D.I.D. you think you could stop me?

[Bizzaro Stormy]

So this is random but for many years I've heard the idea of the damsel in distress attacked. This always seemed odd because it was put forward as making women seem weak and somehow damaging the minds of growing girls. As best I could tell guys got kidnapped in stories more than girls, and it allowed them to find out the bad guy's plans and win. Sometimes someone needed to be rescued but it added suspense to the story. Anyway I'm starting this thread so that people can talk about their favorite damsels/dudes in distress and tell us why. These can come from video games, books, T.V., movies, radio plays, or any other medium you choose.

I'll get things started with the Count of Monte Cristo himself Edmond Dantes. The story wouldn't have happened if he hadn't been lied about, locked up and held against his will for a decade. He learns what he needs to begin work on his revenge in jail and his escape lives up to its reputation as being one of the best in literature. In the end, far from powerless, he is the puppetmaster of the entire world in which he lives. He takes his revenge on his enemies who brought it on themselves and spares those who were not involved. He also takes the time to rescue a princess who was betrayed by one of his enemies and making her his partner in retribution.

As for damsels my vote goes to April O'Neil. She was bright but lacked a good deal of common sense. Always willing to charge into a situation, she frequently got caught by the bad guys. She never gave up though. She might have needed saving a lot but she always got the story and was willing to help the turtles if they needed saving by her. I remember one episode where Krang is talking to Shredder about kidnapping her to get the turtles attention. His droll response is that they've already tried that 30 times but who's counting?

Dishonorable mention goes to Relena Peacecraft from Gundam Wing. I'm not even going to explain why. Just watch the show and think about her decision making process and how it affects the world around her. Good lord.

Anyway those are mine. Who stuck out the most in your mind?

 

[SoreWristed]

I don't have a favourite damsel, but boy do I have a least favourite.

Princess Garnet from FFIX. That manipulative, bird-brained, blind-ass excuse for a white mage.

Spoiler: and here's why

At a certain point in the story, when she discovers her mother has launched a grand scale invasion, she decides to drug everyone so she can leave without everyone telling her what a bad idea that is. She then willingly walks into Queen Brahne's castle, getting herself stuck so she can live out her damsel in distress fantasy. Mad props to Steiner, who realised she would have escaped alone anyway and probably got herself killed in the first puddle of water that was deep enough to drown herself in (about 5 cm deep), and went with her to avoid her dumb ass from walking under carriages and falling off cliffs. "i must go do something about it" NO YOU MUSTN'T! To make things worse, she leaves my party without a healer. So I spent my entire hoard of potions, traipsing after her. If it had been up to me, I'd have locked her ass in the deepest dungeon i could find and posted flyers around town saying "White mage/healer wanted for adventuring party. Good pay, long hours".

Captcha says : Lost love.

Yeah, i lost my love for her a long time ago.

 

[Therumancer]

Whoever has the hottest bondage pics at the moment? That's my personal selling point when it comes to Damsels in Distress.

Okay, in all seriousness I'll say I don't have any real famous Damsels in Distress because as a general rule they really aren't all that common, especially as far as dedicated, recurring characters. Off the top of my head Princess Peach and Princess Zelda are the only real characters who play that role on a regular, recurring, basis and neither does it full time anymore either, I mean Zelda was a ball of attitude in the Zelda Cartoon, and Peach was right there alongside Mario in both spin off materials like cartoons, and has starred as an active force in her own video games. I'm not sure if you can consider a sidekick that gets kidnapped with some frequency a true damsel in distress, so characters like "April O' Neil" especially the cartoon version doesn't really count any more than you can apply it to Robin (Batman's Sidekick) who seems to make a part time career out of being kidnapped as well, since both characters are an active, useful, force besides that, and oftentimes wind up saving the butt of their respective heroes. Even in comic books it seems like all the love interests have become very pro active. I mean one could argue Lois Lane's job was at one point to get rescued by Superman, nowadays she operates as much as a sidekick and support character when you get down to it. Half the time now when she gets captured it seems to be intentional since she knows she's going to bring Superman down on them. A few moments I've actually wondered if one could define Superman as her psycho stalker attack dog boyfriend with her knowingly holding the leash, more than a super hero who simply likes her.

This is one of my big problems with the whole SJW phenomena and part of why I am a GG supporter and so hardcore against Anita and company. Social issues like the over use of women as Damsels In Distress have little truth today, 20-30 years ago perhaps, but not now. I'm legitimately hard pressed to find a "damsel" who lacks any agency at all and exists only to represent a plot point to be liberated. In the 1980s when I was much, much, younger, yes... you did see that. However the 1990s for all that people knock it we actually saw real feminism come to geek media, for those who know what real feminism still is. The 1990s kicked off the whole "girls with guns" thing where you had all of these totally hot girls running around kicking as much butt, if not more, than guys were, and you even seemed to have undeclared competitions to see who could make the most awesome one. The overall message was that girls could be just as crazy and butt kicking as the guys, and didn't have to give up being sexy to be taken seriously, compared to modern "faux fantasy" which undermines real feminism by telling women that they need to be modest or portrayed modestly because to do otherwise is
a form of victimization. People tend to forget that things like playboy were feminist publications, and if anything modern feminism seems more oppressive than anything by pretty much telling women that they must act and dress sexually conservatively, which is kind of hilarious in the scope of certain points since that's exactly how a lot of those damsels and distress were portrayed (though not all of them by any means).

At any rate I suppose nowadays if I have to pick a favorite "Damsel In Distress" I guess I'll give it to Adam Warren for "Empowered". Emp is not really a damsel in distress, she's actually way too powerful for that (though it takes a long time to realize it), it's a comedy piece where she has self confidence problems despite wanting to be a hero and the costume that gives her powers is perverted and likes to put her in compromising positions, but ultimately lets no harm come to her (it's sort of like what would happen if the Venom symbiote was a pervert). So basically she runs around getting defeated and bondaged by everyone and everything, until things get real, and then she usually winds up kicking everyone's butt when her actual power level comes out, though of course the public never sees that so she winds up being a public laughing stock. It's a comedy send up of the entire trope... because really, that seems to be the only place I find stuff like that other than allusions to it "being everywhere" or projected onto things in videos and such by those waving an anti-GG torch.

Look at it this way "The Delightful Daphne" was the Damsel In Distress from "Dragon's Lair" which itself was a comedy of sorts going with the stereotypical "Knight rescues princess from Dragon" thing while making it goofy (so this wasn't being played straight even then). To be fair I can't think of anything pro-active she ever did, which is probably why Anita famously stole artwork of her for a logo. But now ask yourself, how long ago was it since the last new "Dragon's Lair" game was created (I'm not counting ports or remasters), and furthermore whether you can say there is any serious meaning to it at all... except arcade machines love to arbitrarily eat your quarters. "Space Ace" also had a damsel in distress, but again... very old, and totally not serious (and Ace was a meathead and Dexter was a dweeb which was part of the joke).

 

[Therumancer]

I don't have a favourite damsel, but boy do I have a least favourite.

Princess Garnet from FFIX. That manipulative, bird-brained, blind-ass excuse for a white mage.

Spoiler: and here's why

At a certain point in the story, when she discovers her mother has launched a grand scale invasion, she decides to drug everyone so she can leave without everyone telling her what a bad idea that is. She then willingly walks into Queen Brahne's castle, getting herself stuck so she can live out her damsel in distress fantasy. Mad props to Steiner, who realised she would have escaped alone anyway and probably got herself killed in the first puddle of water that was deep enough to drown herself in (about 5 cm deep), and went with her to avoid her dumb ass from walking under carriages and falling off cliffs. "i must go do something about it" NO YOU MUSTN'T! To make things worse, she leaves my party without a healer. So I spent my entire hoard of potions, traipsing after her. If it had been up to me, I'd have locked her ass in the deepest dungeon i could find and posted flyers around town saying "White mage/healer wanted for adventuring party. Good pay, long hours".

Captcha says : Lost love.

Yeah, i lost my love for her a long time ago.

Well in going with my response though, she wasn't really a Damsel In Distress, she was at the very least a sidekick, and actually was more like a major supporting character. Yeah, she gets captured, but Garnet did not lack any agency and was kicking butt alongside our heroes both before and after these events, not to mention her agency and actions are actually driving major parts of the plotline. To be a "Damsel In Distress" in these terms the female character must lack any real agency and have no real purpose or involvement other than to motivate a male character to rescue them, with their companionship being the "reward". Women being an objective to be earned, a prize, as opposed to people.

A Damsel In Distress would be say the original "Princess Peach" who has no real role in the game except as a plot point, she has no agency, no personality, and no real defining characteristics other than as the objective for Mario to rescue, being rescued being her sole contribution to the story, and entire reason for existing. The argument by radical feminists being that this portrayal is demeaning to women by making them mere objects.

Old school Zelda, Princess Peach, the girl from Double Dragon, those are examples of this kind of trope which existed in the 1980s and perhaps the earlier 1990s, and the ancient examples that fuel things like Anita Sarkeesian rants. To really find a true Damsel in Distress you really need to start going pretty far back. If you can find one it represents such an exception to the rule that it barely counts as a trend... but in the context of this discussion I honestly can't think of many to choose from, especially not recently.

I suppose since I suggested "Empowered" as a send up of the tope in my last message, I will pick a true one nobody has thought of.... the Damsel In Distress from the classic grimdark game "Custer's Revenge". An Atari 2600 porno game where you play the vengeful ghost of General Custer out to rape an indian woman tied to a stake, you need to dodge arrows and stuff fired at you by her rescuers as you try and get to her. It was very... grimdark, and I guess they said it was supposed to be erotic... yeah. So there we go, a Damsel In Distress to be my "favorite" nobody else will think of from the days when we had one. She's really in distress too because there is an undead custer out to rape her!

(for the record I never played this game, I was too young, but have seen screens of it and proof that it did indeed exist... and I missed nothing. It's the dumbest, most messed up, and most obscure, game to pick a DID from that I can think of though... Behold it in all it's glory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Custer%27s_Revenge there is even a screenshot! Cutting edge 1982 technology! The most distressed Damsel ever!).

 

[ArcaneGamer]

I don't have a favourite damsel, but boy do I have a least favourite.

Princess Garnet from FFIX. That manipulative, bird-brained, blind-ass excuse for a white mage.

Spoiler: and here's why

At a certain point in the story, when she discovers her mother has launched a grand scale invasion, she decides to drug everyone so she can leave without everyone telling her what a bad idea that is. She then willingly walks into Queen Brahne's castle, getting herself stuck so she can live out her damsel in distress fantasy. Mad props to Steiner, who realised she would have escaped alone anyway and probably got herself killed in the first puddle of water that was deep enough to drown herself in (about 5 cm deep), and went with her to avoid her dumb ass from walking under carriages and falling off cliffs. "i must go do something about it" NO YOU MUSTN'T! To make things worse, she leaves my party without a healer. So I spent my entire hoard of potions, traipsing after her. If it had been up to me, I'd have locked her ass in the deepest dungeon i could find and posted flyers around town saying "White mage/healer wanted for adventuring party. Good pay, long hours".

Captcha says : Lost love.

Yeah, i lost my love for her a long time ago.

Ah, Steiner and Vivi, my favorite characters from that game. Especially when Steiner recognizes Vivi's magical prowess, and usually called him "Master Vivi". =D

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I like most of Koei's damsel in distress stuff. You be their calvary so to speak, and get them back on their feet so they can fight again.
From simple ally is in danger to Dong Zhuo capturing 4 female officers and you gotta go jail break them so they can join the battle.
Doesn't hurt much that it's rare Koei won't let you play as either gender, story modes aside.

Least fav would be no one in particular, but I hate do-nothings. They get captured, and getting them back aside, they do pretty much nothing else. It doesn't matter what they do off camera/outside of the game.

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

I like most of Koei's damsel in distress stuff. You be their calvary so to speak, and get them back on their feet so they can fight again.
From simple ally is in danger to Dong Zhuo capturing 4 female officers and you gotta go jail break them so they can join the battle.
Doesn't hurt much that it's rare Koei won't let you play as either gender, story modes aside.

Least fav would be no one in particular, but I hate do-nothings. They get captured, and getting them back aside, they do pretty much nothing else. It doesn't matter what they do off camera/outside of the game.

Koei does make some unusual levels. There is a gaiden stage of Samurai Warriors 2 Extreme Legends where you as Gracia help Magoichi kidnap the various ladies of the game. It turns out he just couldn't get a date with any of them. When you realize what he's up to you free them and beat him up. He claims at the end that he did it to help you grow. I figured he was a little creeper who needed to grow up himself.

Captcha: Ermahgerd, capcher. Captcha it's late and mumbling so that you read as capture instead of captcha is cute but weird.

 

[Captain Marvelous_v1legacy]

Koei does make some unusual levels. There is a gaiden stage of Samurai Warriors 2 Extreme Legends where you as Gracia help Magoichi kidnap the various ladies of the game. It turns out he just couldn't get a date with any of them. When you realize what he's up to you free them and beat him up. He claims at the end that he did it to help you grow. I figured he was a little creeper who needed to grow up himself.

I love Magoichi, the womanizing creep. It's a shame his moveset sucks so much. I liked sniping people in his SW1 story mode to unlock his final hidden stage.

OT: I'd say I used to like saving the lives of my alies in Koei games, but as time went on my godliness on the battlefield translated to allied peons and officers getting so weak they'd get taken out by the god damn wind. I'm starting to hate the babysitting simulator known as Dynasty Warriors. I'm still gonna get the ninth game.

Anyway, If I remember correctly in the first AC game there are people being harassed by the guards. If you save them they'll get their sons to help you out. Only D.I.Ds I've ever saved that are worth saving.

 

[NPC009]

Is it weird to not dislike Peach as a damsel? I know she does a lot of sitting around in many games, but hear me out: in Paper Mario she is a very active little damsel. Every chapter she sneaks out of her room to sabotage Bowser's plans, sending Mario useful info and items. Twink (that was the little star's name, right?) points out she isn't being very lady-like, after Peach assures him she's acting like a proper princess, just like she was taught and then proceeds to sneak out once again. Bowser forgives her everytime, because he can't imagine her doing anything too terrible. Girl got brains. She's fully aware of people's expectations of her and uses them to her advantage.

Peach deserves credit for that. If it weren't for all the other games she damseled in, Paper Mario would have made her my favourite damsel.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I like most of Koei's damsel in distress stuff. You be their calvary so to speak, and get them back on their feet so they can fight again.
From simple ally is in danger to Dong Zhuo capturing 4 female officers and you gotta go jail break them so they can join the battle.
Doesn't hurt much that it's rare Koei won't let you play as either gender, story modes aside.

Least fav would be no one in particular, but I hate do-nothings. They get captured, and getting them back aside, they do pretty much nothing else. It doesn't matter what they do off camera/outside of the game.

Koei does make some unusual levels. There is a gaiden stage of Samurai Warriors 2 Extreme Legends where you as Gracia help Magoichi kidnap the various ladies of the game. It turns out he just couldn't get a date with any of them. When you realize what he's up to you free them and beat him up. He claims at the end that he did it to help you grow. I figured he was a little creeper who needed to grow up himself.

Captcha: Ermahgerd, capcher. Captcha it's late and mumbling so that you read as capture instead of captcha is cute but weird.

Haha, yeah. I remember that. And also,

Spoiler: I now have the Sugoroku theme stuck in my head, thanks. lol

<youtube=8g9Zn3xhk64>

I wish they'd keep minigames like that in games, among a lot of other things I'd like to see Koei do like more 3ds support, and reviving RotK as a game series... anyhow.

I like Gracia's moveset. Something about watching a little girl use her bare hands and energy blasts to annihilate an enemy is amusing.

Koei's rarely had the do nothing sort of princess sort in general, and if tey do they're usually made into characters so they get to do stuff.
Lu Lingqui started off as merely mentioned, and never seen as you escorted her in a carriage to just looking awesome, and mauling people.

Dong Bai became an NPC officer that fought. I wouldn't be surprised if she became a full fledged character soon. Even still, I made her as a playable edit officer.

They even got Zelda into the fray in Hyrule Warriors, which puts her above Peach in my book. Maybe Koei'll do a Toadstool Kingdom Warriors, and give Peach Meng Huo's mushroom weapon, or Okuni's parasol?

It's like if given any hint that the character exists in any prominence of what ever series they're working on they'll make a character out of them, and make the biggest roster they can.

 

[Fox12]

My favorite damsel in distress:

Spoiler

He don't need no man. He brakes himself out of prison.

Let's not forget prince charming:

Spoiler

The there's best princess:

Spoiler

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

It's like if given any hint that the character exists in any prominence of what ever series they're working on they'll make a character out of them, and make the biggest roster they can.

Indeed. Bao Sanniang first appears in DW7 and says, "I have as much right to be here as anyone!" when you do her Musou move. I thought nothing of it until I read somewhere that her character does not appear in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but is in a different book!

Koei doesn't skimp on new characters or opportunities to make them look badass and later need rescuing. Warriors Orochi does it in reverse. You have to rescue the three kings and then they are playable characters. This can result in the ludicrous situation where you are chasing after and fighting alongside people who are all talking about needing to save you.

Oddly I found that in the Saints Row series they actually handled the emotional element of feeling powerless rather well. You commit a series of crimes of all sorts in an ever escalating world of silly cartoon violence, which includes everyone getting kidnapped and escaping multiple times. However, the character of Shaundi gets scared after her kidnapping in part two and completely changes her outlook on life and becomes much more serious in game three. In the fourth game she is having an emotional breakdown because Johnny Gat died protecting her in part three. There is a section where you have to comfort her and help her get her confidence back so that she can continue to fight. It sounds silly but it showed the vulnerability of a person who has chosen to live by the knife and is realizing that there are consequences for her actions. Heavy stuff for a light game.

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

My favorite damsel in distress:

Spoiler

He don't need no man. He brakes himself out of prison.

Let's not forget prince charming:

Spoiler

The there's best princess:

Spoiler

Remember that he's not in there with them. They're trapped with him!

 

[CaitSeith]

My favorite D.I.D. so far is Celes from Final Fantasy III. Not so much as a damsel (her rescue when first met was pretty standard), but because she pretty much stole the show half the time (to the point of passing from support character to protagonist in the second half).

 

[Rebel_Raven]

It's like if given any hint that the character exists in any prominence of what ever series they're working on they'll make a character out of them, and make the biggest roster they can.

Indeed. Bao Sanniang first appears in DW7 and says, "I have as much right to be here as anyone!" when you do her Musou move. I thought nothing of it until I read somewhere that her character does not appear in the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but is in a different book!

Koei doesn't skimp on new characters or opportunities to make them look badass and later need rescuing. Warriors Orochi does it in reverse. You have to rescue the three kings and then they are playable characters. This can result in the ludicrous situation where you are chasing after and fighting alongside people who are all talking about needing to save you.

Oddly I found that in the Saints Row series they actually handled the emotional element of feeling powerless rather well. You commit a series of crimes of all sorts in an ever escalating world of silly cartoon violence, which includes everyone getting kidnapped and escaping multiple times. However, the character of Shaundi gets scared after her kidnapping in part two and completely changes her outlook on life and becomes much more serious in game three. In the fourth game she is having an emotional breakdown because Johnny Gat died protecting her in part three. There is a section where you have to comfort her and help her get her confidence back so that she can continue to fight. It sounds silly but it showed the vulnerability of a person who has chosen to live by the knife and is
realizing that there are consequences for her actions. Heavy stuff for a light game.

haha I remember when Bao was announced. Friend of mine said that if she had a good moveset with her weapon (lets face it, it's a deadly yoyo by today's standards) she'd eat her hat. Long story short, I got to offer the ketchup.

Cai WenJi had a fairly minor role in history as a hostage Cao Cao paid up for but she quickly got promoted to a nonplayable officer to a full blown, and very welcome player character in basically 2 games time.
In fact, IIRC she won a poll Koei had on which female officer they should add next.

I hadn't played Warriors Orochi 1, or 2, but I did play 3 (by western release numbers. I believe it's wo2 in Japan.) but it is a wonderful mishmash of Tecmo/Koei characters.

Yeah, I agree on Saints Row. Shaundi really grew as a character, and I liked seeing basically all her evolution in SR4. Sure she was a damsel in distress from time to time but she more than made up for it.
While it got crazy, there was elements of pretty strong characterization in the Saints Row series.

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

At any rate I suppose nowadays if I have to pick a favorite "Damsel In Distress" I guess I'll give it to Adam Warren for "Empowered". Emp is not really a damsel in distress, she's actually way too powerful for that (though it takes a long time to realize it), it's a comedy piece where she has self confidence problems despite wanting to be a hero and the costume that gives her powers is perverted and likes to put her in compromising positions, but ultimately lets no harm come to her (it's sort of like what would happen if the Venom symbiote was a pervert). So basically she runs around getting defeated and bondaged by everyone and everything, until things get real, and then she usually winds up kicking everyone's butt when her actual power level comes out, though of course the public never sees that so she winds up being a public laughing stock. It's a comedy send up of the entire trope... because really, that seems to be the only place I find stuff like that other than allusions to it "being everywhere" or projected onto things in videos and such by those waving an anti-GG torch.

Good old Elisa Megan Powers. I am familiar with that comic and Adam Warren is a funny guy. I did notice a turn for the melodramatic in issue 8 which I hope doesn't end the humor. It was good, but you can't let a series like that get to serious. Perhaps Emp will start allowing herself to get captured so that she can infiltrate the bad guy's lairs? Sort of a nod to old school Wonder Woman.

 

[briankoontz]

Damsels in distress derive fictionally from knights saving princesses, either from lords in towers or dragons (or a dragon as a metaphor for a powerful human). The biggest problem with this trope is that the knight only does the saving, putting his life at risk, in order to marry the princess afterward, this often made explicit by the king promising his daughter to the knight in exchange for her rescue.

So the princess is triple screwed - first she gets kidnapped and terrorized, then her own father sacrifices her choice in determining one of the most important aspects of her future, then a stranger shows up who she either marries or earns the wrath of her father, the most powerful person in the land, by rejecting. Needless to say, the princess has a terrible traumatic experience through the entire process, including for the rest of her life if she fails to stand up for herself.

There's also the insidious aspect of it. Given the common theme of princesses getting kidnapped, any reasonable king provides his daughters with bodyguards and other security. The ease with which these princesses typically get captured raises the possibility that at least in some cases the king (and perhaps queen) are being neglectful of their duty to secure their daughter's well-being. Given the rather hasty and seemingly already prepared call for a "valiant (and preferably young, handsome, and virile) knight to save our daughter and win her hand in marriage" the question is begged of whether all of this was effectively set up from the beginning. This interpretation is further encouraged by the king having to "interview" the candidates for marriage (err, "princess saving") to determine if they not so much *can* save the princess (what's the harm in just letting anyone who wants to do so do so?) as can make good husbands (in the eyes of people who aren't participating in the marriage but enjoy employing power).

The irony and moral decadence of this whole procedure is brought to a head by the kidnapping itself, done by a powerful lord who is middle aged, flabby, or otherwise unfit for princess marrying in the eyes of at least the king, and furthermore is likely a political rival who has committed a personal insult to the king through the kidnapping. This villain kidnaps the princess in order to coerce and persuade her into marrying him, and the king's reaction to this brutal attempt to restrict his own daughter's marriage choices is to take away her choice entirely - she WILL marry her rescuer or daddy will be most displeased, and may react with letting her not be rescued the next time she's kidnapped.

This is the "original" version of the damsel-in-distress - modern treatment is usually not so morally despicable but has plenty of echoes of the original - many gamers complain that Mario doesn't "get any" from Princess Peach upon rescue - you mean no sexual reward for all of that work? Why go to the trouble then, if the result isn't taking away a human being's right to choose one's sexual partner, much less spouse?

This is getting off-topic at this point, but the Mario/Peach situation is really bizarre. Peach continually gets kidnapped and when she returns to the castle after a harrowing and life-threatening situation, nothing changes. No security is put into place, so she goes through a continual cycle of being kidnapped and rescued. One wonders what the king and queen think of all of this. One way to consider this is that every Mario game is in a separate universe so that every time Peach is kidnapped, it's the first time it occurs within that universe. This understanding reduces the value of the narrative of Mario games, since the narrative is always reset with every game.

 

[Bizzaro Stormy]

This is the "original" version of the damsel-in-distress - modern treatment is usually not so morally despicable but has plenty of echoes of the original - many gamers complain that Mario doesn't "get any" from Princess Peach upon rescue - you mean no sexual reward for all of that work? Why go to the trouble then, if the result isn't taking away a human being's right to choose one's sexual partner, much less spouse?

This is getting off-topic at this point, but the Mario/Peach situation is really bizarre. Peach continually gets kidnapped and when she returns to the castle after a harrowing and life-threatening situation, nothing changes. No security is put into place, so she goes through a continual cycle of being kidnapped and rescued. One wonders what the king and queen think of all of this. One way to consider this is that every Mario game is in a separate universe so that every time Peach is kidnapped, it's the first time it occurs within that universe. This understanding reduces the value of the narrative of Mario games, since the narrative is always reset with every game.

The most common complaints I've heard about Peach are that she's useless and that it's weird how often she gets kidnapped. I would say that Mario 2 and Super Princess Peach, not to mention all the Mario Party, Mario Kart and Smash Brothers games would have laid that argument to rest. After all if Zelda is not a chronic damsel in distress because she kicked ass in a few games wouldn't the same apply to Peach?

Personally I've always found it amusing that folks get so bent out of shape over Peach's getting kidnapped. No one questions fire flowers, a massive exposed sewer system, giant turtles that fly or throw hammers or are covered in spikes, guys riding on clouds, and a leaf that turns you into a racoon/tanuki man who wags his tail to fly! Peach's kidnappings are the most normal thing about the Mario games. It would be like someone playing Rise of the Triad, perhaps the goofiest FPS of them all, and the only thing they found odd was that the submachine gun you carry never needs its barrel replaced.

As for your theory that Mario happens in a multiverse, sure why not? Apparently no one can make sense of the Zelda timeline without that explanation so I don't see why it couldn't apply again. Or we could all just remember they're games. I generally go for the second explanation but sometimes it's fun to think weird things!

 

[BarryMcCociner]

My favorite Damsel in video games? Triss Merigold's disappearance in The Witcher 2, because there was this whole "Oh, shit seriously went down and it's gonna be much so very much harder than you think to find her."

I simply expected to find her with Letho and have to square off with him to bring her back to safety. That is not what happened in the slightest.