Putting Action Girl in the Trenches

The discussion about Action Girl semi-officially starts here. To sum it up: Action Girl has multiple issues of scope (i.e. what amount of action actually counts as "action"), a lack of tropeworthy usage (beyond things such as "this female character dropkicks someone making advances as a Running Gag" or "this female character defends herself during a Zombie Apocalypse with a crowbar/bat/whatever"), ZCE's, and acting in place of more easily defined subtropes (like Lady of War or Effortless Amazonian Lift).

Some starting point suggestions:

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[4]

Silver and gold, silver and gold

Of course, it doesn't really start there - we've been trying to figure out what to do with Action Girl for a long time (and even this particular round had a bit of discussion when it first came up) - but that's where the current round of discussion began in earnest.

Edited by MorganWick on Oct 22nd 2023 at 2:29:50 AM

To be noteworthy, Action Girl has to be either of these:

• Being a strong female as a message.
• Being a strong female as an appeal.

Which can be expressed as:

• It's atypical behavior for the work's publication's social standard.
• It's atypical behavior for the work's setting's social standard.
• It's atypical behavior for the character, who is initially a Proper Lady.
• Other characters expecting a character to be weaker are shown as wrong.
• Fanservice / More Deadly Than the Male for Rule of Cool.

In short, to not be an "Action Person who is a Girl", the trope would have to pinpoint why being a Girl is significant.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I had thoughts on

Since most (physical fighter) Action Girl-s have had training and aren't untrained?

I can't remember an untrained hero unless they're using something special, like Transistor where Red is a singer basically using her boyfriend as a Magic Staff that can cast combat spells without training, and she's listed as an Action Survivor.

Edited by Malady on Oct 22nd 2023 at 4:19:37 AM

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

Well, as far as scope. I've always thought an Action Girl is supposed to be a female character who routinely takes active part in real fights and is good at it: the earlier comment about "a girl who violently reacts to unwanted sexual advances" ought to be a different trope entirely (and I feel like we probably have it somewhere).

Yeah, that one.

Edited by StarSword on Oct 25th 2023 at 12:51:07 PM

- Pervert Revenge Mode?

Disambig Needed: Help with those issues! tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13324299140A37493800&page=24#comment-576

Isn't that for Accidental Perversion, though?

Silver and gold, silver and gold

I think Action Girl should be a definition-only page giving a few of the earliest examples, linked to in descriptions of works and characters but with no entries of its own.

Stories don't tell us monsters exist; we knew that already. They show us that monsters can be trademarked and milked for years.

I think a problem is that people are listing every example on Action Girl instead of using one of the more specific subtropes listed on the page. There's even a banner saying the examples should only be action girls that don't fit into one of the subtropes, but just a quick look at the Video Games subpage proved otherwise.

CSP Cleanup Thread | All that I ask for ... is diamonds and dance floors

Yeah, but that's just a general thing of people not understanding how supertropes and subtropes work, it doesn't mean there's a problem with Action Girl itself.

... well this died surprisingly fast when send to its own thread

Late for the show, but from what's been already posted:

• I honestly don't get the "if it's more common, it's not a trope anymore" logic that so many people display itt and in Tropeworthy/Chairs thread; the trope in its current form *DOES NOT* rely on subverting genre expectations nor is a counter to Women Are Delicate. It has become its own thing, decades ago.
• The trope right now is ill-definied, period, because it's (which is what started the whole discussion) "Female character isn't delicate"
• Making it definition-only solves absolutely nothing (especially since the definition isn't perfect to begin with)
• The whole idea of a time strap was weird, to not call it disturbing. That's five different cans of worms that shouldn't be even touched.
• Agreed that people don't use the subtropes and just lug around the main trope.

The real question is how to define Action Girl, not if its a trope. Building it on "subverting expectations of Women Are Delicate" was a flawed idea from the get go, when the page was created, and pretty much half of the issues stem from that idea. Then there is a simple fact of evolution of the trope itself over time. But it's not the "unexpected" part that makes an Action Girl, or it explicitly requires timeframe to work, or else it will stop being a trope. Simply redefine it. It's like saying Final Girl isn't a thing, because every single slashed had their own (with maybe the exception of Friday the 13th, which had male Tommy Jarvis for a while, and THAT was the big twist)

Also, to not repeat myself, here are the posts from the Tropeworthy/Chairs

Edited by Tropiarz on Nov 5th 2023 at 9:16:41 PM

The issue is that the trope began as defined by subversion of gender norms. And it matters because without that, a woman kicking ass has no actual meaning going for it (without the subtropes providing new meanings). The subversion is the tropeworthy core that has long since been lost.

Keep in mind, this discussion has been going for years at this point across various threads. We aren't bringing up points out of nothing.

Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 5th 2023 at 2:06:02 PM

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

And my point is that clinging to that original, flawed definition is what's causing so much problems. It was badly defined right off the gate, all those years ago. Which is recurring issue with majority of old tropes launched in the early days of this site, yet you don't see people ripping their shirts, standing in the doorway and shouting "This definition might be bad, but it's tradition, damn it!".

And to ultimately repeat myself: "action-oriented female character that's tough and resourceful" is perfectly troppable. Insisting this only works as a subversion of Women Are Delicate is the root of the problem, because it stopped being a thing before pretty much everyone involved in the discussion was born (unless we are having some septogenarians around).

With other tropes being completely redefined during their clean-ups, I just don't get why there is such strong insistence in this case to venerate a current, flawed definition like some sort of sacred cow that just can't be touched. It has a bad base, on which even more broken assumption is build. Why not changing the base then? What's the obstacle?

Edited by Tropiarz on Nov 5th 2023 at 9:13:33 PM

The issue is that, well... what does it matter that this character is a woman if not for the subversion of expectations?

I don't care much for traditions. I was one of the most vocal about altering Five-Man Band, for starters, and that trope had a much worse case of broken definition caused my Fast Eddie fiat. I'm not saying this because "wahhh we need to keep the old definition", I don't care about that sort of thing. I care about tropes with meaning, though; and unless the woman's gender has some impact on the portrayal or purpose of her being a badass, there's nothing that makes her any different from ass-kicking dudes or kick-ass enbies or what have you.

Currently Working On: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Yeah, if them being female isn't significant in some way, then there's nothing to distinguish it from simply Badass.

If it was "poorly defined" from the beginning, even more reasons to untrope it.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

See, if Action Girl was never defined as what you want it to be, how do you know that what you want it to be isn't a different trope, as opposed to the trope this is trying to be? As I mentioned when you brought this up in the Chairs thread, it took a surprisingly long time for Lara Croft, the supposed "poster child" for the trope, to be mentioned on the page at all, suggesting to me she wasn't the archetype this page was going for, if any. There's nothing wrong with creating the page for the trope you want this to be under a different name and adding it to the Action Girl index.

Edited by MorganWick on Nov 6th 2023 at 4:37:34 AM

I think we are all ringing, just different bells in different churches (if that still makes any sense in English)...

My main gripe is that this trope, as defined initially, never worked out. It's build on a feeble premise, and people took it on a ride, partially re-definied it (but the old definition of "not a Damsel in Distress" remained). Is it trope decay? I'd say no, simply because the original definition was hamstrung (not due to narrowness of definition, but its approach to the matter straight out of stereotypical 50s). Is the new use of it misuse? Strangely, yes, because it became "Badass Female" without anything done to definition or the billion links connected to it.

Hence my comparison with Reality Ensues - it's in this very weird spot where what it is used for is a thing, but it is still a misuse within the frame of the existing definition. And in this case, the definition backs to the very early days of this page. Almost no tropes from that era "work" anymore (since they are oftentimes just Chairs or at best stock traits/plot devices), and are either slash-and-burned entirely, or reworked from a scratch. And I say this one can be reworked, as long as it goes beyond "ok, so the original definition was "not a Damsel in Distress" - because that just won't work and never really did. And as an index trope, it not only leaves all the issues existing with it, it will also cause a cascade failure of bunch of related tropes, as they are referencing the undefined, but hive-minded approach to Action Girl as essentially Female Badass. Which in turn sends us back to where Reality Ensues was pre-rework.

Here, now with a helpful diagram to explain why it's so messy: https://ibb.co/SRWwLB6. And the lack of proportion of parts is intentional, not accidental

PS

As for "poster child" - my original point was more about "who is this character that is used as an image for the trope if we alter the definition", rather than anything else. Which is tied with what the definition stands for on its own vs. what the trope is used for. But is it a bad image? Nope. It even picks the most action-oriented of the Laras, so someone obviously did think this through.

Edited by Tropiarz on Nov 10th 2023 at 4:14:56 PM

This trope has a lot problems, my suggestion would be making only a index page, but we can think of other suggestions.

Turning it into a straight-up index is not a bad idea honestly.

I like that idea as well.

Making it an index page sounds like a good idea to me.

Edited by Bullman on Nov 10th 2023 at 5:40:44 AM

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

Considering that the page has a lot of sub entries, a index probably is the best. We can make a definition page only too, but IDK if everyone will agree

I'm fine with an index

Victor of HGS S320 | "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember."

I question the "Action Girl being defined as the opposite of Damsel in Distress isn't workable" argument, given that "strong female character" is recognized as a stock character with that very same definition.

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