!?
These "rules" would change week to week, actually. But the chickification of this once great women's division is painfully obvious.
Painfully obvious in the segment that had the entire locker room confront COO Triple H for an unsafe working environment. Beth spoke for the Divas and what did she say "we're girls". So forget that she's gone toe-to-toe with the men and any attempt by most of the roster to do anything to her would land them in a full body cast, at the end of the day she's just a girl apparently.
Odin Sphere Likely as a reference to the above example and general Valkyrie lore, the Valkyries fear this trope. Disobedient Valkyries are punished by being placed into slumber and given away to a man who will be their husband upon awakening, whereas Valkyries who are no longer able to fight are forcefully stripped of their status and married to men, where they must be obedient wives for the rest of their lives. An early Valkyrie NPC in Gwendolyn's story is facing this fate and terrified, whereas Gwendolyn herself suffers the slumbering sort as a punishment early in her story. The rest of her story has her struggling against her growing feelings for Oswald and her new role as a non-warrior. The game later reveals that Odin only used magic to make Gwendolyn sleep and not to manipulate her emotions. No one actually tells Gwendolyn this, probably because they looked at how hostile she was to Oswald and figured she must already know she wasn't enthralled. She never seems to realize that her feelings for Oswald were always genuinely her own. Ultimately, she decides it doesn't matter if they're fake or not, because Oswald is the first person in her life to treat her like a human being as opposed to her selfish, cold-hearted father. As for fighting, she seems to have little trouble with that and even rescues her husband herself from a dragon, a fire elemental king, and the queen of the dead. Clearly this trope just can't stick to her.
StarCraft II A variant that is likely to be brief before Dechickification in the next installment, which also proves that Tropes Are Not Bad: none other than the Queen Bitch of the Universe herself undergoes it. After being made human again (at least mostly...), she's found limp and naked, lying on the ground, and helpless before Jim Raynor, who saves her life from Tychus Findlay, picks her up, and cradles her against his chest as they walk into the sunrise. She cries a little when she first sees him, either in joy or pain. However, it is perfectly justified. Not moments before she was tearing apart the attack force sent to do just that, including periodic insta-killing of units, even when the invincibility cheat code is on. They then activated an ancient weapon they weren't even sure would work, which not only wiped out most of the Zerg on the landmass, if not the planet, but did what it was supposed to do and de-Zergified her. She is likely in extreme pain and experiencing shock at the sudden transformation and, presumably, regaining her conscience after five years without it and eight billion lives ended by her order. Further, previous missions indicated that she alone could save the universe from a threat far worse than the Zerg, and the hinted at gameplay mechanics for the next part of the game indicate that regaining her full power without becoming a monster again will be a key part of this.
Super Robot Wars Unfortunately, this seems to hit Lamia Loveless. She debuts as a protagonist from SRW Advance, is a highly competent ActionRobotLady of War, gets into the OG series in the second installment while retaining her fighting abilities and greatly contributes to the story through battles to battles. Then OG Gaiden comes in, then the plot requires her to get captured, 'killed off', Brainwashed and Crazy and needs to be saved. Thankfully, right after the rescue, she can get back in action and kick ass again, but that depends if the player wants to put her in or not. And combined with the fact that after her rescue, she practically has no more mandatory appearances (no longer required for any specific maps), it is possible that without Gameplay and Story Segregation, she may be relegated into the sidelines, no longer doing significant things (unimportant it may be) to reverse her Chickification. However, there's still OG 3 on the looms, so we'll see if Lamia can reverse her Chickification there.
World of Warcraft has done this to Jaina Proudmoore. In Warcraft III and its expansion, she was one of few people who listened to the Prophet's Cassandra Truth and led people across the sea to escape the Burning Legion. She even helped kill her own father when she decided there was no other way to secure a peace between the Alliance and the Horde. In World of Warcraft, her role until Patch 3.3 was limited to cheering up orphans, and in Patch 3.3 she decided to see if her ex-boyfriend the Evil Overlord was redeemable. Good luck with that.
She suffers from this very badly in the Arthas novel, too, where aside from setting a couple of granaries on fire, she mostly wibbles about said ex-boyfriend, when she's not making out with him.
TyrandeWhisperwind has suffered from this as well, not just in World of Warcraft but in most of the Warcraft novels since. Even in Cataclysm, where most faction leaders have gotten at least one badass moment, if not multiple ones, so far all she has done amounts to staying in Darnassus and telling players about how Malfurion, her love, has returned and will fix everything.
While Sylvanas has generally been more at risk of jumping off the slippery slope, there was an especially ridiculous example in the Sunwell Trilogy manga, when she became a Distressed Damsel at the hands of a heretofore unheard of male Villain Sue in the Ghostlands. Bear in mind that the Ghostlands are the southern half of what's left of Eversong Forest, which Sylvanas would have been intimately familiar with as bloody Ranger-General of Quel'thalas.
X-Change Alternative, a Dating Sim gave an interesting variation on this trope when Badassdelinquent Kaoru gets himself changed into a girl and suddenly becomes completely useless in a fight, even against other girls. In his defense, the rather large breasts and substantial difference in weight would leave anyone a bit uncoordinated. By the end of the game, however, she gets used to it and takes down an entire gang (to which she earlier couldn't even hurt one member) in an Unstoppable Rage.
Terra Branford in Dissidia: Final Fantasy. The mind control, the need for rescue and protection, the timidity about using her powers. These things all happened at least once in her original game, Final Fantasy VI, but weren't the be-all end-all of her character, and she was ultimately strong, capable and knew what she wanted.
Webcomics
Megagi la Skunk from Sonichu was original a spike-wearing mohawked skunk who really stood out from the other female characters, all of whom were shallow female stereotypes with no personality (this is likely due to the author not creating her, but stealing her from a friend). She was rapidly chickified over her next couple of appearances until she became a literal cheerleader and indistinguishable from the other females in the cast. This is considered to be evidence that the author isn't just unable to write characters with distinct personalities; he's actively against it.
Western Animation
Æon Flux had this happen once, recoiling in terror from a man threatening to beat her with his wooden leg.
Played with in the episode A Last Time for Everything. Aeon lets Trevor create a copy of her for his own amusement and then switches places with her so she can experience a comfortable domestic life with him while the new Aeon takes over her old life. She then allows the copy to kill her, both to make Trevor miserable and because she was driven to despair by no longer being true to herself. Taken together with the above example (who was her boyfriend at the time) it's possible that being more vulnerable and "feminine" around men she cares about is just another aspect of her character, and one that she's not particularly proud of at that.
DuckTales: The reason Mrs. Beakley was hired as the triplets' nanny was because she was the only one "tough enough" to handle the little terrors, and for the first few episodes, she lives up to the job: breaking characters out of prison, escaping giant penguin-eating walruses, chariot-racing Vikings... and by The Movie, she's nothing more than a weeping fainting woman.
Kim Possible, protagonist of the show with her own name has this happening to her in nothing less than the ending part of the Grand Finale, while her Sidekick Boyfriend goes into God Mode Sue to save her.
Pepper Ann Parodied in an episode where a cartoon starring fictitious Comic Book heroine Tundra Woman turns her into a shopping-obsessed bimbo and her archenemy into her Shallow Love Interest boyfriend. Unfortunately, Pepper Ann's sister's protest campaign causes them to veer too far in the other direction.
Powerpuff Girls parodied this. While the girls starts remember stuff in a clip show, they remember that they once aged up to becoming teenagers. In this flashback they stop fighting and instead became shallow, boy-obsessed morons. This was a Take That from Craig McCracken to all the fanfiction writers.
Then again, Blossom and Bubbles are pretty girly in canon... and yet they're just as Bad Ass as the tomboyish Buttercup.
The Real Ghostbusters Janine Melnitz underwent Chickification in the third season and onward to appease the Moral Guardians: a new voice actress who toned down her old Bronx accent, a softer appearance, and a less harsh personality. This was actually justified in the 5th season episode "Janine, You've Changed"; she had made a deal with a ghost to be made over to win Egon's affections, and the ghost had hidden the changes from the cast. Ironically, the series had also found excuses to send her into the field more and more often, even as this was going on.
Spider-Man: The Animated Series Black Cat was awesomely awesome during the arc "Partners in Danger," which introduced her. She leaves near the end, but puts in one more guest appearance in which she's as cool as ever. Unfortunately, when she returns again for "Secret Wars," her role in the story is basically to fall off of things, scream, and be caught by Captain America while Petey looks on with jealousy. Maybe it was a Skrull impostor...
TMNT Karai from the 2003 series receives this to a degree. In her first appearance, she defeated both Leonardo and Raphael, establishing herself as a formidable ninja to be reckoned with. After that, she became a punching bag for the turtles and never again defeated them in a fair fight. In her next appearance she lost to Leonardo after a short battle where he promptly disarmed her and knocked her down. Later on in the season three finale, she did stab Leonardo but only when the Shredder knocked him into her sword. Immediately after that, she's taken out by Raphael with two kicks. Come season four, Karai has undergone a makeover and became the new Shredder, establishing herself by invading the turtles' lair and defeating Splinter one-on-one... but gets knocked out by Donatello with one kick. Once Leonardo returns from his journey abroad, he faces off against Karai and defeats her soundly, even sparing her life when he could've slain her. In her final battle against the turtles over a mystical artifact which could be used to resurrect the Demon Shredder, Karai faces Leonardo and Michelangelo and is humiliated by them once more, with Michelangelo dodging all her attacks and the two turtles grabbing her and throwing her out of an elevator, causing her to crash-land in an embarrassing position. This isn't to say that Karai doesn't get her moments but against the four turtles, she became little more than a jobber for them to show how advanced their skills were becoming.
X-Men The 90's animated series had a bad habit of doing this to Jean Grey. In the comics, she was one of the original X-Men, who even in The Sixties, could hold her own against formidable opponents. In the cartoon, however, she was the go-to girl if they needed a Distressed Damsel, playing the role of The Empath more than a contributing member.
Some other adaptations are worse due to the Never Live It Down status of the Dark Phoenix Saga. Writers seem to think that going Phoenix, going nuts, and dying is all she ever did, and when she's not Phoenix, being Scott's Shallow Love Interest and the girl Logan wants as hisShallow Love Interest is about all there is to her.
It's not? I remember reading the books at the same time as the X-Men cartoon came out and it was fairly accurate. Jean's self-determination and inner strength didn't really develop until the end of the 90's and around the time Morrison took over. Up until then, she was basically the team mom.
Parodied with Steve Trevor, love interest of Wonder Woman in his appearance at Batman The Brave And The Bold: In all other incarnations (comics, animatino, live action TV) he is a fairly proactive guy, in the Cold Opening of “Scorn of Star Shappire” he is a secret agent so confindent that Wonder Woman will come to her rescue that he doesn’t move a muscle to get out of a Death Trap, left her do all the work, and gushes in her presence. And this immortal line:
Steve Trevor: Have to say, being a secret agent is a cinch when you have a super-powered girlfriend.
Real Life
Gina Carano. Before being "discovered", she was an undefeated Thai kickboxer with a 6-0 record. She went on American Gladiators, posed in Maxim, partied in Hollywood, didn't fight for over a year, and went into her match against Cris Cyborg Santos obviously rusty and shot with nerves, and got beaten in one round. She has no future fights scheduled, and appears to be focusing on doing Hollywood and movies.
In the examples depicting young girls, this is arguably a case of Truth in Television considering that it's not uncommon for a girl who was previously more interested in, for example, books or sports, to suddenly drop those independent interests in favor of being the type of girl she thinks boys want once puberty hits. Generally-speaking, girls experience a significant drop in self-esteem (much more so than boys do) from childhood to adolescence, and it's at this point when girls' tendency to out-perform their male peers as children begins to reverse itself. This is common and documented enough that there are multiplepopularand influential books devoted to the subject of examining or attempting to reverse this phenomenon.
Also true for a lot of trans women, especially former athletes. The testosterone loss tends to result in significantly reduced muscle mass.
The psychological effects of estrogen have a role too (reduced aggression, greater tendency towards docility, etc). In most cases this is, however, the desired outcome.
A lot of products and shows aimed at younger girls will often release a new version or line where the character is dressed in more fashionable clothing and has an "updated" look that usually has them with slimmer, more "fashionable" body types, wearing makeup, and very often have longer, silkier hair. These new versions/lines tend to put more focus on fashion, makeup, shopping, getting dates, and other "girly" things. Strawberry Shortcake and Dora the Explorer have been going through this. The latter doesn't even have the monkey in her new line, and it's a little strange to see a character who previously put so much focus on adventure suddenly be obsessed with fashion.
