Which can be found here.
There's a part towards the end where Anita argues that the true catalyst for many male characters isn't the actual loss of their "damsel in distress," but rather their own feelings of weakness/impotence at having failed to protect their own. This reminded me of a comment on an article I read a while back on street harassment:
In my experience, patriarchy tends to be all about men and tries to ignore women as much as possible. So its rarely ever about women, and more so about men trying to be better than other men.
Which I think is largely the reason why the one who kidnaps or kills the damsel is usually a fellow male. In the end, revenge tales in video games (and movies) tend to place the conflict/rivalry between the male characters above everything else, even further above the relationship between the man and the woman and the loss of that relationship.
Kind of a sidenote, but I've found that the idea that patriarchal societies are entirely centered on male competition does seem to hold weight--at the very least, it certainly puts many "women's issues" in a new light. (e.g. the idealization of female purity, friendzoning/"nice guy" self-victimization, etc etc)
