orthodoxy1095
Banned
Brutality isn't really the right word. Ignobility or something similar might be more fitting. The issue being that women seem to more often be killed off in less heroic ways: raped, minced and put in a fridge, murdered while not on their feet, etc. I feel like that's a big part of what Gail Simone was getting at with WiR, the way that "heroines" are cast aside.
Although in regards to brutality, she does have the honor of her corpse hanging from a ceiling like Regis, so I guess there's that. Ultimately though, as I've said before, the issue with Luna isn't whether or not she was fridged. To repeat what I've said before:
If she was fridged, but was still a great (or worthwhile) character, that would be one thing and that would probably be bad enough. Think about the issue of fridging this way: you could say that one of the most famous comic book women, Gwen Stacy was "fridged" for the sake of Peter Parker's narrative progression. You could say that Jenny got fridged in The Darkness, or that Aerith was fridged in FFVII (although Inuhanyou has pointed out before that Aerith might not fit). The key there however is that they're characters that had some amount of depth and history to them, so to some extent, the fridging is actually effective to the viewer. You cared that they died. You cared about who they were and you cared that they were gone.
Compare that reaction to the reaction that Luna's death engenders, where the problem that is that the drama and heartache feel almost wholly unearned because of the narrative progression. We never interact with her, she's primarily seen in flashbacks, very little is explained about the "history" between Noct and her, and little is really said about the upcoming marriage. She died, and many people will be left straining to care.
I've made fun of Jared's death being some silly, emotional hooey, but honestly his death isn't much worse than Luna's. There's hardly any actual investment into either of them, and Luna's death is a very unearned payoff. You can even take the gender-politics issue of fridging and just lay that aside. Even without any gender representational issues, the fundamental issue remains that you absolutely can kill off characters in your story, but you need to put in adequate leg-work to make me give a damn. When Jared died, I wondered why they were all so broken up. When Luna died I actually did feel a little sad, but not for Luna since I didn't give a damn about her, but for Noct who seemed sad because I was invested in him, not her. Otherwise, her death has such a little emotional investment that it just seems completely anticlimactic.
Luna and Jared sort of exemplify a lot of issues with the story. It's not that they are actively a bad inclusion in the game (compared to something like how actively gross Cindy is). They're just kind of "meh," and you can see the potential in the ideas. Again, consider Luna and her role in XV's proceedings. While I wouldn't want a complete rehash, the problem with Luna that we've kind of already seen this type of character before and done better too. It was Yuna. She was strong, dynamic (had some appropriate flaws), and in love with Tidus, but she didn't exist solely for Tidus' sake, which is what Luna seems to be. Yuna existed as more than a simple narrative contrivance to move along the story that appeared for a grand total of maybe fifteen minutes, instead she was an active, visible participant in almost all of the events.
The problem with Luna again is context. Taken on its own, her death might not seem like that if of a deal, but in the context of the overall game's usage of women (and yes it is "usage"), that death seems pretty poorly done.
_/¯
