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!'

Roalind Russell's character in "His Girl Friday"

Definitely. There's a line in there about how she's not a wife in the suburbs but a newspaperman...great line.

Scarlett O'Hara. The only heroine who is also the villain as well. A controversial one I know but she is tough and determined and manipulative and she pulls it all together and keeps Tara from going to the walls.

Margo Channing (Bette Davis) from All About Eve. A hilarious and scorching satire on sexism and ageism which is still relevant today.

Pilar in For Whom The Bell Tolls - mistress of bullfighters and freedom fighter.

Velvet Brown in National Velvet. I weep buckets when she falls off the horse at the end.

Funny that the best characters are old women or young girls.

I think we can include Buffy; the show brings those things in as issues not as the norm and/or positive. The relationship is portrayed as an unhealthy realtionship not something to aspire to; the fact Spike loves Buffy doesn't mean its okay for her to beat him up. Especially when she thinks he can't fight back. There's also the character growth as Buffy recognises that it isn't healthy and it isn't good for either of them. And they're clear that the fact they had a violent relationship doesn't excuse the attempted rape, which in a total contrast to the way date/relationship rape is often pretty much writen off in many places is shown as so bad that a souless demon who doesn't feel guilty about having eaten thousands of people goes off to win a soul over it.

I think season 6 of Buffy arguably gets a pass on feminist grounds because it's signalled very clearly as being a crap relationship. We're allowed to portray women making crap choices and having crap relationships aren't we? it's portrayed that Buffy a) went into the relationship because something was wrong in her life b) knew that it wasn't good for her c) made a strong positive choice to walk away from it in search of something more healthy (singledom for a start, but influenced by seeing Riley's example of a good relationship).

The problem is that their chemistry was so ridiculously sexy that the show ended up having its cake and eating it "Ooh look how poor Buffy is stuck in this negative behaviour pattern because she's so depressed about not being dead! Now would you like to see her being stuck in a negative behaviour pattern again, in a slightly different position?" Audience "Oh, go on then, mmmmm"

Lio - yes IIRC she is seen first from the back. Beautiful figure, slender waist, elegant etc, then she turns round!

Just googled her name and found this: "identity of the original for his heroine Marian Halcombe, and if she would accept their hand in marriage." :o

Monobrow and moustache, I think?

I love Marian Halcombe. Must read more Wilkie Collins.

I'm no Ringnerd, but others are. I remembered just enough of the script to find that dialogue from LotR via Google.

August Boatwright from The Secret Life of Bees. What a combination of practical skills and human qualities!

There's loads on here I've never heard of I'll get over to Amazon straight away.

I'm going to add Hermione Granger because she clever, takes pride in her intellectual abilities, she's not an equal to the boys - she's better and they all know it. She always stands up for what she believes in.

(OK - she gets a bit soppy over Ron more in the films than the books but I'll let her off cos she's also a teenager)

Enid from Ghost World.

peggy olsen

behaves like she doesn't know/care what era she's living in and just gets on with it.

Yeah, potplant, I can see it now.

Ron is sitting in a giant eezichair watching Quidditch World Cup repeats.

Ron: 'Hey, Hermione! Bring me a can and some crisps!'

Hermione hurries in from work, carrying a briefcase. She is by now Head of All Aurors. Sounds of crying children, evidently ignored by Ron.

'In a minute, darling. Just let me -'

'NOW! Ah, come on, love.'

Ron is a total WASTE OF SPACE and Hermione is doing what smart girls all do - destroying her life by marrying a loser.

ooh my c&p didn't work earlier - the quote said that people were writing to Wilkie Collins asking who he had based Marian Halcombe on, so that they could propose to her :o

(Yes you must SSM - PM me for tedious exciting directions as to which ones to go for :))

Hermione - good one.

x-post Sieglinde!!! That's so right - god knows what JKR was doing there, there is nothing attractive about Ron and never has been. PMSL/ at "doing what all smart girls do - destroying her life by marrying a loser". :(

I don't think the HP series does relationships well at all. Cho & Harry - possibly as a teenage relationship. Harry & dribbling fan Ginny - bit pathetic to go out with your no.1 fan Harry? You'd think he would want someone a bit more unphased by his fame Ron & Hermione - NEVER!!! Hermione would more likely have go together with one of the slightly older Order of the Phoenix lot - if they hadn't all died of course.

I didn't like the idea that Hermione would be an Auror at all actually - where the hell did JKR get that idea from? surely she should be a research wizard, (a female Ponder Stibbons) with a sideline in House Elf Rights campaigning.

OK, so it's not exactly high art - but I always loved Rizzo in Grease - far more interesting than Sandy any day

Dorothy Shaw (Jane Russell's character in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes)

Gillian Foster in Lie to Me and Angela Montenegro in Bones - both human and feminine but more than capable of looking after themselves. Also Caroline the DA in Bones 'cos she's just bloody hilarious!

Storm from the X-men she kicks arse ...also Wonder Woman.. actually She-Hulk too

Hermione doesn't end up as an auror. Ron and Harry do. Hermione works in magical law at the ministry.

ooh Bella from twilight, she is an AWSOME vampire

Maria von Trapp. Standing up to the Captain - "I could never answer to a whistle". You could feel the ascent of woman...

Oh sorry, yes, magical law. Still makes no sense for the character.

I imagine she's a top-notch Human Elf And Magical Beings Rights Lawyer.

Seriously though - she can't do better than Ron ?

Neville would be preferable.

I was always rather impressed by the character of Violet Baudelaire from A Series of Unfortunate Events when I used to read them to DS. Ferociously clever and never happier than when building something.

I thought the character of Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was quite a strong one. She's a flawed human being - as all the characters in the film are, in their own ways - but she does what she wants to rather than because she feels she should. She doesn't hide who she is just to try to fit in. But then this is one of my favourite films ever so I might be a bit biased.

As for Pratchett, I agree that the witches are fantastic characters. But I think Granny Weatherwax is arguably a bit too single-minded. She's a hell of a witch but at the cost of some of her humanity. Nanny Ogg is a much more rounded person And what about Susan Sto Helit? She's definitely unafraid to prod buttock.

Susan is great. I sometimes have cause to indulge in a watered down version of her STARE :) Also Adora Belle Dearheart.

Ooh, yes Susan is great.

I don't like the way Rowling does Hermione at all. She can't decide if she's a super-genius or not, so Hermione gets ok-but-not-great exam results and sends a significant portion of her time taking lessons from Harry or watching him do better at Potions than her.

Ahem.

Not that I've read the books too often, you understand!

That said I find their relationship a whole lot more plausible that Harry/Ginny ... if I were Ginny I would not be going out with some twat who fobbed me off with 'oooh, I have to save the world, wait here.'

Rowling is clearly just trying to pair people up as much as possible - she can't pair up Harry & Hermione cos then who will Ron have? So Harry has to have Ginny (who is also actually a pretty good character in the later books - a really great caster of curses and a fierce fighter, and smart too) so that Ron can have Hermione. Then we get Lupin & Tonks, Neville & Luna, etc...

The She-Devil from Fay Weldon's Life and Loves of a She-Devil.
Because she looks at the shit in her life, chooses her revenge and gets on with it (but manages to help quite a lot of people along the way).