1 00:00:00,060 --> 00:00:01,879 This video was sponsored by World Anvil! 2 00:00:01,879 --> 00:00:06,160 100% guaranteed to not do terrible things to supporting characters. 3 00:00:06,160 --> 00:00:10,610 I’ve talked about this before in its own trope talk, but character deaths are a big 4 00:00:10,610 --> 00:00:11,610 deal. 5 00:00:11,610 --> 00:00:14,660 They’re momentous occasions both in-story and out because not only is the character 6 00:00:14,660 --> 00:00:18,560 dead, which is obviously a bummer on its own, but it also means the total loss of all future 7 00:00:18,560 --> 00:00:20,210 potential for a given character. 8 00:00:20,210 --> 00:00:25,419 All their arcs, dynamics, relationships, everything - all lost in exchange for a one-shot gutpunch. 9 00:00:25,419 --> 00:00:29,410 Now most authors recognize that this is a hefty loss for their story, so they make damn 10 00:00:29,410 --> 00:00:31,369 sure the impact is worth the price. 11 00:00:31,369 --> 00:00:35,700 True non-fakeout main character deaths are often heroic sacrifices, protracted tragedies, 12 00:00:35,700 --> 00:00:39,280 or carefully-woven resolutions to their arcs after all the loose ends have been tied up. 13 00:00:39,280 --> 00:00:42,480 They’re usually given time and narrative weight to reflect this cost. 14 00:00:42,480 --> 00:00:46,000 The surviving characters will process their grief, reflect on what the loss means to them, 15 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,110 and are often fundamentally changed by the experience - maybe carrying on their legacy, 16 00:00:50,110 --> 00:00:53,460 setting off on a lengthy quest for vengeance or viewing their layered and complex life 17 00:00:53,460 --> 00:00:55,820 as a personal inspiration to guide their way forward. 18 00:00:55,820 --> 00:00:57,350 This is not that trope. 19 00:00:57,350 --> 00:01:00,890 “Fridging” is the cute shortened form of the full name of this trope, “stuffed 20 00:01:00,890 --> 00:01:04,479 in the fridge”, named for a now-infamous issue of a Green Lantern comic where green 21 00:01:04,479 --> 00:01:08,369 lantern Kyle Rayner’s girlfriend is murdered by the villain Major Force and stuffed in 22 00:01:08,369 --> 00:01:12,780 the fridge for him to find when he gets home.“Fridging” is the very specific subset of character deaths 23 00:01:12,780 --> 00:01:17,420 wherein a character is unceremoniously and brutally killed specifically and solely for 24 00:01:17,420 --> 00:01:20,679 the narrative purpose of hurting another, more important character. 25 00:01:20,679 --> 00:01:24,460 This motivation can be watsonian or doylist - as in, an in-universe villain motivation 26 00:01:24,460 --> 00:01:26,380 or out-of-universe authorial intent. 27 00:01:26,380 --> 00:01:30,509 In watsonian cases, the killer is specifically motivated to kill the fridge-ee because it’ll 28 00:01:30,509 --> 00:01:31,869 hurt the character who cares about them. 29 00:01:31,869 --> 00:01:35,930 In doylist cases, the killer might have all kinds of personal reasons to want to unceremoniously 30 00:01:35,930 --> 00:01:39,630 brutalize this character, but the author’s motivation in killing this character is only 31 00:01:39,630 --> 00:01:41,570 to make the more important character upset. 32 00:01:41,570 --> 00:01:45,359 The only narrative role this death plays in-story is hurting a different character, and it’s 33 00:01:45,359 --> 00:01:47,679 still framed as unceremonious and brisk. 34 00:01:47,679 --> 00:01:51,289 Fridging almost always refers to character deaths, but sometimes the character is instead 35 00:01:51,289 --> 00:01:55,119 subjected to some kind of horrible torture or fate worse than death with the same overall 36 00:01:55,119 --> 00:01:58,719 impact - the character that really matters isn’t the one targeted for the horror, but 37 00:01:58,719 --> 00:02:02,509 the hero who’s reacting to it, and the fridge-ee’s personal reaction to their awful situation 38 00:02:02,509 --> 00:02:06,969 is usually glossed over in favor of how much that focus character suffers by proxy. 39 00:02:06,969 --> 00:02:10,789 Because of Reasons, fridging disproportionately affects female characters, often barely-developed 40 00:02:10,789 --> 00:02:14,580 moms or love interests whose only salient character traits are “the hero likes them”, 41 00:02:14,580 --> 00:02:18,260 so when they’re brutalized or murdered, often offscreen, their more nuanced male hero 42 00:02:18,260 --> 00:02:21,220 fam slash love interests can become deeply unhappy about it. 43 00:02:21,220 --> 00:02:25,260 In fact, there’s a very easy litmus test to help determine if a character death constitutes 44 00:02:25,260 --> 00:02:29,110 “fridging” or not: if it could happen entirely offscreen and have just as much impact 45 00:02:29,110 --> 00:02:32,950 on the story - especially if it does happen offscreen - it’s probably fridging. 46 00:02:32,950 --> 00:02:37,090 Its only narrative impact is how it bums out the more important characters with no exploration 47 00:02:37,090 --> 00:02:40,069 of how it affects the character actually being brutalized or killed. 48 00:02:40,069 --> 00:02:42,930 Getting killed offscreen is such a dismissive f*ck-you to a character. 49 00:02:42,930 --> 00:02:46,269 There’s no sendoff, no admission of tragedy - the character becomes nothing more than 50 00:02:46,269 --> 00:02:48,260 a plot device for someone else’s angst. 51 00:02:48,260 --> 00:02:50,350 Side character or not, nobody deserves that. 52 00:02:50,350 --> 00:02:53,680 Now the “offscreen” test isn’t quite enough to say if a death is fridging or not. 53 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:57,640 See, while fridging is intended solely to upset another character, well-written character 54 00:02:57,640 --> 00:03:00,879 deaths almost always upset the other characters too - and since the character themself is 55 00:03:00,879 --> 00:03:04,819 usually too dead to care, most of the lingering ramifications of their death only affect the 56 00:03:04,819 --> 00:03:06,969 other characters, typically by… upsetting them. 57 00:03:06,969 --> 00:03:10,190 So the distinction between a fridging death and a non-fridging death isn’t immediately 58 00:03:10,190 --> 00:03:12,180 obvious from just this definition. 59 00:03:12,180 --> 00:03:16,590 The key difference is a fridging usually makes the other characters upset briefly and shallowly, 60 00:03:16,590 --> 00:03:19,340 while a solid character death makes the other characters grieve. 61 00:03:19,340 --> 00:03:23,480 Frequently, fridged characters are never spoken of again after the arc they died in is resolved, 62 00:03:23,480 --> 00:03:24,970 or even before it’s resolved. 63 00:03:24,970 --> 00:03:28,390 (Try and convince me that Luke Skywalker was still bummed about Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru 64 00:03:28,390 --> 00:03:29,390 ten minutes later.) 65 00:03:29,390 --> 00:03:32,890 So as a second fridging litmus test I’d like to propose a corollary of the iconic 66 00:03:32,890 --> 00:03:36,629 Sexy Lamp Test, which explores if a story would meaningfully change if a character was 67 00:03:36,629 --> 00:03:37,659 replaced with a sexy lamp. 68 00:03:37,659 --> 00:03:39,440 This is the property damage test. 69 00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:43,159 If a dead character could be replaced by someone’s prized pokemon card collection and their loss 70 00:03:43,159 --> 00:03:47,640 would have the same or more emotional impact on the plot, that character was probably fridged. 71 00:03:47,640 --> 00:03:51,430 Now this is kind of a rarity for this show - but Fridging is a bad trope. 72 00:03:51,430 --> 00:03:56,140 It’s not a frequently misused trope or a hard to handle trope, it’s bad writing. 73 00:03:56,140 --> 00:03:59,720 Character deaths are not bad trope-wise, but fridging specifically indicates a lack of 74 00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:02,660 respect for the fridged character and their narrative potential. 75 00:04:02,660 --> 00:04:05,519 Fridging weighs a character’s potential worth to the story and concludes that all 76 00:04:05,519 --> 00:04:09,069 their future potential and growth and dynamics in the narrative are worth less than another 77 00:04:09,069 --> 00:04:11,780 character feeling kinda bad for a little while. 78 00:04:11,780 --> 00:04:15,580 This is reflected both outside of the story and in the story, since this character’s 79 00:04:15,580 --> 00:04:19,180 killer - be it the character who kills them or the author who makes the call - demonstrably 80 00:04:19,180 --> 00:04:22,420 couldn’t give a sh*t about them in their own right, instead choosing to focus entirely 81 00:04:22,420 --> 00:04:26,210 on how ending this character’s life will make another character upset for an arc or 82 00:04:26,210 --> 00:04:27,210 two. 83 00:04:27,210 --> 00:04:30,240 Their own life and death isn’t as important or deserving of focus as hurting the hero 84 00:04:30,240 --> 00:04:31,240 by proxy. 85 00:04:31,240 --> 00:04:34,419 This successfully indicates that the killer is a terrible person, but it also reflects 86 00:04:34,419 --> 00:04:36,680 a level of dismissiveness from the author. 87 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:41,040 A love interest/beloved character can be killed (or deeply, deeply hurt) in a way that predominantly 88 00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:44,590 affects the plot by hurting another character - without it feeling like fridging. 89 00:04:44,590 --> 00:04:46,800 This is largely a matter of the execution, pun intended. 90 00:04:46,800 --> 00:04:51,020 If the death is unceremonious and quick (and offscreen), that’s a pretty bad sign, since 91 00:04:51,020 --> 00:04:54,470 it doesn’t really give the character their due - it doesn’t highlight the tragedy of 92 00:04:54,470 --> 00:04:58,950 their life and potential lost, it just focuses on why and how this makes the main character 93 00:04:58,950 --> 00:04:59,950 sad. 94 00:04:59,950 --> 00:05:03,819 Every character is the hero of their own story, and if they die just to further someone else’s, 95 00:05:03,819 --> 00:05:07,669 it denies that character the basic dignity of being their own person, who exists as more 96 00:05:07,669 --> 00:05:09,500 than just a prop in someone else’s life. 97 00:05:09,500 --> 00:05:13,620 It takes their death and the loss of their entire future life and minimizes it down into 98 00:05:13,620 --> 00:05:16,560 a short, brief emotional impact on another character. 99 00:05:16,560 --> 00:05:17,560 It's dismissive. 100 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:21,300 Now we’re about to enter the Spicy Take Zone, because you know the MCU is my old favorite 101 00:05:21,300 --> 00:05:25,810 punching bag, but personally this is how I felt about most of the major character permadeaths 102 00:05:25,810 --> 00:05:28,990 in Infinity War and Endgame, especially Gamora and Black Widow. 103 00:05:28,990 --> 00:05:32,849 Loki and Vision do die fairly quickly and unceremoniously primarily to hurt the characters 104 00:05:32,849 --> 00:05:36,880 invested in them, but they’re given narrative weight and some dignity in the process - it 105 00:05:36,880 --> 00:05:40,710 feels unfair and tragic in-universe that they couldn’t be saved, rather than feeling like 106 00:05:40,710 --> 00:05:41,710 bad writing. 107 00:05:41,710 --> 00:05:44,289 But Gamora… well, it’s actually kinda fascinating. 108 00:05:44,289 --> 00:05:48,080 In the two movies she’d been in, her entire arc had centered on escaping Thanos and his 109 00:05:48,080 --> 00:05:51,940 deeply fucked-up abusive parenting situation, healing and growing as a person and learning 110 00:05:51,940 --> 00:05:53,880 to trust and even love her new friends. 111 00:05:53,880 --> 00:05:57,690 Her dynamic with Nebula was following that same track - realizing they weren’t enemies, 112 00:05:57,690 --> 00:06:01,830 but victims of the same terrible situation and the same manipulative, tortuous narcissist. 113 00:06:01,830 --> 00:06:05,729 Thanos’s shadow looms large over Gamora’s arc as the root cause of all the pain and 114 00:06:05,729 --> 00:06:09,069 suffering in her life and the thing that scares her most that she’s constantly fighting 115 00:06:09,069 --> 00:06:10,069 to escape. 116 00:06:10,069 --> 00:06:13,680 In Infinity War, Thanos is told by Red Skull that in order to get the soul stone he has 117 00:06:13,680 --> 00:06:15,259 to sacrifice something he loves. 118 00:06:15,259 --> 00:06:16,289 So he kills Gamora. 119 00:06:16,289 --> 00:06:17,289 Like, permanently. 120 00:06:17,289 --> 00:06:18,289 She's dead. 121 00:06:18,289 --> 00:06:19,289 Now that’s bad enough. 122 00:06:19,289 --> 00:06:20,539 It’s worse that it works. 123 00:06:20,539 --> 00:06:24,389 Gamora believes that Thanos is incapable of love - and quite frankly, by every indication, 124 00:06:24,389 --> 00:06:25,389 she’s right. 125 00:06:25,389 --> 00:06:28,500 He’s a raging narcissist who can’t see past his own chins and this should have been 126 00:06:28,500 --> 00:06:30,460 the test of character that screwed him over. 127 00:06:30,460 --> 00:06:34,539 (And, also, like… “you must kill your loved one to get this powerful macguffin and 128 00:06:34,539 --> 00:06:39,180 become strong” is like, baby’s first obvious secret test of moral character, and it’s 129 00:06:39,180 --> 00:06:43,620 frankly criminal that killing your loved ones was actually the only way to get the stone. 130 00:06:43,620 --> 00:06:45,130 That's just lazy writing! 131 00:06:45,130 --> 00:06:49,009 Like, you- you had the grimdark option and you had the actually interesting option and 132 00:06:49,009 --> 00:06:52,650 you picked grimdark cuz you thought grimdark was AUTOMATICALLY more interesting. 133 00:06:52,650 --> 00:06:53,780 That's just disappointing.) 134 00:06:53,780 --> 00:06:57,491 Anyway - but it’d be bad enough if they just undercut Gamora’s whole personal arc 135 00:06:57,491 --> 00:07:00,770 by saying that the irredeemably evil overarching supervillain who slaughtered her people and 136 00:07:00,770 --> 00:07:04,460 tortured her and Nebula for decades actually truly loved her all along. 137 00:07:04,460 --> 00:07:09,810 It crosses the line twice by having him prove that he loved her by murdering her. 138 00:07:09,810 --> 00:07:13,730 Gamora’s entire arc and place in the narrative is undercut and sacrificed to give Thanos 139 00:07:13,730 --> 00:07:17,819 a character trait that makes no sense for him and to make Starlord sad so he acts dumb 140 00:07:17,819 --> 00:07:22,319 in the finale - oh, and to make Thanos sad, which is given more focus and weight than 141 00:07:22,319 --> 00:07:23,819 Starlord being sad. 142 00:07:23,819 --> 00:07:28,389 Because obviously making the pure evil villain kinda bummed out was worth the cost of one 143 00:07:28,389 --> 00:07:30,110 of Marvel’s most interesting heroines. 144 00:07:30,110 --> 00:07:34,900 Like, I see what they were going for, but it… it didn't work well, it was a bad idea, 145 00:07:34,900 --> 00:07:38,979 and it completely undercut everything Gamora had had in the previous movies, which is very 146 00:07:38,979 --> 00:07:39,979 disappointing. 147 00:07:39,979 --> 00:07:44,009 Meanwhile, Black Widow’s death is similar to Gamora’s but is bad for different reasons 148 00:07:44,009 --> 00:07:47,340 - because unlike Gamora, who had too much character weight and potential to warrant 149 00:07:47,340 --> 00:07:52,039 her unceremonious death, Black Widow was completely underutilized by every other movie she’d 150 00:07:52,039 --> 00:07:54,280 been in with the arguable exception of Winter Soldier. 151 00:07:54,280 --> 00:07:58,280 We had this franchise for a decade and we never got an arc for Widow that was deeper 152 00:07:58,280 --> 00:08:00,700 than "she's hot" or "she's boning the Hulk". 153 00:08:00,700 --> 00:08:04,500 This made her narratively disposable, but you can tell that the writers realized she 154 00:08:04,500 --> 00:08:08,229 was too disposable for it to be impactful, because for the first half of Endgame they 155 00:08:08,229 --> 00:08:12,639 speedrun the whole characterization process by suddenly giving her some character focus, 156 00:08:12,639 --> 00:08:16,060 a dynamic with the other heroes and an alleged personal arc about treasuring the avengers 157 00:08:16,060 --> 00:08:17,539 as a found family all along. 158 00:08:17,539 --> 00:08:20,840 It was an attempt to make up for lost time so we’d be sold on her Heroic Sacrifice, 159 00:08:20,840 --> 00:08:22,530 but it was clearly token. 160 00:08:22,530 --> 00:08:25,440 The fact that the movie completely stopped acknowledging her death five minutes after 161 00:08:25,440 --> 00:08:29,099 they got back is really just kind of indicative of how little she actually mattered. 162 00:08:29,099 --> 00:08:33,169 Tony’s heroic sacrifice got every hero in the MCU paying their respects, a protracted 163 00:08:33,169 --> 00:08:36,979 funeral scene and an entire movie about how hard it is for the MCU to move on without 164 00:08:36,979 --> 00:08:40,669 him - Tasha got a bench in a lake and a solo movie a year and a half after she died. 165 00:08:40,669 --> 00:08:43,479 If we were supposed to believe she really mattered, the story should’ve acted like 166 00:08:43,479 --> 00:08:44,479 it. 167 00:08:44,479 --> 00:08:47,620 And it should've acted like it for longer than just, like, the hour long windup to her… 168 00:08:47,620 --> 00:08:48,620 dying. 169 00:08:48,620 --> 00:08:49,620 To advance the plot. 170 00:08:49,620 --> 00:08:51,640 For stupid, contrived reasons. 171 00:08:51,640 --> 00:08:53,060 Was she just getting to expensive? 172 00:08:53,060 --> 00:08:54,350 Is that what the problem was? 173 00:08:54,350 --> 00:08:55,350 I mean, come on, guys. 174 00:08:55,350 --> 00:08:59,829 And it’s kind of telling that the MCU has rolled back or undercut all four of those 175 00:08:59,829 --> 00:09:01,339 deaths in one way or another. 176 00:09:01,339 --> 00:09:04,890 Loki and Gamora have time-displaced versions with zero character development running around 177 00:09:04,890 --> 00:09:09,320 to replace their more interesting dead versions, Vision got an actual proper sendoff in Wandavision 178 00:09:09,320 --> 00:09:12,620 and Wanda got to actually grieve, plus he’s got his own not-quite-the-same copy running 179 00:09:12,620 --> 00:09:16,029 around now for future appearances, and of course Black Widow is finally getting that 180 00:09:16,029 --> 00:09:20,500 solo movie we were promised, which is a damn hard sell at this point now that she’s already 181 00:09:20,500 --> 00:09:22,500 dead and thus, frankly, irrelevant. 182 00:09:22,500 --> 00:09:26,700 If the deaths had been properly impactful and narratively worth the cost, none of this 183 00:09:26,700 --> 00:09:28,360 rollback would have been necessary. 184 00:09:28,360 --> 00:09:32,940 Now in fairness, the fact of the matter is that characters are not… real people. 185 00:09:32,940 --> 00:09:36,640 Characters are parts of a story and they exist to further a narrative, and some of them really 186 00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:39,279 are just props in other character’s lives. 187 00:09:39,279 --> 00:09:41,580 And that's not a morally bad thing. 188 00:09:41,580 --> 00:09:44,040 But the story probably shouldn’t make you think that! 189 00:09:44,040 --> 00:09:47,070 Sure, we the audience may be able to guess that the hero’s small peaceful town and 190 00:09:47,070 --> 00:09:50,990 stern but fair father figure just exist to get torched by the dark lord in episode one 191 00:09:50,990 --> 00:09:54,130 to set up the inciting incident and set them on the hero’s journey, but the hero doesn’t 192 00:09:54,130 --> 00:09:57,040 know that, and that's what's supposed to be important about this! 193 00:09:57,040 --> 00:09:59,310 To the hero that’s their whole world! 194 00:09:59,310 --> 00:10:02,800 Torching that town and icing that father figure offscreen just tells the audience that the 195 00:10:02,800 --> 00:10:06,660 hero might theoretically care, but we don’t have to and the story won't really convince 196 00:10:06,660 --> 00:10:08,320 you that the hero DOES care. 197 00:10:08,320 --> 00:10:12,530 It disconnects us from someone we’re supposed to be relating to, and it undercuts the emotional 198 00:10:12,530 --> 00:10:15,730 impact of the death when the emotional impact of the death is the only thing this trope 199 00:10:15,730 --> 00:10:16,730 has! 200 00:10:16,730 --> 00:10:20,220 Now if the father figure had been with us for, say, two seasons or the first act or 201 00:10:20,220 --> 00:10:23,950 two of a movie - serving as a mentor figure, for instance - we’d expect him to die with 202 00:10:23,950 --> 00:10:26,750 some fanfare, and we'd be weirded out and upset if he didn't. 203 00:10:26,750 --> 00:10:30,250 A heroic sacrifice, a dying monologue, an admission that the hero made him a better 204 00:10:30,250 --> 00:10:33,540 man and so very proud, several references to him after he dies so we remember how he 205 00:10:33,540 --> 00:10:36,950 affected the hero’s journey - if we didn’t get that kinda thing we’d feel cheated. 206 00:10:36,950 --> 00:10:41,100 But just because we the audience haven’t seen the chapter 1 dead dad for very long, 207 00:10:41,100 --> 00:10:44,700 the author feels comfortable torching the place offscreen after a single expository 208 00:10:44,700 --> 00:10:48,170 line of dialogue and then expects us to feel for the hero when the story hasn’t made 209 00:10:48,170 --> 00:10:49,590 this death feel meaningful! 210 00:10:49,590 --> 00:10:52,270 In this structure, the amount of weight a character death is given is not proportionate 211 00:10:52,270 --> 00:10:57,310 to how important the character is, it's proportional to how much screentime the character was given, 212 00:10:57,310 --> 00:11:01,029 which has nothing to do with how the characters should be reacting to this loss. 213 00:11:01,029 --> 00:11:03,690 Fridging is a very disliked trope for several reasons. 214 00:11:03,690 --> 00:11:07,100 For one thing, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a heroic death trope people that like. 215 00:11:07,100 --> 00:11:10,260 Heroic sacrifices are basically the only one that’s even halfway appreciated, since for 216 00:11:10,260 --> 00:11:12,820 the most part killing a character is gonna feel bad. 217 00:11:12,820 --> 00:11:16,860 But more importantly, fridging lacks the counterbalancing qualities that can make a character death 218 00:11:16,860 --> 00:11:18,410 feel satisfying or earned. 219 00:11:18,410 --> 00:11:22,100 A hero might die gallantly defending their loved ones, which is heartwarmingly heroic, 220 00:11:22,100 --> 00:11:25,560 with an element of free will and choice - or fully at peace with their fate, making their 221 00:11:25,560 --> 00:11:29,250 death a natural conclusion to their arc - or with some other caveat that makes the audience 222 00:11:29,250 --> 00:11:31,589 believe that their death works to end their personal arc. 223 00:11:31,589 --> 00:11:35,740 And if their death is tragic and unfair, it’ll often be tortuously prolonged to really drive 224 00:11:35,740 --> 00:11:40,000 home to the audience that, yeah, sorry, it’s not a fluke or a fakeout, this character isn’t 225 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:41,000 making it through this one. 226 00:11:41,000 --> 00:11:44,390 For a classic Fullmetal Alchemist example - spoiler alert - Maes Hughes, professional 227 00:11:44,390 --> 00:11:48,430 funnyman and sweetheart, is unexpectedly killed fairly early in the series because he figured 228 00:11:48,430 --> 00:11:51,690 out the overarching plot way too early so the villains needed him out of the way. 229 00:11:51,690 --> 00:11:55,290 His death serves as a major motivation for most of the heroes, most notably Roy Mustang 230 00:11:55,290 --> 00:11:59,269 - but it’s not just a token heroic motivator to get the protagonists in gear. 231 00:11:59,269 --> 00:12:00,329 It feels awful. 232 00:12:00,329 --> 00:12:04,829 It’s tragic, it’s unfair, he fights very hard to stop it from happening, his wife and 233 00:12:04,829 --> 00:12:08,040 daughter are devastated, and the ramifications are felt all the way up to the finale. 234 00:12:08,040 --> 00:12:12,480 This death would not work the same if it happened offscreen and could not be replaced by a binder 235 00:12:12,480 --> 00:12:13,580 of pokemon cards. 236 00:12:13,580 --> 00:12:16,390 It means too much to the story, so it’s not fridging. 237 00:12:16,390 --> 00:12:19,620 Fridged characters do not get this kind of treatment - and frankly they’re lucky if 238 00:12:19,620 --> 00:12:20,949 they get personal arcs at all. 239 00:12:20,949 --> 00:12:24,960 They die only to make another, more important character feel sad or mad. 240 00:12:24,960 --> 00:12:28,310 It’s not a heroic sacrifice, they have no agency in it, they’re not at peace with 241 00:12:28,310 --> 00:12:32,240 it and their personal arcs (if they get them) aren’t neatly resolved in time for it. 242 00:12:32,240 --> 00:12:36,050 Their death or brutalization is cruel and unfair because it’s designed to feel cruel 243 00:12:36,050 --> 00:12:39,709 and unfair to the character they’re supposed to hurt or motivate, but as a result it undercuts 244 00:12:39,709 --> 00:12:43,810 the only semi-okay parts of character deaths and just makes the experience relentlessly 245 00:12:43,810 --> 00:12:46,120 unpleasant and catharsis-free for the audience. 246 00:12:46,120 --> 00:12:49,880 Now this is not a mistake - this is an intentional part of the trope, because it essentially 247 00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:53,760 sets up an unstable narrative situation the protagonist must now work to stabilize and 248 00:12:53,760 --> 00:12:56,449 resolve - usually by hunting down and stopping the killer. 249 00:12:56,449 --> 00:13:00,339 This is a motivation that starts an arc, so it’s not meant to feel like an arc resolution, 250 00:13:00,339 --> 00:13:03,500 which is often the only part of a character death the audience halfway appreciates. 251 00:13:03,500 --> 00:13:07,060 But it betrays a fundamental dismissal of the fridged character, which undercuts the 252 00:13:07,060 --> 00:13:09,040 very emotional impact they’re trying to invoke. 253 00:13:09,040 --> 00:13:13,850 As an example, when Alan Moore wrote the Killing Joke, Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, is shot, 254 00:13:13,850 --> 00:13:18,230 paralyzed and brutalized by The Joker - entirely to upset Jim Gordon and Batman and kick off 255 00:13:18,230 --> 00:13:19,449 one last terrible joke. 256 00:13:19,449 --> 00:13:24,420 She’s not even killed, but how this traumatic event affects her is… entirely glossed over 257 00:13:24,420 --> 00:13:25,420 in-story. 258 00:13:25,420 --> 00:13:28,290 In fact, all she says to Batman afterwards, from her hospital bed, is how worried she 259 00:13:28,290 --> 00:13:30,209 is about what the joker’s gonna do to her dad. 260 00:13:30,209 --> 00:13:34,460 It's heroic of her to be concerned, but that’s not why her reaction was written that way. 261 00:13:34,460 --> 00:13:36,220 Barbara didn’t matter to this story. 262 00:13:36,220 --> 00:13:39,750 Alan Moore has actually said he kinda regrets treating her that way - he thinks his editor 263 00:13:39,750 --> 00:13:43,330 probably should’ve reined him in instead of responding with, and I am apparently quoting, 264 00:13:43,330 --> 00:13:45,139 “yeah, okay, cripple the bitch.” 265 00:13:45,139 --> 00:13:48,759 That fundamental dismissiveness on the part of the creator really does drive home that 266 00:13:48,759 --> 00:13:51,120 fridging is a fundamentally broken trope. 267 00:13:51,120 --> 00:13:54,130 If the author doesn’t care about the character enough to give their pain narrative weight, 268 00:13:54,130 --> 00:13:57,500 they’ll have a very hard time convincing the audience to care when they suffer. 269 00:13:57,500 --> 00:14:01,269 The only way the author can make the audience care in this situation is by making this unimportant 270 00:14:01,269 --> 00:14:04,880 death hurt another, more important character - but since the author doesn’t care about 271 00:14:04,880 --> 00:14:08,170 the fridged character, they’ll have a hard time writing the more important character’s 272 00:14:08,170 --> 00:14:09,170 reaction to their fridging! 273 00:14:09,170 --> 00:14:12,480 The more important character cares more about the fridged character than the author does, 274 00:14:12,480 --> 00:14:16,480 so how is the author supposed to write their grief when they clearly can’t even imagine 275 00:14:16,480 --> 00:14:17,480 it? 276 00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:20,060 It comes across as shallow and hollow because, on a very real level, it is. 277 00:14:20,060 --> 00:14:24,190 A fridging isn’t just lacking in resolution - it’s usually lacking in real emotional 278 00:14:24,190 --> 00:14:25,190 weight. 279 00:14:25,190 --> 00:14:28,259 We’re lucky if we really know the character who dies, and if we don’t, then killing 280 00:14:28,259 --> 00:14:31,440 them only affects us by how it affects the characters who care about them, and only if 281 00:14:31,440 --> 00:14:33,560 we care about those characters in turn. 282 00:14:33,560 --> 00:14:36,769 Killing off a character we’re not invested in tells us that character was never going 283 00:14:36,769 --> 00:14:40,160 to matter on their own merit, which can disengage the audience from the story as a whole. 284 00:14:40,160 --> 00:14:43,899 So opening a story by fridging someone sends a pretty clear message to the audience that 285 00:14:43,899 --> 00:14:47,980 most characters don’t matter, which speedruns the “disengaged audience” problem right 286 00:14:47,980 --> 00:14:48,980 out the gate. 287 00:14:48,980 --> 00:14:51,100 Fun fact, this is how Supernatural begins. 288 00:14:51,100 --> 00:14:54,651 I tried watching it way back when and lost interest after the first season or so, but 289 00:14:54,651 --> 00:14:57,250 I remember the pilot cuz it’s burned into my brain. 290 00:14:57,250 --> 00:14:59,670 Even at the time I could kinda tell the writing wasn’t working. 291 00:14:59,670 --> 00:15:03,079 First scene: we meet our protagonists as young children in an idyllic home with their father 292 00:15:03,079 --> 00:15:04,079 and mother. 293 00:15:04,079 --> 00:15:06,209 Smash cut to the night, their father wakes up to see his wife stuck to the ceiling with 294 00:15:06,209 --> 00:15:07,209 a horrified expression. 295 00:15:07,209 --> 00:15:09,170 Then she explodes and the house burns down. 296 00:15:09,170 --> 00:15:12,200 Smash cut to the main plot: it's a couple decades later, brother #1 is in college and 297 00:15:12,200 --> 00:15:14,980 has a girlfriend, brother #2 shows up and tries to give him a call to adventure to make 298 00:15:14,980 --> 00:15:16,220 the actual plot happen. 299 00:15:16,220 --> 00:15:19,730 Brother #1 refuses because he’s got so much going for him in his personal life right now. 300 00:15:19,730 --> 00:15:22,769 Then brother #1's girlfriend gets stuck to the ceiling and explodes so it's time for 301 00:15:22,769 --> 00:15:23,769 a road trip! 302 00:15:23,769 --> 00:15:25,839 The first time it happened it was kinda spooky. 303 00:15:25,839 --> 00:15:28,470 The second time it happened I actually laughed. 304 00:15:28,470 --> 00:15:31,860 I looked this up to make sure I was remembering the details right, and apparently in the plot 305 00:15:31,860 --> 00:15:35,440 both of these women were killed specifically because the bad guy had plans for the protagonist 306 00:15:35,440 --> 00:15:38,180 - and in the case of the girlfriend, he’s the one who introduced them in the first place 307 00:15:38,180 --> 00:15:40,569 specifically so he could manipulate the protagonist by killing her. 308 00:15:40,569 --> 00:15:41,569 That’s just… 309 00:15:41,569 --> 00:15:42,569 I mean, god. 310 00:15:42,569 --> 00:15:43,569 That’s so funny. 311 00:15:43,569 --> 00:15:44,569 That's the PILOT. 312 00:15:44,569 --> 00:15:46,060 No wonder death is meaningless in this show. 313 00:15:46,060 --> 00:15:48,670 So fridging tries to have things both ways. 314 00:15:48,670 --> 00:15:51,980 It gives us a character who clearly doesn’t matter on their own and then kills them in 315 00:15:51,980 --> 00:15:55,050 a way that highlights that they didn’t matter to the story by their own merit, but then 316 00:15:55,050 --> 00:15:58,720 tries to tell us that their death really really mattered to the character we’re supposed 317 00:15:58,720 --> 00:16:00,000 to sympathize with. 318 00:16:00,000 --> 00:16:03,839 It’s like the worst kind of damsel in distress - a character in trouble whose only trait 319 00:16:03,839 --> 00:16:05,750 we’re given to care about is that they’re in trouble. 320 00:16:05,750 --> 00:16:07,570 It’s almost the epitome of tell don’t show. 321 00:16:07,570 --> 00:16:10,870 If we don’t care about the character and they die quickly and unceremoniously, we never 322 00:16:10,870 --> 00:16:11,940 have a reason to care. 323 00:16:11,940 --> 00:16:15,000 If we do care about the character and they die quickly and unceremoniously and all we 324 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:18,960 focus on is how bad it makes someone else feel, it feels like a bad use of their potential 325 00:16:18,960 --> 00:16:21,970 and makes us aware of the hand of the author, which is never a good thing. 326 00:16:21,970 --> 00:16:26,399 Now some authors recognize this without really recognizing the problem, and will try to play 327 00:16:26,399 --> 00:16:27,470 it one of two ways. 328 00:16:27,470 --> 00:16:30,779 In one school of thought, the soon-to-be-fridged character will suddenly be given an unprecedented 329 00:16:30,779 --> 00:16:34,180 amount of onscreen focus and a handful of purposefully heartwarming or cute character 330 00:16:34,180 --> 00:16:37,880 traits to quickly get the audience invested in this hitherto non-character so it feels 331 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:39,509 halfway momentous when they die. 332 00:16:39,509 --> 00:16:42,790 I like to call this the Whedon School Of Fridging, or the Coulson Effect. 333 00:16:42,790 --> 00:16:45,720 This is the author’s attempt to speedrun the Getting The Audience Invested process 334 00:16:45,720 --> 00:16:50,339 without having to actually make the character stand on their own, or, like… matter. 335 00:16:50,339 --> 00:16:54,090 And on the flipside, sometimes a fridged character will give some kind of token justification 336 00:16:54,090 --> 00:16:58,040 for why their death is Okay Actually, usually along the lines of “I’m at peace now” 337 00:16:58,040 --> 00:17:01,450 or “I already have everything I wanted” or “the real treasure was our friendship” 338 00:17:01,450 --> 00:17:02,450 or something. 339 00:17:02,450 --> 00:17:05,800 This is an attempt to kludge together a “satisfying character resolution” so it doesn’t feel 340 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:10,370 completely unceremonious, but it suffers from the fact that the fridged character definitely 341 00:17:10,370 --> 00:17:11,760 didn’t have an arc leading up to it. 342 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:15,171 It doesn’t fully counterbalance the disengaging gutpunch of an unceremonious character death 343 00:17:15,171 --> 00:17:17,280 because it feels token and disconnected. 344 00:17:17,280 --> 00:17:20,800 If the character’s arc was really resolved, we probably shouldn’t need to hear them 345 00:17:20,800 --> 00:17:24,860 say it out loud seconds before they die - it’s like how we shouldn’t need to hear the characters 346 00:17:24,860 --> 00:17:27,623 say “I love you” to know they’re in love, you know? 347 00:17:27,623 --> 00:17:29,960 “I love you” shouldn’t be a surprise to the audience and neither should “I’m 348 00:17:29,960 --> 00:17:33,740 totes cool with death now” - both just end up feeling like a way to compensate for inadequate 349 00:17:33,740 --> 00:17:34,740 writing last-minute. 350 00:17:34,740 --> 00:17:38,640 You may recall, Black Widow’s death in Endgame did both of these things, and it was bad, 351 00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:41,480 because neither of these writing tricks make up for wasted character potential. 352 00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:44,310 Avoiding fridging is a matter of giving the character their narrative due. 353 00:17:44,310 --> 00:17:47,800 It’s about treating them like they really are the hero of their own story and writing 354 00:17:47,800 --> 00:17:51,570 their death or brutalization as if that’s where the story actually ends. 355 00:17:51,570 --> 00:17:54,980 How much more impactful would a fridging be if the story actually acted like an important 356 00:17:54,980 --> 00:17:56,590 story was ending with their death? 357 00:17:56,590 --> 00:18:01,120 And how many riots would there be if an actually important main character was iced as unceremoniously 358 00:18:01,120 --> 00:18:02,530 as these fridging victims are? 359 00:18:02,530 --> 00:18:05,850 If Captain America had gone over that cliff with a token little half-smile and an "I'm 360 00:18:05,850 --> 00:18:09,120 at peace now" there would've been f*ckin' riots in the streets and you know it. 361 00:18:09,120 --> 00:18:13,710 I guess this is another trope that just boils down to “it’s better to write actual characters 362 00:18:13,710 --> 00:18:17,120 with agency and personal goals instead of people-shaped plot devices.” 363 00:18:17,120 --> 00:18:19,150 It's funny how often that happens. 364 00:18:19,150 --> 00:18:20,150 So… yeah? 365 00:18:20,150 --> 00:18:22,000 And thanks again to World Anvil for sponsoring this video! 366 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,130 As you may know, World Anvil is designed to help organize your worldbuilding, making the 367 00:18:25,130 --> 00:18:28,170 whole process easier for writers, gamers and creators of all stripes! 368 00:18:28,170 --> 00:18:31,630 It’s a browser-based worldbuilding and novel writing software with interactive worldmaps, 369 00:18:31,630 --> 00:18:35,300 family trees, a fully customizable calendar, custom wikis you can use for your characters 370 00:18:35,300 --> 00:18:38,810 and events, a built-in word processor with a scrivener-like layout, and plot and story 371 00:18:38,810 --> 00:18:39,810 timelines. 372 00:18:39,810 --> 00:18:42,850 They also recently added a new tool called “Chronos” that lets you create multiple 373 00:18:42,850 --> 00:18:46,300 visual timelines, which also connects to a map view - 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