The Woman In The Refrigerator: Nora Fries | Batman the Animated Series

[@ShineDark]

Yeah… Nora being a super villain is a terrible idea. And Bruce being the one responsible instead of Boil is another “What was the writer thinking?!” moment for me.

[@Casshio]

I think it's yet another attempt of assigning more flaws/shortcomings to Bruce/Bats. Which is pretty redundant if you ask me, but Batman as a character kind of suffers from being seen as unfailable and perfect. Not by those who actually pay attention but by many for sure.

[@Kacpa2]

@@Casshio It's common approach to characters who have strong moral compass. People think that they are flawless for it and it leads to writers or even fanfiction writers to try and slap more flaws or even trauma onto the character in attempt to "fix it".

[@hordakprime6172]

Agreed. That's also how I felt when Talia was turned into a full on villain.

[@TheAzulmagia]

I like the way Arkham Knight used Nora. She gets freed from containment early, but she's not cured. But rather than have Freeze continually obsess over putting her back in to save her, she opts to make peace with her situation and live out the rest of her days with her husband. Ultimately, she's given agency to determine how she lives her life rather than being a motivating tool, and that was pretty neat.

[@AssasiCraftYogUscus]

That quest is my favorite in all of Arkham.

[@matttale7918]

despite some aspects of Knights main story not being very well done, The Freeze dlc side mission was really good for this reason and giving Nora and Victor closure in the end

[@lexofexcel886]

I agree wholeheartedly, as someone who thinks Arkham Knight is underrated. That side mission is full of amazing character moments like when Batman averts another confrontation with Freeze by asking if he actually trusts the Militia. Or how Nora reveals she was partially conscious during her cryonic slumber. Or just how much scorn Alfred displays towards the Militia kidnapping a terminally ill woman.

[@LoganTocker]

Victor: I don't want you to die, Nora 🥺 Nora: Then let me live🥺

[@stephentrumbleanimation2579]

Great video! I totally wish Nora was allowed to be a fleshed out character too. I think the reason we all project so much onto Nora is because we, the audience, are so desperate for her and Victor to be together and happy and as much in love as it appears they are. The modern Harvey Quinn animated show really had their cake and ate it too, by having Nora saved by Victor at the cost of his own life. She loved him, she mourns him, then starts hilariously living her hot girl summer.

[@SerumLake]

I’ll never unsee Nora making out with Swamp Thing 🤢

[@SerumLake]

@caitlyncarvalho7637 The only thing that makes me hesitate is that she had a long history in the comics before she was eventually killed off. Characters like Kyle Rayner's girlfriend Alex and Nora were created in order for their deaths to motivate their partners.

[@kennethsatria6607]

@@SerumLake I feel like that's a good deciding factor, modern audiences only know her as the one who died but forget she did have a lot of screentime beforehand. Plus in modern times we have adaptations of her and multiverse Spidergwen so I think its safe to say at some point the character can be detatched from that notable aspect.

[@thebeavpercabethftw9604]

​@SerumLake The same with Karen Page. She was around in the comics for about 30 years before being killed off, and it wasn't to hurt Matt. She died saving a kid from Bullseye.

[@_Tzer]

i just got reminded of the trope name fridgeing fitting with the cold theme but still

[@zemox2534]

Great video mate. I love Heart of Ice too, but I can see why the treatment of Nora would be troubling. The only piece of Batman media that actually developed Nora as a character was Arkham Knight. In the game, Nora is revived, but prematurely. Freeze wants to put her back In stasis but Nora refuses. She rather spend the last moments of her life with Victor, who is also dying. Victor consents, and they leave gotham to spend their last hours together. The game developed Nora much better than the spin off comics. It also gave both Nora and Freeze a definitive ending.

[@SerumLake]

Probably one of the best missions in Arkham Knight - even the bit with the Batmobile on the ice wasn’t too bad 😂

[@Kacpa2]

Well its days, as Victor says so they have a bit more than mere hours. Few days of peace is their bittersweet ending.

[@empatheticrambo4890]

Interestingly, the most fleshed out Nora has been that I’ve seen is in the Harley Quinn show. I actually teared up in that episode like I usually do watching their story in BTAS, which is high praise

[@SerumLake]

And then there’s her Swamp Thing episode 😂

[@Rachel-lo6if]

​@@SerumLakeher swamp thing is hilarious, because of her choice of partner, but also sad because she's clearly not processing her grief of her husband and the time she lost

[@Z_purple_Z]

I almost never feel things when watching animated shows, but that episode made me tear up and I also had the feeling in my throat (I have no idea how to expl ain it)

[@empatheticrambo4890]

@@Z_purple_Z Strong emotion can do that to you! It's funny how the body physically responds to emotion

[@JacobNintendoNerd99]

Correct me if I'm remembering wrong but doesn't she end up becoming the Harley Quinn show incarnation of Killer Frost due to Victor sacrificing himself to revive her with his own blood?

[@IronVigilante451]

Ironically, everyones loving Mr.Freeze for his tradgic story, but continuously forget to go in depth on Nora's lack of character, forgoten again, an object. Fridged.

[@forickgrimaldus8301]

I think thats the point though, as its gonna be tough to justify an entire episode onto Nora and Victor's relationship in the OG show and being a Mandated Kids show I don't think the execs would like an episode or most of an episode being basically a flashback episode, you can do that with the hero like say Uncle Ben and Spider-man but for a Villain like Mr. Freeze its a different story (the Show is Batman after all not Freeze.), Sidenote, I think Arkham Knight did a good job of flushing out a tiny bit their relationship and being the one to convince Mr. Freeze to stop ans spend the last of their dayals together, certainly a better ending than having Nora become like her husband.

[@Xehanort10]

2:55 It's done better in Freeze's Arkham Knight DLC when Jason's militia damaging her cryo chamber causes Nora to wake up early. She accepts there's no cure for her condition and says she doesn't want Victor to destroy himself trying to save her anymore. After Batman and Freeze destroy the militia's tanks Victor and Nora leave Gotham to spend the time they have left together.

[@Evilriku13]

didn't expect to see you here xD

[@achillescomedown]

and that's why i love jay

[@allysanchez5630]

Nora and victor deserved so much better.

[@amharbinger]

I think Arkham Knight gave Freeze and Nora a solid tragic end. She doesn't blame Victor for his actions, understands why he did it, but gently ask him to stop and he does. She just wants to spend what little time she has left with him and Victor honors her wishes, inferring when her life ends he plans to leave with her. And Batman giving him that time.

[@saevits]

As someone who has been writing the character of Freeze for over a year now, I do have many issues with how he's written in Rebirth, New 52 and the One Bat Day comic: the point of his character is to represent and parallel Batman's despair and love. Making him obsess over Nora, be abusive, toxic or having him see her as an object or be posessive of her in such a way misses the whole point of it by a mile. He's supposed to be someone you can sympathize with and someone who can potentially be redeemed, someone who actually and genuinely is in love with his wife, but believes there is no other choice in his actions in order to achieve his goals. Victor is not the standard villain who enjoys hurting people, he hates himself for it. As for Nora: she herself is written as someone who represents Victor's hope, who represents everything that can be good in people. She should most definitely not turn into a bloodthirsty villain, nor should she be killed off or brushed off as an object to simply move the plot along. She should have depth and development of her own, and the BTAS tie-in comic where she goes through so much trouble to find Freeze in the Arctic was amazingly written in that regard. We see her as stubborn, as warm, sweet and cheeky. However, in the comic you talk about at around 6:56 , it's worth pointing out that that is not Nora, but Clayface manipulating Freeze by pretending to be her. Hope this wasn't a tiring read! This was a great and interesting video, and I'd love to see more people talk about her in general, because there's just so much one can do with her character.

[@SerumLake]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, it wasn’t tiring to read at all!

[@Scrinwaipwr]

Whether intentional or not, Nora being such a blank slate of a character allows the audience to project what they like in a partner onto Nora's (imaginary) personality, making them indentify and sympathise with Freeze more. At 10:54 i thought you were going to say the same thing.

[@SerumLake]

That is sort of what I was getting it - my point was as a blank slate we can project onto her and see what we want to see, feel what we want to feel etc.

[@Snapdragon0112]

I think another important element of fridging is being forgotten after the revenge or that arc ends. The lanterns girlfriend was never brought up again after that storyline. She was forgotten. I see Nora as being always active. Even after his attempted revenge is foiled, you can see that freeze is still pained because of losing her. When she comes back he jumps back on to saving her. He was willing to throw everyone’s lives, until he is reminded on what she actually would have wanted. Now I definitely prefer modern interpretations such as the Harley Quinn show, because it becomes an even harder hit to our emotions when we see how much she loved Victor. Honestly, I would love more stories about what would happen after she is revived. Would she stay with Victor, or be horrified by the man he has become. Would he be accepting over her decision to leave, or fall deeper into despair.

[@SerumLake]

Great point about how disposable and insignificant the fridged characters are. Perhaps that’s the key reason why those same comic book critics didn’t latch on to Nora as the original fridged character?

[@AedanTheGrey]

Id assume the same. Nora is an origin story, like the Waynes. And never forgotten. However, Id still say she qualifies for elements of the issue however, as she is just as often lacking in character and only exists to suffer and motivate a man.

[@KiwiEvilFruit]

"Wives and daughters have been used as a narrative device for revenge for centuries." With all due respect, so have animals (John Wick for example) men, sons, husbands, loss of limb...and these are all used to give backstory, further plots, and drive character motivation. I must admit as both a woman and a writer, the idea of "fridging" as this sexist concept when it's just how all of writing works seriously bothers me. As for Nora not having her own character - as we can see with making it so that their story is fleshed out as this less than rosy picture in the comics - we lose some sympathy for Mr. Freeze as this tragic character. Nora not having a personality is honestly because in the end - it doesn't really matter for the story being told and the ambiguity of who Nora was and the details just being "they were happy and in love" leads to us filling in the details and it being more tragic. We can even probably say that it IS done on purpose to have Nora be more of this object since we know the writers made plenty of strong female characters. As a woman I'm not uncomfortable at all with it. Nora's lack of character and the rosiness of their relationship could also be a commentary on how the ill and dead are kind of put on a pedestal.

[@DFuxaPlays]

It is probably worth noting that 'fridging' doesn't really apply to Nora. The whole concept of fridging originally revolved around an antagonist 'killing' an established female supporting side character, that is unimportant to the story, for the sole purpose of affecting the male main character, and moving the plot along. That might be a bit narrow of a definition by modern standards but it does drive home how far and away Nora Fries is from the term: she wasn't targeted by an antagonist, her story begins with her being Victor Fries inciting incident (similar to say Martha Wayne and Thomas Wayne), and she retains her importance (whereas a dead girl in a fridge is... dead). The only thing she has in common with fridging is that she drives the development of Mr. Freeze along (both before and after she dies). Overly Sarcastic Productions did a fairly good video regarding Fridging and I mostly use it as a reference to this trope.

[@SerumLake]

Where we differ is that I take Ferris Boyle’s actions as killing Nora, with Mr Freeze as the protagonist of Heart of Ice. Dini and Timm did say that she was intended to be dead, after all.

[@dappercuttlefish9557]

I don't think Nora being a plot device would bother me as much if she was actually dead as opposed to being in stasis and later revived. While the pattern of the dead motivator being a woman sucks, it's pretty neutral on its own, and I'm a lot less annoyed when it happens to non-characters who are dead by the time the story starts (like the Waynes) than when it happens to characters who are actual people (like Alex in Green Lantern.) The lack of agency makes sense - she's dead, corpses aren't characters, so how she may or may not feel isn't that relevant. When she gets revived, though, she's a person who's deeply involved in the plot and still doesn't get a say, and it casts all her previous appearances in a way weirder light. If Thomas and Martha Wayne got revived, you'd expect that to be important and for them to have opinions about what Bruce has been doing, yknow? Nora might not be as important overall, but she's pretty damn critical to these episodes, so her lack of characterization feels like a real absence. This is also why Nora getting revived as Mrs. Freeze frustrated me so much. It doesn't tell us anything about what she was like pre-supervillainy, she might be influenced by the revival serum making her unstable, her motives don't really click for me, she doesn't get her own identity... at least to me, it doesn't feel like who Nora Fields *is* matters much more than it did when she was frozen. There's so much potential in having her be angry about her wishes being disrespected! At least let her have her own supervillain name!

[@SerumLake]

I entirely agree. Comparing her to the Waynes is an excellent point, as they all serve the same purpose. The difference is that, while the Waynes are mostly represented by photographs or paintings looming over Bruce, they also have voices, even when they appear in his dreams. And don’t get me started on Nora remarrying her doctor. That is so unethical! 😂

[@CalvinNoire]

An idea I had for her motives (if she was a villain) was that she was, well, conscious the entire time. Nora has been on ice for 50-70 years, imagine being stuck there with no way to communicate to someone, it's basically sensory deprivation (Which can make people crazy). I once read a fan fiction where Nora was conscious, she was desperately trying to reach out to Victor, but her own mouth won't even move, she still loves him yes, but she's slowly going crazy (With vivid hallucinations and stuff). And, if you want to kill off Victor like the devilish comic book writer that you are (No one can be happy), then get her out of ice (and fully cured), only to see that his late husband has sacrificed his life for her, cue montages of Nora slowly collapsing mentally (With desperate attempts to get access to a Lazarus Pit). And there you go! Their obsession for each other is mutual 🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃.

[@AtariEric]

I could see Fries become a repentant hero if he could ever finally cure Nora ad bring her back to life. I could imagine a Nora alive and normal-temperature but bed-bound, weakened by her now-cured disease and time being frozen. Though I fear that would reduce her to a target for anyone wanting revenge on Hero Freeze.

[@SerumLake]

That’s kind of what happened with him in the White Knight comics. Once Nora was cured he turned his attentions to science and working to help people. If you haven’t read them I recommend them.

[@JoseMorales-lw5nt]

8:30 - 8:38/ Just noticed The New 52 did a funny bit of DC mathematics. Look at the panel describing Nora's timeline. Born in 1943, gets the cryogenic treatment at age 23. Meaning she was frozen in... 1966. Holy Martini, Batman! My mind just got shaken!😅

[@SerumLake]

That is the best thing about Scott Snyder’s run, hands down 😂

[@RipOffProductionsLLC]

Nora's status as an "object" is to make Mr. Freeze's motives work, as all we need is for him to care about her. if we know her, we can start judging him through her, would she approve of what he's done or not? was their relationship healthy? if not, who was the toxic element? when Mr. Freeze makes a decision based on what he thinks she'd have wanted, is he right? I think it works for us not to know her as a character, since in-universe no one but Mr. Freeze even could know these answers, and maybe not even him, between his own biases and the fickle nature of memory...

[@jacktoma21]

This is a large reason why I loved the conclusion the Arkham series gave Freeze in the Arkham Knight story DLC. Where Nora is finally given some agency.

[@tyraydew5668]

It’s clear Dini and Timm had intended for Freeze to be a foil to Batman. Batman is motivated by the loss of his family, as is Freeze. They might have felt that it would take away from that if Nora isn’t dead. That being said, I hate how she’s killed off in The Adventures Continue. I liked the issues in Batman/Gotham Adventures where they finally explored her character. It’s bizarrely touching that their obsessive devotion to each other is mutual. There was a lot of potential to develop both Nora and Victor further with that in mind. The writers for The Adventures Continue may have thought they were “fixing” things to be in line with the original intention, but it’s hard not to feel like the potential of the characters has been squandered to reinforce an arbitrary status quo.

[@zemox2534]

This is why I hate mainstream superhero comics (sometimes). They are slaves to the bloody "status quo". It is like writers and editors are scared that people will stop reading if the status quo is changed in any way, which is ridiculous.

[@tyraydew5668]

@@zemox2534 It’s a shame too because the DCAU didn’t typically fall victim to this. There are a lot of subtle, gradual status quo changes throughout each show that they stick with, and it’s all the better for it.

[@SerumLake]

I just find it so strange how Dini, Rogel and Templeton - all very talented writers who wrote some amazing Batman cartoons and comics - treat Nora like a bit of furniture. I really don’t get it at all.

[@cyclopsboxhead5318]

​@@zemox2534 COULD NOT AGREE MORE!! This is why Invincible is so dear to me, cause superhero/villain characters are allowed to grow and change!!!

[@WobblesandBean]

Thanks for bringing up Fridging. I truly hate this trope, and equally sick of guys saying it isn't real.

[@SerumLake]

You’re welcome, and thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[@lukerabon7925]

I like the version, i think it was in the Arkham games, where Nora gets unfrozen while still sick and rather than reject Freeze or turn evil, she just convinces him that the cycle needs to end; they enjoy the little time they have left together and Freeze is never an issue again

[@SerumLake]

Yeah, it was a good ending for her, but I remember feeling like Freeze just gave in and accepted it a bit too easily.

[@Kacpa2]

@@SerumLake i think this is why the tank fight was there to force his hand. Either she died gunned down by tanks with Batman or he gets atleast few days with her, giving up even remote ability to try and put her in stasis again.

[@alexlemonds2838]

Grant Walker is an interesting character. Control freak looney whose ol' Uncle Walt exaggerated into full blown supervillainy. What I find especially noteworthy about him though is that he's basically a pre-TAS Mr. Freeze. Total baddie, no redeeming qualities. Bringing him back as Mister Zero can serve as a neat contrast between original comic Freeze and how TAS reinvented him.

[@SerumLake]

I hadn’t noticed the similarities between him and Mr Zero. Thanks for pointing that out.

[@alexlemonds2838]

@@SerumLake No problem.

[@hawkticus_history_corner]

I think the reason is simple, if Nora isn't dead or dying of an incurable disease, Victor has no motivation for being a villain and so we don't get Mr. Freeze. If the accident hadn't been covered up and Victor and Nora had been properly found in the frozen room, Victor probably wouldn't be a villain, he'd be a scientist with a horrid illness that locks him in an armored suit and he'd be working on a cure for his wife, probably being funded by Bruce if Bruce heard about it. I think this is why The Batman changed Freeze as much as they did, they needed him to have a movable goal, in his case needing to keep getting money, so they could keep using him. Mr. Freeze is otherwise a guy you can stop by just giving him a lab and some funding to work on a cure, he's not evil just desperate. And that's why I don't like those other versions of him, Victor isn't supposed to be evil, just a man driven so far into despair and depression that he has nothing left but the thought of revenge, or later, the *tiny slim possibility* that he can cure his wife. I don't have an issue with Victor being an extreme introvert and probably having some sort of social anxiety (that's not being anti social FYI, that's something else) and so Nora is his world because of that, and so losing her is something he can't bear. Looking at the two of them, it seems clear to me that Victor is probably the older of the two, by a fair few years, so I can see Nora having met Victor at work (she was probably a secretary or a lab assistant at one of her first big jobs out of college) and Victor had been there for a while. He probably didn't talk much, didn't go out, hell he's probably the guy who forgot to get up for break unless someone told him to and so Nora decided to be nice to him. Some time goes by and either she asks him out or he works up the guts to ask her out and then the pair of them are together, with her being the one to get Victor to go out and *actually do stuff* so that when she's dying his entire world starts falling apart because he doesn't know how to live without her. Did I make up that entire last paragraph? Yes. Does it fit with the little info we have from BTAS? Also yes. Victor was always meant to be tragic, and I think keeping Nora dead is the right choice, but for god's sake let us see what Victor lost, give us the background story of what happened to him which would also let us see Nora.

[@nicholasbrunell8210]

I always interpreted it more as Nora being a blank slate for the audience so that they could see their own loved ones in Nora. Also, the earliest example of “fridging” was in the Epic of Gilgamesh. …and it was a dude. Don’t have a point for that, just thought it was interesting

[@logantocker4610]

1:23 THAT'S GENIUS, WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT!

[@MrZkinandBonez]

I think you hit the nail on the head in your conclusion, so I don't think it's necessary for you to feel conflicted about it at all. And if I may be so bold, the whole "fridging the girlfriend" critique has in my opinion been highly flawed from its inception. Now I understand and sympathize with people's concerns, of course, but its a highly flawed observation about what I feel is a pretty logical element in storytelling. It's not like it's only girlfriends/wives who are murdered to drive a character's motivation. There's Uncle Ben, Gwen Stacy, Bruce Wayne's parents, Dick Grayson's parents, Lara and Jor-el, heck you even have uncle Own and aunt Beru in Star Wars, not to mention the whole thing with Anakin and Padme. Need a tragic backstory or motivator to drive the plot? Simply kill off the hero's parents, or the spouse, or the uncle, or the best friend, etc. And as for the whole observation that male hero's specifically loose their girlfriend/wife? Well, Wonder Woman lost Steve Trevor in the first DCEU movie, and in the TV series Alias they pretty much gave us the gender-reversed version of the Green Lantern example, where Alias found her husband murdered, albeit in a bloody bathtub rather than a fridge. Now you could of course argue that this has happened more to women because fictional heroes has until recently mostly been males, sure, and I completely agree with that, but, that doesn't automatically justify turning it into some vague "violence against women" argument directed towards male writers (not that this was the case in this video), because as soon as the hero becomes a woman, you naturally start seeing boyfriends/husband getting killed off the same way. So, what I'm saying is that the issue is not the "fridging" in itself, but rather the distribution of it, so the whole trope discussion is, IMO, entirely misdirected. And as for Nora not having any personality, well, BTAS is a 20 minute cartoon series and there's only so much story you can fit in. And it's hard to give a character like this personality when they're already dead/frozen from the get-go. Now obviously Thomas and Martha Wayne have been fleshed out several times over the decades, but more often than not they are also pretty two-dimensional. Most Batman stories, especially in film and TV, never gave them more personality or backstory than; they were rich, philanthropic, good parents, and then they got shot and Bruce became Batman, etc. etc. In the two hour runtime of Batman 1989 they have no lines and only vague hints at personality, and in Batman Forever they are simply mentioned in dialogue and not even seen. It wasn't until Batman Begins that they were fleshed out as people (in live-action at least), but that whole film was specifically about Batman's origins so it made sense there. I know this will sound harsh, but the Mr. Freeze episodes in BTAS are not about Nora, they're about Mr. Freeze, well, technically they're about Batman, and again, there's only so much you can fit into a 20 min. cartoon. Likewise most Batman stories are about Batman, and not Thomas or Martha Wayne. This is simply how storytelling works some times. Unless its a novel you don't need to give everyone full personalities. Sometimes, people, both male and female, serve a narrative purpose. Now, having said all that, I am glad that Nora has been fleshed out in various comic interpretations, and comics are a perfect place to allow for longer drawn out narratives with more character depth, but as far as "Heart of Ice" is concerned, she served the same narrative purpose as the occasional framed photo of Thomas and Martha Wayne does within the confines of a short animated episode.

[@MrZkinandBonez]

PS. On the subject of the more recent interpretation of Nora and Victor's backstory with him being more selfish, I do think this might have been somewhat intentional from the very beginning with BTAS. From what I understand, Bruce Timm originally wanted to set the series in the 1930s and give it a more pulpy vibe (like seen in his more recent "Strange Days" short), rather than the 40s/90's hybrid they ended up with. I mention this because there's a pretty interesting pre-code horror film from 1934 called "The Black Cat" that feature similar visuals to Nora in stasis, only here it's a mad cultist who keeps his dead wives in a sort of floating stasis that is eerily similar to what is shown in BTAS. Since Timm is a fan of old horror films like this, it's entirely possible that this parallel is intentional.

[@SerumLake]

I appreciate you taking the time to write such a detailed response. I think the biggest issue with Nora remains the fact that she was revived, still treated like an object, and then unceremoniously died offscreen (offpanel?) I also can’t get over the fact that this trope is named after a Green Lantern comic! I suppose if it had been named after Heart of Ice they’d call it getting “Noraed”

[@Psycopathicus]

The issue I have with B:tAS' version of Mr. Freeze is that they really only have one story for him - a brilliant story, a tragic story, but one, single story. 'Heart of Ice' is an amazing episode, but once you've watched it, you've gotten most of the meat of the character - there's not really much more to either Victor or Nora Fries than was introduced there. Sure, they still manage to do some interesting things with him, but they're all variations on a single theme. EVERY Mr. Freeze episode involves his love for his wife and his grief at having lost her/hope for reviving her/revenge at those who harmed her, etc. The only one that doesn't, that I can think of (unless I'm forgetting something about it), is his closing tale in 'Batman Beyond', and that's only because Nora was very definitively dead for years at that point. It's still a compelling tale of love, but it's effectively hamstrung the character's future; in all likelihood, Mr. Freeze will NEVER get beyond the characterization of 'that sad guy with his wife in a jar' - at least, not during any of our lifetimes.

[@teehasheestower]

I think Nora's character being oversimplified was part of the ethos of the creators of BTAS. It's clear their mantra was "don't overcomplicate things" while still having a story with teeth. They did a good job of this, but not without casualties.

[@cyclopsboxhead5318]

This is a wonderful essay, and a take on Mrs. Freeze that I hadn't thought about! While I disagree, my gripe is not with you, but with the people at dc for not keeping Victor in cryostasis after that arc. It was a bit of poetic irony that Victor was now the object, and even moreso that Nora had no intention of getting him out. But then suddenly in Task Force Z issue one he's just.. not in cryostasis anymore. What a missed opportunity for Victor. And honestly they haven't even done anything with Nora since then either! She's nowhere to be found! Tangent aside, I love your essays very much.

[@SerumLake]

Thank you very much. I too often dislike what they do in the comics. I really should vote with my wallet and stop buying them but I just can’t bring myself to do it 😂

[@poltergeistghost]

Nice to see someone talking about this

[@SerumLake]

I wish I were more qualified to talk about it and provide answers. All I had at the end of the video was more questions.

[@No0neat]

I think i know why Paul wanted Nora to be dead. All batman villains are reflections of Batman. Mr.Freeze represents how Bruce's life stopped, froze when his parents died and freeze keeping her in that criotube is a representation of being unable to move on. Unable to let go and create a life past that point. In a way, similar to how Bruce will never be able to get his parents back. But while Bruce uses it as strength to fight, freeze uses Nora as an excuse to never let it go. By allowing Nora to be revived would be the same as saying "Mr.Freeze moved on" and i don't think Paul wanted that since the entire reason freeze is freeze is because of Nora.

[@Duragizer8775]

I wish _SubZero_ had ended with us actually getting to see Nora reawaken and exchange dialogue with her husband. I also wish Timm & Dini had had the good grace to retire the characters afterward instead of doing what they did with them in TNBA and BTAC. Also, Nora as a Rule 63'd version of her husband ... precisely the type of fanficy junk that makes me give the Big Two's mainline comics a wide berth.

[@annieandelsieofarendelle3294]

My favorite version of Nora Fries is in the Arkham series after we save her where she finally has a say about whether she wants to be saved or not, and she doesn't. She doesn't want to be trapped as a frozen object for millennia, she wants to live with the man she loves even if it's only for a few short days. I thought that was a very beautiful and tragic ending to the Mr Freeze storyline since it finally gives him and Nora some closure.

[@mrheroprimes]

considering Paul Dini and Bruce Timm always viewed Nora as being dead. They probably weren't too happy to hear That she was going to be successfully revived and cured in sub zero It's also known that the main reason this even happened in the first place was because the director boyd Kirkland Had mentioned that he disliked the girlfriend in the refrigerator trope. It's pretty clear with the adventures continues comic series that Paul Dini Used it as an opportunity to undo sub zero to a degree by having Nora relapse and die, Though when my head cannon I don't think that's actually Nora I think what happened was the feds stepped in and put her and her new husband under witness protection after Mr Freeze resurfaced and went on his rampage.

[@samanthakelly718]

I like to think in the DCAU, Nora was a selfless person with strong morals, who'd be disgusted with the person Freeze became even if it was for her sake. The fact she seemingly leaves him after all this proves to me she doesn't think she's worth someone's soul. And that, in and of itself, adds to the tragedy of her and Freeze's relationship. In his efforts to get revenge for her sake, he no longer was someone she loved.

[@Kabopple]

Nice job including the Heart of Ice poster by Phantom City Creative, it's one of my faves

[@SerumLake]

Thanks! I wish I had the original print, but I’ve made do with the box for Mondo’s Mr Freeze action figure

[@newguy90]

Victor Fries is based on Vincent Price's horror character Dr Phibes from the British horror film "The Abominable Dr Phibes." That's why the reveal that Nora is dead was hardly surprising. Phibes and his wife were innocent victims of a crime which left Phibes horribly disfigured. Phibes becomes a homicidal mad scientist who is in denial that his beloved wife is dead and instead focuses on reviving her from her "illness."

[@BottomBunkArt]

I think the phrase you were looking for that pre-dates “fridging” would be “damsel in distress”

[@jordanloux3883]

No, you can save a damsel. Fridging implies barbarity done to the female in a way that she HAS to be dead for plot motivation.

[@Stealthwilde]

Tropes are neither good nor bad. Even a maligned trope like fridging is important when it serves a purpose. When done badly, yes, it can appear sexist and objectifying. But let's be perfectly honest: not every character in a narrative work is important. Some have more prominence than others, and sometimes it is more important to have a non-important character exist and die purely to serve to make a more important character more well rounded and interesting. This is the case regardless of the gender of the character being fridged, although it is true that the role is disproportionately filled by a woman.

[@2krenegade323]

I'm new to this channel, and I gotta say: your videos are super good! I still think Heart of Ice is a fantastic episode, though, if I may play Devil's Advocate here, I'm actually not to concerned with Nora's fridge-status. I never even really thought of it until your analysis in this video; personally I think I can let it slide because her objectification is supposed to say more about Mr. Freeze than her. I do kind of wish they would've left her canonically dead, though. From what I've seen in other franchises, a character who was never meant to have even a single line of dialogue in the first place, then being retroactively given a fully-realized personality, can feel a little clumsy.

[@SerumLake]

Thank you, and welcome aboard! Regarding Nora, I too wish they hadn't revived her, but if they had left her dead then I suppose I probably wouldn't have made this video :)

[@PosthumanHeresy]

Tbh, I think the point of it is that it makes Victor not evil. To have a just reason to create victims, there must be victims. If Nora lives, Victor is killing for something less than murder. Victor can only be a justifiable killer if it's for the sake of someone he loved being killed. It also universalizes it. Nora becomes whoever we love. Nora puts us in Victor's shoes, because we just imagine our love in the place of their love.

[@SMunro]

Nora being dead and freeze living in a fantasy that his wife can be restored tragic.

[@Pikashades]

My sister is named after Nora Fries, by the way. She was born after Batman and Robin was last recent Batman movie and somehow my parents decided to name her after Mr. Freeze's wife.

[@tysondennis1016]

Honestly, I love it when Nora is made a character, when we see her outside of stasis. It lets us understand more why he's doing this, when we get the backstory that she was the first person to ever treat him with kindness, and he wants to repay that kindness. It also helps add realism, as while love is blind, grief is deaf. Victor's grief keeps him from considering what Nora would've wanted, until someone else asks him that question. Trapped in a frozen tube and a failing body, Nora wouldn't be able to tell her husband that. It also makes a foil with Batman. Thomas and Martha would've wanted Bruce to be happy, in spite of their absence, and yet, he deals with his problems by punching out crooks, instead of going to therapy. And while Nora would've wanted Victor to be happy, he deals with his problems by killing people who wronged the two of them in the past, or to harvest their organs, instead of letting her die and going to therapy. Both times, we have someone grieving, be it a son for his parents, or a husband for his wife, never reaching acceptance, never hearing the pleas of the people they lost. I would interpret Nora as having consented to being frozen, hoping to buy herself time to get her treatment, and it happens when she and Victor are both blissfully unaware of how little his employer cared about the lives of his employees and families, and once Ferris' true colors come to show, Victor is forced to take desperate measures he knows will make his wife hate him, that he will not be proud of, but does so anyways, because he's ready to pay the price.

[@StoryTeller796]

Actually, there's an animatic that uses the song "Running up that hill" by Adam F. Charles that gives Nora a character.

[@SerumLake]

That sounds cool. Got a link to it?

[@StoryTeller796]

@@SerumLake I'll need to get on my laptop in order to send it, but yeah, I do. do.m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/oF7QnaampZKFaNk&pp=ygUkUnVubmluZyB1cCB0aGF0IGhpbGwgYmF0bWFuIGFuaW1hdGlj Nvm, I can do it on my tablet, here you go pal!

[@SerumLake]

Thanks!

[@alondraperez-ramirez8363]

​@@SerumLakeyeah i know what she's talking about. Give me a moment

[@alondraperez-ramirez8363]

​@@SerumLakehere it is: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oF7QnaampZKFaNk

[@cheezemonkeyeater]

I hadn't ever really thought about it until now, but it really was a mistake to have Nora be unconscious for the entire Sub-Zero movie. I like the movie fine enough, but there's so much potential missed there. Having Nora be conscious and dying during this movie would not only give a personality to her, but you could make a strong character arc out of Mr. Freeze and Nora both dealing with the issue of her mortality, his lack thereof, and ultimately made the movie about him coming to terms with it. I could see it being a case of her learning that he's willing to kill someone else just to save her and her refusing that. We could get a moment where Victor makes it clear that he is going to go through with it against her wishes, because he would rather she live hating him than die loving him, and then contrast that hard against Nora's acceptance of her fate and just not wanting him to waste what little time they have left together, something he can no longer appreciate because of his obsession with saving her. And after Mask of the Phantasm, it's not like the writers haven't shown that they're willing to actually hit hard notes like that in a movie, so there's no reason not to.

[@sirsplintfastthepungent1373]

I always saw Nora as a personification of Rosebud from Citizen Kane. They are both memories of better days that can never return, kept under glass. Justifications for the terrible things powerful people do.

[@randomericthings7506]

Nora Fries actually appeared in “Gotham” where instead of being frozen in stasis she essentially kills herself by readjusting the settings so that the freeze would kill her after finding out about her husband’s experiments on homeless people. Then Victor attempts to kill himself the same way but that ends up turning him into Mr. Freeze where he becomes an agitated, self-loathing villain who takes glee in causing others pain. He also froze the Riddler on the Penguin’s orders after the Riddler shot him and dumped him in Gotham Bay to die after he sabotaged his girlfriend’s brakes leading her to being hit by a train. It was a whole Penguin vs Riddler storyline. The Penguin had Poison Ivy (who wasn’t a full on villain yet), Mr. Freeze, and a female version of Firefly on his team.

[@SerumLake]

Ah yes, yes, I remember that. Nice to see them trying something different, even if I didn’t particularly care for it.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

@@SerumLakeI hated what they did to the character in Gotham. He was already a villain and a serial killer. Then Hugo Strange can just bring anybody back from the dead from this point. Everyone always does it worse than the BTAS team did.

[@ianfinrir8724]

Nora is a McGuffin, she incites her husband's revenge scheme as well as being continuing motivation for him even though her importance to the story lessens as time goes on. Freeze cares very much for her, but the audience has no such attachment.

[@Jack-pm9wd]

Would love to hear your thoughts on Nora in the Harley Quinn cartoon.

[@SerumLake]

I have strong views on her fling with Swamp Thing!!!! :D

[@VALonYouTube]

Thank you so much for this video. I had no idea that Nora was a villain in the current/latest DC continuity, nor that Victor was a controlling husband. Thank God I stopped reading DC comics since shortly after The New 52.

[@yoshinpixels9924]

I'm very torn on this On one hand, it would be nice if Nora was more fleshed out. As much as I think the Harley Quinn show kinda sucked that was actually something it took a decent stab at. She may not have gotten a ton but giving her characterisation is not something I'm inherently against On the other, I flip the sexes in my head and I really don't see it as an issue per say. Sometimes the most powerful words are the ones not said, and not knowing what Nora sounds or acts like allows us to fill in those gaps ourselves, of the kind of person that would drive us to be in Freezes place. It allows us to empathise with him much more universally than would be possible otherwise I think maybe it depends. Heart of Ice works so well because you can imagine what Freeze might miss about her. Maybe she's much more outgoing than him and warms his cold heart, or she was as cold as him and thus felt she truly understood him. Not knowing, and thus picturing what could be, might be more effective than something concrete. But in the case of the 2022 comic, giving Nora a defined personality and having it bounce off of Freeze feels more appropriate for that type of story

[@PK-Radio]

It’s funny cuz she’s in the fridge figuratively and literally

[@jamesmurphy9630]

It would've been interesting to talk about the Arkham games, especially their ending for Nora and Fries in Knight. Considering it gives a definitive conclusion, as well as some clear character for her

[@SerumLake]

Yeah, I must admit that I didn't consider Arkham Knight, and that's a bit of an oversight on my part. I had played through the entire game on a stream a few months prior to making this video, so I should've remembered it!

[@LoganTocker]

I really dont like the idea of Freeze being selfish and possessive, when I look at Mr Freeze, I dont want to think Nora deserves better, I want to want Freeze to reform, I want to root for him, I want him and Nora to be reunited and live happily ever after, all thanks to Batman

[@jordanloux3883]

Nobody is perfect, and i think I like how they handled their relationship in Mr. Freeze, one bad day. Victor could have a possessive side, but Nora still loved him, and wished he could move past his worst self and be the kind of man he was when they first met.

[@mosaicpaint3223]

love this retrospective. because in 1997, watching that show, she was the most beautiful character i've seen. but her arc, isnt explored and its annoying

[@MegaManDBZX]

Honestly the only time I’ve ever seen a story about Nora being unfrozen that was actually good was an Arkham Knight. Any other time was either undone, boring, or just god awful like when she became Lazara or the worst part of the Harley Quinn show both before and after it fell off.

[@crakatoot5480]

Deep Freeze is a Great Episode

[@JoLiKMC]

I'm pretty sure Paul Dini wanted Nora dead so she wouldn't end up like she has in the comics and in that wretched _Harley Quinn_ show. Or maybe not. Continuity reboots are Hell.

[@GhostPlanetFilms]

Paul Dini turning Mr. Freeze into a Shakespearean tragic figure was ALWAYS one of my FAVORITE things about BTAS, and his love and devotion to Nora is what I love MOST about him! That One Bad Day comic that tried to paint Fries as a jealous, possessive jerk who put Nora on ice so he could have her all to himself is an INSULT to his character. [But if you like the comic, more power to you; it's just a gripe with me]. But I think the BEST portrayal of Nora was in Arkham Knight. She gets revived in the Mr. Freeze sidequest, and has made peace with the fact she's going to die, and she tells Victor what she really wants is to spend her last days with the man she loves. Even if it's only a few minutes of screentime and a handful of lines, I think that take on Nora is an emotionally mature and understanding woman!

[@zemox2534]

I love the way Nora was portrayed in Arkham Knight (one of the few good things about the game) and I wish more writers would take inspiration from it when writing Freeze stories. And I hate the depiction of Freeze in OBD. They threw his tragic side out the window. Why are writers obsessed with turning Victor into a twisted, obsessed Psychopath with no heart? Even at his most cold, Freeze is not devoid of emotion. Not completely anyway.

[@GhostPlanetFilms]

I've noticed a trend of modern day "writers" demonizing certain characters (mostly heroes) to fit someone's idea of how things should be. Mr. Freeze is just another victim of this treatment.@@zemox2534

[@WCLCooke]

I had an idea for a Batman movie where it dives into Victor and Nora's past and motivation. I thought Victor had a nihilistic viewpoint until he met Nora in grad school, and she gave him a reason for living. She is a happy, cheerful, optimistic woman who loves snow and dancing. Everything that could make Freeze fall in love with her. That increases his desire to save her. He can't live without her. The time the movie could span from Christmas to Valentine's Day. A lot of Batman stories take place on Christmas, but he needs time to solve the crime. Plus, it would give Mr. Freeze a chilling scene where he kills the slimy executive by not freezing him but putting him in a hot furnace. This gives him a line in that robotic voice from BTAS: "Feel that? This is what Christmas feels to me." Mr. Freeze is a vengeful man, and this is a very creative and fitting revenge plan.

[@onbearfeet]

This is a nice short overview of fridging as it relates to Nora Fries, but is there any particular reason you didn’t mention Gail Simone's role in coining the term? It just seems odd to make an essay examining a concept that revolves around sidelining and silencing female characters and not mention the influential female fan (and later influential writer for DC Comics and the DCAU) who defined the concept. I kept waiting to hear her name throughout this video, and then it ended. Otherwise great work, though. I'm enjoying my binge of your back issues. :)

[@kennethsatria6607]

I wonder what can be said about the opposite, like if a husband dies and the wife becomes vengeful or driven to becoming a hero/villain. Has that been done before? I know its always better to give characters depth instead of just death for plot reasons but I feel like its not something people do so much of outside of I guess its an important warning to consider when going down that road.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

An unused aspect from the BTAS series bible was that Montoya's husband was another cop who was killed in the line of duty.

[@davidpescitelli8004]

I think one of my favorite moments between the 2 is at the end of the Freeze dlc in Arkham Knight where at the end of it Nora comes out of the chamber and is ultimately able to convince Victor to let her live her last few days she has left. Victor opens up the suit and Batman leaves the 2 to live their last few days together before they die. Still has a similar problems with the show we don't get to know a lot about her, but it is nice Nora gets to ultimately decide her own fate.

[@zeoinfinitneospace2134]

The one good thing about Nora and Mr Victor freeze is that they finally reunite together in Batman Arkham Knight in DLC mission this is the one time we ever see Nora saw her husband became who he is

[@justinwilliam6534]

I have seen the webisodes of Gotham Girls a continuation of the new Batman Adventures where in the final episodes is a story of Nora’s sister wanting revenge on men because of Mr. Freeze and she is hinted to become the new Mrs. Freeze.

[@SerumLake]

Funny story, but I bought the Birds Of Prey TV show DVD set just so that I could watch Gotham Girls (they're a bonus feature in that set). I have yet to watch Birds of Prey, but I devoured Gotham Girls!

[@VALonYouTube]

​@@SerumLakeAll episodes are now available for free on KZbin. 😉

[@AedanTheGrey]

The fact he overwrote other authors in the tiein comics to properly fridge her again, Im gonna say there was no metatextual motivation. He just wanted her to be a plot device for Freeze, not a character. She might have avoided the implication in her original appearance, but with Dini killing her off screen just to motivate Fries again, he contributed to the horrid trope.

[@ProfessorAragorn]

I'm glad they did something about that with the Harley Quinn series where Nora, through Freeze's death, is given a life but she's voiced by Rachel Dratch and is mostly a comedic tagalong to the villains. It's crazy how popular Mr. Freeze is as a villain but in all honesty he has very few actual stories - the 50s origin and use in the Batman TV show in the 60s are not the same as the 1992 revision TImm and Dini conjured. We get a sequel episode, a movie, and then the Cold Comfort episode and the Batman Beyond episode and that's it for Mr. Freeze in the DCAU timeline. And yet he's easily top 10 list of Bat-villains easy. There isn't really a solution to Nora being fridged for Freeze's character - other than seeing her getting pulled out of stasis and cured and us either seeing a happy ending to Freeze's turmoil where he's reunited or horror at the revelation that he's an obsessive patriarch who's all about cold calculated control. But it is a great parallel to Batman - a man who had one bad day. What does he do? Batman seeks out justice and to prevent others from suffering his fate. Freeze seeks out revenge - a dish best served frozen.

[@dollfins1842]

I feel like not every character needs to be a fully fleshed out three dimensional character to be iconic for an example Walter White Jr from breaking bad to make a great story I do respect your opinion on this character but i must disagree

[@MichaelSpikes-pv6kl]

Nice show review

[@ShadowSearcher31]

Nora, I feel, wasn’t given a known personality because we’re all supposed to see her as the ideal partner, someone Mr. Freeze would do anything to save, and when you give a character their own self there’s inevitably going to be a portion of people who stop seeing that

[@louthegiantcookie]

Can I be honest? I don't 'get' the idea that the fridging trope is bad. It's something which has been used for male and female characters to spur on the protagonist. You mentioned Helen of Troy, but there's also Patroclus and Achilles, no? In fiction, sometimes characters simply are not characters, they're devices, and for the sake of narrative consistency they can't bog it down by fleshing out someone whose sole function is to die. Killing one character to motivate another is an effective means of getting a plot to a certain point, and the critiques of it just confuse me, because it's not an issue of prejudice or bigotry, but cold rationality in how we establish and raise stakes in a story.

[@SerumLake]

As I see it, it becomes problematic because the characters sole purpose to be a victim are disproportionately women. Of course, the reason why it became a trope is that it is so successful at pulling on our heart strings. In some cases I think that writers avoid fleshing out these character so that the audience can project on to them, but I’m very conflicted. It’s an interesting point you raise about cases when they are male though - for instance, the father in The Quick And The Dead doesn’t bother me in the slightest, even though he has no character traits and minimal dialogue before he gets gunned down. Maybe that says more about me than the trope!

[@Xehanort10]

And at times people use fridged wrongly. Instead of a character dying just to motivate another one some people think any character who is hurt or killed in any way whether they're a man or a woman has been fridged. They haven't.

[@battlesheep2552]

I think what's important to remember is that most tropes aren't inherently bad. Having characters who only exists to die and motivate the hero is a symptom of an overly protagonist-centric story (a.k.a a Mary Sue story), but just because a lot of bad stories use the trope doesn't mean using the trope automatically makes a story bad.

[@anonymousfox4620]

This video makes me appreciate even more what the Arkham games did with freeze. And the ending to Nora and freezes story although not a happy one. At least has conclusion. A cold and tragic one for certain but still conclusion

[@superomegaprimemk2]

Nora's roll is very similar to the One Ring in lord of the rings!!

[@SerumLake]

And both could be dealt with by a little heat 😂

[@michaelandreipalon359]

Great as Nora's characterizations in the tie-in comics are, said comics sure increasingly really hard to exactly pinpoint in the proper DCAU canon. No, I don't mean continuity. I just mean the logic of how things went... I still think Mr. Freeze was, woefully offscreen, apprehended permanently by the GCPD after the events of "Cold Comfort" (as hinted in Gotham Girls Season 3), and will stay that way until Derek Powers' father Warren covertly made him an experiment testbed for... certain advanced projects sometime between JLU and Batman Beyond.

[@jordanloux3883]

Do we know what the plot of the Bane movie would have been? Because Timm and Dini weren't huge fans of Bane, so to make him to focus of a movie they must have found an interesting angle to work with...

[@SerumLake]

The only details I've been able to find are that Bane was imagined as being more of an unbeatable, relentless foe, that injures Batman. Randy has described his Bane as being more like The Terminator - not in the sense that he's a robot, but in that he never gives up and is completely without mercy. I'd love to read that script!

[@jordanloux3883]

@@SerumLake Hmmm... now this is a wild guess, but is it possible that the episode Over The Edge was originally supposed to be the movie, but they ended up condensing it down into an episode after the plans changed? They released the same year, and I had to imagine that the show and the movie were being produced around the same time.

[@SerumLake]

@@jordanloux3883 I’d be very surprised if that was the case. Paul Dini wrote over the edge, while Randy Rogel wrote the Bane movie. Given that Paul Dini and Bruce Timm weren’t involved in the making of Subzero at all, I doubt they would’ve seen the Bane film script either.

[@jordanloux3883]

@@SerumLake Okay, fair enough.

[@marionann6746]

The Arkham series definitely gave one of the better character treatments for Nora. When she does get thawed out, she accepts her fate and tells Victor she'd rather spend her last few moments together instead of being trapped any longer in cryo while Victor keeps searching in vain for a cure. With the amount of times a female love interest is essentially treated as an extention of a male character, I enjoyed how Nora is her own person with motives that contradict that of Victor's, especially since Victor has very clearly been going down a self destructive path. And you can tell how much Nora clearly loves Victor, she just hates seeing what he's become and wants him to stop.

[@EditDeath]

Not having seen the comics, I always felt that Freeze's appearance in Batman Beyond was a missed opportunity. He visits the cemetery to see his own gravestone, but I would've loved for him to have visited his wife's. We still wouldn't have seen who she was, but at least we could've shared with him a sense of peace knowing that she lived a full life without him. That he'd done something good in that time. Would've been great as a balance to the sniper scene, too!

[@Elfenlied8675309]

I believe one of the tie in comics does say that Nora remarried and that Freeze kept track of Nora but chose to never interact with her or something like that. He just observed how her life was going.

[@christinaify]

Maybe Dini wanted Nora dead because that was how he originally wrote Mr. Freeze's new backstory. It was only changed because some executives at WB told him to not because it was a bad idea and that's probably frustrating for a writer. Imagine a Batman episode where Mr Freeze is committing all sorts of crimes in an attempt to cure Nora. We follow Batman from place to place trying to stop him and all the usual BTAS antics ensue. Then at the end we find out Nora *had been dead the whole time* and Freeze's brilliant mind had broken the day she died, concocting this disease narrative to protect itself. That would've been an amazing story. In this version, Nora doesn't need to be fleshed out or given lines or any of that because Nora had been gone for a long time by the time the audience meets her. I think that's what was up because yeah, Dini is not a sexist writer.

[@Arcadia_warlic]

Feel the obvious solution would be to have Batman help to cure Nora, and both she and Fries become de facto members of the Batfamily.

[@mrefromninjago7665]

It was Ferris Boil's fault

[@CyberXIII]

I think the issue is trying to fix what wasn't broken. Nora being a person was irrelevant in Heart of Ice because the story was about Mister Freeze and reinventing him. If you try to flesh her out, you risk undermining what made him special or important all those years ago because what mattered was, as you said, her relationship to him as opposed to who she was as a person. Worse, in long-running comics, leaving her alive allows later bad writers to either reinvent her as a supervillain (lame) or retread old ground to the point people are sick of her. She wasn't designed to be a long-running supporting character.

[@FrantisekSpejchal]

If Batman the Caped Crusader does Mister Freeze, i think it would be interesting to swap them, put Victor into the fridge and Nora into the suit.

[@lexofexcel886]

Honestly, I feel like there's another example of Fridging in "I Am the Night" when the entire plot gets kicked off by Jim Gordon nearly being killed by a crook out for revenge. Gordon is unheard from for nearly the entire episode until the very end, where he gives an attaboy to the actual focus of the story: Batman in the middle of a war-weary funk. If a character is put in danger, the story should be about the character instead of someone else.

[@SerumLake]

The key difference is that Commissioner Gordon was an established character, with a voice and motivations of his own. We saw him multiple times in the series prior to his shooting, which is what made that scene where he's shown facedown in the street so powerful.

[@a1rg3ar31]

Ah New 52, where all terrible ideas that have ever been thought up are put to page and sold to the masses.

[@AedanTheGrey]

I agree with OSP Red in that the trope is irredeemable as it exists and is generally used. Arguably, Freeze might be the only time it's done okay-ish? But it's still a low bar to only be *less misogynist and objectifying than other stories.

[@VioletKerrigan]

While it's definitely not a good thing that she was objectified, I could see a case for it making sense from Freeze's point of view. It sounds like even before the disease, he had a habit of putting her on a pedastal. He talks about his emotions freezing, but the thing about memories is that they can never really be preserved. From the moment we witness something, the memory we form of it is colored by our perceptions, and immediately begins to deteriorate, certain key notes becoming more prominent while the rest fades into darkness. How long had Nora been frozen when we first see Freeze? How many years passed since then? Is his warped, built up, idealized image of her even anything like she was before? Maybe we don't get to know who Nora was because, at this point, Freeze himself barely remembers. Just a faint outline on a shrinking horizon, even if it is his whole reason to keep going.

[@willadeefriesland5107]

Kind of messed up that the Harley Quinn animated series gave her better air time than BTAS itself...

[@ryszakowy]

you put nora as a example of fridging but is it really? you know she's effectively dead we know she's effectively dead and without being frozen the stories that don't turn her into a villain or a slut say she will die from disease mr.freeze isn't driven by revenge he is hopelessly trying to find the cure that doesn't exist

[@jamestoner3900]

I'm seriously considering writing a Mr. Freeze Origin Story movie screenplay, it would be in the same universe as Joker (2019), this would be in the 1980's id have Victor be Austrian (a nod to Schwarzenegger) and Nora be German, I'd establish Victor and Nora having knowing each other as Victor and his family who were from Austria but lived in Germany but He and Nora's Families and many other Austrian and Germans who immigrated to America 11 years before The Berlin Wall came down, i would show what Victor and Nora's lifelong friendship would be like (think of Forrest Gump and Jenny) and theyre marriage before Nora's Illness and Cryogenic Status I think Nora should be a character, id have her be a nice, Compassionate, kind, sweet and Loving Woman who would love life, for my mr freeze Origin Story script id have her be an inspiring Ballerina Dancer but she'd work as a volunteer at an autistic children centre and the kids love her, she would have a an older sister Dora (a few years older than Nora) who doesn't like Victor but Nora overwhelmingly Loves Victor and stands by him before Nora's Illness and Cryogenic Status happened, nora working with Autistic children and being very good with them Give her a desire to have a child of her own which she never got to do (i don't think Victor would be father material), the rest of the story would be the same, Fries cryogenically freezes her, his transformation into Mr. Freeze at the hands of Ferris Boyle (who would be The Movie's Main Antagonist) and Freeze plotting Revenge on Boyle, i would actually have Freeze inspire a movement called "The Snowmen" (very similar to The Clowns in Joker (2019)), he exposes the story about Ferris Boyle's Crimes and Actions, and it causes another Riot within Gotham but this time it would be against Gothcorp, they would have banners saying 1. "Justice for Victor and Nora" 2. "Gothcorp is Evil" 3. "Arrest Ferris Boyle" 4. "We are not Wage Slaves" (a line that Ferris Boyle would say, showing his utter contempt for The Working Class) In terms of how i have in mind for Mr. Freeze (my original Choice for Freeze would be Actor Reed Diamond, other choices are Timothy V Murphy, Ryan Gosling, Michael Fassbender, Bryan Cranston, Giancarlo Esposito) Nora Fries (theres a few Actresses in mind but id go with Either New Zealand Actress Gwendoline Taylor (an Unknown) Rebecca Ferguson, Emily Blunt, Diane Kruger or Noami Watts) Ferris Boyle (Ray Liotta RIP would have been a great Choice but my top two picks would be Paul Reiser or Kevin Bacon)

[@jackofallclaws6672]

Honestly, I’m surprised that Bruce didn’t open up a clinic with Leslie Tomkins that treated people who also had Nora’s condition. Actually, considering the fact that Nora was supposed to be DOA originally, shouldn’t she technically be classified as a W.I.F.I.N.O(Woman In Refrigerator In Name Only)? Follow-up question, does she even count considering that she died via an unrelated, somewhat unknown, potentially uncommon, incurable disease?

[@jordanloux3883]

That's sort of the thing about unnamed lethal diseases in comics. By design they have to be untreatable to avoid just using magic/alien tech/ impossible super science find an answer and suck the drama out of the scene.

[@WolfJarl]

I mean if someone's been dead before we even knew them how can you really know about them outside of others' accounts who knew them in life?

[@worldholder99]

I agree it would have been nice to know more about Nora, but I dislike the narrative that "Fridging" is exclusive to female characters. Plenty of male characters have been "Fridged" too, Uncle Ben being a great example.

[@overlord10ca74]

Nora got more of a conclusion in one of the Arkham games: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jom4Zmuro66WmJo Also, the first major fridging in comics is Green Goblin killing Gwen Stacey, back in 1973.

[@SerumLake]

I livestreamed a playthrough of the Arkham Series last year, and I remember the scene well. It wasn't what I would have done, but it was good to see her make her own decisions about her life.

[@van-hieuvo8208]

I guess "fridging" is sexist in the sense that it often occurs in narratives with couples, but it's not exclusive to couples. In manga, acts of violence or even massacre are committed on entire families as well. There's this artist named Watase Yuu (non-binary, she/her) who killed off the leading male character's entire family, including young children, to further the plot, even though this manga was aimed at a female audience. She even half-heartedly apologized for it as something literally necessary to motivate the male lead, right in the manga's commentary. It's just a lazy trope, as lazy as a guy defending a helpless girl against r*pists only to show how cool he is as a fighter.

[@ryszakowy]

ok so no defending from rape no revenge plots what is supposed to push the action? talking about clothes?

[@Elfenlied8675309]

Bruce Wayne's parents getting killed is an example of fridging, John Wick's dog from the first John Wick movie, fridging isn't exclusive to women or even humans. It can be almost anything that is exclusively included and destroyed/killed to spur the hero into getting revenge.

[@ionasappy2732]

Question- would Gwen Stacy technically be the first instance of the "fridged woman" cliche? Her comic came out in the early 70s and it was huge enough to influence and change superhero comics from 60s camp to more serious and darker topics.

[@SerumLake]

I wouldn’t say so because Gwen had been around for years, with her own backstory and motivations. She hadn’t been created for the single reason of being killed off. That’s one of the reasons why her death was so shocking and impactful.

[@DCMarvelMultiverse]

My theory was that Nora was a dominated wife married to an obsessive, controlling husband. If she woke up, I always wanted to witness her running from Victor in horror, not because of his condition, but his real self. Around men, he would go all wimp. In private with Nora, he was scary.

[@jordanloux3883]

You'd probably like the Mr. Freeze One Bad Day comic

[@micaldomlancer1494]

I don't like that fridging has turned into a trope that is only labelled as happening to women. If you remove that point of view the most famous case of killing off a supporting character for the development and motivation of the main character in super hero comics would be uncle Ben or Mr and Mrs Wayne. Now I think the scene the trope was named after is a great example of bad writing relying too heavily on a trope but it isn't a sexist trope cause if you remove the idea that it happens to women the most well known examples in comics are 2 men and 1 woman.

[@deadpilled2942]

So then Martha Wayne was fridged? This term is often misused, and is used every single time a female character dies.

[@SerumLake]

If it was just Martha that died and it was never really mentioned again, then I could see an argument for that. However, as it was both Thomas and Martha, and their deaths played a significant role on developing Batman’s character, I wouldn’t say they were fridged.