[ SECRET POST #3825 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3825 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 61 secrets from Secret Submission Post #548.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 1 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

01. http://i.imgur.com/kiwfVls.jpg

[(Anonymous)]

I kind of get this. Usually when male characters are dumb, they're "dumb but strong" or somehow useful in another way. When female characters are dumb, they're almost always "dumb but pretty," which is useless except as a sex object.

[(Anonymous)]

*speaking of heroes or main characters I mean. Dumb villains are often just stupid and petty, but that's different.

[(Anonymous)]

Or at least, very rarely are male characters dumb specifically to make the heroine look more competent, clever, etc.

[(Anonymous)]

It happens to villains a lot, big dumb brute male villain with snarky snappy female heroine, but rarely to the other male heroes or good guys.

[(Anonymous)]

I have also seen the dumb-but-pure male character. Like Fezzik in The Princess Bride.

The closest I can think of to that would maybe be Lottie in The Princess and the Frog.

[thewakokid]

I don't see a value difference there. I mean, both dumb people are being used as an object, one is a sex object, the other is used as equipment. I don't see either character as being better off.

[(Anonymous)]

It does annoy me. It's such aggressively bad writing. I haven't noticed it being particularly gendered but I'll keep an eye out (and also it's such an immediate back-button in general that I probably don't see a lot of examples tbh.

[(Anonymous)]

This. Regardless if it's gendered or if a person feels like this gendered stereotype is a major issue, it's simply poor writing. If you can't formulate a credible, interesting plot without giving characters a sudden case of the terminal stupids, that's a failure on the author's part.

[(Anonymous)]

It also seems to happen a lot when characters are fridged. It's like once the writer has decided to kill a character off for the sake of the plot/emotion they can't even be bothered to give her a heroic death, or one that completes her character arc in some way, or even one where she makes the bad decision that gets her killed for good reasons, rather than just the writer just not caring about the character beyond the effect her death will have on the hero.

[(Anonymous)]

I think it's worse with heroines because it's often the result of writers trying to subvert the weak woman/damsel in distress trope, and still managing to fuck up.

[(Anonymous)]

The worst dumb-heroine moment I remember in recent history was Katniss Everdeen being too unobservant to realize all the hints Plutarch kept dropping in front of her at the shindig she was at.

Didn't get her killed, but it was OOC.

[(Anonymous)]

really? i only know the book, but that was one of the few moments where i thought it was perfectly plausible to not get it. she had a lot of things on her mind and "the gamemaker is trying to give me hints about the next hunger games which i will not be participating in" is outlandish enough that just brushing it off as a quirky capitol thing made sense to me.

now if we want to talk about how "i'm not jealous over gale because i like-like him, it's because i need him as a hunting partner" and "peeta's kindness is definitely an evil plot because he wants to murder me" dumbness, yeah...

[(Anonymous)]

Katniss is usually pretty sharp and picks up subtleties of things, ordinarily - like how Snow was disguising threats behind reasonable-seeming statements. Her big blind spot which *is* character-consistent is romance (which could actually be explained by being ace-aro), so for her to fail to pick up Plutarch's hints smells a bit like deliberate OOCness for the sake of a wham reveal at the end of Catching Fire, which... :\

[(Anonymous)]

Ugh, it's especially ridiculous when they keep telling us how 'smart' she's -supposed- to be, but then she's all the sudden so maddeningly dumb I kind of want her to get iced so I don't have to keep reading (once I start a story, I want to finish).

If that's the only way you can get your plot to move, maybe don't write the story. I won't read any more of your work after.

[(Anonymous)]

Something I love about the Wonder Woman movie is that not only are the female characters not dumb (not a single one - I wouldn't even count the woman in the fancy blue dress as dumb) but none of the men come down with a case of the dumb to make Diana look good. The villains remain formidable, Steve is never presented as anything less than competent and heroic... the only character who really stumbles does so due to past trauma and the characters react to this, rather the moment just being ignored and used as a convenient device to give Diana a heroic moment.

[amanuensis1]

Thank you for pointing this out! I hadn't noticed this but I feel you're right, and it's a wonderful thing.

[rivulet027]

I really loved that about the movie.

[amanuensis1]

Ha. Reading this secret, all I could think of was Alien: Covenant.

(To be fair, it was both sexes. Alllllll the way through. And it's a horror movie, so. But migod.)

[tabaqui]

Omg, this. I hate this trope more than any other, for *any* character, because it happens so fucking often.

[amanuensis1]

I read a comment somewhere that someone wants to see a horror movie where the characters make all the right and sensible choices...and still end terribly, because that's real horror.

[(Anonymous)]

I know right. I'm still floored on how increably stupid the religious captain character was, and I was sooo glad to see his stupid ass killed. Like, everything bad that happens in this movie is all because of him, ugh.

[(Anonymous)]

...only 'slightly' sexist?

[(Anonymous)]

^^This. It's full-on sexist, internalized or not, and not cool.

...OK, and I just read this post and thought...

[(Anonymous)]

...that this post in reverse is Michael Bay's bible.

(...and boy howdy does he thump it hard...)


...characters without agency...
...voiceless Bumblebee...
...I shall not forgive...


anon out!