It feels tropeworthy to me if what it's describing is "the characters find a person who has been somehow sealed in a container", since that sounds like it would frequently introduce a new character or reveal a new antagonist (or new evil actions of a known antagonist), and isn't redundant with any of the tropes you listed (or any of the Sealed X in a Can tropes where the person was specifically sealed away because they're powerful). But the description isn't clear on that, I agree that I don't see why it would be Always Female, and I haven't gone through the examples to see how many actually fit that description.
The link to the original YKTTW in the archived discussion is broken, but here's
the oldest copy of the page in the Internet Archive, if it helps.
...which I'm not sure it does because the second paragraph talks about this as a way for nerds to fantasize about being the person who finds the girl, and might mislead about the intended point of the trope.
Confounded by avatar changes
I've started a wick check, and most of the valid examples fall under "character is introduced to the story by being found in a container". There's a lot of ZCEs and potholes, however.
RJ Savoy
I think this should be limited to the moment of reveal: POV character unexpectedly comes across someone (alive) left in some kind of stasis. Human Mail is when the audience knows someone is being packed up and why. But it needs a clearer scope and likely a rename.
Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.
the Retromancer
A container version of Fall-in Angel can work.
TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup
Confounded by avatar changes
The wick check is finished. Around 66% of the wicks either belonged under another trope (such as Human Mail), were PSOC-like examples that only documented that someone was in a box or were ZCEs or potholes.
Waffle Cat (she/her)
I think improving the description would help — it's necessary to note the difference between Girl In A Box and Human Mail and Sealed X in a Can. And a clean-up, of course.
If the trope keeps being misused after that, then bring it to the TRS. Also, I think we should wait until then before we think about renaming it.
Edited by Asterlix on Jan 4th 2023 at 12:02:49 PM
Here there be cats.
Girl In A Box feels very much like Chairs to me. Any possible meaning is covered by other tropes, such as Packed Hero, Human Mail and Body in a Breadbox. It also suffers from scope issues; the description heavily implies that it is Always Female, but there are on-page examples that mention male characters.