You know, "damsels in distress" seem to get an awful lot of flack these days. Being situationally unprepared or powerless seems to be out, while constant self-sufficiency and casual ass-kicking is in, and to be honest, that's kind of a bummer, because I live for characters relying on and helping each other, and, in my experience, nothing brings characters closer together than rescuing one another from the clutches of a diseased maniac or two. Now, I'll freely admit to a bias on this front. I love this trope. Rescues are fun, villain-hero dynamics are fun, distressing your characters is fun. And I think that one of the most entertaining ways to elaborate on your established characters is to drop them into a new and dangerous situation and watch how they react. One of your heroes getting captured by a villain or two can lead to any number of interesting character interactions that might not be possible otherwise. Your hero will have dynamics with their captor, the other heroes will have a new dynamic in their absence, and if you've got a passion for complex plans, your rescue mission can be as complicated as you want it to be! It's like a playground, but for emotionally ravaging your characters! The best kind of playground for any author to play around in. But on the other hand, it might be kind of surprising to some of you that I'm such a huge fan of this trope, especially considering that the most recognizable version of this trope is the classic "damsel in distress", a famously flat and empty female character, and not one that I particularly relate to or like. Now, I've made my personal character preferences and annoyance towards certain gender biases fairly clear in earlier videos... The short of it being that because I'm both female and fairly manly, I get a kick out of seeing manly badass female characters, and the opposite of a kick out of seeing exclusively fragile and/or feminine ones without much agency. There's nothing wrong with those character traits, and there's obviously nothing wrong with being feminine, or not having the objective of ideological manliness in real life. I just personally prefer seeing characters that I more fully relate to than feeling restricted by primarily seeing characters that I really can't fully relate to, so obviously both the lack of agency and the widespread usage of the classic "damsel in distress" really bugs me. So why do I like this trope if, logically speaking, I should hate it more than life itself? Well, the thing is, the classic "damsel in distress"--the princess in the tower, the kidnapped girlfriend, whatever, she's nowhere near the only way to write a "damsel in distress", it's just the easiest way to do it. Because you don't actually have to put in the work of writing a character for her at all! She may as well be a magic item or a big bag of money. Her only defining traits are that people want her and she's hard to get to, but there's a newer variant of the "damsel in distress" that's very different. It takes an established character, puts them in distress, and then examines how they and their friends react in those new circumstances. Now, THIS is what I mean when I refer to the "damsel in distress" trope, not the fairytale princess with nothing behind the eyes, but the fully fledged character thrown into a challenging situation that drives home their natural inability to be totally self-sufficient. Now, obviously, the first and biggest problem with writing this kind of damsel is that they run the risk of falling into the "damsel mindset" the minute they end up in distress, and what I mean by "the damsel mindset" is basically what happens when the writer treats the distress is an excuse to put this otherwise fully developed character on the sidelines for a while, and leave them out of the story. The character stops acting like themself, or stops acting entirely, as soon as they get sufficiently distressed because the writer has benched them for the duration of their time in distress. They've gone from being a character to being a story reward. You definitely know what I'm talking about, we can all think of a character who got dropped into a bad situation and immediately stopped all attempts at self preservation. This usually happens because the writer has a dramatic rescue queued up, so, from the plot perspective, the character doesn't need to save themselves, but it's generally out of character for anybody to find themselves in a bad situation and immediately decide they're stuck there until further notice. This is the damsel mindset, and the trick is that every damsel category I'm about to talk about from here on out does not have it. The damsel mindset is a writing error that puts a damsel character on a shelf for the duration of their time damseled, rather than working through how they'd logically act in the situation. It basically turns them into the classical character-less damsel until they get "un-distressed". For a quick example of someone who's "damseled" but not in "the damsel mindset", there's a moment in "The Legion of Superheroes" cartoon (minor spoilers for episode two) where Saturn Girl, a squishy telepath with very little physical combat ability and the color palette of Princess Peach, gets dogpiled by a load of robots. Watching this, you'd be thinking "Uh-oh, she's psychic, they don't have minds, so I guess Superman is gonna have to swoop in and bail her out because she can't do anything here", at which point she busts out this "psychic shockwave" move and disables all the attacking robots before passing out. She then wakes up in a cave with a werewolf thing that, as it turns out, is not hostile. Although, before this becomes obvious, when it's still a captive-damsel situation, she kicks him in the face and makes a break for the exit. Classic distress scenario, classic damsel archetype, she doesn't even get out of distress by herself, but without the damsel mindset, she doesn't fall into being a classical damsel, and she's a lot more interesting to watch. So, basically, every variant we're about to discuss is a character type that has been damseled, but has not been written with the damsel mindset, meaning they're still going to be acting in character. This is important, because the entire benefit of this version of the damsel in distress is the unique kinds of character interactions you can get from these scenarios. You're basically knee-capping yourself right off the bat if you forget to actually write the character at the center of the whole "distress" storyline. One side note, real quick, there is one reason to break out something resembling the damsel mindset: sometimes a character can be emotionally broken or working through some stuff, and during that time, will be unwilling to try and save themselves. This looks like classical damseling, but this isn't a negation of their character. It's putting their character through something really upsetting and portraying that to the audience by having this normally active character be utterly dispassionate about their own safety and well-being. This one's good for character development and audience knife-twisting. Anyway, moving on to the major damsel classes, the simplest kind is... let's call her the "neo-classical damsel." She looks like the classical damsel, but she's got a personality in there, and hasn't fallen into the "damsel mindset". This is, pretty much, the only visible difference between the two. She's still not very physically strong and almost certainly can't fight her way out of most, if any, situations. As a result, this variant is also, for the most part, either female, or a child, since adult male characters are generally assumed to have at least a little combat capacity under their belts. Bottom line is: she's imprisoned and can't escape, but she does have a character. It hasn't been sacrificed by the writer for the benefit of a dramatic rescue. There are basically three specific sub-variants, though, of course there are endless possibilities, since the only requirement for the sub-class is that the damsel will be ineffectual in a straight-up fight. There's the "defiant damsel", who might be imprisoned, but is most certainly not gonna make it pleasant to have her around. Then there's the "play-along prisoner", who might take advantage of her proximity to the bad guy to ingratiate herself to him and obtain valuable information, or even reach an advantageous position where she'll be able to backstab him later. And then there's the "broken damsel", who's rather more depressing than either of the other two. This is what I mentioned before that is the thing that looks like the damsel mindset, but isn't. Interestingly, this third variant is also pretty much unisex, especially since the broken damsel can serve as a very effective villain backstory. Your buddy gets captured, you find him ten years later, traumatized and stabby. It's a tale as old as time. Anyway, moving on from the baseline, there's also the "unprecedentedly competent damsel", a trope which is frequently female, but also shows up in dudes. This is the character that looks like an instance of the neoclassical damsel, but turns out to be a touch more competent than they first appeared. They're unlikely to escape on their own, but they might be able to make a right nuisance of themselves while damseled, and maybe even get far enough in an escape attempt to slip valuable information or something out. They're a very specific instances of the more general "Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass" trope, where the character is more dangerous than they initially appear. It's just that, in this case, it doesn't tend to get them very far. They can be fun to watch, though, since they're allowed to make a nuisance of themselves and piss off the bad guy. The unprecedentedly competent damsel is interesting from an audience-author interaction standpoint, because your audience is gonna pretty much know that the character most likely won't be able to escape on their own. Now, there's something of a literary bias against having your characters try to do stuff that your audience knows won't work (unless it's a case of dramatic irony or whatever) since it can kind of feel like a waste of time. This means the initial author's impulse for a situation like this would be to have this damsel basically recognize that they can't escape on their own, so they should just sit tight and wait for a rescue. So it immediately subverts expectations when you have this character actually try their hardest to get away, even if they're pretty sure it won't work. Your audience won't really be expecting it, your villain might not be expecting it, and it helps to drive home the fact that this is a character with agency who'd really rather not be here right now. Now, moving along up the chain of badassery, there's the "badass in distress" damsel variant, where your damsel is unconditionally a total kickass fighter, but they've managed to fall into a situation where even their impressive abilities won't let them Bruce Lee their way out. This badass could most likely escape from almost any normal form of damselification, but this form of imprisonment might be tailor-made to capture them, or just be out of their league to bust out of. They'll need a hand to escape, but that hand can be very minimalistic. They might just need a single opening to do the rest of the breakout on their own. Also, the badass in distress is usually a lot less likely to fall victim to the damsel mindset than the other variants we've talked about, because badasses are expected to be, well, badass, self-reliant, and all the other good stuff that's liable to respond poorly to getting strung up in some villain's lair. In fact, it's actually jarring for the audience when a badass slips into the damsel mindset. TV Tropes calls it the "distress ball": where a character that should know better, or be able to save themselves, ends up distressed for no reason other than plot. For the other variants, it's more of a pleasant surprise when a character actually retains their personality when in distress. For the badass, it's an unpleasant surprise when they don't. The other cool thing about this is that the badass in distress sometimes CAN break out on their own. Or, if you have a group of protagonists in distress, all you need is one of them to figure a way out and everyone's pretty much golden. Now, all of these damselly sub-tropes have one key thing in common: the characters are damseled because they lack total self-sufficiency. They need people because they can't do everything alone. And this becomes tangible when they are alone and can't do something that they would really, really rather do, like beat the super villain or escape the tower. Now, this isn't important because it's a plot twist or anything. If it's a plot twist that your character can't do everything on their own, you might want to re-examine how you've done the power balance of your protagonists. No, the fact that a lack of self-sufficiency is central to the damsel trope is important because that qualification applies to, literally, every character in existence. Don't believe me? Even Batman has been damseled, and this was like a GOOD Batman, where he was characterized as being crazy prepared and, pretty much, entirely self-sufficient, but when they put him in a prison being run by himself from a parallel universe, he's straight-up stuck and has to be rescued by the Flash thinking outside the box. See, damseling can realistically happen to anyone. And this is good because damseling is a really useful trope. And like I said, I'm biased on this front, since all my favorite stories involved at least one highly dramatic rescue or escape. But, from a purely logical standpoint, damseling can be super useful. Damseling opens the door for all kinds of interesting character interactions and subsequent character development. See, at its heart, this version of the "damsel in distress" trope reinforces one specific message: "You can't and should not be expected to do everything alone". Some characters explicitly need this moral, but for other stories it's less "You can't do it alone" and more "You AREN'T alone, and when it counts, we're here for you". And that is a sentiment that everyone can stand to hear. It's just about the most heartwarming thing a person can hear. This is probably why damseling is so popular. It's one of the easiest and least contrived ways to invoke the power of friendship, which is an absolute monster of a trope on its own and very useful if done right. Damsel someone and the friendship-powered rescue mission writes itself. Now, of course there are some risks when writing this trope. I brought up the "distress ball" when I talked about the badass in distress, which is where a badass character falls into the damsel mindset, despite having no business being that accepting of a bad situation. This can happen out of habit or because the writer wants to focus on the dynamics of the reduced team, rather than the missing character. But a lot of the time the real reason for this is... well.. the writer really wanted to put this character in distress and make 'em helpless and kind of skipped over the part where they figure out how and why that would ever happen. Sometimes, they contrive the situation so they can write a rescue romance, but sometimes it's straight-up author appeal and you can usually tell by how oddly specific the terms of distress end up being. Some writers like distressing their characters, I get it, just make sure it makes sense and you're fine. But the bottom line is: when a character gets damseled, the major risk is that the author forgets to write the damsel character in favor of focusing on the rescue. And this isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes, it can be deliberate in order to keep your audience on edge. Because if the writer wants to keep tensions running high, they just won't tell you what's happened to the distressed character until the rescue party actually smashes down the door. There's also a couple wacky and not-so-wacky damseling variants that specifically build off the story variant where you deliberately keep the focus off the damsel for the duration of the arc. First off, sometimes when your heroes break down the door to rescue their friend, they, and the audience, all find out that he's been turned evil for whatever reason. Usually, he's been brainwashed somehow, or the evil was inside him all along. Anyway, this is fun because your audience gets "expectation whiplash", where the plot trajectory goes from "rescue and get out" to "bestie smackdown lightning round", and you get to pull out the timeless "power of friendship" classic: the "I know you're in there somewhere" fight. Sometimes, on the other end of things, you can get a "rescue damsel pileup", where someone tries to rescue the damsel and ends up damseled themself. This can be played for drama or comedy, depending on how you're feeling. And, of course, sometimes your rescue ends up inverted: your heroes break down the door, find themselves in over their heads, and end up being rescued from peril by the very damsel they were trying to save, who spent their time off-screen picking the lock and knocking out the guards. This can be a fun twist on how you handle damseling a badass. Or, for a more wacky variant, unbeknownst to the rescue party and the audience both, the damsel was damseled as a trap for one or more of the rescuers, and when the trap is sprung, the damsel ends up having to rescue them. Or you can pull a "bait and switch" with the rescuers. Maybe, while the damsel is busily "damseled", villainous infighting happens and someone pulls a morality flip and turns good, subsequently rescuing the damsel before the proper rescue party has even got their boots on. Or your damsel can be rescued by a straight-up villain working for their own ends. And that's not even touching on all the rescue romance plot variants. There are about a half million ways to play with a "damsel" storyline, and they're all fun in their own way. Honestly, it seems like one of the biggest risks of the "damsel in distress" trope is overusing it without realizing it. But even then, it's not necessarily bad to use this trope a bunch, as long as it makes sense. One running theme in "Journey to the West" is that Tripitaka gets captured or otherwise "distressed" basically every other chapter, but this is internally justified by the fact that every demon they run into wants to eat him in order to gain immortality, and he has exactly zero agency or self defense capability because that's what Monkey is for. Like, it's silly, but it also makes sense. Anyway, yeah, damseling is... easy to get wrong and easy to overuse, but if you do it right, it can be a really useful and entertaining source of unique interactions, group dynamics, character development and knife-twisting. And, in general, putting an established character into a new and challenging situation can always be exploited for interesting characterizations. So... yeah. *Patron time*
Great video. Man, writing female characters in today's day and age can be such a headache. Is she strong enough? Is she too strong? Wait, she gets rescued by a guy or makes mistakes, does this mean she's a failure even though she's also saved said guy a couple other times, too? Oh no, two females talking about a dude, Bechdel test failed... (These are all issues I've somehow created in my own head, not me voicing my opinion on anything).
By the end, I really just go fuck it and write them out true to character.
How have I never heard of this channel before?
Good stuff.
I really like Overly Sarcastic Productions' videos. They're just really well done and come from a well informed perspective
Wow that was good subscribes
This was definitely worth the time. And now I need to check out the rest of the series...
Final fantasy has great but also horrible examples of damsels in distress.
Luna of the recent game is a terrible example.
Garneth and Aerith are awesome characters of the trope with lots of development, personality and purpose in the plot.