rionaleonhart: final fantasy x-2: the sun is rising, yuna looks to the future. (guess it's my lucky number)
Riona ([personal profile] rionaleonhart) wrote2009-05-12 08:04 am

We Think The Women Should Be Allowed To Fight.

A while ago, [livejournal.com profile] 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.

[identity profile] hold-onhope.livejournal.com 2009-05-12 01:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Lily Evans. I know we don't see a whole lot of her in the series, but she's definitely amazing. If nothing else, standing up to Voldemort must have taken a hell of a lot of courage. Not to mention standing up for Snape when no one else would.. I think I may get Lily from The Shoebox Project (http://www.lomara.org/sbp/) mixed up with canon Lily, but she is so, so strong, smart, and feminine, even though she's not going to let that define her.

I agree with you about Donna so much. She could have been annoying and weak, but they turned her into someone so relatable. Who else can put the Doctor in his place like she could? And get away with it too, and on top of that, she was always right.

Jo Harvelle. Ellen is obviously awesome, but Jo is very under appreciated in fandom. I honestly don't know why so many people hate her, and oh how I wish she would come back. She's a lot tougher than she gets credit for.

MARY CAMPBELL. Or, Winchester, but she was still Campbell in 'In The Beginning'. Strong enough to be a hunter, but still smart enough to get out while she can. Wanting to protect her future family from evil, trying to break the cycle - she failed, of course, but she tried. She wanted it. Nothing wrong with that.

Gwen and Morgana, thank you for being strong female characters in a fandom where the favorite slash pairing is so obvious. I don't think I even have to mention 'The Moment of Truth', because we all know how awesome that was. I love that Gwen doesn't care that she's only a handmaiden, she's going to get involved with the goings-on of the upper class anyway. Morgana, oh how do I love thee. She knows exactly what her position is and how much sway she has over Uther, and damn it, she's going to use it. She's not some wilting beauty under the king's ward, she's going to act like a queen because there's nobody else.