Web fiction
Stuffed into the fridge
The fridging trope: a character, disproportionately a woman, killed or maimed to motivate the protagonist; named by Gail Simone in 1999.
"Stuffed into the fridge" is the colloquial phrase for the trope Wikipedia covers as Women in refrigerators: a literary trope "which involves female characters facing disproportionate harm, such as maiming, assault, or even death," in which the harmed character serves as a plot device to motivate another, usually a male protagonist. Gail Simone coined the name in 1999 with a website listing more than one hundred such characters, after Green Lantern vol. 3 #54 (1994), in which Kyle Rayner finds his girlfriend Alexandra DeWitt killed by Major Force and stuffed into a refrigerator. The recorded criticism: male heroes typically die nobly and return, while violence against female characters is often for shock value, sexualized and permanent.
Ron Marz, who wrote the issue, answered that the divide is "less male-female than main character-supporting character," since supporting characters carry the lasting tragedies. For writers the term works as a check on motive: a loved one or foil harmed to fuel the hero's arc should have weight of their own, the balance managing an ensemble cast keeps.
Sources
- Wikipedia: Women in refrigerators The article covering this trope, called 'fridging'; no article exists under the phrase itself.