Media with Interesting Female Characters

[Potato Cat]

I like Ellie in The Last of Us.

 

[Billy Hargrove]

Feels like everyone was shilling for it, but the main two women in Shogun were good characters (Mariko and Ochiba.)

Otherwise a lot of books have interesting female characters. Try authors like Chris Kraus, Rachel Kushner, Elena Ferrante, Elfriede Jelinek, Sheila Heti

 

[2mm and 99 others]

Though they aren't main characters, there are good female characters in Disco Elysium.
Yes, there are women in that game.
Yes, they are diverse.
Also, don't interact with the fanbase (outside of steam and maybe reddit discussion), unless you are particularly interested in contributing some new milk to the pooner zoo.

I also liked the ones in Pentiment (Act 3 has a girl main character)

Somebody already mentioned the Witcher books (but I heard the English translation is shitty), also many people like the women in Discworld series (I failed to find there a favourite one for me tho). I also liked Three Body Problem books. Many people say the writing is unemotional and depersonalized, yes it is, but I don't mind that.

 

[Xev]

Janeway sure but only if we are talking about Future Janeway from the finale. I'd think someone like Major Kira is much more interesting than Janeway. Hell even Moogie is more interesting than Capt. Janeway.

I'm going to toss another syfy female hooman into the mix and say Camina Drummer from The Expanse and of course Avasarala due to her wardrobe alone. I know you all wanna raid her closet while swearing like a sailor.

 

[melty]

It's already been mentioned like 5 times but Voyager. Not just Janeway, either. I thought 7 of 9 was going to play the stereotype strong woman character (which she ends up doing in later shittier "Trek") but she ended up being one of my all time favorite Trek characters.

I'm at an impasse with Picard where I want to watch it because it's cringe kino, but can't bring myself to watch it because it's too cringe.
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Yeah, all the mentions of Janeway (who i love) but 7 is a gem and a great character. I wouldn't recommend watching Picard though. It's not worth it.

 

[The Fair Lady]

I adore Reiko Tamura from Parasyte.

 

[lego racers]

the yakuza series tends to write cool women, but they also tend to write everyone pretty well, with exceptions.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

Angela Carter has tons of well written female characters in her books.

I highly suggest the ITV Widows series from the 1980's up to She's Out in 1995. These adaptations by Lynda La Plante are what inspired the Widows movie remake. (Best thing i can tell you is that Elizabeth Debicki was the best part of the remake)
Dolly Rawlins is quite possibly the most underrated female in British crime fiction.

 

[There She Glows]

All of Jessica Lange's and Kathy Bates' characters are great (and unhinged) in the first 5 seasons American Horror Story. Didn't watch after that so idk. Seconding Avsarala in the Expanse she's half the reason I stuck with it (the other half is my husbando Amos). Scully in Xfiles.

 

[Adrenochrome Dreams]

Aussie drama Wanted centres around two female main characters who are outlaws on the run, and was written by one of the lead actresses. It’s pretty good.

UK comedy Man Down has many interesting and non-stereotypical female characters. The lead role is a man, all the caricatures are pretty one-dimensional and nothing about the show is deep, but I appreciated the diversity of female personalities.

Both shows declined in quality in later series.

 

[Owls Owls Owls]

Kamikaze Girls movie
Thelma & Louise
Lady Snowblood
Kill Bill (yes I am aware its western LS)
The Villainess
Damages
Fargo S2 (Kirsten Dunst and Jean Smart save this season.)
Mare of Easttown
Ally McBeal
Sakuran (film and manga are great and the former is visually and stylistically gorgeous)
Elementary (Lucy Liu as Watson works better than you'd think, and it isn't a diversity hire either)
ER (Hathaway, Lewis, Corday, Weaver, and Chen are very well rounded characters. You'll grow to despise Weaver because she's such a bitch)
Burn The House Down

Boom. There you go.

Based ER enjoyer. Solid, solid show.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Burn The House Down. I hated the very final twist, but the rest was so interesting to read. It'll never be my favorite story, but it was fascinating to see such a weird capsule of a current-day scenario in manga form. It is a story that couldn't have existed 10 years ago, and will probably read as curiously ancient in 10 years from now.

And it is true, the women in the story are very good, rounded characters. Even the secondary ones. I am fond of the main one, I read her as pigheaded in a sincere, non-nefarious way.

 

[PFM]

I'm at an impasse with Picard where I want to watch it because it's cringe kino, but can't bring myself to watch it because it's too cringe.
Wyświetl załącznik 6485076

Yeah, all the mentions of Janeway (who i love) but 7 is a gem and a great character. I wouldn't recommend watching Picard though. It's not worth it.

I made it through the first season then gave up. It's utter shit. Enterprise was the end of Star Trek as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

I adore Reiko Tamura from Parasyte.

Manga or anime? Honestly don't remember much about the manga(too attention deficit to watch anime adaptations) outside of the titular parasite. It was a pretty good manga from what little I remember. Heard the anime is different.

Speaking of manga, Casca from Berserk. Prior to her becoming a potato, of course. Haven't read any chapters post-2017 and really uncomfortable doing so now that the creator is dead. Heard her brain left its potato cocoon sometime in 2018.

 

[twisted cycle path]

Claire from Outlander is interesting in how she reconciles her modern expectations and values with the roles imposed on her by pre-modern societies. She's very competent but occassionally still has crazy bitch woman moments that ground her. Most of the women in that series feel pretty believable.

 

[macrodegenerate]

Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but Janet Frasier and Samantha Carter were excellent female characters in Stargate SG-1. Both were service women who were devoted to their jobs, with Carter being enthusiastic about the science she was working on, and Frasier committed more to her role as a doctor than a woman. In particular, I found Carter's conflict on pursing a relationship with a regular cop and her work as a scientist to be realistic, as she like most people in her position had difficulty setting boundaries between work and relationships. It didn't really feel like the cop and her were trying to win eachother over as well. It was just a thing. It's a shame they threw the whole plot line out at the end.

 

[Scarlett Johansson]

The following video game franchises have extremely interesting female characters:

Tales of
Grandia
Lunar
Legend of Heroes

Random but all of the women in The Book of Bantorra anime are pretty great. Special attention goes to lead Hamyuts Meseta.
Hell Girl is another interesting tale and you get backstory of all four mains, two of which are female (Emma Ai and Hone Onna)

 

[TurboNAS]

The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec is a fun film with plenty of action from our adventuress heroine. It’s set in the early 1900s and has a lot of charm.

Nora Charles from the Thin Man movies (1930s) is a favorite. She’s a hard drinking sarcastic foil for her husband Nick. Their interplay is outstanding.

Magiere from the book Dhampir is a solid protagonist and starts off as a charlatan fooling people for money but once she encounters a real monster she has to deal with that and rise to a more noble purpose. It’s a series of books so plenty to binge on if you like fantasy novels.

 

[Rap Scallion]

Another I remembered: Leneth from from the Valkyrie Profile series. There were a lot of layers to her character. She is the main character of the first game but makes appearances in others, anything after 1 and 2 is worth ignoring.

A lot of old eastern RPGs seem to write well rounded women. Or wrote compelling characters first and then if they happened to be diverse in some way that was just a cool extra.

Monolith Soft has a pretty good track record with the Xeno series (Shion, Elly, Melia) and Baten Kaitos (Xelha, Milliarde).

 

[macrodegenerate]

Monolith Soft has a pretty good track record with the Xeno series (Shion, Elly, Melia) and Baten Kaitos (Xelha, Milliarde).

How does one forget The Great Mizuti?

 

[WTBOnlineFather]

>interesting female character has interesting character progression and develops into a leader
>le bad "stereotype strong woman"
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The stereotype strong woman in Voyager is Janeway lol. Mulgrew plays the part well but to be real she's one of the weakest female leads in classic Star Trek for being inconsistent as hell while the show keeps hammering it in that Janeway can do no wrong, and you can tell it's not a character trait but rather a consequence of bad writing backed by a conscious choice to always make her look good at any cost. Let's also not forget the fucking ending.
Seven of Nine is excellent and entirely makes up for it though. Other Treks also have great female characters, right now T'Pol is easily my favorite character in ENT, Kira and Dax were both great in DS9, and while TNG is certainly a product of its time I still liked Crusher and Troi and even Ro.