My Issue with the Death of Paige Tico

[Winter]

Towards the end of the first major battle of The Last Jedi the film focuses on a minor character who we'll later learn is the sister of Rose Tico. Due to a number of contrived plot points (not the least of which being the one who is suppose to drop the bombs being somehow knocked out despite their bomber taking no real damage (seriously he's just on the ground either dead or knocked out despite the fact that their ship wasn't even hit and he was in the center of the ship)), Paige needs to drop the bombs over the Dreadnought but because of how close their are to the Dreadnought... Which just begs the question why the Hell the Bombers were flying so close to the Dreadnought to begin with... the Bomber Paige is on is destroyed too.

Again I have a lot of issues with the opening scene but I just want to focus on Paige's death because it bugged me for years and I didn't understand why it bugged me. Then I a few days ago I was rewatcing Overly Sarcastic Productions' Trope Talks and it suddenly clicked

Paige is killed off for the Soul purpose of motivating Rose into action, she has next to no character and her death is brushed off by everyone Including Rose who throws everything her sister fought for away to save Finn whom she deemed more important then the fate of the Galaxy. In other words.


youtu.be/U2D1GHHMb9g

To further highlight what I mean look at, and I cannot believe I'm using THIS show as an example of ANYTHING but, in Star Trek: Enterprise's 3d season the death of Tucker's sister has a number of purposes. While she didn't have any real character (I don't think we even saw her) the impact of her death has weight because of it's affects on not just Tucker but on those around him. She is part of thousands of faceless people but because of how Tucker handles it, or refuses to handle it, we feel the weight of that loss with him and that leads to one of the best episodes in not only Enterprise but all of Trek IMHO.

Her death isn't there to motivation Tucker into action because the attack itself already did that and the series made the wise choice of making the man who created the weapon a good man who was tricked into an act of evil so we're allowed to sympathize with both him and Tucker. This death has weight, it has meaning, it's NOT Fridging. Paige dies to motivation Rose into something she likely would have already done and is never mentioned by anyone. Spends more time talking about how much she hates the rich and powerful then she does her sister and she seems to care more about saving a bunch of spaces horses then she does about saving the Rebellion.

You honestly could have cut Paige and all reference to her out of the film and NOTHING would change. I don't like Fridging because if the writer doesn't care about this character, why should I?

[clearspira]

Yeah. I agree with all of this but you are also missing one fundamental truth: you could write out the entire Tico family and change nothing. Its Rey, Holdo and Kylo who ultimately destroy the Supremacy and save the remaining members of the Resistance; all Rose and Finn ultimately achieve is getting captured after they enlist a conman to help them.

You could cut the entire arc and with it Rose and it wouldn't make a fart of difference.

It would in fact only enhance the story as we now have about forty minutes of free time that we can use to flesh out Luke and Kylo's history - as in, actually GIVE us some history, and not a twenty second flashback of Luke trying to murder his grandson in his sleep.

[Winter]

Yeah. I agree with all of this but you are also missing one fundamental truth: you could write out the entire Tico family and change nothing.

I can't fully agree to that because of Rose's selfishness in "Saving" Finn which nearly doomed the whole Rebellion. Sure, Luke and Rey saved everyone after but it was only thanks to Rose that they were doomed to begin with. Finn's plan could have worked (this is a series that destroys planet busters with torpedos). Removing Rose would require to rewrite the enter 4th act so you can't really remove her.

Its Rey, Holdo and Kylo who ultimately destroy the Supremacy and save the remaining members of the Resistance; all Rose and Finn ultimately achieve is getting captured after they enlist a conman to help them.

Rey and Kylo had nothing to do with the destruction of the Supremacy that was all Holdo. Rey and Kylo were to busy fighting over who would get Anakin's lightsaber to do anything. Kylo killed Snoke but seeing that he was just as incompetent as the rest of the first order I doubt he could have changed anything.

[Mabus]

I'm still trying to understand the link between Paige Tico's death while she was busy dropping bombs from a military spacecraft on to another military spacecraft and the whole "rich people getting rich off the war by selling bombs and military spacecraft to bothsides". Oh right there isn't any, because both subplots are dead ends. Rose spends like a whole scene mourning for her sister, then the only thing that might create an emotional scene, namely where she has to trade her necklace to the codebreaker also becomes a dead end, because even though it's a short scene, it gets rendered pointless by said codebreaker giving back Rose her necklace.

It's not even fridging. It's pointless fridging.

Like seriously? She's now supposed to hate the First Order because it killed her sister? As opposed to what, because they're trying to kill them all? How is that an improvement? And Rose saving Finn doesn't contribute to her arc, because when they crashed their ships, they were literally at the feet of the First Order troops that were marching towards them. "I saved you dummy. Now the FO will capture us and execute us, like they almost did 30 minutes ago, and we were only saved by Deus Ex Machina. Assuming they just don't blow us up after they breached the door, meaning that unlike my sister, I achieved literally nothing. But I'm sure there will be another Deus Ex Machina to save us".

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think fridging is more a problem when a principal character's development is inflated at the expense of another. Rose was very much more a supporting character, so it's already a derivative element of the story.

In other words, Paige's narrative is derivative of Rose's character's narrative, which in turn is inherently derivative to the main story. Fridging on the other hand is a problem when a character in Rose's position gets treated like Paige for the sake of a prime character's marginal development.

That isn't to mention that the issue also lay in the gratuitous custom/trope that developed specifically within the comic medium. There's nothing innately offensive about having someone's death motivate a character.

[clearspira]

Yeah. I agree with all of this but you are also missing one fundamental truth: you could write out the entire Tico family and change nothing.

I can't fully agree to that because of Rose's selfishness in "Saving" Finn which nearly doomed the whole Rebellion. Sure, Luke and Rey saved everyone after but it was only thanks to Rose that they were doomed to begin with. Finn's plan could have worked (this is a series that destroys planet busters with torpedos). Removing Rose would require to rewrite the enter 4th act so you can't really remove her.

Its Rey, Holdo and Kylo who ultimately destroy the Supremacy and save the remaining members of the Resistance; all Rose and Finn ultimately achieve is getting captured after they enlist a conman to help them.

Rey and Kylo had nothing to do with the destruction of the Supremacy that was all Holdo. Rey and Kylo were to busy fighting over who would get Anakin's lightsaber to do anything. Kylo killed Snoke but seeing that he was just as incompetent as the rest of the first order I doubt he could have changed anything.

Post TROS retcons, Snoke being a moron is pretty funny when he is meant to be the Emperor in disguise. Master manipulator, chessplaying Palpatine got outplayed very easily.

And as for Rose basically being a traitor by the end, its funny how that romance went absolutely nowhere. Putting aside the real world reasons, I like to think in-universe that Finn basically told her to get lost. That and how he is clearly thirsty for Rey despite her showing no interest at all.

[Deledrius]

It's definitely a fridging, but then both characters were pretty useless.

That and how he is clearly thirsty for Rey despite her showing no interest at all.

Clearly (despite not a single line in the entire trilogy supporting romantic interest).

[McAvoy]

Ehh I just hate that whole scene as a whole. So many things wrong with it. Paige Tico's death is among them only because its related to other issues that leaded up to it.

[clearspira]

It's definitely a fridging, but then both characters were pretty useless.

That and how he is clearly thirsty for Rey despite her showing no interest at all.

Clearly (despite not a single line in the entire trilogy supporting romantic interest).

You mean apart from the fact that if there was such a thing as a reverse Bechdel Test, he would fail it? His entire arc for three films is either Rey or Rose. But mostly Rey. Holding her hand, saving her, talking about her, screaming her name, running after after her, and wondering where she is. If it doesn't involve a woman, Finn has no plot. Even the rapidly forgotten fact that he's an ex-Stormtrooper has him chased by the female Cpt. Phasma.

Or in in his own words, ''REY. REEEEYYYY. REEEEEYYYYYYY. RRRRRRREEEEYYYYYYY.''

(Why they gave this man the direction to scream constantly I will never know).

And BTW, what you said isn't even true. What else would Finn have been trying to tell Rey when they were being submerged in quicksand in TROS other than ''I love you?''
Although I will let you off not remembering that as the film itself forgets it.

[McAvoy]

Yeah Rise of Skywalker made Finn into some Rey cheerleader. He had potential in Force Awakens but he along with anyone not named Rey or Kylo was made useless.

I really wished they actually did something with Finn, something substantial.