Media with Interesting Female Characters

[The Fair Lady]

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.

Both versions of her are good, the anime barely changed anything. They added a scene where she feels her baby kicking and I thought it was a nice touch.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

How has nobody mentioned Jill Valentine, especially in resident evil 3? (The og is better but I didn't hate the remake)

 

[Rap Scallion]

How does one forget The Great Mizuti?

How does one forget? My favorite, even.

 

[Mandy Stroyer]

Lost has a great array of characters. Kate, Claire, Sun, Ana Lucia, Rousseau, etc all have interesting backstories and contribute to the story in different ways with vastly different personalities and motives.

 

[pork and beans]

Agent Scully from the X Files
Agent Starling from Silence of the Lambs
Ripley from Alien
Rachel from Blade Runner

Better Call Saul's Kim Wexler

Great picks and for something similar I recommend Shiv from Succession, all the women in Sharp Obects and Maggie from True Detective.

also if we talk movies, the main protagonists in Gingersnaps or Daisies.

And then stuff like most ghibli movies (Only Yesterday, Spirited Away, Kiki's delivery service) or coraline.

My go to is always Heather from Silent Hill 3

Definitely. If we talk video games i always really liked that a Chell from Portal was a woman. It doesn't really matter because she's a silent protagonist, but I really appreciated that when I was younger and played it for the first time.



if we are talking books, Milan Kundera's The unbearable lightness of being has incredible characters, 2 females and 2 males.

 

[Blazeuser56]

For movies, you got:
- Silence of the Lambs
- Anna
- Ready or Not (2019)
- The first Wonder Woman film (the sequel is pretty mediocre)
For video games, you got:
-Tomb Raider Survivor trilogy
-Final Fantasy VI got 2 main female characters. (the first half of the game you start as the green haired girl while the second half of the game you start as the blonde one)
-Mirror's Edge
-Control

 

[Generic Anime Girl]

Rose of Sharon Cassidy my beloved

 

[She Beetle]

Try Blue Eye Samurai

Blue Eye Samurai was interesting to me. There are peaks and valleys in terms of my enjoyment of Mizu as a female character. There's a lot of humility in her character that isn't immediately apparent in the first few episodes, and despite being the genre obligatory "unparred swordsman", she doesn't just steamroll every obstacle put in front of her. That said, she absolutely embodies the trope of "male protagonist with a pussy", but the show redeems it in my opinion by actually incorporating that fact into her character. I like that Taigen became a much more sympathetic character, I feel like most shows like Blue Eye Samurai wouldn't have been so empathetic. At the same time, there's also Akemi who is almost the platonic ideal of the two-dimensional female character.

And honestly, my general take-away from the show is that its competently written (high praise in this day and age), but also written by people who are very out of touch and ignorant about the time period and setting they've chosen.

 

[NoReturn]

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 really loved 7of9's whole story and arc. They did a good job.

 

[moms sock drawer]

Nurse Jackie is a great one. Edie Falco is fantastic

 

[Chandelier]

I didn't see it on here, but Teen Titans from Cartoons Network (from 2005). It's cartoony, and it was cancelled because Cartoon Network realized girls liked watching the show, and thought that boys(the main cash cow) would stop watching it if they found out.
I will admit it suffers by characterizing the women by their hair color. Raven is gloomy and has short dark purple hair. Starfire is spacey and cheerful, and she has long red hair.
I also didn't see Avatar: The Last Airbender on here. I recommend it. I didn't enjoy the sequel as much, and I found Korra to be too feisty and dramatic. It's stereotypical to me.

That was my favourite show growing up. I used to tape it on a 13 inch TV on blank VHS. Those were the days. They don't make em like that anymore.

Korra could've been great had she just been a water bender prodigy who eventually learned the other elements over time, as Aang did. Her "I'm the Avatar, you gotta deal with it!" Was fucking annoying.

Azula and Katara are far superior.

Speaking of classics: Cybersix! The show Joss Whedon plagiarized for Dark Angel. Cybersix was genetically engineered by a former Nazi (as on, still a Nazi but with no party) who sent his clone, Jose, to go after her. Had only 7 or so episode. She was her true self at night, pretended to be a male teacher during the day. If made today pooners would love her male persona, Adrien, and troons would think they were actually her.

Rhaenyra Targaryen from HotD. Prefer Millie Alcock over Emma D'Arcy, but I like both. Didn't like what they did to her in the second season. Also like Margaery Tyrell, Sansa and Dany. Don't ask about Season 7-8. Sand Snakes were terrible and I cheered when Euron killed them. Cersei is also a great villain.

Rhaenys from the same show. Also Queen Visenya from the books. Can't wait to see her on screen.

Lagertha from Vikings.

Yuna from Final Fantasy X. One of the best female characters ever written. Never sexualized, never a damsel in distress, just a perfectly flawed human being.

Alexia Ashford from Resident Evil Code Veronica. Cloned from a genius ancestor, she was valedictorian and university graduate at age 12. Created the T-Veronica virus, a virus that only genetically enhances females while turning males into monsters. In Darkside Chronicles she killed her twin, Alfred, but in the OG and the book she had a cooler, yet still affectionate relationship with him.

The Boss from MGS3. She made that game. Her death affected Big Boss until his own death.

Lady Maria from Bloodborne. She's actually the kindest of the Old Hunters barring Ludwig.

Akasha from the Vampire Chronicles. Gets killed in just a few paragraphs from a mute ginger.

 

[BongoMongo]

Oh I got one! Eleanor Oliphant from Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman. She's a really interesting character, and the sorty has some good twists (though there's a hige plot hole in it, with a massive inconsistency re: the legal feasabilities of the Social Care System and movementbetween England and Scotland for kids in care, but if you can overlook that, and most people can, then it's a good story).

She's very flawed, and borderline-alcoholic, but it's a brilliant story, and very enjoyable, albeit tough to read at points.

 

[Gef Mongoose]

My favorite female protagonist show for a long time now has been Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Buffy, Cordelia, and Willow all seemed somewhat basic and shallow stereotypes in the beginning. And as the seasons went on, we saw deeper aspects of their personalities and character development. Especially when Cordelia got past the “basic spoiled mean girl” trope. And she continued to keep it up in the Angel spin-off. And Anya’s as well. Even Joyce wasn’t the cliche oblivious mom character.

All of the characters had flaws; none of them were boring perfect characters. But I do feel like they put the men, (Angel, Xander, Riley, Seth Green’s character), on the back burner a few times. And not at the same rate/severity as they did the women/girls.

Say whatever you want about it being a Whedon production.

Also, the episode where Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) discovers her mother’s body and the subsequent episodes where she has to console Dawn over it, and deal with the responsibilities of maintaining the household are still some of the most impactful episodes of a fictional TV show that I’ve seen.

 

[Potato Cat]

Woman of the Hour is a new movie on US Netflix. It stars Anna Kendrick, and tells the story of serial killer/rapist Rodney Alcala who appeared on an episode of The Dating Game. It isn't so much about him, but more about how the woman who picked him on the show trusted her gut and refused to go out with him. It's nice to see strong female characters who listen to their instincts.

 

[Not A Bunny]

I've been talking about it lately because it's been big in media, but Elphaba from Wicked (the book).

The book is basically a character study about what happens to someone when they're pretty much damned from the start.

Spoiler: Spoilers for the book...

Basically her mother is a druggie whore, which is why Elphaba is green. Also, her sister is born with no arms, and is regardless, her father's favorite; during the Dorothy business, Glinda says right to her that having the slippers won't make her long-dead daddy love her more. Fucking OUCH. She becomes an activist in college, and that goes to shit for multiple reasons. She has a baby from an affair, and the guy who she had an affair with was murdered because of her, and when she tries to talk to the widow about it, the widow won't hear it. She's also emotionally distant from her son, which ought to come as no surprise and is largely consistent with her upbringing. Oh, and during the whole Dorothy business, she convinces herself that the Scarecrow is her dead lover coming back for her (nope, he's still dead).

If I can give Gregory Maguire one thing, it's that he never lets Elphaba off the hook. She doesn't die with dignity and she probably doesn't deserve to, either.

Spoiler: Bonus moment I hate was changed for the musical

There's a business with Glinda making fun of her for a hat she loaned out to Elphaba. In the musical, it's her iconic black hat, but in the book, she gives Elphaba a hat with flowers and it makes her look beautiful, because with her green skin she looks like the stem with flowers on top and Glinda is taken aback by it. Shit like that is why I hate the musical. It just seems so dumbed-down from the book.

 

[eDove]

I just saw The Substance yesterday. It's rare I see a movie I'm impressed by, especially in current year. It was long but it didn't drag. This is one of those films that's going to go down a nasty body-horror classic in the same fashion as Cronenberg's The Fly.

The main character is, more or less, given another chance at life and she uses it to degrade herself all over again. That was interesting since you normally see those cycles of addiction and wastefulness with male characters. It was refreshing to me how flawed she was.

Sure, she was victimized by the superficial society she's in, but it's so willful and intentional on her part that you can't feel too sorry for her. She could've escaped from it at any time and chose not to. She wanted the favor of abjectly revolting guys again, she wanted the admiration of complete strangers, she wanted nothing more than to be perceived as beautiful.

Despite being written and directed by a woman, it was surprisingly not a woe-is-me, save-the-wahmens, type of movie. There're are male villains in droves for sure, but she's an even greater villain to herself.

Some (I presume to be ugly/fat) women and niceguys are complaining that this film is male-gazey and sexist because there're many shots showcasing her in a sexual manner: mirror shots, skimpy dances, etc. But it worked perfectly because that was all the main character wanted from life — to be a beloved sex icon again. That is hard for low-IQ political nuts to grasp, the kind of Reddit-esque people who don't think a woman should ever be shown in a degrading-perverse light ever, even if it's her wish (but porn is okay, for some reason).

 

[NoReturn]

Another anime recommendation, Mitchiko and Hatchin.

Trailer for it isn't very good. I recommend the dub.

 

[Sniper Monkeys]

For video games, HEARTBEAT RPG. Super cute game with a nice little story, every main character is female. Very solid design and sprite style.

The dev seems to be working on a sequel with more cool female characters. I follow on Patreon.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

For video games, HEARTBEAT RPG. Super cute game with a nice little story, every main character is female. Very solid design and sprite style.

The dev seems to be working on a sequel with more cool female characters. I follow on Patreon.

Isn't that the game whose devs are literal TERF lesbos and the troons predictably went after them?

 

[Sniper Monkeys]

Isn't that the game whose devs are literal TERF lesbos and the troons predictably went after them?

Yeah, that's the one. It's a great bonus to an already lovely game.