#vsmp analysis

(QUICK ASIDE EDIT: MASSIVE THANKS to @loudn-mcyt, who was to our recollection the first person we saw draw the specific comparison in the ""twist"" part of this essay. while we've formed these thoughts somewhat on our own, it definitely would NOT have gotten to this point of articulation without her bringing the topic up in the first place.)

the Dead Wife™ (yes, we're using that TM every time, get used to it) is a character who is written intentionally to be dead for most of/usually the entire story. the Dead Wife™'s absence is felt keenly by their "partner" (in quotation marks, as the trope is not always romantic in nature) and it informs a great deal of how that partner interacts with other characters and with the world around them. the partner of a Dead Wife™ will bring them up quite frequently -- in fact, the Dead Wife™ is referenced by their partner even in situations where it might not make much sense to mention them. sometimes, the Dead Wife™ is such a vital figure to understanding their partner that it is their absence which enables the entire plot by somehow fundamentally altering the way the character perceives the world.

the problem with the Dead Wife™ is that these characters usually do not have much characterization or interiority outside of what their partner says or thinks about them. the Dead Wife™ was written to have always been dead, but little to nothing is made of their former life outside of how it connected to their partner in some way. in particularly egregious examples, the Dead Wife™ is implied or outright confirmed to have been the only thing stopping their partner from swerving into amorality. because of this, when the Dead Wife™ is a woman whose living partner is a man, this can reinforce the internalized societal bias that women exist to supplement men's lives and stories rather than being individuals in their own right.

while a well-written Dead Wife™ is not super problematic, many are not even written as characters at all and are only brought up as reminders that their partner does, by the way, have a Dead Wife™ and is very sad about it.* "manpain" is another commonly used term in this instance -- the idea that a woman being hurt is bad not because people getting hurt in general is bad, but primarily because it made a man that the audience is expected to care about feel bad.

*this is about Kelsier from Mistborn, a favorite character and Dead Wife Guy whose partner we had to literally look up the name of because the only thing we remembered about her is that she liked flowers maybe. her name's Mare by the way

we'd personally say Elle is on the borderline between Dead Wife™ and "haunting the narrative" (a more fleshed out version of this). she certainly is characterized well and frequently, and is a lot more impactful to vAvid's entire life and story than other Dead Wife™ characters. however -- though part of this is difficult to avoid, since Elle is only a character in vAvid's backstory and others don't know anything about her -- we don't really ever learn anything in canon proper about Elle that isn't relevant to her longtime friendship and work alongside vAvid. she still serves as a somewhat flat plot device that does still have some sexist connotations, though she's far from being the most egregious example of the trope.

ironically, though, there is a character in Vampires SMP that was, in at least one POV, absolutely fridged.* and it was vAvid.

*this video is a great overview of the trope, btw

a character is fridged when they are brutally injured and usually killed in some horrific way for a one-off plot beat. fridged characters are not always written to have been killed from the beginning -- instead, they are (fairly often in the original context of comics!) existing characters harmed or killed off for shock value whose death is almost always reduced down to how it affects a "more important" character, often in a way that serves to establish how evil or malicious an antagonistic force in the narrative is.

there are, in our opinion, two key aspects of a fridged character that differentiates them from the Dead Wife™ or a character haunting the narrative. these are that the character very much existed prior to the fridging, and the fridging is ultimately temporarily impactful for the "important" character.

first off, existence prior to fridging. not all fridgees are created equal -- many of the more egregious examples involve characters that, while treated as side characters, were developed prior to their deaths! that said, they lose any remaining interiority once fridged. almost nothing is retained about them other than the death having hurt the "more important" character.

second, and more relevantly here -- temporary impact. at most, the fridged character's impact on the "important" character lasts as a motivator until shortly after the perpetrators of the act are dealt with. other than token acknowledgement at the end of the arc, the fridged character is summarily never addressed again, and their impact is at absolute most a single sentence that wouldn't look out of place as an if:then code statement -- if family member dies then move cities to a different setting, if jesus-shaped sire dies then commit an act of spree violence, if one-session love interest is killed then change alignment from neutral evil to (allegedly) chaotic good.

we're not sure if it can be said that vAvid was fridged in his own POV. we are, however, absolutely sure that he was fridged in Scott's POV -- as well as being treated as such by the fandom at large when combined with how often his characterization is frequently reduced to being vScott's love interest with next to no other thought given to any story beats that can't be related back to vScott.

so uh. congrats to vAvid for joining the exceedingly small list of (presumed) cis male characters to be fridged. you can put your refrigerator shaped trophy on a shelf right next to the participation trophy for being yet another visibly mentally ill character treated as inherently dangerously violent, hysterical, and completely incapable of self-determination.*

Okay so what do we know about Jack Von Pyroscythe? Like actually.

Bullied his entire life

Desperately afraid of authority

His initial goal and reason for coming to Oakhurst is to impress his family enough to be brought back into his family’s will

He has been powerless *HIS ENTIRE LIFE*, and even as a vampire- the most agency he’s ever had- He is still beholden to Scott who WILL KILL HIM.

Saying that Majorscythe is romantic reduced both characters to a few core tropes which are not actually what either of them are presenting on screen (to be clear, I do really love romantic Majorscythe and I enjoy reading it).

Scott is the most reliable narrator when it comes to POVs because he straight up just tells the audience when he’s lying for fun. He does not care about the wellbeing of the fledglings. He thinks Shelby is fun sure, but he still killed her brutally. To him, Pyro is a misbehaving dog. Something beneath him in every way. Scott would cull Pyro the moment he becomes an obstacle, and that’s where the tension comes in!

Pyro is desperate to stay alive, to the point of destroying himself for Scott just to keep breathing. And now he has every reason to be paranoid, to think that his betters are always listening. Pyro knows he’s doomed, and without tremendous protection he will not stand up for himself either. And that help isn’t coming either! The town has almost collectively decided that he’s beyond saving. He is a tragedy, redeemable if only someone would offer him a hand. And so far no one has even considered that he deserves it (with the exception of Abolish and Legundo).

So if you watch the video you may notice that as Owen and Scottt start discussing recruitment, Pyro stops in the middle of what he's doing, lets out a quiet huff or scoffing kind of sound, and then just stands in place just watching Scott & Owen mine and talk for a few minutes before he resumes helping them.

And, I'd like to note, he only starts helping out again & offers them helpful info & suggestions after confirming they plan to turn someone willing.

(and I will admit that while his reaction is featured in this edit, it isn't as noticable as it is in his original video. Here's a link to approximately the start of the scene if you want to give it a watch yourself)

Anyways, his reaction was subtle enough that the emotion behind it is open to interpretation. Is it disbelief that they're planning to recruit someone else? Disapproval of them wanting to? Wariness about who they plan to turn and how? I can only bring up a few of the options.

Now this is particularly interesting to me partly because if you watch this scene from Scott and Owen's perspective? They are completely oblivious. Owen doesn't even include the full discussion in his video (even though he's the one who started it!!!) and Scott doesn't hear Pyro react and Pyro stopping to look at him comes off as unremarkable.

Also, funnily enough, the one thing Pyro's perspective lacks is how he suggested sending Ren a letter about meeting up and Scott immediately shot it down for seeming too suspicious. Guess he'd rather not think about his Sire making fun of his idea to his face!