Was Therkla fridged by the story?

[understatement]

"Fridging" is a Trope that involves a character specially meaningful for another character, that gets gruesomely killed to provoke a cheap emotional reaction on the latter.

That definition doesn't applies to Therkla, as:
- She was not specially meaningful for Elan.

She was most definitely meaningful to Elan, at least in the independent arc, considering he personally buries her, almost kills Kubota for it, and absolutely becomes enraged at V for their verbal attacks.

- Was not gruesomely killed.

Being poisoned and dying slowly in someone else's arms seems kind of painful.

- Was not killed by Kubota to provoke an emotional reaction on Elan, but to cover his own escape and get rid of a turncoat and a witness.

I'll concede to that, although the way Kubota gloats over it is not out of pure pragmatism either. Still, yes, I'll agree with this.

The OP seems to understand "fridging" as "a female character that got killed and whose death had an impact on a male character". That definition is so board that it can be applied to practically every female character ever killed in a work of fiction. And it's a fundamentally wrong definition, as "fridging" doesn't requires the victim to be female, neither the protagonist to be male.

Nope. Not what I said at all. I addressed this in my reply to brian 333's post as well:

Fridging can apply to any sexuality, any race, gender, religion, background. The fact that Therkla is female and a love interest is more immediately noticeable because many previous examples of fridging share these traits as well, but if she was a gay male explicitly killed by the villain to make Elan feel bad it would very much still be fridging.

So I don't know where you got this from.

[dancrilis]

Nope. Not what I said at all.

As someone who agrees that this qualifies as a fridging (subject to defination which I will give below) it seems that you have merely made your defination broader here:

The Pilgrim said:

The OP seems to understand "fridging" as "a female character that got killed and whose death had an impact on a male character". That definition is so board that it can be applied to practically every female character ever killed in a work of fiction.

You said 'nope'.

Fridging can apply to any sexuality, any race, gender, religion, background.

Which kindof reads like The Pilgrim was being overly narrow in what they were writing where you would have had, fridging: "a character that got killed and whose death had an impact on a different character".

I don't think that is what you mean but it is how this reads (at least to me).



As for my own pseudo-defination:
Fridging: A character is introduced to the story to fill a certain role focused entirely on a different character and is either designed to be killed as part of that role or is killed as soon as that role is complete as the plot has no more use for them.

As mentioned it is not necessarily a bad thing and I fully understand that other people would disagree with even this as a pseudo-defination.

[The Pilgrim]

Nope. Not what I said at all. I addressed this in my reply to brian 333's post as well:

So I don't know where you got this from.

Ok. My apologies for putting words in your mouth.

Then let's get to the definition you gave earlier in the thread:

"Fridging" does not mean a character death to drive the story. I don't think there's any set definition of it, since even in its original context it has changed to exclude/accomodate more narrative situations; however, the core part of it centers around the villain targeting a hero's supporting cast member in order for the hero to take action, with the added "bonus" of the limelight focusing more on the hero instead of the victim.

I wrote that Kubota did not kill Therkla to provoke a reaction in Elan, but to cover his escape, get rid of a traitor and remove a witness. After re-reading the scene, I must add that he also kills Therkla to produce a scapegoat and pin the blame for his crimes on her.

As you agreed to my statement, we must conclude that Therkla was, thus, not "fridged".

Also, I belive she gets the spotlight on her death scene. She isn't slaughtered off-screen, we get to watch her die, and we get to hear her feelings and thoughts. Yeah, it's stupid that she refuses the chance of getting raised because Elan will not be with her, but that goes in line with her characterization and is the tragic side effect of getting a mix of low self-steem and a mind full of romantic idealizations (see my earlier post about that).

[danielxcutter]

I don't think fridged is the right term, yeah. There might be a few other points that you could use to criticize her death, but that particular one doesn't seem to fit.

[understatement]

Fridging: A character is introduced to the story to fill a certain role focused entirely on a different character and is either designed to be killed as part of that role or is killed as soon as that role is complete as the plot has no more use for them.

As mentioned it is not necessarily a bad thing and I fully understand that other people would disagree with even this as a pseudo-defination.

Whether it fits Therkla is probably the talk button on the thread, but it's really not a great trope to have in a story. There's plenty of ways of taking a character out of a narrative without permanent death.

Also, there are a lot of varying definitions, but it technically does involve the villain/antagonist concerned intentionally killing the particular character. Someone drunkenly falling off the bridge after their plot part is over doesn't really fit.

As you agreed to my statement, we must conclude that Therkla was, thus, not "fridged".

Also, I belive she gets the spotlight on her death scene. She isn't slaughtered off-screen, we get to watch her die, and we get to hear her feelings and thoughts. Yeah, it's stupid that she refuses the chance of getting raised because Elan will not be with her, but that goes in line with her characterization and is the tragic side effect of getting a mix of low self-steem and a mind full of romantic idealizations (see my earlier post about that).

Conceded. Ish.

I dunno, I guess...it just feels like the same effect? Something to push Elan to a rage that he normally wouldn't, as well as split up the Order irreparably (until other narrative events come along), then afterwards, pretty much forgotten. But that's genuinely my own take, so...yeah.

I don't think fridged is the right term, yeah. There might be a few other points that you could use to criticize her death, but that particular one doesn't seem to fit.

Fair. Fridging is a strong word with a weird implication, and my intention wasn't to point fingers or such. I will totally be on board that within the scene it wasn't, simply that its effects do feel awfully like it. But that's YMMV.

[KorvinStarmast]

A for Rich's case:

Opinions are like navels. We each have one. Rich is not an authority, he's a writer with an opinion. As are many writers, good, bad and indifferent.

As for me, I am glad that he pursues his muse ... this does not require me to worship at the altar of his opinion.

[Ruck]

I guess I'd be repeating myself, but I always thought "fridging" had a negative connotation as though the character literally only existed for the hero to discover her (usually her) body stuffed in the fridge by the villain. (Which, I think, the term comes from a case where that actually happened.)

I think whatever you can say about how Therkla's death motivated Elan, she got a lot more time and development than that, and had her own story and tragic arc, brought about in part by her own choices. It was pick-a-side time and she still didn't pick a side.

[The MunchKING]

I gave the defintion so I could judge wheter it fits the defitnion, and, thus, wheter it's shoehorning. That's relevant, wheter or not it is. A for Rich's case:

He says that like escapism isn't worthwhile.

EDIT:

Opinions are like navels. We each have one.

Opinions are like noses. Everyone has one and most of them smell.

[ebarde]

I do think Therkla was a bit too much of a satellite character to Elan. I get that she had a Juliet theme going on, but the whole choosing to not get rez'd because she wouldn't stay with Elan felt a bit too handwavy ig?

I guess that book had a lot of stuff going on, but I still wish it developed the character a bit more to justify her going through so much just for Elan. She was a fun character and her solo story was pretty good though, Never Split the Party just didn't had a lot of breathing room with all the stuff that was going on at the same time and the switching back and forth between sub-plots.

[snowblizz]

While Therkla acts a lot like a damsel that's just an act. And she's not entirely there for the benefit of Elan.


Therkla also provides a reason to examine one Neutral viewpoint in the context of the Good/Evil dichtonomy. Her ultimate tragedy isn't just "I can't get Elan" that's just the way she formulates it based on her own limited experiences and overindulgence in YA lit.

The problem is she tries to take a Neutral position between the immovable viewpoints of Good and Evil, and cannot see how neither of them can accept her rational (to Neutrla Therkla) compromise. Ultimately she cannot choose one side so goes with neither. She wants to have both things and can't see the consequences.

[KorvinStarmast]

Opinions are like noses. Everyone has one and most of them smell.

Except in OoTS land, where apparently only Nale and Thog have them.

[elros]

Everyone has made a lot of good points, but I think Therkla was actually one of the most meaningful minor characters. I say that for two reasons:
1) Therkla was a flushed out character, and not a disposable woman,
2) Therkla demonstrated agency, and then killed because Kubota is evil. Kubota did not kill her to motivate Elan, but to save himself. And Kubota did not in any way stuff her in a fridge.

I understand that people are sensitive about how women are minimized in stories (and in life), but I don't think this is good example of it.

[dancrilis]

There's plenty of ways of taking a character out of a narrative without permanent death.

There are but few generate the same emotional weight.

For instance, Therkla's death inspired Elan to jump onto a boat with the intention of killing an unarmed (and fairly defenceless) man - you don't get that without her dying.

[Ionathus]

No sale. (Mind you, the habit of trying to reduce an element of a story like that -with an offhand pigeon hole - offends me as a writer (granted, not one of Rich's accomplishments)).

I still don't think it has to be a case of pigeonholing. An arc can be complex and well-written and redemptive and respectful of the female character, and still qualify as fridging. That doesn't diminish the story -- it's more like an optional demographics question on a survey. You don't use the information to judge the work...you use it to judge whether or not there are certain patterns across many works. Hence the comparison to the Bechdel test.

I don't think fridged is the right term, yeah. There might be a few other points that you could use to criticize her death, but that particular one doesn't seem to fit.

It's a slippery definition, to be sure. The TVTropes page seems to insist the character must actually be killed and left to be found by the hero, as a corpse. By that metric, Therkla is objectively not. But does she fall into "I Let Gwen Stacy Die"? More likely.

Here's a snippet from the front page of Gail Simone's original website:

These are superheroines who have been either depowered, raped, or cut up and stuck in the refrigerator. I know I missed a bunch. Some have been revived, even improved -- although the question remains as to why they were thrown in the wood chipper in the first place.
...
I realized one day that most of my favorite female comics characters had met untimely and often icky ends. The history of the idea and this site are listed here, and the responses from various comics professionals are listed here.
...
An important point: This isn't about assessing blame about an individual story or the treatment of an individual character and it's certainly not about personal attacks on the creators who kindly shared their thoughts on this phenomenon. It's about the trend, its meaning and relevance, if any. Plus, it's just fun to talk about refrigerators with dead people in them. I don't know why.

Note the Bechdel test language at the end, there.

You could argue that the original definition doesn't even include "to motivate a male hero's story" -- it was just a list of women in comics who have met untimely ends. I doubt many people would accept that definition now, though. My personal definition is probably something like "when the death of a female character matters more to another (male) character's story than it does to her own." That feels like a trickier judgment call for Therkla's death, but I'd probably still argue that it qualifies, even though it doesn't diminish her story.

I wrote that Kubota did not kill Therkla to provoke a reaction in Elan, but to cover his escape, get rid of a traitor and remove a witness. After re-reading the scene, I must add that he also kills Therkla to produce a scapegoat and pin the blame for his crimes on her.

But that's all in-universe. It's not a question of whether the villain is trying to motivate the hero with her death: it's a question of whether the story is trying to motivate the hero with her death. In Star Trek: TNG, Duras kills K'Ehleyr for self-serving political reasons. But the effect it has on Worf (and the way her death happens off-screen) absolutely qualifies it as fridging by even the strictest metrics. It doesn't matter what the villain wants: it matters what the story wants.

Also, I belive she gets the spotlight on her death scene. She isn't slaughtered off-screen, we get to watch her die, and we get to hear her feelings and thoughts. Yeah, it's stupid that she refuses the chance of getting raised because Elan will not be with her, but that goes in line with her characterization and is the tragic side effect of getting a mix of low self-steem and a mind full of romantic idealizations (see my earlier post about that).

I'm with you on this. I wish we'd gotten more of Therkla without her infatuation with Elan, and her reason for not wanting to be raised was kind of silly if you push on it too hard. But it was still a really good scene and her death wasn't *only* to motivate Elan. That's why I'm essentially trying to have my cake (classify this as Fridging) and eat it too (argue that Therkla still got treated well by the narrative, for the most part).

[Metastachydium]

I'm essentially trying to have my cake (classify this as Fridging) and eat it too (argue that Therkla still got treated well by the narrative, for the most part).

Still not convinced the term fridging can be used without a negative connotation. It was coined to criticise a tendency, after all, and not simply to describe it.
How about „it is a structurally similat scenario which nevertheless stops short of scrict sense fridging”?

[Fish]

I think there's something missing from the definition, some essential element of the original, without which the definition becomes so broad as to be useless. "Something that happens to a side character to forward the story of a main character" describes nearly every side character in fiction. That's what side characters are for, to a greater or lesser degree. Some side characters die (like the veteran cop who's about to retire); some are raped (like Becky in the song "Coward of the County"); some are kidnapped (too many to name). Sometimes good things happen to side characters in order to push the plot. Pushing plot is what side characters do.

What's missing, in my opinion?*
a) "Fridging" portrays a tragedy with echoes of real-world events that actually happen to real people, and reframes that tragic narrative to be around someone other than the victim.
b) "Fridging," when applied widely as a story technique, normalizes and minimizes similar tragedies against some group, and perpetuates a narrative of victimhood for that group.

*Yes, I realize that TV Tropes probably doesn't define the trope this way, but I don't care what that website says.

The problem with the "dead girlfriend in the refrigerator" trope isn't one of agency, or the villain's purpose, or whether it forwards the story of the MC. The problem is that it takes violence against a (so-called) minority group and turns it into just something that happens to white dudes. In other words, girlfriends sometimes end up dead in refrigerators, and that's just something a guy has to deal with. I don't have to explain how problematic that is.

Therkla doesn't count as fridging in my book, because:
a) Although her tragedy motivates Elan, it is still her story. The characters in the story (Kubota, the imp, Elan) relate to her, not so much to Elan himself; and
b) Kubota killed Therkla not because she was a handy victim, but because she was a threat. She had power to affect him. This is not a victim narrative — and this is made especially clear because Therkla chooses not to remain on Earth where she will be unhappy.

[Metastachydium]

Also, Therkla wasn't the damsel when she died. Elan was. She was the more competent of the two and the one who (as Fish pointed out) posed a realistic threat to his mentor, in short: the hero, as acknowledged by Kubota himself. When Kubota poisoned the hero, he offered the damsel the choice to play hero (killing the actual hero in the process) or stay the damsel who tends to the wounded hero as the villain he cannot stop alone escapes. Further, Kubota didn't know he will kill Therkla. He told Elan he'd better let him escape and save the ninja. Neutralize Poison is a bard spell, after all, and Therkla was surprised that Elan does not have it.

The more I think about it, the more it seems that Nale's treatment is more problematic than Therkla's. He's a fairly flat and static character. Everything (we know) he's ever done was done to harm his brother (and his companions) or to spite his father (with a side of harming/spiting his companions), and he failed almost every single time. He was an impotent satellite orbiting two better developed characters, and then he was killed by his own father so that Elan can grow and turn against Tarquin.

[Saint-Just]

What's missing, in my opinion?*
a) "Fridging" portrays a tragedy with echoes of real-world events that actually happen to real people, and reframes that tragic narrative to be around someone other than the victim.

I do not think that it is necessary to make every tragedy in fiction about the victim(s). Sometimes for example author wants to follow one character only, and if that character is not presented when tragedy occurs (quite often in fact) and if the further contact with victims is impossible (because they are dead, because they are alive but on the other side of the world, because the hero needs to stop the villain before they can contact victims) making it about the victims would be practically impossible. There are many other reasons beside being confined to a single viewpoint. And a lot of classic tropes rely on that - say, the hero swearing an oath to destroy the villain who have hurt people dear to them. Trying to avoid any of that in your fiction is akin to writing a book without using a symbol for "e" - you can do it, but it is hard, and constrains your writing in ways which would not always do any good for it. I am hardly managing to string symbols for two blocks (a block which grammar says should start with a big first symbol and a dot should finish it) without using a dictionary for synonyms.

b) "Fridging," when applied widely as a story technique, normalizes and minimizes similar tragedies against some group, and perpetuates a narrative of victimhood for that group.

*Yes, I realize that TV Tropes probably doesn't define the trope this way, but I don't care what that website says.

The problem with the "dead girlfriend in the refrigerator" trope isn't one of agency, or the villain's purpose, or whether it forwards the story of the MC. The problem is that it takes violence against a (so-called) minority group and turns it into just something that happens to white dudes. In other words, girlfriends sometimes end up dead in refrigerators, and that's just something a guy has to deal with. I don't have to explain how problematic that is.

Again, a lot of people (including the OP, judging by "Fridging can apply to any sexuality, any race, gender, religion, background.") disagree with that definition. So we have a narrow definition which with possible rare exceptions indeed points out significant problems with the work, and a wide definition, which would apply to a significant chunk, maybe even over 50% of actual action stories in which characters with talking roles die. And while you and the OP may use the term "fridging" 100% self-consistently and apply a proper amount of negative weight to it (very significant for you, less significant for the OP), in the end "fridging" ends up being a term with vague but always negative connotations and vague definition. Which doesn't make it easy to have a meaningful discussion.

And while in theory everyone can read your definition, I do not think that ignoring the most popular source from which that definition has spread far and wide is a good tactic either.

[The Pilgrim]

You could argue that the original definition doesn't even include "to motivate a male hero's story" -- it was just a list of women in comics who have met untimely ends. I doubt many people would accept that definition now, though. My personal definition is probably something like "when the death of a female character matters more to another (male) character's story than it does to her own." That feels like a trickier judgment call for Therkla's death, but I'd probably still argue that it qualifies, even though it doesn't diminish her story.

(...)

But that's all in-universe. It's not a question of whether the villain is trying to motivate the hero with her death: it's a question of whether the story is trying to motivate the hero with her death. In Star Trek: TNG, Duras kills K'Ehleyr for self-serving political reasons. But the effect it has on Worf (and the way her death happens off-screen) absolutely qualifies it as fridging by even the strictest metrics. It doesn't matter what the villain wants: it matters what the story wants.

I think we are drifting into a different ground, here.

Death is one of the main plot devices for a writer. And the death of a female carries more weight than the death of a male, as female lives are perceived as being more valuable than male lives. In fiction works, male deaths are much more numerous and frequent than female, but when an author wants a particular death to be significative, it's usualy female.

When the Villain snuffs a man, it's often inconsequential and can even be played for laughts. When a Villain snuffs a woman, it's always a Kick the Dog moment. It always means that the Villain crosses the Moral Event Horizon.

TV Tropes explains it better:
Men are the Expendable Gender

My point is, there is a difference between:

1) A writer killing a character for story reasons, and having that character be female because it carries a lot more emotional weight.

And

2) A writter dumping a character into the fridge to get a cheap shot.

I'm with you on this. I wish we'd gotten more of Therkla without her infatuation with Elan, and her reason for not wanting to be raised was kind of silly if you push on it too hard. But it was still a really good scene and her death wasn't *only* to motivate Elan. That's why I'm essentially trying to have my cake (classify this as Fridging) and eat it too (argue that Therkla still got treated well by the narrative, for the most part).

Therkla's reason to refuse a raising is stupid, but far from silly.

In her backstory at GDGU, she is stablished as a person that, due to her low-class half-blood status, grew up being sidelined and looked down. Her lack of social life and dating prospects is mentioned. Her fondness on young adult books is a way for her to sublimate her lack of a love life. As a result, at her age she carries a lot less emotional bagagge regarding love relationships than the average person.

When she bonds with Sangwaan, she labels them both as "damaged goods". While it's obvious why she would regard a blind girl with a terminal condition as "damaged", it's less apparent why would Therkla label herself, a perfectly physically fit girl, as such. Sangwaan's physical condition is a reflection on Therkla's inner condition. She perceives herself as someone deeply flawed, inherently defective.

When Therkla meets Elan, she begins to project on him immediately. Elan is friendly towards her, a new situation for Therkla, as socially successful people have always ignored her. She perceives Elan as her way to get fixed. When that castle in the sky gets blown, it provokes a sense of failure in her. She feels she's defective beyond chance of repair. Unfortunately, that moment happens at the same time she's dying, and thus chooses to remain dead.

Stablishing Therkla's character as lovesick and with a low self-perception was the key to make her decission to remain dead a believable one, and her backstory in GDGU does a good job at completing that characterization.

[Vinyadan]

The Bechdel test was intended to point out the broader trend of just how few works pass it, and not a benchmark for individual works, as I understand it.

Is it an impression, or Episode VIII deliberately failed the test by having two women only talk once to say how much they liked Poe, whom they had just beat into submission? I don't remember other all-female dialogues from that movie.

[KorvinStarmast]

Therkla doesn't count as fridging in my book, because:
a) Although her tragedy motivates Elan, it is still her story. The characters in the story (Kubota, the imp, Elan) relate to her, not so much to Elan himself; and
b) Kubota killed Therkla not because she was a handy victim, but because she was a threat. She had power to affect him. This is not a victim narrative — and this is made especially clear because Therkla chooses not to remain on Earth where she will be unhappy.

You captured a lot of what I was thinking a lot more clearly than I did. Thank you.

[The Pilgrim]

Is it an impression, or Episode VIII deliberately failed the test by having two women only talk once to say how much they liked Poe, whom they had just beat into submission? I don't remember other all-female dialogues from that movie.

Two females talking about a man still fails the Bedchel test.

The punchile of the original joke was that Aliens was the only movie of the time that passed it.

[Ionathus]

I think we are drifting into a different ground, here.
...
Men are the Expendable Gender

Yeah, I think so, too. But that's what happens when you look closely at different tropes: there's a LOT of cross-pollination.

For instance, is the trope Men Are The Expendable Gender influenced by the phenomenon that Most Writers Are Male? If a writer only writes men by default, so that female characters become the exception, then within that world Men are, indeed, expendable. Meanwhile, women are a precious commodity, since there are so few of them and they only appear when it's significant. In that context, of course a woman's death would be more significant.

Meanwhile, Women in Refrigerators would seem to imply the opposite. That women are expendable, because their only use is to be killed to motivate others. But I can definitely see your point as well.

To me, a lot of these unconscious biases can be solved by literally just striving for equal representation (where viable). It's one of the reasons I love A Monster for Every Season so much: Rich includes a lot of female guards, bandits, villains, and monsters, and usually has a 50/50 split for the "Legion Sheets" as well. And in the more recent arcs (especially BRitF and Utterly Dwarfed), I've noticed a significant increase in female characters. That's not news to any of us, of course, but it's astonishing what a work of fiction looks like when it actually reflects the real-world gender split. Suddenly a bunch of people dying is gut-wrenching all by itself, rather than it needing to be "women and children" that exclusively get our tears.

Therkla's reason to refuse a raising is stupid, but far from silly.

I disagree with some of your points about her reasons here, but I agree "silly" is the wrong word. I over-use "stupid" and "dumb" as adjectives and was trying to pick something more evocative. "Misguided"? "Unbelievable"? Surely there's something that works.

Is it an impression, or Episode VIII deliberately failed the test by having two women only talk once to say how much they liked Poe, whom they had just beat into submission? I don't remember other all-female dialogues from that movie.

Although it's up for debate, I'm pretty sure Leia and Holdo have a non-man conversation in Episode VIII.

[Fish]

I do not think that it is necessary to make every tragedy in fiction about the victim(s).

You are absolutely correct, otherwise there would be no such thing as a detective story. I am hardly suggesting the extreme slippery-slope version you're talking about, wherein all victims must always tell their own story, in all fiction, forevermore, so mote it be. I said no such thing.

To restate my point, the problem with "fridging" as a technique is that it is a kind of narrative appropriation. The tragedy doesn't belong to the MC except by association. In its own way, it's like The Green Book (where a white man grows as a character after seeing racism happen to someone else). It is framing the Awful Thing through the viewpoint of a character who does not experience the Awful Thing personally. This has the effect of minimizing the suffering of the actual victim, because the suffering isn't real except inasmuch as it affects the MC.

Again, a lot of people (including the OP, judging by "Fridging can apply to any sexuality, any race, gender, religion, background") disagree with that definition.

Forgive me if I allow people to disagree with their own voices, rather than through yours. I was talking about the element of appropriation in context of the original instance. I never said this was the only permissible context. Other examples of appropriation could easily be imagined to represent other minority groups: the gay character who is killed off to increase the MC's sympathy toward gays; the disabled character who is killed off to increase the MC's awareness of disability issues, and so on.

[Saint-Just]

I disagree with some of your points about her reasons here, but I agree "silly" is the wrong word. I over-use "stupid" and "dumb" as adjectives and was trying to pick something more evocative. "Misguided"? "Unbelievable"? Surely there's something that works.

Misguided. Ill-thought. Ill-adjusted (can a decision be ill-adjusted, or should it be "showing an ill-adjusted personality"?).

Yet 100% believable. People in the circumstances depicted sometime even take more active part in their own demise than saying "Do Not Resuscitate Raise"

[Vinyadan]

Although it's up for debate, I'm pretty sure Leia and Holdo have a non-man conversation in Episode VIII.

It's the one I was referring to... unfortunately I can't find the clip, but the first thing they say after they meet is that they like Poe; according to a transcript, they then say farewell to each other, and Holdo gives a veiled hint to what she's about to do. Is that enough to pass the test? I didn't really notice the second part of the conversation the first time around, because it isn't very easy to understand until Holdo crashes.

[KorvinStarmast]

For instance, is the trope Men Are The Expendable Gender influenced by the phenomenon that Most Writers Are Male?

What?
If you look at what is being advertised these days, in terms of published writing, most writers these days are females.
What if TV tropes is wrong?

[Ionathus]

It's the one I was referring to... unfortunately I can't find the clip, but the first thing they say after they meet is that they like Poe; according to a transcript, they then say farewell to each other, and Holdo gives a veiled hint to what she's about to do. Is that enough to pass the test? I didn't really notice the second part of the conversation the first time around, because it isn't very easy to understand until Holdo crashes.

I remember clicking through the big index of all movies on the Bechdel Test website and seeing the discussions people were having about whether or not something counted -- how long is a "conversation"? One back-and-forth? A full 30 seconds of dialogue? If they mention a man early on, but then change the subject, does that count?

Ultimately I don't think it matters. The fact that we're even debating whether or not a single 15-second conversation qualifies, but could instantly name an example of two men talking in the same movie, is the point. But it is fun to debate minutiae.

What?
If you look at what is being advertised these days, in terms of published writing, most writers these days are females.
What if TV tropes is wrong?

Among the top 250 highest-grossing films of 2019, only 19% of screenwriters were female. That's just for film: I believe the numbers are at least similar for TV.

Actual written fiction is harder to quantify. Do we mean published novels on sale at Barnes & Noble? Or does it include self-published works? Do we go by best-sellers only? In that category, men definitely have the legacy advantage.

[Ruck]

Is it an impression, or Episode VIII deliberately failed the test by having two women only talk once to say how much they liked Poe, whom they had just beat into submission? I don't remember other all-female dialogues from that movie.

You'll have to ask someone familiar with the movies. I'm not sure where you might find someone like that around here.

Still not convinced the term fridging can be used without a negative connotation. It was coined to criticise a tendency, after all, and not simply to describe it.

Yeah, that's my point when saying this doesn't really qualify-- it has an inherently negative connotation based in how the character killed is treated by the narrative, and I don't think Therkla qualifies.

[The Pilgrim]

Yeah, I think so, too. But that's what happens when you look closely at different tropes: there's a LOT of cross-pollination.

For instance, is the trope Men Are The Expendable Gender influenced by the phenomenon that Most Writers Are Male? If a writer only writes men by default, so that female characters become the exception, then within that world Men are, indeed, expendable. Meanwhile, women are a precious commodity, since there are so few of them and they only appear when it's significant. In that context, of course a woman's death would be more significant.

Perhaps. Anyway, the point I wanted to stress is that "fridging" is a cheap death trope, and choosing specifically a female for enhanced shock value is an additional device that can go paired with any death trope. Like the frosting over an already bad cake recipe.

Mmmh, that analogy made me hungry. Let's see what I have in the fridge... hopefully not a girl.