Top 10 Most Pathetic Damsels in Distress in Video Gaming

Honorable Mentions: Yorda (Ico), and Isabella (Advance Wars: Days of Ruin)

These are the two who can be pretty pathetic damsel in distresses but have something making up for it.  Yorda seems really weak and pathetic, but Ico is completely dependent on her.  Not only that, she has awesome lightning abilities.  There is also something that happens at the end of the game, but I won’t mention it due to spoilage.

Isabella made the honorable mentions just because you couldn’t use her in the campaign.  She doesn’t do much except for communicating with Penny.  At least you get to use her awesome abilities in versus.

#10: Farah (Prince of Persia: Sands of Time)

Farah is indeed needed by the prince to get through the palace.  She is also useful in distracting enemies when you are being surrounded.  On top of that, she is pretty bad***.  Why did she make the list then?  She can be kind of stupid.  She rushes into battle with only a bow and then complains when she gets ambushed.  If she stayed a good distance away and actually stayed by the prince, she wouldn’t even be considered a damsel.

#9: Amy (Sonic the Hedgehog series)

She is a lot like Farah but does a little less and is in distress more.  She often tries to help but ends up being a hindrance to everyone.  Don’t get me wrong, I really like Amy and her awesome hammer, just she needs to plan things out.  What doesn’t put her further down is when she actually uses that hammer of her’s, she is pretty formidable.

#8: Aerith (Final Fantasy VII)

Aerith is not lower because unlike other characters, she is still useful even after her death.  She gets captured by Shinra once and is stabbed by Sephiroth (the latter shouldn’t be a spoiler as everyone should know this), but even after all of this mayhem, she is still useful.  How is she useful after her death? That’s a spoiler, play the game.  Why is she on this list then if she is still useful?  This is because she gets captured a few times… and had to die in the _first_ disc.

#7: Rinoa (Final Fantasy VIII)

She is your best mage character outright.  She also has an awesome shooter.  The problem with her is that for a large part of the game, she is unusable due to multiple and consecutive circumstances.  You do something to save her, and another problem pops up.  What redeems her is when you finally “officially” saved her, she stays with the party for the rest of the game… and she has the highest magic stat.  That magic stat is pretty useful.

#6: Kairi (Kingdom Hearts series)

She is a lot more useless than the two mentioned above.  The only times when she can be considered useful is when she helps Sora in Hollow Bastion in KH1 (although the whole thing was caused by her capture) and when she helps Sora in The World that Never Was when she gets her keyblade.  Other than the above, she can be pretty useless, really only a hindrance.

#5: Zelda (Legend of Zelda series)

She is lower than the above damsels just because she needs rescuing in almost every game.  Like the above, she can be awesome with her magic – sometimes even needed for certain bosses – but it’s just that she gets captured so much.

#4: Garnet/Dagger (Final Fantasy IX)

She is a lot like Rinoa in many aspects but is more irritating.  She is unavailable for a lot of the beginning part of the game and is only back when Eiko, the other white mage, comes.  She is knocked down a few ranks just because she is in the game more right when you finally get another white mage.  Garnet may have better summons, but Eiko has better white magic, which is more useful.  A little afterwards, she gets captured again because she is trying to be a bit too independent.  Afterwards, she can’t go into Trance for awhile, lowering her usefulness even more.  It’s irritating when she is being mopey over something she should have known.  Get over it Garnet.

#3: Elise (Sonic the Hedgehog Next Gen)

Elise is now towards the bottom because she is 99% useless.  That last 1% is when she can enhance Sonic’s abilities in a few levels.  She gets captured throughout the whole game.  Sonic may finally save her, but it only takes ten minutes for Eggman to capture her again.  For it to take only so long to be captured is kind of agrivating; I wonder why Sonic put up with it.

#2: Eimelle (The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion)

She is constantly captured like Elise.  What makes her even lower than Elise is that her sole purpose is to destroy the world.  That is the only thing she can do.  Of course, she doesnt’ try to do it as she is a damsel, but she doesn’t even try magic or something to put up a fight.  She also causes a very tragic death.  She pretty much brings destruction around her until the end of the game.

#1: Peach (Mario series)

This doesn’t need an explanation, but I will give one anyway.  Peach is not as destructive as Eimelle, but she has been captured so many times that Mario should have given up even sooner than Sonic.  After being captured so many times by Bowser (and doesn’t have reincarnation as an excuse; Zelda does), you would think she would learn to do something about that.  Bowser will always come back when Mario isn’t around (or incapacitated) and take her.  By this point, you would think she would give the Toads guns to defend her or learn how to use a weapon.  At least she is a very useful character in Super Paper Mario and an awesome character in Super Smah Bros. … But they can’t compensate how much she has been captured by the same villain (not even counting the other villains).

There is my list of the top damsels.  This is my opinion so many others may differ from mine.  I do hope that everyone agrees on Peach’s placement with me…