Balancing an Action Girl

Yeah, if you plan on having the imprisonment last for too long you could definitely be heading into Faux Action Girl territory. The longer she's in captivity the longer she'll take to recover and thus prevent her from doing anything action oriented storywise. It will probably be best to create a separate female character specifically to torture.

(Yikes, this is starting to sound like a discussion on how to humiliate women.)

@Eldritch Blue Rose: He's not having them strip the Action Girl so that they can scrape skin cells off her clothes. They're presumably — though that wasn't stated yet — going to get the DNA in some other, more pragmatic way. The reason they're taking her clothes is to dress the clone in them so it looks like her.

Here's a scene I just came up with for my new(ish) project, in which two Action Girls — one a werewolf, and one a Badass Normal — are captured by a tribe of cannibals who want to eat their brains (the reason it's the brains that are being eaten is, to put it as shortly as possible, Psychic Powers). Both women are in distress for a time, but they handle it differently (and each one like an Action Girl rather than a False Action Girl — see how you don't need French for that trope anymore?).

Action Girl #1 is a werewolf, so unless they use a silver blade to open up her head — and she can smell silver, so if they had it on them she'd know — she'll just grow her brain back and then regenerate from the rest of the damage. So she lets herself "die", then when their backs are turned she gets back up and kicks their asses.

Action Girl #2 awesomely inverts Standard Female Grab Area by inflicting a spiral fracture of the wrist on the guy holding the knife, then takes the blade and slices up the others.

So, I know that's a pretty specific scenario and I'm aware that your Action Girl is intended to be more mundane than the werewolf example, but I hope it helped a little bit in showing how an Action Girl can be distressed and come out of it by herself.

^ Go-Go Enslavement?

The physical torture is more like a Shout-Out to the Cold-Blooded Torture scene presented by Volgin in Metal Gear Solid 3.

About how long the character is caught... well her captor is a Crazy-Prepared Complete Monster who is one of the most powerful beings in the setting, and said Action Girl isn't exactly high tier storywise (but still capable), so if she escapes very quickly, it undermines the captor's strength and Crazy-Prepared status. In short, she's in for a long time being captured.

And... well, the clone's act really shows off a great Break the Cutie moment (the Action Girl isn't exactly a really gruff and butch girl, she's sensitive). She would've been completely crushed, but thanks to an encouraging from a spirit or such, she's able to find the strength to recover, and then managed to get out, with a little help from that spirit. Ass kicking ensue after that.

Was that a Faux Action Girl?

Considering the ass kicking part was relegated to the last sentence I would say: Yeah, she's useless.

edited 5th Nov '10 3:40:46 PM by SandJosieph

If you really wanted to balance out an Action Girl, you could do what I do with Trigger-Happy (and yes, that's what her friends call her). Her problem isn't whether or not she can hit the target, but whether or not she should pull the trigger. Trigger has a history of shooting hostages which does pretty badly for her reputation and it's something she is really trying to work on. You don't need to balance Bad Assery with helplessness. You just need to show that their actions have consequences.

edited 5th Nov '10 3:50:32 PM by SandJosieph

Uh... I didn't say the torture scene was her last scene, though. It probably happened in the middle...

It doesn't matter where her torture scene is in the story, the fact that she spends much of the story in captivity means that she won't be able to do much action in the first place and as such negates her status as an Action Girl. What you have is a Faux Action Girl who merely Takes A Level In Bad Ass at the very end. Just because the villain is Crazy-Prepared doesn't mean he has to be successful every time. You could have it so that if the girl escaped his clutches the first few times it actually helps his plans.

Well, don't we have a trope for an Action Girl that is caught, but retains her kickassery once she's freed? (It works on guys too!)

Badass in Distress

Badass in Distress usually has the Bad Ass in distress for only a short amount of time (2-3 scenes at most), not half the story. If you break her to the point where she requires others to help her, it lowers her Bad Ass points even further.

The catching period didn't take half the story, if you ask me.

Also, Badass in Distress also counts when said Badass NEEDS help to get free, before resuming to kick ass.

edited 5th Nov '10 7:59:10 PM by ChrisX

So what other parts does the girl get to play in the story? So far the only thing I've seen done is her get captured, cloned, broken, and humiliated. It doesn't really balance her arc if that's the only role she serves.

Ass-kicking, be a Mama Bear or sorts, be a Team Mom, overall be kick-ass in plot points, helping the team in action or sorts? Overall, it's not like she just do nothing, and her attempts for ass-kicking before fail

I meant stuff that's plot related.

Badass In Distress usually has the Bad Ass in distress for only a short amount of time (2-3 scenes at most), not half the story.

This. I know this because I have a similar situation planned. One character established as an Action Girl in her Establishing Character Moment becomes subject to (albeit the most brief example there is) the Badass in Distress.

Here's the thing, she's saved by the main character. But before you can even begin to cry Chickification and Faux Action Girl, in the very next 2 chapters the script is flipped and the main character is the Badass in Distress and she's the one doing the saving.

Both events serve a point. That all it takes is a simple surprise or mistake and you go from seemingly unstoppable to at your enemies mercy.

If you're really worried, like others have said, have similar things happen to male characters. Everyone has weak moments now and again.

Been 2 years. I've dropped the previous part, and starting clean from start. But then I ran into a problem.

I've got this at least competent girl that can at least take on 100 mooks, or single-handedly defeat a boss-like creature. However, she gets captured twice for this one reason: Someone she held dear was being threatened, either with a bomb, poison, or whatever, and if she doesn't comply, that dear person gets it.

That is another Faux Action Girl?

No. Stupidly sentimental though. Better to consider the captives dead and work on vengance. Rescue or honored deal or release is almost impossible.

Not sure why being drugged/raped/tortured should not be used....

Anyway, one of the drawbacks to being an Action Girl VS Action Guy would probably getting a Period and the cramps/general suck, that goes with it.

Unless your Action Girl has reached the level where she does not get periods anymore.

edited 14th May '12 2:37:18 AM by Natasel

Um, that's considering if the Action Girl isn't someone who's also sweet and kind in the same time. Especially when said hostage was some completely dear friend. Why would you call it stupid? I am very much tempted to say "That's just completely heartless leaving a friend like that to die just to avoid blemishing the perfect record of 'never getting caught'!"

Thread hop.

I think you're going about this the wrong way.

The way to make her not be a 'god mode sue' is to, y'know, don't write her as a god mode sue. Give her real flaws and make her antagonists real people. Just having her being super powerful and unbeatable, but throwing in a couple of fetishy captivity scenes is not going to make her more realistic, interesting or likeable.

Agreed. Writing action girls is no different to writing and keeping a normal action character realistic. If you think gender's a huge factor in it, you're doing it wrong, probably. Outside of things like cramps.

Periods don't exist in fiction unless it is dramatically convenient, you're trying to milk cheap and possibly misogynistic laughs, or they're discussed. We have a trope about that.

(Besides, the hell is that a balancing factor? It's not like everyone female has crippling PMS, or even noticeable symptoms, and there are ways around the issue entirely.)

In itself, that whole do what the hostage taker says is almost a whole separate cliche and pretty discredible. Most of the time you actually see it played out in modern works it's for a "haha you're a moron" moment.

The thing about hostage-taking is that there's no "right way" to handle the situation. The whole "the government doesn't negotiate with terrorists" thing is hyperbole. For the most part, the government won't immediately give in to kidnappers' demands, but refusal to work with them at all is just as bad. Russia took a stance like this at one point, and it resulted in a horrific disaster.

The question I have is whether or not your protagonist is The Only One that can do anything about this. If she is, why? If not, how reliable and helpful are her allies? How wide is the bad guys' surveillance? Do they know what she is doing at every moment? If so, how? If not, what's stopping her from secretly subverting their plans even as she pretends to go along with them?

Kidnappers in fiction tend to have an insane number of eyes and ears everywhere to make sure the protagonist is following their directions. However, the more people they have, the more the bad guys risk betrayal from within (maybe there's a Reverse Mole on the heroine's side) and the fewer people they have, the less omnipresent their surveillance actually is.

I think you're going about this the wrong way.

The way to make her not be a 'god mode sue' is to, y'know, don't write her as a god mode sue. Give her real flaws and make her antagonists real people. Just having her being super powerful and unbeatable, but throwing in a couple of fetishy captivity scenes is not going to make her more realistic, interesting or likeable.

Plus, it's an incredibly creepy way to go about writing a female character. Unless you're writing porn, how you shape your characters should not be primarily dictated by what makes your penis hard. Person first, sex object second. Person first, sex object second. Person first, sex object second.

Seriously, dude, can't you think of a way to make your character flawed and interesting apart from 'occasionally gets captured and tied up in a bondageriffic manner'?

edited 14th May '12 7:46:25 AM by Iaculus