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

[shark-hat.livejournal.com]

When I started thinking about this, apart from Zoe and Ace, who are both just insanely cool, all the characters who've sprung to mind have been women, rather than girls- which surprised me a bit, because I read a lot of YA and am quite happy with the Spunky Girl Herione. But the characters who I really *love* aren't the ones learning how to deal with the world, but the ones who have been a bit worn down already and are still competent and funny and clever and cool. Sabriel from the book Sabriel is brilliant, but I like her even more in the later book, Lirael, where she's an overworked professional.
Donna and her willingness to go "You're an idiot, shut up!"
Martha.
Leela (who will stab anyone right up, no bother).
Ista, oh, Ista, (Paladin of Souls, by Lois Bujold), who's nearly imprisoned by what's suitable to her rank but manages to sneak out on a "pilgrimage" and gets the better of demons and priests both.
Ofelia (Remnant Population, Elizabeth Moon) who decides that sod it, I'm not being evacuated from my colony planet with everyone else, I like it here, I'm just staying.
Diana from Waiting For God and Granny Weatherwax- I hope I can be a crabby old bat like them.
And, actually, Kochanski from S1 Red Dwarf- not that you see much of her, but she's a navigator, she's funny, she's happy to flirt with a cute soup-machine repairman and then get on with her own life. (The post-S3 version, eh.)