What makes a character a Damsel Scrappy?
A story about a Damsel in Distress (or a Distressed Dude) can be pretty effective if the audience cares about the victim and wants to see him/her rescued. If handled correctly, his/her plight can even make him/her more sympathetic. In other cases, however, the audience will either be indifferent to the victim's fate, or even actively hope the heroes fail to save him/her. This analysis will discuss why some distressed damsels (and dudes) fall under the latter categories. For simplicity, we'll call our hypothetical damsel "Alice".
If Alice is an established character, the audience's initial opinion on her will obviously play a role. If she's popular, the audience will likely feel sorry for her and hope she's rescued. On the other hand, if she's considered a mediocre or poor (but tolerable) character to begin with, a plot that revolves around saving her can push her into Damsel Scrappy status because "we have to save a bland/annoying/[insert negative adjective here] character" probably won't make a very compelling story (even if the adventure itself is enjoyable, the lame payoff may leave a sour taste in your mouth). If Alice is already The Scrappy for other reasons, it can be aggravating to endure a plot about saving her when you wish the main characters would just tell her kidnappers to keep her, let her die instead of looking for the rare cure that can save her life, or whatever. This tends to make her Scrappydom even worse. (Of course, if she does die, the audience might end up feeling sorry for her anyway.)
The execution of the Damsel in Distress plot itself is also important. If it's good, it can make Alice more sympathetic. If it's bad, it can damage her popularity and even turn audiences against her. Here's a list of factors that will probably make her less likable (note that there's some overlap between it and the more general list on Analysis.The Scrappy):
- Alice is too much of a Jerkass, making her come across as an Asshole Victim instead of a sympathetic victim.
- Alice's getting into danger was partly or entirely her own fault. This gets worse if...
- ...the decision(s) that got her into danger was/were particularly stupid. Even if she's The Ditz and it's in character for her, it can still be aggravating.
- ...the decision(s) that got her into danger was/were uncharacteristically stupid, or the work insists that she's smart even though she makes many such mistakes.
- ...she got into danger while doing something that makes her unsympathetic. If she for instance goes Robbing the Dead out of Greed and ends up attacked by their ghosts, don't be surprised if the audience doesn't care whether she's rescued, or even sides with the ghosts.
- ...she fails to admit to her mistake(s), or even tries to shift the blame.
- ...she has been in similar trouble before and didn't learn anything from that.
- Alice treats the heroes like dirt, and still expects them to rescue her when she gets into trouble.
- Alice Wangsts too much about her predicament.note
- The other characters Wangst too much about how awful it'll be if Alice dies because she's such an awesome person. This is particularly annoying if their Character Shilling doesn't fit the actual portrayal of Alice. While you can't really blame Alice for getting shilled, it can still sour the audience on her if she fails to live up to the hype. note
- Alice acts like an Ungrateful Bitch when she's rescued, making the audience wonder why the heroes should've bothered in the first place.
- It seems like Alice only exists to pad out the story by getting into trouble. This can easily happen if she's The Load/The Millstone and/or little more than a plot device that happens to be a person.
- Saving Alice is a subplot that has nothing to do with the more interesting main plot.
- Saving Alice is a lot of trouble. Whether she needs many rescues or "just" a particularly difficult one, the audience may question if she's worth all the pain.
- If there's a very long arc about saving Alice, the audience may get sick of it and wish the main characters would do something more interesting already.
- If she gets into trouble a lot, audiences may start thinking that rescuing her is a pointless Sisyphean task — why even bother if she'll just be in danger again tomorrow?
- Alice dies shortly after being rescued (and failed to accomplish anything meaningful in the meantime). This can be used effectively in a tragedy, but it's likely that audiences will just be frustrated that the work wasted their time with an arc that ultimately turned out to be pointless.
- More popular heroes have to put themselves in serious danger and possibly make sacrifices to rescue Alice. If fan-favourite Bob dies to save her, expect fans to resent Alice and say she should have died instead.
- The heroes face a Sadistic Choice, and Alice is chosen over a more popular character. The audience will probably understand if they let the Token Evil Teammate whose main appeal is Evil Is Cool die, but if they sacrifice the sympathetic Ensemble Dark Horse for the hero's annoying little sister who'll most likely run straight into trouble again next week...
- Alice spends most of her time being a Damsel in Distress, but the work tries to pass her off as an Action Girl anyway.
- Alice won't shut up about how "awesome" and "badass" she is even though she keeps getting defeated and captured. This is even more annoying if Alice keeps getting into danger because of her inflated ego.
- If Alice is the only major female character and the only character to get into danger frequently, expect feminists (if not female viewers in general) to dislike her for being bad female representation.
It's not uncommon that the damsel gets more ire than the actual kidnappers. One possible reason is victim-blaming to the point of neglecting that the perpetrator deserves the blame. This is likely part of the explanation in several cases, e.g. if there's a "you must save Alice because she fell for Evil Eve's trap" story arc of padding that's their only appearance, and Alice becomes the more hated of the two even though neither of them is a very entertaining or interesting character. Even if Eve does become The Scrappy for being responsible for the pointless arc in the first place, Alice may still be hated more.
An alternative explanation is that the kidnappers get a pass because they're just doing their job as villains within the narrative. Alice, on the other hand, may be seen as a poor good-aligned character if all she does is being rescued. The kidnappers may also be more interesting characters, or at least have Evil Is Cool going for them. Lastly, it's likely that the kidnappers get some sort of comeuppance, which can alleviate the audience's frustration with them.
It's also worth mentioning that people don't hold fictional characters and real people to the same standards. You might feel very sorry for real-life kidnapping victims even if you couldn't care less about a bland fictional character whose only "contribution" to the plot is "she gets kidnapped because the writers needed some padding". Many reactions to damsel scrappies would be seen as cruel and heartless if they were directed at real people. The difference, of course, is that one of the groups consists of living beings with hopes, dreams and loved ones. The other is just a bunch of characters who were made up to provide entertainment, and didn't even do a good job at that. If the audience didn't connect with Alice and didn't even find her entertaining, they won't take the loss of her very hard, as it just means they no longer get to see a character they didn't like anyway.
