The Worst Kind of Damsel in Distress

The Damsel in Distress, a tale as old as time, a beautiful maiden, a ferocious monster, and the dashing knight in shining armor come to save the day, whether due to a sense of duty or emotional reasons (okay, that take is as old as feudal Europe but you get the point). For a while, it was just sort of the default for female characters, particularly in the early days of film, comics, and video games. But recently (if the 80's counts as recent) there's been a push against that being the default for female characters, new characters like Samus Aran, Ellen Ripley, and Spider-Gwen have all made names for themselves kicking ass and taking names and even previous notorious damsels in distress have been either kicking a lot more ass or are just better written in general.

But in turn there has been another type of character, the "action girl" who is built up as a fighter and a warrior but turns out to just be a damsel in distress and utterly helpless in spite of the buildup. Now we're not talking, "character gets in a bind and needs some help but can otherwise handle themself" those are fine. These characters on the other hand start out or earn promise and potential of seeing them kickass only for the writer to go "the hell was I thinking?" and make them into just another damsel in distress for the hero to save.

 These examples stick out as insulting because they get you excited to see them kickass only for it to turn into a resounding fail and make you feel like you wasted your time getting invested in their struggles. Now, there are two types of these characters in fiction I find, the senior fellow who it's claimed has kicked ass and taken names and even carries themselves like they're superior but never seems to do anything to prove it. Alongside the young learner who is built up as a hero only to have to be saved without doing anything of real note with a weapon. And before you ask, yes, I have examples though one of them is spoilertastic for Kingdom Hearts III so stop now if you don't want to avoid spoilers.

Our first example comes from the mediocre anime, Sword Art Online, released in 2012. As a rundown, the show follows the most boring character devised in anime, Kirito, as he and 9,999 other people are trapped inside of a video game thanks to neural networked VR. Now, I had heard good things about this show and I will admit, first three episodes are pretty good as they deal with the life or death struggles of a game where death in the game means death in real life and how the players come to terms with that.

Around Episode 7 though we are introduced to the love interest of the show, a girl named Asuna who is revealed to be second in command of the games largest faction. Or rather, we are re-introduced to Asuna, as we had actually met her first in Episode 2 as a shy and meek girl with incredible fighting potential for a non-gamer. Now, Asuna had been forgotten until Episode 7, when a two year time jump happens for some reason and we meet the new Asuna, a confident, in command, and sure of herself leader who answers only to the most powerful player in the game who is also her faction's leader. So yeah, she's setup as someone who has kicked ass, taken names, and you will respect if you value your ass.... until she's not. And I'm not even talking the fact that she falls in love with Kirito, that's fine even if I think Kirito is white bread.

No, I'm talking about how at the end of Episode 12 Asuna is killed by the main villain who Kirito defeats, ending the entire original premise of the show. Somehow Asuna lives but for some reason is being held captive in an entire other game and unable to escape into the real world, and here's where the problem begins (outside of the shows premise being over in 12 episodes of 25). Asuna effectively becomes nothing more than a plot device, a reason for Kirito to do what he does in the second half of the season. Admittidley, she does do one thing to help Kirito and the crew he builds up but spoiler, it doesn't redeem the damage done.

 Now going from tough and in command to a meek and helpless damsel in distress is bad enough, but one could assume that she would help in the final battle. And that gives us the worst episode of the show and possibly the entire art from of anime, Episode 24, in which the villain starts raping Asuna while Kirito is forced to watch. So not only is this supposed badass commander killed before the end of the first arc,and then damsel-ed in the entire second half of the show, she doesn't even get the satisfaction of revenge on her captor. God I miss Oliver Armstrong from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, now there's a badass commander who lives up to her potential. Note: I stopped watching SAO at this point, I was frankly disgusted as it felt like an excuse for the creators to draw sick and fucked up porn of teenagers. I only watched the next episode because it was the season finale and I wanted to see them try dig themselves out of this shit. Only watched an episode of an SAO spinoff after that I forgot the name of but only because my friend was watching when I showed up.

For our next example we have the Kingdom Hearts series, Square Enix's bizarre adventure through the various classic realms of Disney. Now in spite of it being advertised initially as a Final Fantasy/Disney crossover, the game starred an original hero, Sora, as he searched for his best friend Riku and kinda-sorta-not girlfriend Kairi, who is the focus of this example, the young buck who learns the ropes only to fall down hard. Now, in the first Kingdom Hearts, Kairi is a damsel in distress in a weird way, she's comatose and her soul resides in our hero Sora for most of the game. Well Sora learns what's up and essentially kills himself in order to save Kairi, though due to mystical powers Kairi has (the reason the villains wanted her in the first place) Sora is restored, defeats the main villain, and leaves to find his best friend Riku, last seen trapped in what amounts to hell alongside Mickey Mouse.

Now Kairi here isn't bad, yes she's a damsel in distress in the first game but again, the trope itself was never my problem (outside of maybe too much use of it) and Kairi is decently written for the role she takes. Now, in Kingdom Hearts II this same shit happens again, though to be fair, they wait till halfway through the game to drop it on you. But while this is a case of second verse same as the first, it's not too upsetting as it's revealed that Kairi, along with Riku, can wield the same kind of magical keyblade that Sora can. Thus setting her up to take a more active role in Kingdom Hearts III, right?

Now here's the problem, at the end of both Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance and Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep 0.2 A Fragmentary Passage (fuck this franchise's naming), it's out right stated that Kairi will be trained to use her new blade in order to give an edge on the oncoming storm in KH3. Well in KH3 while Sora is off gallivanting across the universe, Kairi is training in a place where time has no meaning, which should allow her to really train up, kick some ass, and save the day right? Well in her first serious fight she not only loses but gets, and say it with me now, kidnapped again. All that potential and build up she's just kidnapped again, going three for three in terms of mainline games, and in two of those she was talking up a big game about actually doing something for once so that's double the pride, double the fall.

But it actually get's worse though as, in order to manipulate Sora into attacking him, the main villain straight up kills Kairi. Meaning that all the build up, all the hope that she would take a more active role, 13 years of build up (though I was there for only 5 of those)? Right down the crapper and with it, any hope of taking Kairi seriously ever again, becoming the useless butt of jokes about Kingdom Hearts. Alright, well to be fair she did one thing, one thing that was more related to her power in the first game and not to swinging swords and beating down baddies like the audience was promised. In other words, it just feels like we shouldn't have bothered rooting for her, like Kairi's entire story arc was just pointless. Hopefully Kairi get's the Final Fantasy X-2 treatment of "boyfriend dead? time to step up" like Yuna did, but one can only hope.

The Damsel in Distress as a trope isn't bad (outside of being overused), if your character is well written and even likeable it's forgivable. But when you build up a character as someone whose entire storyline is about being a serious fighter or becoming a warrior to aid their friends and then reduce them into just another damsel in distress waiting for a knight in shining armor (or black cloth in these two cases) to save the day. It makes the audience feel like they wasted their time caring about their stories because it felt like those character arcs went nowhere, and that my friends, is the worst kind of Damsel in Distress.

PS: Looking up Asuna on Google images is a bad idea, you need to specify screenshots. That's sexualization for ya folks.