Who are your favourite female characters in fiction?

[JaneyGee]

I love Eustacia in Hardy's Return of the Native. She is just so sexy and cool. I think it's her detached aloofness that appeals. And also her pride. She never really loses her head over the men who pursue her, and no one manages to beat her down. Above all, I love the way she speaks – that fierce eloquence.

Lizzie Bennett in Pride and Prejudice. So gutsy and funny and full of life.

David's aunt in David Copperfield. People often accuse Dickens of creating nauseating, sexless female characters. Well, maybe some of them are like that, but David's aunt certainly isn't. She's magnificent. The scene in which she kicks Murdstone out of her house is one of the greatest in literature.

Agree with a lot of these

Bathsheba Everdeen
Betsey Trotwood
Thursday Next
Jane Eyre
Lyra Belacqua
Ginny Weasley, Hermione Granger, Luna Lovegood

Anne of Green Gables
Katie from what Katie Did Next
Jane Eyre
Pollyanna
Fanny Wincham

Kahlan Amnel in Terry Goodkind books.

Robin Ellacot in the Strike novels by Robert Galbraith

Another vote for Thursday Next!

Jo March
Harriet Vane
Elisabeth Bennet

Moominmamma.
I wish I was more like her, open hearted wise and friendly, laid back about domestic matters, she knows what the important things in life are.

Kya in Where The Crawdads Sing

Always wanted to be Alanna Trebond in the Tamora Pierce novels

Currently enjoying Hazel Wong in Murder Most Unladylike, which I picked up from a YHA bookshelf. She's the introverted, shy but very intelligent foil to the "main detective", very human.

Mary Russell in the Russell & Holmes series

Magrat- who doesn't love an underdog

Dido Twite in Joan Aiken's books, a proper street heroine

Tank Girl 😁

Laila from a thousand splendid suns.
PinPin from the wind singer

Yes yes to these two, also Elizabeth Bennet and Claire from Outlander. I also love one of Bertie Woosters aunts, his favourite iirc but I can't remember her name.

I like the character Olive Kitterige too, though I am not a huge fan of the books.

Lyra his dark materials

Love the Ramona books!

Another note for Harriet Vane and Elizabeth Bennett.

Blackfriday same here!
I wanted to call dd Eustacia but dh said no.
I then offered Anastasia but dh said even that was too ‘out there.’
Great character.

*EveryKneeShallBow · Yesterday 19:51

Nanny Ogg in Discworld books. Also Granny Weatherwax. My two role models.*

me too! So well characterized. And that opening where they are on the moors in the rain, genius writing.

Pauline Mole, Adrian’s mum. She’s just the most fabulous woman.

When I asked my mother if she would run me up some curtains for the glass-brick lavatory, she said sarcastically, ‘Sorry, but I think you’re confusing me with somebody who keeps a needle and thread in the house.’

Another vote for Thursday Next and Nanny Ogg! I like to think I combine both of these characters, but really I just mean that I get confused about time and have hardly any teeth.

Bathsheba Everdene
I'm also very fond of Bessie from Jane Eyre

I really like Cersei from GoT. She’s not a nice person at all but she’s so complex and well-constructed, such a bundle of pain and vulnerability and nastiness, victim and villain.
I love most of the female characters in book Harry Potter, particularly bookGinny, McGonagall, Hermione and massive soft spot for poor Cho.
Bit of a niche one but the Lady Salmakia from His Dark Materials. What a quietly heroic badass.
Much much more niche but Thirrin from Cry of the Icemark.
I love Flora and Georgie from the Jilly Cooper books.

Definitely Marian Halcombe - such a modern, fully realised character in classic fiction

Sharrow in Iain M Banks' 'Against a Dark Background' is rather good, as I recall. In fact in his Culture series he consistently wrote really great female characters in a way rare among male writers, especially in sci fi.

Nahri in the Daevabad trilogy - she's kind of a pain in the ass and you have to root for her!

Of recent reads, Martha in 'Sorrow and Bliss' by Meg Mason is a brilliantly flawed and funny woman, ditto Libby in 'Fleischman is in trouble'

You’ve reminded me - Alanna is fab but Keladry of Mindelan was my favourite!

I always loved Ramona Quimby.
But I think my favourite female in fiction is Stephen Graham. I read the Well of loneliness every couple of years, and cry in a different place each time.

Oooh Lyra Belaqua and Jo Marsh alongside Diana Bishop from Discovery of Witches. As a child I wanted to be Darrell Rivers and live in Mallory Towers