Trope are inevitable. I found a hilarious page yesterday which laid out in 8 points why you can't avoid tropes in your story.
I think there was less talk of pitchforking female characters, but it's implicit in the layout of the flowchart: you can be a "strong female character" OR you can be a trope.
FFS, ELLEN RIPLEY was in the tropes section!!
Someone on my other journal pointed out that "it just shows what female protags need to be strong characters and how few of them there are". Actually, what it shows is that women are naturally disadvantaged because the majority of female characters were 'minor cast' in their canon - they don't have the natural immunity or story-assumptions that the white males of their canon do. And then even the ones whose canon is about them (ie. Sailor Moon, Ellen Ripley) get dismissed!
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I think there was less talk of pitchforking female characters, but it's implicit in the layout of the flowchart: you can be a "strong female character" OR you can be a trope.
FFS, ELLEN RIPLEY was in the tropes section!!
Someone on my other journal pointed out that "it just shows what female protags need to be strong characters and how few of them there are". Actually, what it shows is that women are naturally disadvantaged because the majority of female characters were 'minor cast' in their canon - they don't have the natural immunity or story-assumptions that the white males of their canon do. And then even the ones whose canon is about them (ie. Sailor Moon, Ellen Ripley) get dismissed!
It's a no-win situation.