How can we write when our tropes are burning?

[tielan]

Lately overheard in fandom:

OVERTHINKINGIT: Tell me, what do you do with female characters?
FAN 1: Burn them!
OVERTHINKINGIT: And what do you burn apart from women?
FAN 1: More women.
FAN 2: Tropes.
OVERTHINKINGIT: Good, now why are female characters worthless?
FAN 2: Because...they're tropes?
OVERTHINKINGIT: So, how do you tell if a female character is a trope?
FAN 1: She fits into your handy female character flowchart with terms that were totes not stolen from TV tropes.
OVERTHINKINGIT: Ah, but now, can you not also have male characters who are tropes?
FAN 1: Oh...um...yeah, I guess.
OVERTHINKINGIT: Are all tropes bad?
FAN 2: When they apply to female characters!
OVERTHINKINGIT: What else is bad?
FAN 1: Het fic.
FAN 2: People who complain about race representation.
FAN 3: Republicans.
FAN 1: Major characters who aren't white or male and who don't appropriately defer to the white males.
FAN 2: People who write het fic.
FAN 3: Female characters.
OVERTHINKINGIT: Exactly! So, logically...
FAN 2: If she's a female character...then...SHE'S A TROPE!

Dear Overthinking It,

Certainly, you've put together a useful flowchart for identifying tropes. However, not all tropes are bad, and the fact that a character matches a trope does not make them any less "real", "strong", "worthwhile", or "interesting".

You might like to reconsider reducing females - real or fictional - to a single most notable aspect.

not exactly encouraged by your reductionism,
T.

tl;dr version

OVERTHINKINGIT: If your female character fits any trope at all, she's not a "strong female character."
FANDOM: Let's take her out the back and beat the shit out of her!