Fictional women we do like, and why?

[LoudRowdyDuck]

May we have a thread about good fictional female characters, please? Since Elephants' thread is reminding me how many 'feisty' (=patronized) women characters there are out there!

I'll start: I like CJ in the West Wing. I think she's fantastic and I like that towards the end when she's happily planning her future career and her new partner gets pissy she hasn't discussed it with him, her response isn't 'omg, how awful of me', it's 'oh. so I didn't, oops. Moving on!'

I loved Dr Hunter in Kate Atkinson's book "When Will There Be Good News?". She is a working mother, lovely to her young childminder, unqilling to get caught up in dealings with dodgy husband, and in the end (not going to spoil it CJ) she fights back in magnificent style.

Doesn't she just? I really enjoyed that book to.

Also, just to prove that I do read, and not just watch TV, I have always had a sneaking admiration for Zenia in the Robber Bride. The rest of the women were far better off without the feckless men.

I don't like LOTR much, but who was that good female character who kills the Witch King thing? She was pretty cool. She resented being forced to babysit the other women/children IIRC.

Fiorinda Slater in the Bold As Love books (these are phenomenal but noone but me seems to have read them) - bad shit happens to her (and everyone else) but she's the one who saves the day, time and time again with a mix of intelligence and her own superpowers.
Agree on Sookie Stackhouse in the books.
Also (for vampire smut lovers) ANita Blake in the early books, before the author got into BDSM and the whole lot pretty much jumped the shark.
Tarma and Kethry in Mercedes Lackey's 'Oathbound' books - these seem to have evolved out of the whole 'sword and sorceress' trend in the mid-1980s where there was a load of feminist sci-fi/fantasy being written, though sadly a lot of it was like a lot of policitally-motivated writing: crap.
QUite a few Jilly Cooper heroines are actually good at things, like Fenella and Perdita with their gold-medal winning skills, Lizzie Vereker the novelist (author's self projection Jilly? Not much!) and the various female musicians in Appassionata and Score - think of Abigail Rosen overcoming one sexist pig after another to boss the orchestra.

Rafaella Barker's main character from Hens Dancing, Venetia. She's wonderfully eccentric (so is her mother), resilient and funny without realising it. The best way!! A highly recommended read for all those who don't feel like they fit in with so much of what they see around them. A good lesson in caring a lot less...

Aragorn: You have some skill with a blade.
Eowyn: The women of this country learned long ago, those without swords can still die upon them. I fear neither death nor pain.
Aragorn: What do you fear, my lady?
Eowyn: A cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them and all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
Aragorn: You are a daughter of kings, a shield maiden of Rohan. I do not think that will be your fate.

But she was, like, the only one.

Did you have to look that up TeiTetua, or did you just know it? :)

Yes good lines, Eowyn. To be fair there were only about two women in the whole thing other than her, weren't there. What did the others get up to? Drippy elf girl didn't seem to do much (but that's a bit of an elf thing, isn't it?)

Isobel (who met an enormous bear)

:o Vezzie - she just didn't care, did she?

Matilda - incredibly clever, hates bullying and uses her brains/skills to protect the weaker (despite being an adult) Miss Honey.

Dr Temperance Brennan, of the "Bones" TV series and series of books by Kath Reichs.
Major Samantha Carter from Stargate.
I rather like the new series Nikita - the female lead and her female insider are good.

more kids' ones:

Mrs Pepperpot
Polly in the 'Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf' books
Arriety in The Borrowers

I was going to put 'Ellen McArthur' and then I remembered she was real
she has done a good job of mythologising her own life (to help her get sponsorship) though - the story of her losing all the races on Rutland Water on a sailing holiday as a child and vowing she was never going to be defeated again, saving up her dinner money to buy her first boat....
and this willingness to master whatever different skills were necessary to achieve her goals is exactly why I admire her.

(should I apologise for hijack or claim that 'the mythologised Ellen McArthur' is in fact a fictional character?)

Terry Pratchett has good female characters. Granny Weatherwax - indominatable.
Nanny Ogg - knows what she likes in life.

I want to be Granny Weatherwax when I grow up

Starbuck and the President in Battlestar Galactica.

Yeah, and Tiffany Aching, my favourite witch.

Also agree about Scully, though I thought she was a tad swoony over Mulder.

Also in Real Books I like Maggie Tulliver.

I loved Darrell Rivers as well from the Malory Towers books, but can't remember much about her now. I think maybe she wasn't the best at anything, but was moral, daring where necessary and always tried hard?

ooooh, the Chalet School books.

Young woman with responsibility for young sister opens and runs a sucessful school.

I want to be Magrat Garlick when I grow up, tbh like many female Pratchett fans I'm pretty much there already .

At the risk of going on about Wilie Collins again Marian Halcombe in "The Woman in White" is an amazing character. Tall, strong, funny and clever with very noticeable facial hair, most men she comes into contact with fall half (or all) in love with her, including the villain she is opposing, because she is just so brilliant. The wet hero in in love with wet heroine (her sister) of course, but she is the star of the show.

And Magdalen Vanstone from "No Name^ is a great heroine/villain too - totally ruthless but also tough, clever, resourceful etc.

I have long resolved to grow up into Nanny Ogg.
Oh, and who remembers Pandora Peroxide? She took no shit...

MrsVP, you can be Magrat and I'll be Esme W... Though sixpercenttruejedi will probably have got there first!

SEGB, I've read the Bold As Love books too! I like them a lot but there are some bits I was a bit "er" at, particularly on recent re-read - can't bring them exactly to mind though.

Oh no - but can we have Buffy when most of series 6 is built on her having had rape-sex with someone who knocks her about?

(And I say that as someone who'd have James Marsters up against the wall myself, but still ... feministy? Not so much.)

Does anyone else know John Marsden's Ellie books? They're 'young adult' I guess, and really wanted to be her ... and I still really wish I could drive like her. The story is set in a present-day world where these teenagers' country has been taken in a coup and they're on the run and engaging in some guerrilla tactics ... and I love that it's the girl who does lots of the really heavy dare-devil stuff.

Oh yes, Marian Halcombe in The Woman in White, wonderful. Doesn't one character say (to himself) of her: the woman is ugly!

Pandora peroxide! took me a minute to place the name, completely forgot about her, she was great.