Badass tropes - now on: Action Girl

To clarify: you asked, "is being good a defining part of Action Girl?" If it's a subtrope, that implies the answer is no.

I never got the impression Dark Action Girl was limited to evil characters, just that a lot of them tend to be evil. The laconic/playing with describe it as "An evil (or morally dark-shaded grey) Action Girl".

Edited by Twiddler on Sep 20th 2020 at 9:15:17 AM

the laconic makes its sound like it stops at 'evil or morally gray action girl'

but the description spends more time focusing on having a bullish or aggressive personality type..

And also mentions several similarities with Dark Chick and Baroness in terms of her relationship to the heroes etc.

The aggressiveness could make it a distinct trope, but if feels way too broad. And being based on Action Girl which is just Badass Female doesn't help (per laconic: A Badass fighter who just happens to be female)

So you're looking at Badass (not a trope) and Dark Badass (probably not a trope)?

Edited by acrobox on Sep 20th 2020 at 10:15:08 AM

Barging in, but I have the same issue with Dark Action Girl that others have mentioned: "X, but evil" feels like an insufficient distinction.

Dark Action Girl still technically counts here. It's just "badass + girl + evil/dark."

A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.

should we start dewicking Dark / Action Girl? what's next?

Unlike some other Badass Tropes, Action Girl I think is inherently tropeworthy in that it subverts the very, very common tropes of Men Act, Women Are and Women Are Delicate. But it's so common in certain genres that it's not always worth noting. I would be ok with restricting its use to certain genres or starting an effort to split off more subtropes and move wicks to those. But cutting it outright/cutting all examples seems like a fool's endeavor as a Trope Of Legend. In any case I think this deserves its own cleanup thread, as it has 19185 wicks. If we focus on Action Girl, we'll never get anything else done in this project, and there are other Badass Tropes to be dealt with.

As for Dark Action Girl, I think there is a tropeworthy nugget where good girls keep their hands clean and have a non-action role, while any woman that fights is automatically evil. But this should probably require the Dark Action Girl to serve as a foil to The Chick or some female heroine. Would that make it redundant to The Dark Chick?

Edited by naturalironist on Oct 9th 2020 at 9:03:58 AM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

If there's any sort of "contrast" element to Dark Action Girl, I always thought it was more to the idea of female villains being seductive or whatever.

Not touching the "female badass+evil" tropes right now, I think I have a suggestion for Action Girl. Yes, it was originally a subversion of "powerful men" and "weak women", and many works do a lot to normalize "badass+female". My suggestion is to take that subversion one step further and make it a Sub-Trope to Foil. The Action Girl is a contrast to a "non action hero" (irrelevant of male/female/other). This would make Firefly character Zoe an Action Girl because she contrasts with her husband Wash, a Non-Action Guy. Brave has Merida, who enjoys combat training, in contrast to her mother, who is demure and clean, like The High Queen is supposed to be.

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I think the biggest problem with my suggestion is that many of the subtropes would no longer be subtropes to Action Girl.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

I like that, but it would be so hard to enforce.

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We dewicked Bad Ass itself even tho it took forever. Moved relevant parts of it to the analysis page and elsewhere, and turned it into a fanspeak term because it was too broad to be anything else.

There's potential in Action Girl Foil, but the only way to enforce that is to take it to TLP, launch it, and then sort stuff into it as appropriate during dewicking.

Dark Action Girl being more seductive is covered by Baroness or Femme Fatale. Her being a fighter as opposed to a light feminine non combatant is def not the intent of the trope. Shego as the trope image has Kim Possible as her main foil. I really feel like that one's covered by Dark Chick and its subtropes. And Light Feminine Dark Feminine as part of a foil pair.

Edited by acrobox on Oct 9th 2020 at 9:28:37 AM

You misread my post - I'm saying I always got the impression it was in contrast to those tropes. (Not uniformly, true, but I'm thinking along the lines of finding a more concrete concept than "badass + female + evil").

Edited by nrjxll on Oct 10th 2020 at 3:43:31 AM

That's what I expect might happen to Action Girl, too. That's why I suggest leaning hard into the Foil as it might preserve the oldest examples.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

should we draft that?

That's not what the page says. It says that while the Dark Action Girl is usually not The Vamp, there are exceptions. So the current definition only focuses on her being an evil woman who can fight, not that she uses violence instead of seduction.

I think the idea of an evil woman who uses violence more than/instead of seduction and manipulation may be tropeworthy.

i guess that could work. but would that be a slight redefinition of DAG to focus on the aggressive aspects, or has it actually decayed into "Dark Female Badass?"

Maybe worth a wick check if people feel strongly one way or the other?

Bump.

I'm mainly a fan of underrated media.

my vote is still to start the dewicking/disambig and make Action Girl a fanspeak term like Bad Ass itself.

any other tropes that people feel strongly should come out of it should go through TLP.

Dark Action Girl we can deal with as a separate trope, but lets not conflate the two and impede progress right now.

Edited by acrobox on Dec 1st 2020 at 8:18:55 AM

Honestly? I agree.

The historicity behind Action Girl can be mentioned in the description or turned into a different trope that stresses verifiable cultural impact on media (ex. Samus Aran).

Cases where it's expected for a female to be combat-capable is probably Gender Is No Object or something akin to that.

Edited by erazor0707 on Dec 1st 2020 at 4:39:10 AM

A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.

does anyone feel strongly the other way, otherwise can we get started?

To be honest, I am not particularly convinced we need to do anything larger to Action Girl than removing low-action examples.

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman

well I do agree that the trope isn't as relevant as it used to be, I don't think it needs an example sectionomy. Definitely needs a cleanup (and maybe stricter standards) though.

Macron's notes

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removing low action examples or any stricter standard feels it would be too vague to enforce. The 'female badass' premise is about as broad as 'badass' itself as you can get.

if there is a particular restriction, feels like we're actually making a unique trope that should go through TLP.

If not fanspeak like Badass, perhaps YMMV on how much action makes an action girl like Adorkable? it's at about the same level of decay as these other omnipresent ZCE magnets.

Edited by acrobox on Dec 11th 2020 at 5:57:53 AM

Adorkable was made YMMV primarily due to gushing and subjectively written examples. Not the issue here.

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Sure on the last point.