Strong Female Characters

[Veyron]

Inspired from the recent Illyeria: Worst Character thread comes Strong Female Characters...

So, list, and discuss (if you want to) which characters on shows you think are the strongest - not in terms of physical prowess, but in the way the character comes across to you on screen. This thread isn't about which character is the best or worst, it's about who you and I think are good female characters for the TV viewer of tomorrow to look-up to and possibly admire as much as we do today.

I've listed good points as well as bad in my choices although it has to be said that these good and bad points aren't exactly why I chose who I did - they're the things that make that character who she is (in my opinion).

My choices;

Buffy - cool chick with super strength and real human weaknesses - she falls in love at the drop of a hat often with the wrong man or vampire! She wants what others have in terms of a normal life (what-ever that is) but ultimately knows she can't have it (at least until the end of Chosen when she via Willow's magic is set free from the burden of being the chosen one in her generation).

Illyeria - she's tough, intelligent, loves a good punch up, has powers of her own albeit diminished by Wesley in Time Bomb, she's feisty and I suspect she knows what she wants and more importantly how to get it. A much tougher all round character than Fred Burkle - Illyeria is a combination of all that made Fred such a wonderful woman and the sheer sexiness of a wily, cunning warrior who has the want, the where-for and the means to achieve her own goals.

Seven of Nine (Star Trek: Voyager) - beautiful to the Nth degree! Again, strong both in the physical sense and the eventually in the mental sense too. Whilst her character was a mental and emotional mess after being seperated from the Borg collective, she developed a unique sense of self and recovered her own personality again after it was buried by the single mindedness of the collective and became part of a bigger collective - the human race.

Captain Kathyrn Janeway (Star Trek: Voyager) - Tough, feisty, aggressive and compassionate when necessary - just how a star ship captain should be!

I could go on, but then there'd be nobody left for you guys to talk about...

 

[Queen Mum]

What about Xena? I have never seen the show really, but as far as I remember, it was weird and that is probably stating it mildly.


What about Faith though? She definetly is whoopass.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

If we're going down the Star Trek route, I would have to say Major/Colonel Kira Nerys was a strong positive female character.

She was tough, by gosh was she tough but she had an unequalled faith. I love that. Its rare in shows like these to have someone with a strong and obvious religious belief to be portrayed as a positive role model. Generally they turn evil or are the comic relief of just not interesting - she was all of the above and my gosh was she sexy too.

I also would like to not just say strong but also positive role models.

With this I would like to add Nichelle Nichols.
OK, in a few episodes she's a little 2D but she eventually gets some balls on her AND she influenced 2 great people.
1) Whoopi Goldberg. It is very well documented that Whoopi Goldberg saw Uhura on TV and this inspired her to be the woman she is today. This gave her the courage and confidence to follow a dream - I think that is remarkable.
2) Mae Jemison the astronaut. Again, inspired by Nichelle Nichols.

Remarkable characters but I think you have to give credit to the women playing them too.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

I may be biased but Trixie and Joanie from Deadwood are amazingly strong women; unlike the other characters mentioned above, with these two you actually get to see them grow into these strong characters and are not presented with a cookie cutter image. Paula Malcomson and Kim Dickens played them wonderfully.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

unlike the other characters mentioned above, with these two you actually get to see them grow into these strong characters and are not presented with a cookie cutter image.

Erm - wrong.

Buffy

Buffy didn't start out strong. She grew, it took time for her to gain confidence in who she was. She was physically strong, granted, but it too time for her to grow. We sat every week for 7 years watching this girl turn into a woman through triumph and tragedy.

Seven of Nine

Seven of Nice (purpose) was far from strong when we first meet her. Like Buffy we watched her change, mature and grow over 4 years and become a strong character, woman. It took time and alot of patience but she learned and grew.

Uhura

As I said, Uhura started off as some 2D character, the woman in peril character that eventually grew into a tough cookie. By the time the movies came around she has sass, depth and a strong will but in the first season of Star Trek she is little more than screen totty - something Nichelle actually mentions in her autobiography when she discusses that she almost left the show until a conversation with Martin Luther King. This was a turning point in her character and she began to grow.

Major Kira

Like the characters above, this was a tough character BUT she wasn't that strong. She was forced to be tough because of her history but it wasn't until she started to work with the crew of DS9, that they became the family she so desperately needed that she started to become strong in other ways, that she gained more than just faith but a courage to express it.

Illyria I have left out because we didn't get much time with her BUT we were going down the same road with her as Seven of Nine (hence peoples Sci-Fi comparison).

I left out Janeway because while we saw her character grow, she was always strong and tough but emotionally aware and compassionate.

 

[Blondie Bear]

Kim Harrison's Rachel Morgan - emotionally fragile, covering it with a sharp wit. Adrenaline junkie. "Independent runner," which pretty much equals supernatural bounty hunter. She's a witch, learning to use her abilities more fully than just charms and always having to figure out where the lines between white witch and black witch are before she stumbles over them. She lives in a church (but doesn't sleep with voodoo dolls) with a living vampire and a pixy (and his enormous family). In the book I'm reading currently, she's just lost her boyfriend (lost as in he died), and she's hanging on the edge of a nervous breakdown but holding everything together admirably, all things considered.

Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse - This girl has chutzpah. She's a human who gets mixed up with vampires and gets her ass kicked at least twice in every book, but still manages to do her job, keep her friends, and take care of her brother. That's as much as I'll say about her, since people are watching True Blood and haven't yet read the books.

(Interlude to comment: my coffee is very weak this morning. Tastes like faintly coffee-and-chocolate flavored hot water. Gyeh.)

Sarah Connor - need I say more?

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Erm - wrong.

Not wrong; your explanation further proves the point I was making- the ones you mention all started out as 'something' or someone of importance. They already had a toe in the door, so to speak.

They were not beaten, not had their throats stepped on until they opened their legs, were not fed drugs to keep them subduded- the ones you mentioned all had a sense of power and worth already.

For a woman to come from a place of utter worthlessness and despair to understand they have value and attempt to free themselves is what made these characters strong. And it is what seperates them from all of the characters already mentioned.

 

[Queen Mum]

I'm not that much into Powerrangers or stuff like that, but weren't a two of them female? And then there are the X-Men characters too, but I also never watched any of that and oh coming to think of it, catwoman? Well anyway, there are a number of them out their, but I find Buffy being one of the most inspiring.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

Not wrong; your explanation further proves the point I was making- the ones you mention all started out as 'something' or someone of importance. They already had a toe in the door, so to speak.

They were not beaten, not had their throats stepped on until they opened their legs, were not fed drugs to keep them subduded- the ones you mentioned all had a sense of power and worth already.

For a woman to come from a place of utter worthlessness and despair to understand they have value and attempt to free themselves is what made these characters strong. And it is what seperates them from all of the characters already mentioned.

These characters you mention, they had one way of holding them back BUT that doesn't mean their struggle to being strong women is any more powerful than someone who has spent their entire life as one thing then to have that totally ripped from them causing them to reevaluate who they are.

Seven of Nine. She was a Borg. She lost that and became a child.
When everything you are is taken away from you so then you have to fight to become who you're going to be while facing the issue of eing amongst people who thought of you as their enemy, thats strong.

Granted she was with people that encouraged her but this is no more or less remarkable than your characters.

Same with Major Kira.

Her entire life pre-Emmisary was fighting to survive. There was no time in life to be anything other than a fighter.
Her growth is seen from the moment season 1 begins to how she ends it.

Just because one set of characters growth stems from being forced prostitution and drug use while anothers is from total expulsion from a life since childhood or a complete change in circumstance and surrounding doesn't mean their strength and growth is more important or better in anyway.

There is no 'cookie cutter' image for these women and their growth is just as remarkable as your two girls.

You have already said you will be biased in this so I won't continue this, I am not belittling the character growth of yours, I just take issue with how you casually washed away he character growths of 'characters above'.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

These characters you mention, they had one way of holding them back BUT that doesn't mean their struggle to being strong women is any more powerful than someone who has spent their entire life as one thing then to have that totally ripped from them causing them to reevaluate who they are.

I guess my point was, you actually saw theirs, whereas with Kira it was told later in flashbacks. They were already established as being strong women. You did not first see the 'weak' character become strong. I think maybe I read too much into the initial query.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I guess my point was, you actually saw theirs, whereas with Kira it was told later in flashbacks. They were already established as being strong women. You did not first see the 'weak' character become strong. I think maybe I read too much into the initial query.

See again, I disagree.

These two characters you are talking about, you see them at one point in their lives. Anything before that we are told, anything passed is character growth. Same with the woman I am talking about.

Kira is a different character by the end of season 7 than she was at the beginning, as with Seven of Nine, Uhura, Buffy.

Illyria we don't see enough of and Janeway is pretty much untouched but the rest there is a strong growth that is visible.

 

[Skanky Vamp]

Anything before that we are told, anything passed is character growth.

But there was nothing previous really. For all intensive purposes those two women had no backstory, other than 'this is their life'

The ones you mention all had the event or events that shaped who they are happen IN the backstory (albeit with buffy the backstory was a movie) their growth, the ones of which you speak, are because of (relatively speaking) their backstory. Thats why I said cookie cutter, because there was already the mold in place for them to grow from.

But the question was strong female characters, and yes, they all were strong. I just am biased towards actually watching the change. The show was canceled long before you could see the characters grow like the ones you mentioned.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

But there was nothing previous really. For all intensive purposes those two women had no backstory, other than 'this is their life'

The ones you mention all had the event or events that shaped who they are happen IN the backstory (albeit with buffy the backstory was a movie) their growth, the ones of which you speak, are because of (relatively speaking) their backstory. Thats why I said cookie cutter, because there was already the mold in place for them to grow from.

But the question was strong female characters, and yes, they all were strong. I just am biased towards actually watching the change. The show was canceled long before you could see the characters grow like the ones you mentioned.

But unless these two women you are talking about were born in the the first episode and they grow from there, they must have a back story.

You are who you are based on what has happened to you up to the the right here and now.

These two characters MUST have had a life before the episode they premiere in, even if we don't get to see it.

The characters other than yours that have been mentioned, they too changed from the first time we saw them to the last time, if they have a back story is irrelevent because EVERYONE has a back story in TV, unless, as I say, they are born on the show.

 

[Kemy]

Blaze the Cat.

Nearly all of the characters from the Sonic games are yapping, whiney or rather obnoxiously stupid and serve no purpose and are completely uninteresting. They took Amy and made her a psychotic stalker and ruined any chance of her being a good character again.

But back in 2005 after many complaints about this and repeated referrals to the comic series in the UK (superior stories all round) for the stronger female characters lead to Blaze being introduced.

Shes the equivalent of Sonic and Knuckles combined, an authoritative air, intelligent, independent, royalty yet takes care of the affairs of her people personally. Pyrokinetic powers for good measure and spends most of her time getting something done while the others stand around and goof off providing a stark contrast to her male counterparts making them look kinda bad at times.

Shes one of the few proper badass characters without trying to be, lacks the flaws of most of the Sonic characters and stands apart as an intelligent, well thought out and respectable hero of the franchise.

Plus the purple crystal coat a la Spike is pretty cool.

 

[Relic]

I must give out some Star-Wars props.

Princess Leah, or as I have come to love her, Sergeant Cinnamon Bun.

She, as her foster father did before her, defied the Empire in secret. Once her cover was 'blown' along with her home world, she continued to do so openly. She stood eye to chest plate with Vader and remained defiant. Her fight cost her her home world and loved ones.

It need not even be fought by her. She could have had a luxury estate on a core world somewhere if she just would have left the fight to someone else. Coming from a pacifist society she could have went a totally different way and rebelled against her fathers rebellion. She as a member of society with wealth and prestige, had a lot more to lose in the rebellion.

She was equal parts Padame and Anakin...a princess who represented her people and a fighter - a Jedi, who would latter fight for them. She had both a love for personal freedom and justice and just enough dark side to be willing to kick your teeth in for it.

*sigh* she also was my first crush.

I am tempted to also throw her daughter into the thread, Jaina Solo. She is her mothers daughter, but with a gentler personality, so it seems. She has the same admirable traits though, and I'm looking forward to getting to know her better; sadly I don't know much about her as of yet. What I do know seems to fit the description of this thread. She needs a dose of "into the garbage shoot fly-boy" IMHO though. But given time she might be a good leader as well as a good pilot and solider; judging from the spoilers I know about her I think thats VERY likely. (her path parellell Lukes to some extent.)

Perhaps the one that I am the most interested in finding out more about in the Star Wars canon-verse is Mirta Gev, Bobba Fetts granddaughter.

Both she and Fett are on a quest of sorts (multiple objectives won't detail here.) and it is very interesting to see both how she reacts to things and how she is changing Bobba Fett; and by that, how he's trying to change her so that she does not end up the same as he has.

The pair make for good story telling. Her past is a sad and difficult background that she has struggled to overcome- still doing so to some extent...but thats what makes her strong to me as well as interesting, the willingness to seek hard answers and fight as well as fold when it is the right thing to do. You know, the whole finding grace in defeat bit.

Strength can be strength for choosing the right thing as well as doing the right thing.

 

[yellowcrayon]

Mara Jade, from the extended universe of Star Wars, thanks to Timothy Zahn. She's amazing, headstrong, but she learns to admit when she's wrong and when she needs help to improve. And then she does it. And admitting where one was wrong, and that one needs someone else's (especially if you happen to be each other's nemesis or some such) help, is not an easy thing.

Princess Leia, for Relic's reasons. Except I didn't crush on her. Just on Han... 😉

Luthién. From Tolkien's The Silmarillion this is one amazing woman. She walks into the lair of Melko (I suppose Melkor (or Morgoth) is preferable, as that's what he's known as later) himself, on her OWN, to save the man she loves. And that takes chutzpah. Because here's someone who was as powerful as the likes of Manwà«, and she's merely an Elf (well, half-Elf, half-Maia, but the Maiar were below the Valar to begin with), but she knows what she wants, how she has to get it, and goes and does it.

Ambassador Delenn from Babylon 5. She is just awesome, expecially as we see her grow throughout the seasons, defying the Grey Council when she must, her transformation, her calmness and politeness, her weakness in moments of anger (not everyone's perfect), and her astounding ability to keep diplomacy working when everyone else has given up hope. Plus, her romance was great (especially since everyone hated it).

Seven, Uhura and Janeway for reasons already given. I hate Kira, so, I can't agree there ('course I've only seen like the first 2 seasons of DS9).

Also in Star Trek, I think the character of Saavik (in the movies) was a good, strong female character, though only when she was being played by Kirstie Alley.

Anne Shirley from L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables books. A spirited young red head, we see her grow throughout the books, through her college and university experience, her marriage, and her motherhood. I love seeing how she deals with the death of her son, Walter, in Rilla of Ingleside and realizing how much she had grown since the death of Matthew long before.

I have more, but I'll leave it at that for now. Also, Beatrice in Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. Right, going now...

 

[Joan the Vampire Slayer]

Great choices, guys. 🙂

 

[StuckinTraffic]

I have to mention one of my favorite characters, Nikita from La Femme Nikita (yes, flogging the dead horse again!) She didn't start out as a strong female character, altho she did always have a sort of inner resilience. She ended up as one, tho. I always liked her....still do, actually!

 

[slayerpower]

I can't believe none of you has mentioned Scully from The X-files and Sydney Bristow from Alias. Best fictional female FBI and CIA agents ever! Oh and Clarice Starling can also be counted as another excellent female FBI agent.

 

[Edmund Blackadder]

I have a few more names but no reasons why because its getting late.

1) Bones - Bones
2) Angela - Bones
3) Lilah - Angel