Suggestion: Final Girl

Here's a collage of several Final Girls defending themselves in the climax of their works.

Pictured are Laurie Strode from Halloween, Sidney Prescott from Scream, and Ginny from Friday the 13th Part 2.

edited 22nd Jun '15 3:25:53 PM by Morgenthaler

Honestly, I'm not sure that any one pic would get this across without a lampshade...you'd almost need a collage of all the dead characters plus the one that's left.

Yeah, these are not good illustrations of the trope.

It would be better if you show how she defeats the killer then showing her afraid with a weapon. That way we know he's not going to kill any more.

Well, I think it's a solid image. I personally like it very much since the characters as we know them are diverse yet similar, demonstrating a pattern or trope. Expanding the image to show other classic final girls like Jess Bradford, Alice Hardy, or Ellen Ripley (all three take up a weapon in their final confrontations too) may expand and show its diversity. The benefit of having a collage shows that there is a legit trope here.

For simplicity's sake though, you could probably just show Laurie Strode's image with the knife (without the other ones) and it would work just as well just because she's the gold standard and Trope Codifier, embodying the trope at its core (the wholesome main girl who outlives her friend and confronts the killer at the end).

It just depends on what tropers want for the page.

Who?

^^ That's basically my line of reasoning for the collage. The point where they take up the killer's weapon is the defining point in the Final Girl's character arc, and showing several examples of that establishes that it is a recognizable and tropeable pattern in media. It's far better than just a random character picture, and unless there's concern for rampant misuse because the image is thought to be misleading, I would think that it's far preferable to having the page imageless.

I say use the image. It illustrates the trope at its core and is much better than leaving the page imageless.

I agree completely with post 2: take one of the photos used in the suggestion, and group it with pictures of all the fatalities in the same movie with big red X's over them or something like that (maybe combine with a Kindaichi Case Files style thing where the pics of the deceased are in black and white instead of color).

I think something like that would be clearer and more succinct (as opposed to having a bunch of different, somewhat redundant pictures from different properties in one illustration).

edited 19th Jul '15 8:57:57 PM by Leaper

Are you thinking something like this? I found various images online of the victims (and their vices) of Halloween (the Trope Codifier) along with the wholesome and innocent Laurie Strode confronting the killer at the end, knife and all.

My only concern is if any of these fall under copyright since none of these images are my own. I am always a bit unsure of the rules of that and such.

edited 21st Jul '15 9:16:25 AM by DeeJay

They should be fine, I'm 99.9999% certain they're still shots from the movie and one frame from an hours-long production is about as "excerpt" as it gets. I like that collage.

Even an entire frame of a film that's only 10 seconds long is less than half of one percent of the work.

^^^ It's not going to get any clearer than that.

It works.

Bump; anyone else for 10?

for 10.

Eh, sure, #10

What does 10 represent? Characters that didn't make it and the one that does? It's not really clear to me.

Yes. What about, in addition to the color difference, a red diagonal line (or even an X) was added over each of those frames?

Would you support the collage if Annie, Bob, and Linda's pictures in the above (#10) collage each had a skull to designate death to the character, while leaving Laurie Strode's image alone?

If you guys think the skulls work, I can do it for the other images as well and put the collage back together to look as it does above with the addition of the skulls to indicate death to the characters. I think the skull makes the point without using lines.

As for the crossed-out images, I will concede that the first movie to ever use a 'slasher' formula (and final girl trope) (1932's Thirteen Women) utilized a similar technique in its narrative, where the killer has images of her soon-to-be victims and she's crossing them out as she's killing them. The similarity of that to this would probably be a good case for supporting this method. But am I the only one who feels this makes the image look a bit tacky and/or awkward?

edited 6th Aug '15 5:58:09 PM by DeeJay

I think a cross works.

I prefer a skull and crossbones. It's more thematic and leaves the deceased's vice more clearly visible then there would be if a red cross was drawn over it.

Honestly, I think the red overlay is distinctive enough.

Alright, tropers. Sorry for the delay, I wanted to see if any one else had an opinion. I do agree that perhaps just the red overlay alone might lead to some ambiguity in terms of what the collage is to represent. I think the skull and crossbones is my preferred option to distinguish the victims from Laurie's in the collage, as opposed to literally crossing the image of the victims out.

What does everyone think of this (updated) collage? Does adding the little skulls to each victim clear up any ambiguity about what each photo means to anybody who may not understand the trope?

Assuming we have the image as close as we are gonna get to what the trope stands for, when do we add it to the trope's page?

edited 13th Aug '15 3:51:41 PM by DeeJay

Maybe it's just me but this feels like the old Wicked Stepmother image. It doesn't look like there's any way the alive girl can defeat the attacker.