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] proleptic-fancy.livejournal.com 2009-05-12 03:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh man I love this post! Um, let's see. Liz Shaw is my favorite fictional character of all time, because she's smart and sarcastic and didn't actually need the Doctor but they had a great friendship anyway because she challenged him. Old Who also had Leela, and Sarah Jane, and Barbara, and Mel who gets such a bad wrap for no reason. I loved her :( Oh, and the Rani on the evil side, since she had her shit together way more than the Master ever did.

New Who has Martha and Donna and Jenny, who also gets a lot of hate for reasons I can't understand because she was amazing and I would take Jenny's Awesome Space Adventures over Torchwood any day. Speaking of Torchwood, I love Gwen even when I hate how she acts sometimes. I don't know why.

Um, Eureka has lots of strong female characters. I have a total crush on Jo, for being strong in the most literal sense, but still perfectly capable of indulging her emotions when it's appropriate. Zoe is the underrated genius and the only person in the town with any common sense. Allison I really didn't like at first but she's growing on me. Jessi from Kyle XY was phenomenal towards the end for knowing when to stand up and when to back down, and taking what she wanted, society be damned. Garcia and J.J. from Criminal Minds—Garcia for hacking into top secret government files to keep her boyfriend in the country, J.J. just for dealing with everything she has to see and remaining sweet, compassionate, and tough.

And for books, I know nobody else has read Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (though you should), but Bonanza Jellybean is pretty much the greatest ever. Sissy Hankshaw wasn't too bad either. Also, all of Pratchett's women, but especially Nanny Ogg.