Kick-Ass Women In Fiction For $200, Alex!

Ok, so, there's a thing going on today about posting about your favorite female fictional character. Oooh! Oooh! Pick me! I wanna play! So, here is a list, in no particular order, of some of my favorites and why they are so awesome.

1. President Laura Roslin from Battlestar Galactica. I love her so much. She went from being the Secretary of Education to being PRESIDENT OF EVERYTHING. (Because everyone else in the succession was um, dead.) Also, she has cancer. But she's so smart and generous and makes the hard decisions without being a giant freak about it. She takes everything to heart but doesn't wallow in self-pity. And she is a HARD ASS when she needs to be. I love her kind of a lot.

1. C.J. Cregg from The West Wing. I really only like the first two seasons, so I can only speak about them. But she's so great; intelligent and kind and funny and competent. One of my favorite lines of hers, which I say in my head to people nearly EVERY day, "WOW, are YOU stupid!"
   

1. Brenda Chenowith from Six Feet Under. Oh my GOD, is Brenda not perfect. Or even an admirable person a lot of the time. She's a sex addict, wildly selfish and self-absorbed, unforgiving and kind of mean. Why do I love her? She's so fully realized and whole. She could be very understanding of other people's weaknesses and DAMN, could she bite off a nasty retort. "What is this? Some kind of Quaker thing? You fuck someone's husband to death and then bring her a quiche?" HA.

1. Sarah Connor from the Terminators 1 & 2. She started out as a regular girl, with a crappy job and a roommate. I think she's supposed to be 19 years old in the first movie? And then her life just GOES NUTS. And she's thrust into this crazy situation with KILLER ROBOTS and TIME TRAVEL and NUCLEAR WAR and sure, she freaks out at first. But then she steps up and KICKS ASS. She's so strong and determined and the look on her face when she figures out, "Um, ooook, we're making explosives!" is hilarious. And then she blows shit up. Gotta love that.

1. Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing. Part of where I got my blog name! I just adore her. I think Much Ado is Shakespeare's funniest play. She is, of course, smart and witty, but she's also tough and loyal. Check out her passionate defense of her maligned cousin. She doesn't sit around and wait for one of the boys to fix the situation, she tries to fix it herself. Ok, she tries to get her boyfriend to kill the offending party, but hey. It's the thought that counts. Also? HILARIOUS.
   

1. Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series. Smarter than the boys, has more common sense than the boys and grows up to be a woman of heart and courage. A great character for little girls to grow up with and a great character for me.
   

1. Chani from the Dune series. (Oh my GOD, could I be a bigger geek? SORRY.) It would take me forever to explain the background for why Chani is so awesome and who she is. Short version: She's the main character Paul's concubine (I know, the gender/power issues there are creepy. Really.) and she's sort of...a desert warrior? Kind of? But she's tiny and fierce and Paul walks into his throne room one day to find a dead guy on the floor. Chani is just kind of nonchalantly sheathing her knife because she killed him for challenging her boyfriend and not being worthy. Paul is rather alarmed. It's pretty fun.

1. Shade Evans from Gas, Food, Lodging. This was Mame's and my favorite movie for years. (If you haven't seen it and like low-key, sweet character studies, you should check it out.) Shade is a teenage girl trying to find her identity, as one does at that age. She's kind of ridiculous, but she has a good heart. I love the little tantrums she throws, especially the one at the boy at the movie theater. She's a sweet, bright girl who begins to find wisdom by the end of the movie.
   

Man, you guys. I'm leaving out SO many others: Veronica Mars, Nancy McNally from TWW, Buffy Summers, Zoey and Kaylee from Firefly, Eowyn from The Lord of the Rings, Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice, Rose Tyler and Donna Noble from Doctor Who, Harper Pitt from Angels in America, Kima Greggs from The Wire and just to piss off EGT, Jane Eyre.

Ok, I'm stopping now.

Tell us about your favorite female characters! Mame, wanna play?

*I fully blame my current state of feminism on my mother and the fact that my childhood movies tended toward things like The Legend of Billie Jean, Mary Poppins, The Journe of Natty Gann and The Terminator. So, thanks for that!