We Think The Women Should Be Allowed To Fight.

[rionaleonhart]

A while ago, misscam posted an entry about the hard time female characters get in fandom and invited everyone to talk about female characters they loved in the comments. I thought that this was a lovely idea, and so I am completely stealing it. Because I do tend to talk about male characters far more than I talk about female ones, and that's not right. There are plenty of female characters I adore. Here are some of them.

I love the women of House. I love poor adorable Cameron and her tendency to become attached to patients and her emotional masochism. I love longsuffering, sarcastic, awesome Cuddy. I LOVE THE BUDDY COP DUO THAT CAMERON AND CUDDY HAVE FORMED IN MY MIND. I love Thirteen when she is vulnerable and when she has that ridiculously cute grin or that little smile and when she is rolling her eyes and when she is going 'THESE ARE NOT THE CORRECT DRUGS; THEY ARE INSUFFICIENTLY CRAP' and when she is saying words and when she is on the screen.

I love Donna of Doctor Who. I love that she could so easily have been a shallow, exaggerated comic character, but that the writers instead took her and made something wonderful. I love that she made me emotionally invested in Doctor Who again; I cared about what happened to her, which was something I hadn't felt about any Doctor Who character (with the possible exception of the Master) since Eccleston's regeneration. I love that she will stand up to the Doctor, and she won't take 'I AM A TIME LORD AND THEREFORE MORALLY SUPERIOR' for an answer. She is compassionate and awesome and ridiculous and amazing and I adore her.

I love Toph of Avatar. She is mocking and hilarious and kicks arse, and the way she uses Earthbending to see is utterly fascinating. Katara, meanwhile, is lovely and awesome in equal measures, and Ty Lee is just the most adorable antagonist ever, bless her. I also love the fact that Toph and Katara both have very real flaws, and that these flaws in no way stop them from being wonderful.

I love Annie of Being Human, because she is adorable. I love her inept attempts to conform to the cultural image of what a ghost should be like. I love that she wants to be in Hufflepuff and make glittery cards. I love the little things she does for Owen, and her little smile when he notices them (even if he does not deserve them. Why don't you adorably haunt my house, Annie?). I love her friendship with Mitchell and George, and the ridiculous amounts of chemistry they all have.

These certainly aren't all the female characters I love (Carla, Elliot, Tosh, Sharpay, Fran, Celes, Selphie, Quistis, Freya, Yuna, Rikku, Lulu, Paine, Larxene, Ruby, Bela, Pamela, Ellen, Gwen, Morgana, Rose Tyler, Alex Drake, Samantha Carter, Luna Lovegood, Sara Tancredi...), but it's a start. Who are your favourite female characters? I'd love to hear about why you love them in the comments.

Comments

[misskass.livejournal.com]

FFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUU- WHY DO YOU ASK THE HARD QUESTIONS.

Obviously I love Donna, because she's the first character who's not been head over heels for the Doctor, but she's got such an amazingly close relationshop with him anyway. And that she's showing girls everywhere that even temps can be special, that's the main thing I adore about her - the way she thinks she's nothing but it turns out that she's everything.

And and and, um... I love Lyra! From His Dark Materials. 'Cause she's really only little, and yet she does all these amazing and courageous things. Maybe due to being stubborn, maybe due to her desire to rebel against people of authority, but still she saves the goddamn world and rescues people from hell and still, at the end, has the strength to say goodbye to the first boy she loved because all of the windows have to close. geafeahfksdh I cried at the end of those books. Now I want to read them again. Damn.

*thinks* I love Yuna!! The willingness to die to save everyone? Hells yeah. And falling in love with a guy who is essentially seen as crazy and is pretty much a gigantic doofus, that's something to love about her. She may have been quiet (and rather physically weak, unless you went the wrong way on the sphere grid and ended up with her doing 237189237 damage ALL THE TIME), but that doesn't stop her from being one more amazing female character saving the world. I love Lulu, too, 'cause she's sassy. xD

In the old Crash Bandicoot games I heart Coco Bandicoot, 'cause she was such a nerd. xD She barely got any lines or anything to do (until the third game when she rode a tiger cub around, and that was badass), but the beginning of Cortex Strikes Back when she's tapping on her computer has stuck with me. It's just what I remember her to be. And that's an awesome memory. But then the new games made her a dumb blonde-type character and I raged.

AND I SHOULD BE QUIET NOW I'm talking nonsense. Gosh.

[rionaleonhart]

Obviously I love Donna, because she's the first character who's not been head over heels for the Doctor, but she's got such an amazingly close relationshop with him anyway.

I forgot to mention that! That's another thing I really love about her. DONNA. YOU ARE AMAZING.

Oh, I need to reread His Dark Materials. I loved those books so much when I was younger.

TAKING YUNA IN INAPPROPRIATE DIRECTIONS ON THE SPHERE GRID IS ONE OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS TO DO IN FINAL FANTASY X. I love watching her run up, give the enemy a gentle tap with her staff, and do one million damage. And she is just so brave. Also adorable.

[misskass.livejournal.com]

RELATIONSHOP. How did I manage to misspell that. xD

I should really start the game again and take all the characters in the wrong directions. Yuna and Lulu will go down the physical strength path, Auron and Tidus will become black mages with terrible attacks, and Wakka and Rikku will be white mages. Or I could just teach everyone Holy, that could work too. Unless the enemies are invulnerable to Holy, then I'm screwed.

... are there enemies that aren't affected by Holy?

OH I FORGOT: I love Jessie from Pokemon. 'Cause she's really cool for a constant enemy who loses at everything. She's just awesome and persistent and I love in Pokemon 2000 when she and James and Meowth decide to be the good guys for once. Also in Pokemon 3, but 2000 is my favourite film.

[rionaleonhart]

Now I am just imagining Donna and the Doctor running a shop that sells romantic novels.

JESSIE IS AMAZING. As is everything about Pokémon, eeee.

[vzg.livejournal.com]

YES LYRA. But not so much movie Lyra.

I feel like I can finally admit that the movie sort of sucked. SIGH. But book!Lyra is awesomecakes!

[misskass.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed the movie, but probably moreso because I wanted to enjoy the movie rather than an actual enjoyment of the movie. Book!Lyra is definitely better, even though I do hope they continue to make the movies. Because more people need to find out about the books and go off and read them. =D

[vzg.livejournal.com]

I did enjoy it a bit at the time, and it wasn't as if every little part of it sucked, but I do want a do-over. :[

[rionaleonhart]

I just can't forgive them for leaving out the end. What on Earth, writers? (Also, their Lyra did not fit my mental image, and the MASSIVE BATTLE BETWEEN EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING was just unnecessary and dull.)

[emmarrrrr.livejournal.com]

I think they left out the end because otherwise, The Subtle Knife will confuse the hell out of everyone.

[hold-onhope.livejournal.com]

Somehow the Lyra in my head while reading the books had dark hair... I have no idea if she's supposed to be blond or not, but it threw me off in the movie. The whole movie just makes me sad, because it could have been so amazing, but they had to aim it towards children and then it was... not amazing. Sad.

[vzg.livejournal.com]

They didn't want the ending to be too depressing.

No, for real.

Which I can get, in a marketing sense. Regardless of the actual target audience, there were bound to be lost of parents bringing their kids to see it, and that's a pretty profitable market. Kids won't come back for a sequel if it ends like that. (In general. Obviously some would, although some that would would not be allowed to be their parents, surely.) It's the same reason they trimmed down references to the Church and called in the magistrate instead.

Of course, understanding why they did it doesn't make me approve. At all. :/

[bubbles-san.livejournal.com]

They ended the first LotR movie with Boromir dead and that didn't stop it from becoming a box-office smash. Of course, they also had Arwen usurp Glorfindel's role and made Gimli not nearly as awesome as he should have been, so I don't know if I should be defending them.

[vzg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I feel it was really more pivotal to the plot for His Dark Materials... after all, it shows her that her supposed heroes are not, in fact, heroes, and opens a pathway to another world, which ends up being really damned important in the next two stories.

[dancesontrains.livejournal.com]

I don't think it did well enough for them to justify making another film.