Okay, so this is a subject that struck me recently. During Giant Bomb's deliberations on GOTY, the concept of fridging (a term spawned from comics, about how female characters, often love interest, end up permanently maimed, dead, etc. to motivate male characters) came up with regards to God of War. Some of the people at the table seemed to be unfamiliar with this trope, and that kind of took me aback; even if the term might be a bit inside baseball, there's a lot of examples of this, be it explicitly fridging or a dead wife in general. How many? Well, after a tweet riffing on it today, and a look at Giant Bomb's own wiki page about "widowers" (which... I might have added a few entries that came to me off the top of my head), I decided to think about how many times we see a Dead Wife in games.
The criteria?
EDIT: To clarify a bit more something I failed to make clear, many of these examples might stretch or not really fall within the exact definition of "fridging," per se, but still involve a wife/fiance/girlfriend dying to advance the plot or serve as motivation for a character. Nor does this mean that the story is inherently terrible or anything; the first reply to this thread was a game that's one of the few that actually made me super emotional with how well its tragedies were done. It's just something that you kind of sit back and realize how many big names have done this, in usually a super formulaic fashion.
So, off the top of my head:
(and spoilers for any of these games by the way)
Lysandra (God of War)
Kratos's first wife, she and their daughter Calliope end up killed by her husband in an Ares-induced blood rage, and her ashes became his famous pale Ghost of Sparta appearance. She was only ever known as "Kratos's wife" until she was finally named in a comic.
Death importance: Her killing and the guilt over it is what drives Kratos's entire revenge streak in the original GoW trilogy
Faye (God of War, the other one)
Kratos's second wife once he moved to Midgard. The cause of death is never stated.
Death importance: The entire game is about Kratos and Atreus carrying her ashes.
Annabelle Watson DeWitt (BioShock Infinite)
Booker's wife in his timeline, whom we never see; we do get to shoot her parallel timeline version, the awful ghost mom boss, like a million times. She died in childbirth.
Death importance: Her death sent Booker spiraling into depression, which lead him into gambling and drinking, which lead him into a huge debt, which lead him into... well, the plot of BioShock Infinite.
Sara Trantoul and Elisabetha Cronqvist (Castlevania: Lament of Innocence)
Leon Belmont's fiance and Mathias Cronqvist's first wife. Sara was bitten by a vampire and forced to be killed by a sorrowful Leon, while Elisabetha died of illness while Mathias was away during the Crusades.
Death importance: Sara's soul was fused with Leon's whip to create the Vampire Killer, and Mathias was so sorrowful he concocted a plan to get revenge against God for taking his wife from him that he became Dracula. Thus the entire Castlevania canon is based on two dead wives!
Lisa Tepes (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
Actually, three dead wives! Dracula's second wife and Alucard's mother. Burned at the stake as a witch for practicing medicine.
Death importance: Basically caused Dracula to give up on humanity forever and be a real dick!
Marie Belmont (Castlevania: Lords of Shadow)
wait four wives, although this is a separate continuity
Gabriel Belmont's wife who was supposedly killed by monsters while she was away, then it turns out in a plot twist that Gabriel killed her while possessed by an evil mask.
Death importance: Gabriel's whole goal involves finding a mask that would supposedly let him resurrect Marie. When the whole thing turns out to be a sham and a bunch of other stuff happens, he becomes Dracula! Neat!
Michelle Payne (Max Payne)
A woman who somehow did not burst out laughing at hearing her future husband's name (actually, she probably did). Then she and their baby got killed by junkies high on drugs, because she found out about a drug conspiracy.
Death importance: The whole thing causes Max to go from an everyday cop to an undercover narcotics detective to find out the truth behind the Valkyr drug, setting the events of the game in motion.
Mary Sunderland (Silent Hill 2)
Died three years before the events of the game after a long illness. Her husband, James, comes to Silent Hill after mysteriously receiving a letter from her.
Death importance: Well, other than the aforementioned posthumous letter, her death is uh. Kinda important, let's say.
Maria Santiago (Gears of War 2)
mariaaaaa
Death importance: Well Dom's pretty bummed about it
Katjaa (The Walking Dead: Season One)
Duck's mother and Kenny's wife. Commits suicide after Duck has to be put down for turning.
Death importance: It's a two for one with Duck, but it's the point where Kenny basically loses it!
Catherine Garner (Painkiller)
This one is a bit unique in that you're both dead, so it almost doesn't really count... but you'll see why I lump it in. Daniel and Catherine are killed in a car accident caused by a negligent Daniel, she goes to Heaven, he goes to Purgatory and then shoots a million demons so he can go to Heaven and be with her.
Death importance: Technically key to the plot, even though the husband is also dead!
Beatrice Alighieri (Dante's Inferno)
In the original poem, she's a symbol of beatific love who sends Virgil to guide Dante. In the game, she's killed and dragged to hell by Lucifer who turns her into a succubus.
Death importance: Basically starts the whole plot of the game. This is the third game I could think of where there's an element of the afterlife where the wife is in heaven or hell and the husband is trying to reunite with them? That's why I listed Painkiller!
Ioseth (Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor)
Wife of the ranger Talion. You pressed square to stealth kiss her. Then orcs killed her and your kid, and also Talion, but Talion got better because a magical elf ghost went inside him. Also the magical elf ghost's wife got killed too.
Death importance: Drives Talion to get revenge against Sauron by running around a map of mud for 20 hours cutting off orc heads so they could get replaced with new orcs called Snarlblast Pisslord or whatever
Catherine (Fallout 3)
A scientist who worked alongside and married a fellow scientist named James, while studying water purification. Together they ended up moving into Vault 101, where she gave birth to your player character, and then immediately died from complications while you were a very oddly aware newborn who just finished looking at the character creator.
Death importance: The need to honor his wife and complete their project drove James (your dad, Liam Neeson) to leave Vault 101 and sets off the entire plot of Fallout 3, which made a whole lot of sense
Your wife if you were the dude (Fallout 4)
A lawyer or something who you spent like 20 minutes making look really funny in the creation system and then you get rushed into a vault and she gets shot and your baby gets stolen.
Death importance: eh you're supposed to figure out where your kid went but then you pick up trash for 200 hours
Emily Spencer (Bionic Commando 2009)
Death importance:
No seriously what are you talking about: okay if you haven't already laughed or groaned at this, google bionic commando wife plot twist
Holy shit what: I KNOW RIGHT
ADDITIONAL GOOD EXAMPLES (submitted by replies, links to their post)
Hinawa (Mother 3)
While Hinawa would commonly be thought of as a dead mother, (given that Lucas is the main character) Mother 3's shifting perspectives means that her death is broken to you while you play as her husband, Flint. It's actually a rather heartbreaking scene.
Death importance: Her death also leads to the seeming death of her son Claus, which are the twin tragedies that mark the beginning of Tazmily Village and the Nowhere Islands' descent and the shattering of their innocence.
Nicole Brennan (Dead Space)
A doctor who worked aboard the USG Ishimura. Isaac, Nicole's boyfriend, is an engineer sent as part of a team to investigate a distress signal. Surprise! Alien zombies. Anyway, the "Nicole" whom Isaac sees throughout the story turns out to be a hallucination; the real one committed suicide some time ago to avoid infection by the necromorphs. DID U KNO GAMEZZZ: the first letter of every chapter spells out "Nicole is dead." You probably knew that!
Death importance: The game's major plot twist, and the main focus of the hallucinations that Isaac goes through in Dead Space 2.
Jenny Romano (The Darkness)
The girlfriend of betentacled protagonist Jackie, Jenny is kidnapped and murdered by mobsters while Jackie is left powerless to stop it. In the sequel, her soul is trapped in Hell, making this yet another "loved one's soul in the afterlife" story. Seriously, Virgil is going to sue y'all for ripping off Orpheus and Eurydice.
Death importance: A major focus of both The Darkness 1 and 2
Jessamine Kaldwin (Dishonored)
Empress of the... Empire, she's murdered in front of her bodyguard, Corvo Attano, by supernatural assassins. Corvo takes the blame, (y'know, he really is dishonored) escapes prison, and gets vengeance against the conspirators, while also rescuing Kaldwin's kidnapped daughter, Emily. Oh, and it's made extremely obvious that it was an open secret in the capital that Jessamine and Corvo had been an item for years and that Emily is their daughter.
Death importance: The entire plot is about the assassination and coup, and her heart was turned into a magical tech detective vision device for Corvo, so we have another "dead wife becomes your tool" example!
Jen (Prey 2006)
Tomasi's girlfriend, who gets sucked up into the big alien ball with everyone else. While Tommy's granddad meets his fate in a big alien food processor early on, Jen's gets separated from Tommy twice, eventually ended up with her arms and legs cut off to be glued to some kind of alien alligator dog with laser gun arms for a boss fight. It's called Girlfriend X and you have to shoot it to death to mercy kill her.
Death importance: Well it's a very memorable scene!
Paula (Shadows of the Damned)
Garcia Hotspur's girlfriend, she's continuously killed by the leader of the demons over and over throughout the game as you try to rescue her from the City of the Damned (Hell, essentially). It's essentially a big gruesome gag that feels like it's poking fun at this.
Death importance: She dies a lot, and then gets mad at Garcia for letting this happen.
Peggy Young (D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die)
AKA "Little Peggy," she was shot and killed in her bathroom. Her husband, police detective David, was shot in the head but survived, though he suffers from partial memory loss and also gained mysterious powers. Her last words were to "Look for D," causing David to use his new abilities to search for clues into the killing. Given that the series unceremoniously died after one episode, we probably won't ever know the real truth.
Death importance: Her shooting is David's primary motivation, and he has visions of her.
Valentine Morgan (Deadly Premonition)
Okay - so I could maybe sorta list something else here, but given that this one and that one are very closely intertwined, I'll just list this one instead. Supposedly killed by her husband, detective Brian Xander Morgan, when their son Francis York Morgan was a child, the truth is that she was one of the victims of Forrest Kaysen, having had red seeds put into her stomach which sprouted out of her. Xander was unable to shoot her to put her out of her misery, and she died a grotesque death when the sapling suddenly grew, draining her life and leaving her a desiccated corpse. Xander was unable to cope with the guilt, and warned Zach not to make the same mistake before shooting himself in the head.
Death importance: It later comes to pass that this event was the impetus for Zach regressing into his own mind and developing the York personality to cope, while repressing his actual memories of the truth of the event, and also lead to him becoming an FBI agent and criminal profiler (still believing his father killed his mother, and wanting to try and understand the motive).
Weird subverted versions of this where she turns out to be alive:
Thalassa Gramarye (Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney)
Trucy Wright's mother who is conspicuously absent through most of the game. You eventually untangle a web of intrigue involving the magician troupe she was a part of, including the hidden tragedy at the core of it all that set everything in Apollo Justice into motion: she was killed in a magic trick gone wrong, by either her own husband, Zak, or his best friend Valant (who also loved her). Then you get to the end of the game and it turns out that she actually survived and somehow ended up in Europe with amnesia and blind. She actually outlives Zak.
Megan Reed (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)
An example I can't believe I forgot, though the fact that it was subverted is probably what caused it to slip my mind. Megan is a genetic scientist and Adam Jensen's ex girlfriend, having broken up several years before the start of the game but remaining on good terms as friends and coworkers at Sarif Industries (with plenty of hints that there's still romantic tension there). An attack on the eve of an important announcement about human augmentation leaves Adam as a cyborg and Megan seemingly brutally killed in the attack along with her fellow scientists. While investigating possible clues into the attack, the first act of the game ends with the somewhat obvious reveal that Megan and the other scientists are actually alive, having been kidnapped. The substituted remains found at the crime scene were deliberately burned beyond recognition and further investigation into them stymied by the mysterious powers that be. Still, her fake "death" is a major driving force for Adam in that first act, and he has visions of her and their relationship as he's augmented in emergency surgery.
So I know for a fact I'm probably missing dozens of examples. If you know any, list them. It's kind of amazing how many times this has been used, and how specific subtropes (your wife becomes your weapon, your wife goes to the afterlife and you have to reunite with her, your wife died in childbirth, your wife and your kid died at once, the husband killed the wife to put her out of her misery or while possessed) are just as widespread.
The criteria?
- The widowered man is a main protagonist, antagonist, or major supporting character
- The death of the wife is a major part of the plot, possibly even the main driving force of the story or the character's motivation
- For all intents and purposes, girlfriends and fiances count; essentially, if it's two adults with a committed romantic relationship
EDIT: To clarify a bit more something I failed to make clear, many of these examples might stretch or not really fall within the exact definition of "fridging," per se, but still involve a wife/fiance/girlfriend dying to advance the plot or serve as motivation for a character. Nor does this mean that the story is inherently terrible or anything; the first reply to this thread was a game that's one of the few that actually made me super emotional with how well its tragedies were done. It's just something that you kind of sit back and realize how many big names have done this, in usually a super formulaic fashion.
So, off the top of my head:
(and spoilers for any of these games by the way)
Lysandra (God of War)
Kratos's first wife, she and their daughter Calliope end up killed by her husband in an Ares-induced blood rage, and her ashes became his famous pale Ghost of Sparta appearance. She was only ever known as "Kratos's wife" until she was finally named in a comic.
Death importance: Her killing and the guilt over it is what drives Kratos's entire revenge streak in the original GoW trilogy
Faye (God of War, the other one)
Kratos's second wife once he moved to Midgard. The cause of death is never stated.
Death importance: The entire game is about Kratos and Atreus carrying her ashes.
Annabelle Watson DeWitt (BioShock Infinite)
Booker's wife in his timeline, whom we never see; we do get to shoot her parallel timeline version, the awful ghost mom boss, like a million times. She died in childbirth.
Death importance: Her death sent Booker spiraling into depression, which lead him into gambling and drinking, which lead him into a huge debt, which lead him into... well, the plot of BioShock Infinite.
Sara Trantoul and Elisabetha Cronqvist (Castlevania: Lament of Innocence)
Leon Belmont's fiance and Mathias Cronqvist's first wife. Sara was bitten by a vampire and forced to be killed by a sorrowful Leon, while Elisabetha died of illness while Mathias was away during the Crusades.
Death importance: Sara's soul was fused with Leon's whip to create the Vampire Killer, and Mathias was so sorrowful he concocted a plan to get revenge against God for taking his wife from him that he became Dracula. Thus the entire Castlevania canon is based on two dead wives!
Lisa Tepes (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
Actually, three dead wives! Dracula's second wife and Alucard's mother. Burned at the stake as a witch for practicing medicine.
Death importance: Basically caused Dracula to give up on humanity forever and be a real dick!
Marie Belmont (Castlevania: Lords of Shadow)
wait four wives, although this is a separate continuity
Gabriel Belmont's wife who was supposedly killed by monsters while she was away, then it turns out in a plot twist that Gabriel killed her while possessed by an evil mask.
Death importance: Gabriel's whole goal involves finding a mask that would supposedly let him resurrect Marie. When the whole thing turns out to be a sham and a bunch of other stuff happens, he becomes Dracula! Neat!
Michelle Payne (Max Payne)
A woman who somehow did not burst out laughing at hearing her future husband's name (actually, she probably did). Then she and their baby got killed by junkies high on drugs, because she found out about a drug conspiracy.
Death importance: The whole thing causes Max to go from an everyday cop to an undercover narcotics detective to find out the truth behind the Valkyr drug, setting the events of the game in motion.
Mary Sunderland (Silent Hill 2)
Died three years before the events of the game after a long illness. Her husband, James, comes to Silent Hill after mysteriously receiving a letter from her.
Death importance: Well, other than the aforementioned posthumous letter, her death is uh. Kinda important, let's say.
Maria Santiago (Gears of War 2)
mariaaaaa
Death importance: Well Dom's pretty bummed about it
Katjaa (The Walking Dead: Season One)
Duck's mother and Kenny's wife. Commits suicide after Duck has to be put down for turning.
Death importance: It's a two for one with Duck, but it's the point where Kenny basically loses it!
Catherine Garner (Painkiller)
This one is a bit unique in that you're both dead, so it almost doesn't really count... but you'll see why I lump it in. Daniel and Catherine are killed in a car accident caused by a negligent Daniel, she goes to Heaven, he goes to Purgatory and then shoots a million demons so he can go to Heaven and be with her.
Death importance: Technically key to the plot, even though the husband is also dead!
Beatrice Alighieri (Dante's Inferno)
In the original poem, she's a symbol of beatific love who sends Virgil to guide Dante. In the game, she's killed and dragged to hell by Lucifer who turns her into a succubus.
Death importance: Basically starts the whole plot of the game. This is the third game I could think of where there's an element of the afterlife where the wife is in heaven or hell and the husband is trying to reunite with them? That's why I listed Painkiller!
Ioseth (Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor)
Wife of the ranger Talion. You pressed square to stealth kiss her. Then orcs killed her and your kid, and also Talion, but Talion got better because a magical elf ghost went inside him. Also the magical elf ghost's wife got killed too.
Death importance: Drives Talion to get revenge against Sauron by running around a map of mud for 20 hours cutting off orc heads so they could get replaced with new orcs called Snarlblast Pisslord or whatever
Catherine (Fallout 3)
A scientist who worked alongside and married a fellow scientist named James, while studying water purification. Together they ended up moving into Vault 101, where she gave birth to your player character, and then immediately died from complications while you were a very oddly aware newborn who just finished looking at the character creator.
Death importance: The need to honor his wife and complete their project drove James (your dad, Liam Neeson) to leave Vault 101 and sets off the entire plot of Fallout 3, which made a whole lot of sense
Your wife if you were the dude (Fallout 4)
A lawyer or something who you spent like 20 minutes making look really funny in the creation system and then you get rushed into a vault and she gets shot and your baby gets stolen.
Death importance: eh you're supposed to figure out where your kid went but then you pick up trash for 200 hours
Emily Spencer (Bionic Commando 2009)
Death importance:
No seriously what are you talking about: okay if you haven't already laughed or groaned at this, google bionic commando wife plot twist
Holy shit what: I KNOW RIGHT
ADDITIONAL GOOD EXAMPLES (submitted by replies, links to their post)
Hinawa (Mother 3)
While Hinawa would commonly be thought of as a dead mother, (given that Lucas is the main character) Mother 3's shifting perspectives means that her death is broken to you while you play as her husband, Flint. It's actually a rather heartbreaking scene.
Death importance: Her death also leads to the seeming death of her son Claus, which are the twin tragedies that mark the beginning of Tazmily Village and the Nowhere Islands' descent and the shattering of their innocence.
Nicole Brennan (Dead Space)
A doctor who worked aboard the USG Ishimura. Isaac, Nicole's boyfriend, is an engineer sent as part of a team to investigate a distress signal. Surprise! Alien zombies. Anyway, the "Nicole" whom Isaac sees throughout the story turns out to be a hallucination; the real one committed suicide some time ago to avoid infection by the necromorphs. DID U KNO GAMEZZZ: the first letter of every chapter spells out "Nicole is dead." You probably knew that!
Death importance: The game's major plot twist, and the main focus of the hallucinations that Isaac goes through in Dead Space 2.
Jenny Romano (The Darkness)
The girlfriend of betentacled protagonist Jackie, Jenny is kidnapped and murdered by mobsters while Jackie is left powerless to stop it. In the sequel, her soul is trapped in Hell, making this yet another "loved one's soul in the afterlife" story. Seriously, Virgil is going to sue y'all for ripping off Orpheus and Eurydice.
Death importance: A major focus of both The Darkness 1 and 2
Jessamine Kaldwin (Dishonored)
Empress of the... Empire, she's murdered in front of her bodyguard, Corvo Attano, by supernatural assassins. Corvo takes the blame, (y'know, he really is dishonored) escapes prison, and gets vengeance against the conspirators, while also rescuing Kaldwin's kidnapped daughter, Emily. Oh, and it's made extremely obvious that it was an open secret in the capital that Jessamine and Corvo had been an item for years and that Emily is their daughter.
Death importance: The entire plot is about the assassination and coup, and her heart was turned into a magical tech detective vision device for Corvo, so we have another "dead wife becomes your tool" example!
Jen (Prey 2006)
Tomasi's girlfriend, who gets sucked up into the big alien ball with everyone else. While Tommy's granddad meets his fate in a big alien food processor early on, Jen's gets separated from Tommy twice, eventually ended up with her arms and legs cut off to be glued to some kind of alien alligator dog with laser gun arms for a boss fight. It's called Girlfriend X and you have to shoot it to death to mercy kill her.
Death importance: Well it's a very memorable scene!
Paula (Shadows of the Damned)
Garcia Hotspur's girlfriend, she's continuously killed by the leader of the demons over and over throughout the game as you try to rescue her from the City of the Damned (Hell, essentially). It's essentially a big gruesome gag that feels like it's poking fun at this.
Death importance: She dies a lot, and then gets mad at Garcia for letting this happen.
Peggy Young (D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die)
AKA "Little Peggy," she was shot and killed in her bathroom. Her husband, police detective David, was shot in the head but survived, though he suffers from partial memory loss and also gained mysterious powers. Her last words were to "Look for D," causing David to use his new abilities to search for clues into the killing. Given that the series unceremoniously died after one episode, we probably won't ever know the real truth.
Death importance: Her shooting is David's primary motivation, and he has visions of her.
Valentine Morgan (Deadly Premonition)
Okay - so I could maybe sorta list something else here, but given that this one and that one are very closely intertwined, I'll just list this one instead. Supposedly killed by her husband, detective Brian Xander Morgan, when their son Francis York Morgan was a child, the truth is that she was one of the victims of Forrest Kaysen, having had red seeds put into her stomach which sprouted out of her. Xander was unable to shoot her to put her out of her misery, and she died a grotesque death when the sapling suddenly grew, draining her life and leaving her a desiccated corpse. Xander was unable to cope with the guilt, and warned Zach not to make the same mistake before shooting himself in the head.
Death importance: It later comes to pass that this event was the impetus for Zach regressing into his own mind and developing the York personality to cope, while repressing his actual memories of the truth of the event, and also lead to him becoming an FBI agent and criminal profiler (still believing his father killed his mother, and wanting to try and understand the motive).
Weird subverted versions of this where she turns out to be alive:
Thalassa Gramarye (Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney)
Trucy Wright's mother who is conspicuously absent through most of the game. You eventually untangle a web of intrigue involving the magician troupe she was a part of, including the hidden tragedy at the core of it all that set everything in Apollo Justice into motion: she was killed in a magic trick gone wrong, by either her own husband, Zak, or his best friend Valant (who also loved her). Then you get to the end of the game and it turns out that she actually survived and somehow ended up in Europe with amnesia and blind. She actually outlives Zak.
Megan Reed (Deus Ex: Human Revolution)
An example I can't believe I forgot, though the fact that it was subverted is probably what caused it to slip my mind. Megan is a genetic scientist and Adam Jensen's ex girlfriend, having broken up several years before the start of the game but remaining on good terms as friends and coworkers at Sarif Industries (with plenty of hints that there's still romantic tension there). An attack on the eve of an important announcement about human augmentation leaves Adam as a cyborg and Megan seemingly brutally killed in the attack along with her fellow scientists. While investigating possible clues into the attack, the first act of the game ends with the somewhat obvious reveal that Megan and the other scientists are actually alive, having been kidnapped. The substituted remains found at the crime scene were deliberately burned beyond recognition and further investigation into them stymied by the mysterious powers that be. Still, her fake "death" is a major driving force for Adam in that first act, and he has visions of her and their relationship as he's augmented in emergency surgery.
So I know for a fact I'm probably missing dozens of examples. If you know any, list them. It's kind of amazing how many times this has been used, and how specific subtropes (your wife becomes your weapon, your wife goes to the afterlife and you have to reunite with her, your wife died in childbirth, your wife and your kid died at once, the husband killed the wife to put her out of her misery or while possessed) are just as widespread.
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