quick random thing about gendered tropes

Something I've noticed about fictional characters who are assassins, serial killers or anything along those lines is that they tend to be written in one of two particular ways that hinges heavily on their gender: female killer characters are more-often-than-not brainwashed or otherwise forced into it, whereas male killer characters are far more likely to have at least some agency in the matter. In general, I'm really not a fan of the "men have agency, women are brainwashed" dichotomy that's so abundant in fiction, and this is one area where it particularly sticks out.

All this just makes me all the more fascinated with a certain character from a game I've been playing -- a male character who was brainwashed into being a killer. I won't say who the character is here, since this is quite spoilery both for the game he's from and especially for the specific character in question, but the playing around with a gendered trope here is one reason why I really like him and find him interesting -- even if he does seem to be a polarising character from what I've been able to observe of the fandom so far.

It goes to show that even tropes I normally find irksome can catch my interest if certain details are flipped around.