Does the Wonder Woman example really count? I saw no implications that Alkyone is a lesbian other than the fact that she's an Amazon, and it was never said that she and Phinea were lovers. It also seemed like an unnecessary pot shot at Gail Simone.

The entry deleted was mine. It's interesting that two people can read the same thing and come to such different conclusions. To me, scenes in Wonder Woman 38 blatantly implicated that Alkyone and Phinea were lovers. I thought the entire point was to make the later killing of Phinea even more despicable. The entry wasn't a swipe at Simone whom I like as writer but honest bafflement that such a constantly good writer would break out such a hateful cliche. That said, THE GAY wasn't explicitly stated so I can accept it's removal.

Yeah i definitely agree with this. It should be a trope where for editoral reasons (maybe protests from religious groups) or solely to get a reaction from minority groups (killing off a gay character just because gay people like it), a gay character is killed. Not "this is every example of when a gay character is killed" even though most of the examples have plenty of straight people dying also or there are logical reasons for the character dying (such as being in a cop show). All this trope comes off as is pandering to minorities instead of leaning more to the unfortunate implications side of things, but i guess that comes with the "fandom" sadly.

I don't think it's the ratio of gay/straight deaths in a particular work that matters so much as the implied subtext. A gay or lesbian character's death often comes with the implication that they died because they were gay or lesbian and should've just gone straight to avoid all that trouble. Or they're used as a token to either gain audience sympathy or make the audience sympathize with them less (depending on how they're portrayed) when they inevitably die.

It's sort of like the difference between Stuffed In The Fridge and Women In Refrigerators. Sure, male superheroes die and have awful stuff happen to them all the time, so female superheroes shouldn't expect to be treated any differently — but in practice, when a female superhero is killed off or otherwise rendered ineffectual, it often carries an uncomfortable air of female disempowerment and (sometimes sexual) humiliation. Basically, superheroes have a dangerous job and should be able to take care of themselves, while superheroines are women and should've stayed in the kitchen to begin with.

At least, that's how it comes across sometimes, too often for comfort, in both cases. So I think it's a matter of authorial intent and subtext. Which everyone will interpret differently, so it's a bit of a hard trope to pin down.

Not really. This should be easy - did the character die as a result of their sexuality? Do the gay characters have a higher chance of dying? If ten main characters died in a fight, for example, and the gay guy died too, is that really THIS trope?

Stuffed In The Fridge and Women In Refrigerators often hit this too - in a rush to correct an actual wrong in literature, the perception arises that any death of a female character or disempowerment storyline is automatically that trope. There shouldn't be the implication that women or LGBT characters can never die to avoid this.