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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
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And would that have happened if Gwen hadn't been there, entirely of her own volition despite Peter warning her it was dangerous? No. Because Harry wouldn't have been able to put two and two together with only one two.
I'm all for hating on Amazing Spider-Man 2, but credit where credit's due. Gwen's death could easily have been avoided if she'd stayed out of the action. The main reason it sucks was because her character and romance with Peter was one of the best things about the reboot.
edited 4th Apr '15 10:36:18 PM by Khfan429
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I told you, I'm not defending the prexisting Gwen death stories. I'm just saying hypothetically, the concept isn't inherently worthless.
I mean, my opinions of the prexisting Gwen deaths are: the classic Silver Age one is cheesy and stupid, just like everything else in the Silver Age, the Ultimate one came out of nowhere and was stupid, and the ASM 2 one was okay but there was too much going on in that movie so it was kinda rushed. So I'm, not, like, some kinda super fan of killing Gwen. I just don't get all RAWR WOMEN STUFFED IN THE FRIDGE ALWAYS SUCKS AAAAAAGH about it.
Futhermore, I fail to see how Gobbie targeting Gwen is a gender thing. If Peter had been gay and dating Flash Thompson, and Flash Thompson was in easy reach of the Green Goblin, he'd have killed Flash Thompson. If Uncle Ben came back from the dead somehow, Goblin would've killed him again. If Peter had a pet gerbil, Goblin would've dropped that gerbil off a bridge.
edited 4th Apr '15 10:41:19 PM by spashthebandragon
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.
I just had this beautiful thought of Green Goblin trying to drop every single person Peter knows of a bridge and ending up overcrowding it and not managing to push them off it because they're too many people and too heavy for him.
But yes, as a concept, "killing the love interest" is effectively unisex. Female characters have to deal with their loved ones being targeted just as often.
"All you Fascists bound to lose."![]()
Oh please, like Marvel would ever make Peter Parker gay. Like, did you see the online shitstorm that fanboys had where they pretty much lost their minds when Andrew Garfield tried to raise the possibility of Peter being gay or bi? So yeah, in this case, I would argue that it pretty much is a gender thing. And imo, fridging is pretty worthless; I'm not a big fan of a concept which treats characters as props to mine anger/emotional reactions.
edited 4th Apr '15 10:48:53 PM by higherbrainpattern
It's only a gender thing because most superheroes with civilian S Os are male. A female superhero will generally be in a relationship with another superhero.
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But... characters are props to mine emotional reactions. Hence their status as fictional characters and not, you know, real people. Isn't that the whole point of escapism?
I think what you mean to say is you hate characters being used for cheap shock value and nothing else.
Well, let's say it's a sex thing in practice but not in principle, then.
edited 4th Apr '15 10:54:40 PM by spashthebandragon
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.
Yeah, I do agree with that sentiment. Like I said, I hated Gwen's death in the Ultimate comics. The only way I could think to kill a character like that without it being cheap shock value is a Heroic Sacrifice or a Messianic Archetype, none of which really make sense for Gwen and would only retread ground Uncle Ben's already covered.
Hmm... Maybe if Goblin threw a bomb at Spider-Man and Gwen jumped in the way...
edited 4th Apr '15 10:58:10 PM by spashthebandragon
I've got fanfics for Frozen, Spectacular Spider-Man, Crash Bandicoot, and Spyro the Dragon.If Electro had killed Gwen Stacy in ASM 2,would you still have a problem with her death?
Reasonable consequences are for the birds, man.
I personally would.
Edit: Also, killing a gay Peter's boyfriend would be problematic in its own way. Bury Your Gays is also a thing.
edited 4th Apr '15 11:08:18 PM by Bocaj
Forever liveblogging the AvengersWhy should Gwen have to die at all? Fridging is usually a sign of bad writing all around even when it happens to men. I think the fact that she's female does make it even worse because of the Unfortunate Implications, but even if Peter was Penelope (or not) and Gwen was Grant Stacy all along and died in the same circumstances it would still be a horrible waste of a good character for shock value. Maybe no longer sexist, but still a Wall Banger.
Fridging male characters with more frequency to equal that of female characters, as some have suggested (especially regarding Quicksilver in Ao U) would not be a way for the medium to move forward. Sure it would reduce the Double Standard, but that's just because it means people are now settling for writing their male characters as poorly as their females, not a sign of actual progress.
That said, I think it's a bit much to assume that a female character dying to cause a man angst is inherently misogynist (not necessarily saying that anyone is claiming that right here specifically). The problem is as mentioned before in the Double Standard. In a world where such deaths became equal-opportunity enough that Gender Is No Object, it would be silly to continue insisting it's misogynist, because at that point said person is basically asking for the Double Standard to come back and that women should be intrinsically held to a different standard in storytelling than men, which is obviously a sexist way of thinking. Not that such a change would happen anytime soon enough to matter, but I don't like the idea of treating the death of a female character for a man's suffering as an absolute form of sexism, or that all Collateral Angst where the character dies is automatically Stuffed in the Fridge, which is what I think Spashthebandragon is trying to get at.
edited 4th Apr '15 11:40:11 PM by AlleyOop
Well, if I remember right, the reason the writers decided to kill her in the first place was to avoid having Peter get married, so there was a reason for it (A stupid reason, but a reason).
On a more ranty note, I get very peeved when I see people paint Steve's "death" as a form of getting Stuffed in the Fridge for Peggy Carter's arc. I think it's disrespectful to both of their characters and to Steve's sacrifice, not to mention it adds to the misconception that any case where someone dies to cause someone else angst or motivate them is necessarily this trope. According to that logic, Bucky was Stuffed in the Fridge too when he fell off the train (which is a thing that could hypothetically be argued, although I've never seen it and would personally disagree even if it was).
It is a running issue with the trope that it's all too easy to interpret it as "love interest dies"
"All you Fascists bound to lose."I think the main thing that separates Stuffed in the Fridge from the more general and less negative Friendly Target is whether the death invalidates or diminishes the character for the sake of either in or out of universe shock value.
Agency, while the best way to ensure that characterization isn't invalidated, isn't necessarily the key component. A character who is killed of no fault of their own, but whose death is foreshadowed or led up to in a meaningful way probably shouldn't be considered Stuffed in the Fridge. Nor characters whose death is more than just done for emotional response but which actually mean something in the larger scheme of the plot, either.
I legitimately don't know enough about Gwen's initial characterization to know whether she applied for that in the beginning.
edited 5th Apr '15 1:59:21 AM by KnownUnknown
I think the problem with the original story was that her being there had nothing to do with her. She just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time and her dying was more a shock because "the damsel never dies". With ASM 2 she was there because she chose to be there, her last act was a heroic one which was not about rescuing Peter but about protecting the whole city and when she died, I grieved for her and not for the pain her loss would cause Peter.
Well, it is most likely the only one we get. I doubt that Marvel will repeat it. Or cast anyone else in the role for a long time. I wouldn't be surprised if they leave Spider-man girl-friend free and introduce Black Cat instead this time around, before eventually shifting to Mary-Jane down the line (read: When their Spider-man is at least in College).
Honestly, I think in any character's narrative, perma killing the character is the most boring thing to do; because it ends that narrative.
If the Green Goblin/Peter had put Gwen in the hospital with a broken spine; you get to have the same guilt/responsibility/tragedy story you would have told anyway, but still have Gwen around to continue her story.
Of course in the Silver Age they didn't wan to continue telling any stories about Gwen because Mary Jane was a lot more engaging to write and it didn't make sense to have Peter and Gwen split up.
edited 5th Apr '15 10:21:44 AM by Whowho
Also, it allows a storyline of the police force turning against Peter; because the daughter of hero cop George Stacy quite clearly got put in the hospital because of Spider-boy. Without Gwen it's very difficult for a young Peter, in costume or not, to have personal storylines with the police force.
(I've always felt like adaptations do a really poor job of giving the public a reason to dislike the Web-head, the original did it well by having Peter be a childish immature dick to Jolly Jay Jonah Jameson Junior, but nobody bothers to tell that story anymore.)

Waitwaitwait.
People had respect for Greg Weisman?
Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.