Don’t Accept Refrigeration
I have been playing Kingdom Hearts since I was 8 or 10. But while I have grown up and developed during this time, this franchise has been left in the past. Video games are becoming more diverse with complex characters that the audience can connect to.
I say Kingdom Hearts has been left in the past because I’ve recently been introduced to the meme women in refrigerators and I firmly believe that Kingdom Hearts III put Kairi in the metaphorical refrigerator.
Okay, let me explain the whole refrigerator thing.
In a nutshell, ‘fridging’ is using a female character as a plot device. Specifically, the death, harm, or incapacitation of said character. Its origin is actually a Green Lantern comic where the male character’s girlfriend was murdered and stuffed into an actual refrigerator.
This is like the classic damsel in distress trope where the male character performs the active role while the women is allocated the role of object to be acted upon.
What this has to do with Kairi in Kingdom Hearts III is that she gets ganked by the bad guy to motivate the main male character. But that’s not even the worst part.
Kairi had been absent the entire storyline because she was off “training” so that she wouldn’t be useless in a fight anymore. But as soon as the big battle actually commences, she is a weak fighter and gets herself snatched. But wait, I have more to complain about.
The purpose of her getting ganked was to motivate the protagonist to fight the antagonist, WHICH WAS GOING TO HAPPEN ANYWAY SO IT WAS COMPLETELY POINTLESS!
But what REALLY breaks my heart for Kairi is that we were promised a character development that would show her strength and how far she has come. But by the end, she was just a damsel in distress again. Kairi is continually being reduced to these levels when she has so much potential.
Anita Sarkeesian discusses the ‘Damsel in Distress’ trope in the Tropes vs Women in Video Games series, which is the same idea as the fridging concept:
So, why does it matter? I’m not just upset by the character development because I’ve been a part of this franchise my whole gaming life. I’m upset because the objectification of women is not cool: a woman is not a man’s possession to be stolen away and used as a plot device.
As Anita Sarkeesian says, it is “lazy justification for actual gameplay”
Compared to Kingdom Hearts III, other popular games have many strong female characters: Horizon: Zero Dawn was a very successful game and Aloy is a strong female protagonist; Apex Legends has been praised for its diverse characters with comprehensive backstories and personalities, including Wraith, Bangalore, and Lifeline; Ellie from The Last of Us is strong and resourceful when facing horrific circumstances.
Apex Legends’ community manager Jay Frechette, in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun said:
Our studio is comprised of a diverse group of people, the playerbase of battle royale is comprised of a diverse group. Having a diverse cast is super important. You want everyone to have someone they can connect to
But the Kingdom Hearts franchise is becoming outdated with its old tropes that just won’t cut it in today’s society. Kingdom Hearts III is missing that audience connection because the game is so focused on the role of the male protagonist that it neglects the development of female characters like Kairi. For that, the franchise has lost my respect.
Recently, a colleague asked me: why does the gender of a character even matter when you’re playing a game?
In Apex Legends, gender doesn’t really matter in a battle royal context because it is combat focused rather than narrative focused. But I like the fact that the developers, Respawn, have obviously put a lot of effort into making the individual characters.
Adrienne Shaw came to an interesting conclusion in Gaming at the Edge: Sexuality and Gender at the Margins of Gamer Culture:
…diverse representation options are available most often in the very games in which representation matters least to identification. If people are too invested in playing the songs to really think about their avatar in Rock Band, then representation in that game becomes purely aesthetic. In games with protagonists with developed backstories, however, most characters are white males
So, does it matter that most protagonists with developed backstories are male? Or, does it just matter when a female character is killed/harmed/debuffed?
The removal of the damsel in distress trope could be good for all of us, leading to some welcome female character development in an industry that caters so much to the male fantasy.
View a character as a person. We don’t categorise people in real life based only on their gender, so why should we do it in games? The industry is changing the way female characters are represented, but let’s make sure that no more women are stuffed into that refrigerator like Kairi.
