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Dead wives in video games
- Thread starter Crushed
- Start date
Not really, since they play no role in his story or that of the gang. Hell, even just learning about them is easily missable. He was an outlaw before he had the family, through it, and stayed one afterward.
Fridging is a specific storytelling conceit, and RDR2 didn't even attempt it except adding some much appreciated flavor backstory to an already established character, not drive any plot.
Um, God of War doesn't fit the trope at all.
1) Faye died naturally. A big part of 'fridging' someone is that the cause of death is suppossed to act as a super motivator for them. Normally it's towards he person who killed their partner (such as the original comic that coined the phrase).
2) Faye is revealed to have been gaining their every move since the beginning. She's not a passive 'thing' to only serve as a motivator for Kratos, she's been manipulating him since the start. Not in a hostile or evil way, but she has her own motivations and agency in the story that persist after her death.
Not every story where a partner dies is 'fridging' someone.
1) Faye died naturally. A big part of 'fridging' someone is that the cause of death is suppossed to act as a super motivator for them. Normally it's towards he person who killed their partner (such as the original comic that coined the phrase).
2) Faye is revealed to have been gaining their every move since the beginning. She's not a passive 'thing' to only serve as a motivator for Kratos, she's been manipulating him since the start. Not in a hostile or evil way, but she has her own motivations and agency in the story that persist after her death.
Not every story where a partner dies is 'fridging' someone.
How much does Quiet Man Count?
I mean, it's about the mom... but the girlfriend looking like the mom being kidnapped...
I mean, it's about the mom... but the girlfriend looking like the mom being kidnapped...
In exchange we then got Kyrieeeee!
Very good thread. This needs sister thread of all the dead moms.
Polygon: WHERE ARE ALL THE VIDEO GAME MOMS?
Polygon: WHERE ARE ALL THE VIDEO GAME MOMS?
Quiet Man is a DMC game?
But not dead! Thats got to count for something!
D4: Dark Dreams Don't Die sure is one of them. The game is about your dead wife, Little Peggy, and how her dying last words kick off your quest to find the truth behind a drug syndicate. She was also related to a mysterious figure in the background. Her role in the story is to make the protagonist sad while also motivating him, and to set limitations to the game's core mechanics.
I still think it fits well enough in the spirit of the trope. Faye was created to be dead, to have that impact male characters, and motivate them to go on their journey. We're denied seeing her, and knowing how she died, because she only matters as a plot device. Her setting the events into motion, and NPCs telling us how cool she is and knows everything and how does the sickest wheelies, doesn't really change that. Another thing to keep in mind is that God of War has played the dead wife card before too, in the more classic fridging sense. Dead women is just the DNA of the franchise, I guess.
Not wives but goodness know Danganronpa loves fridging the main characters potential love interest.
Yeah it's a murder mystery game so people are expected to die but literally all three games and the anime do this.
Yeah I admit I'm beating a dead horse with this one but it seemed relevant to this topic.
Yeah it's a murder mystery game so people are expected to die but literally all three games and the anime do this.
The whole reason I dropped this franchise was because the female lead you're supposed to be playing as is killed to prop up the man who takes over and give HIM motivation. Oh and to pull a twist but like that's so much better.
Yeah I admit I'm beating a dead horse with this one but it seemed relevant to this topic.
I know people often dislike Anita Sarkeesian, but the first time I noticed this was in her Tropes VS. Women series, and she opened my eyes.
But this is not only exclusive to game media, it's blaffing how much this is a plot point to motivate male characters in movies/series as well.
Bionic Commando is the champion of WTF category.
But this is not only exclusive to game media, it's blaffing how much this is a plot point to motivate male characters in movies/series as well.
Bionic Commando is the champion of WTF category.
Wow, Castlevania really does love the dead wife trope. Also yeah Bionic Commando is so beautifully insane that I can't quite believe it made the cut and yet of course it did because Capcom.
DmC had the dead wife thing. They were constantly going on about Eva the whore this and your whore mother that. Motivation for Dante to go around telling demons to fuck off and for Vergil to wear a nice hat.
I laughed audibly at this. Gotta love random name generators!
DmC had the dead wife thing. They were constantly going on about Eva the whore this and your whore mother that. Motivation for Dante to go around telling demons to fuck off and for Vergil to wear a nice hat.
I laughed audibly at this. Gotta love random name generators!
Oh man I just got through season 3 of RWBY just to have a fridging thread. Danganronpa series does this a lot to the characters.
Sayaka who is literal ship bait geits offed in chapter 1. Motivates Makoto Naegi to act as a detective for the group and do main character things.
Kaede who you actually play as gets fridged for the REAL main character to feel angst about her death and gets motivated to find the truth behind the mastermind. Especially bad because Kaede was better than the actual MC and was a breath of fresh air when compared to other DR protagonists
I don't think it's a bad trope, losing someone you love is something most people can either relate to or easily imagine. It's a simple way to build an emotional connection with the character and/or give us an explanation to what their motivation is.
Is it tired? Probably. But there's not much that hit's us with as much devastation as death.
Recently I thought Sadie Adler's story was told particularly well in Red Dead 2.
Is it tired? Probably. But there's not much that hit's us with as much devastation as death.
Recently I thought Sadie Adler's story was told particularly well in Red Dead 2.
I think this ignores the fundamental point of the trope - agency. Faye is dead, but Faye has agency. Kratos doesn't set off on a mission that has nothing to do with her because of her death, he sets on a mission because of her, essentially designed by her, and significantly about her.
Sadie Adler was pretty much the reverse fridging, the dead male love interest dies to motivate her to get revenge and makes her so depressed that she puts herself in dangerous situations since she doesn't care about her life.
Would love a game where you play the ghost of a murdered wife and have to help your hardboiled cop husband solve your murder. Could even be co-op, you can push the controllers together to make them kiss 😘
This is a really common trope in all media (I mean, look at my avatar, Padmé was killed basically for no reason other than to give Anakin a reason to become Darth Vader and in the most pathetic way too) but it seems to have become a huge hit with games the past decade.
I know my mom hated a bunch of Disney classics because the mom was always dead or killed off. 😔
I know my mom hated a bunch of Disney classics because the mom was always dead or killed off. 😔
Dishonored 1 definitely fits here.
Vampyr sorta does, with Jonathan's sister, but also not really? Or it kinda subverts it... I don't know if I'd count it.
I think I'd still count it, even if she's a sister and there's that twist on it.
Vampyr sorta does, with Jonathan's sister, but also not really? Or it kinda subverts it... I don't know if I'd count it.
Jonathan accidentally kills his sister, Mary in a frenzied blood lust during his "rebirth" vampire at the start of the game, and that definitely does motivate him and drives the plot forward, but his own transformation is motivation alone too. So, if it were only that, it would definitely count, but...
Mary later returns as a vampire, having been accidentally turned herself... by Jonathan himself. So that kind of puts a twist on things.
I feel like Silent Hill 2 is different to these other games. Yes she's dead and it's the motivator for the story, but it has much more depth than these other games and her passing and the impact it leaves is what literally makes up the fabric of the game and its plot.
I think the trope is wider than "fridging" and that's largely because it's effective. Death and loss is used a lot in stories, for motivation and for an easy to relate to emotional state. Just off the top of my head you have Assassin's Creed II (Dead Dad & Brothers), Assassin's Creed Origins (Dead Child), Hellblade (Dead Boyfriend), Final Fantasy X (Dead Brother/Boyfriend), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (Dead Parents), Life is Strange (Dead Dad), Horizon: Zero Dawn (Dead Dad) and Mass Effect Andromeda (Dead Dad) where this pops up without it being the wife and/or mother.
That isn't to say fridging isn't or can't be an issue, I suspect if you listed every game where the death of a loved one is used for story or character building purposes you would end up with more dead women than men although I also presume this is tied to the fact that male characters are more common so you are more likely to have dead wife than dead husband. It's just that it's not something is going to go away because the wider trope works and has been around for as long as fiction has.
That isn't to say fridging isn't or can't be an issue, I suspect if you listed every game where the death of a loved one is used for story or character building purposes you would end up with more dead women than men although I also presume this is tied to the fact that male characters are more common so you are more likely to have dead wife than dead husband. It's just that it's not something is going to go away because the wider trope works and has been around for as long as fiction has.
Killing or abusing women in stories is the easiest, laziest way to give your boring male protagonist motivation and the illusion of depth.
Dane surely gave Dante a heads up regarding Trish. "It's ok, bro. Just go for it!"
(Please don't, Dante.)
This. Fridging is more about how female characters are brutalised in violent ways and the character soley existed to serve that purpose. That's why Faye from God of War imo doesn't fit at all. She wasn't violently murdered to set Kratos on a revenge quest and she stays an important character through the whole game. A characters death isn't automatically problematic when it's treated properly
You realise this isn't close to being a comprehensive list, right?
Lords of Shadow gets bonus points for making the dead wife a damsel in distress even after death since she still needs saving because her soul is trapped without being able to go to heaven.
I love the first LoS game (and only the first one) but man is that story clunky at times (except for the ending which I legitimately like).
I love the first LoS game (and only the first one) but man is that story clunky at times (except for the ending which I legitimately like).
Are there any games about a female character on a quest for revenge over the loss of a male lover? Honest question has that been done?
Seriously fuck Dangonronpa V3 you could have handled that in so many better ways.
Seriously fuck Dangonronpa V3 you could have handled that in so many better ways.
XC2's plot would not have happened if not for this, though it's a little more indirect. The DLC at least established her character pretty well, though.
That's Dante's Inferno as well.
With an extra dose of getting the tonguing from the Devil.
Hellblade is about a woman trying to bring back her dead lover, close enough?
I'd totally forgotten about that game. And frankly Dante's Inferno is even worse. At least LoS has the decency to show Marie fully clothed. The former on top of it all has the dead wife's spirit half naked showing her breasts to the world.
Oh it is worse, far worse. Because on top of all of that you also have the Devil taunting you and having his way with her through the game.
And I meant that in the worst possible meaning.
Isn't this trope an old story telling trope? Doesn't Hercules kill his wife due to the gods possessing him and his trials are to redeem himself and get revenge?