Media with Interesting Female Characters

[Cringe Poster]

I liked Akane from Psycho Pass. She isn't sexualized in her design(rare for anime) and is a essentially an optimistic genius, who is also presented as the most mentally healthy in the cast. It's inspiring in a sense. She made me want to be a better person as gay as that sounds.

 

[Cricket Eater]

Karen “Michelle” Daniels (GTA)

Girl who is revealed to be an undercover spy working for the in-universe CIA. Gives her secret identity in the mission “The Snow Storm” after confiscating a stash of cocaine from Niko Bellic

She’s more prominently featured in V and Online as a recurring character

This stereotype already exists but I think it deserves to be noted here

 

[Flaming_Barghast]

These are more manga styled webtoons but honestly? The remarried empress. It threw me down a rabbithole of period piece types and honestly, it's very hard to find another that scratches that itch. That and "I abdicate my title of empress". The latter has a much better villain, one that's a woman but much less 3d, the former... it's super fucking easy to hate the king and concubine, but the main character is amazing. The story was written a lot better than the manga but unfortunately, a lot of places were copywrite struck from translating it before official releases (it's Korean)
There's a lot you miss in the manga adaptations but it's still really good imo.
It gives a very realistic view into the life of a royal woman. Can't concieve? Womans fault. Favorite comcubines' upset? What did the empress do?
People mad at the emperor?
"What conspiracy did the empress create?"
Bad press from rumors started by the concubine? "Empress knows better than to react"

The empress is depicted as a very cold, almost emotionless woman that can easily be mistaken for apathy. In reality, she's used to being a tool and nothing more, no point in getting upset, she'll just be blamed for it and criticized if she gets upset.
When she meets a younger prince, you actually watch her get confused by affection. There are points in the story she actually asks "what did I do to deserve this? I didn't accomplish anything special" and you watch her go from this very guarded figure to very openly affectionate. She still has her flaws, and so does her new bf, (he's straight up ruthless towards anyone that is even slightly rude to the empress, makes a very fun point of contention with the emperor)

The other one is a lot more complex on all fronts. Both have magic in them, but the second is a lot heavier in it. 2 noble siblings pitted against each other, older sister forced out. It's written in a way you hate the mom at first but slowly get an idea of what actually happened. Won't spoil but it's a lot.
You see the difference of the emperor and the princess, the emperor sees the poor as a visual blight, similar to how the princess' mother does. The Princess is active in taking down magic towers, so she's around commoner people a lot more, i.e. much more sympathetic.
The contentious side piece is very interesting, she has a story that doesn't make sense at all (parents died trying to retiwve her teddy bear in a fire, even the character is confused why both went in for it and hints at a lie being told from a young age) she plays on this creepy obsession the emperor has on his mom and Odypus' the guy. Not her idea, her adopted father and twin push her to do it. Theres a section much later where shit just turns completely, it was as simple as the princess asking the concubine if she was okay.

I'm not doing them justice, they're very worth reading.

The art is really good in both. Definitely some wonky shit like horses and buildings being shittily done premade assets, but that's pretty common in these. I honestly love the remarried empress' design the most. Here's the webtoon
https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/the-remarried-empress/list?title_no=2135

Aand the other long named one,

https://www.webtoons.com/en/fantasy/i-abdicate-my-title-of-empress/list?title_no=5560

These two are little surprises, I like the art the most. Both are isakai themed but one basically slowly forgets their life and the other and the previous character are constantly fighting within the shared body until they start becoming so similar she can't tell where her feelings end and the others' begins, and is fucking terrified by it. They're both dark fantasy and take place through the eyes of the supposed villain.
It's extremely cliche but it's the 2 I found that I actually really like.


Check out How to Win My Husband Over on Tapas https://tapas.io/series/how-to-win-my-husband-over

Check out The Villainess Tames The Beast on Tapas https://tapas.io/series/the-villainess-tames-the-beast

(Yes the titles are both cringe, go look at em anyway)

The intro to the second is extremely fucking uncomfortable on purpose, it's where the reader was when the switch happened and is the one she fights for the body in. Seriously, it's extremely uncomfortable but worth the read.
The insanity they capture in the eyes is SO FUCKING WELL DONE

 

[Flaming_Barghast]

Ok I'm not done spergging, here's from "the villainess tames the beast"
MC, moment of terror and insanity


Father

And male character who is... honestly the scariest to me. He's both a victim and a perpetrator.



And some art from my other favorites because I'm extremely autistic about these stupid fucking mangas.




Finally:
This is admittedly a very strange picture, but it has a lot of backstory. You're seeing dread because she's stressed and eating (shes bullemic in the story) her brothers a creep that wants her, and she just wants away from her psychotic "holy" family. If I remember right, this was when she first arrived to her assigned marriage partners home. She is far from a weak character, but is depicted as very soft and cunning, rather than brash and loud. You'll see 3 types of strong women in this story- quiet, but mentally resilient, even if it doesn't look like it. Cold and quiet, then braizen and confident.

If you're wondering why almost all of them are blonde, Koreans really REALLY like european drama pieces, and to them, europeans are all blonde.

 

[Vyse Inglebard]

Balsa from Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit. A badass bodyguard-for-hire that only got to her insane skill level due to enduring unspeakable hardship (ACTUAL hardship, not "lol, wahmen can't do the fighting!"). Highly recommend the book

 

[NoReturn]

There are points in the story she actually asks "what did I do to deserve this? I didn't accomplish anything special" and you watch her go from this very guarded figure to very openly affectionate

Minor spoiler I hope encourages people to read the story: When the story began, Navier is almost never drawn with anything beyond when she isn't in her own quarters. The art now shows a much more expressive character.

 

[Arbiter]

Already mentioned and seconding:
Sarah Connor - Terminator 1 and 2
Ellen Ripley - Alien and Aliens
Laurie Strode - Halloween, 2, H20, and 2018
Clarice Starling - Silence of the Lambs

Some more cool female horror protags:
Ginny Field - Friday the 13th Part 2
Sidney Prescott and Gale Weathers - Scream 1-4
Helen Lyle - Candyman
Nancy Thompson - Nightmare on Elm Street 1 and 3
Wendy Torrance - The Shining
Max and Amanda Cartwright - The Final Girls
Carrie White - Carrie
Lex Woods - Alien vs. Predator
Everyone in The Descent
Everyone in The Craft

Spoiler

Dani in Midsommar did nothing wrong

Not truly horror, but I love Nadja from WWDitS. Same with Dee from Always Sunny.

Spoiler: Nadja compilation

 

[Napoleon III]

I liked Akane from Psycho Pass. She isn't sexualized in her design(rare for anime) and is a essentially an optimistic genius, who is also presented as the most mentally healthy in the cast. It's inspiring in a sense. She made me want to be a better person as gay as that sounds.

Pyscho-Pass is one my favorite shows and my favorite Anime though I can count the Anime I have watched and enjoyed on one finger as I have a no weird sexual stuff rule and a lot of anime violate that rule. It does have sexual situations but in every instance it serves a purpose that the story would be lacking without.

But I wanted to point out that the way Akane is written is absolutely brilliant. She is not a Mary Sue, despite having a very strong "ability", and she starts out nearly completely helpless and unsure of herself. She slowly displays character growth until she comes into her own. Despite being the main character everything doesn't simply revolve around her, though she is important.

I will say though in comparison to the antagonist she is poorly written though only because the antagonist is so damn well written.

I highly recommend it to anyone though it is a very gritty series and you should watch the dubbed version not the subtitled version. I am going to rewatch it again simply because your post.

 

[Dana scully]

When marnie was there
Erika Kohut - The piano teacher
Alice - Closer
Georgina - The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Nicki brand -Videodrome
White lotus s3
Fargo s2
the skin i live in has a pretty good plot twist lol
Nana (anime)
Too old to die young i love the main male character but i love the women in it
the knick clive owen is so sexy in it but bonos daughter had good arc
big little lies
the virgin suicides
Lilya 4-ever
the love witch

 

[keke]

big little lies

The book is a lot better and has nuance to the characters. The TV show relies on some lazy tropes you’ll notice when comparing, and cartoon-ifies certain aspects. If anyone is looking for a good read, it’s up there.

 

[Oilspill Battery]

The wolf children is a really great one. A woman marries a werewolf and has 2 kids with him, right after they're born however he dies and she's left alone to fend for two half human half wolf children that she doesn't know anything about.

The premise sounds silly but its incredibly down to earth and human and treated dead serious. The primary focus of the movie is in the mother's extreme and extensive efforts to try and keep the kids happy, healthy, disciplined and above all safe, even at sometimes the expense of her own comfort.

She acts like a mother and the movie is focused around her, but the also kids act like kids with their own individual subplots that tie into them other, the movie does a good job highlighting how important both parents are, focused around the mother, both what a mother can and should provide, and what the lack of a father can do. (especially to the male child that has no role model in his life).

Absolutely fantastic movie 10/10 recommend.

 

[Arbiter]

Obligatory shilling for Halo: The first time I played, I was surprised by how many strong, interesting, and likeable female characters there are. Cortana, Dr. Halsey, Miranda, and Kat are all great. There are many minor, but important, female characters too, like Foe Hammer, Hocus, and Sadie Endesha. I thought Cortana was going to be a personal assistant who was just there to look pretty. Instead, she's the deuteragonist and Master Chief's boss. She's the brains and tells him what to do. They have a really sweet relationship and make a great duo. I only know Bungie Halo, so I can't speak on 343 Halo, but Bungie Halo is very good when it comes to female characters.

 

[Soyjack Pinhead]

*snip*

Good list. I would add Kristy Cotton from Hellraiser I & II.

 

[pork and beans]

When marnie was there
Erika Kohut - The piano teacher
Alice - Closer
Georgina - The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover
Nicki brand -Videodrome
White lotus s3
Fargo s2
the skin i live in has a pretty good plot twist lol
Nana (anime)
Too old to die young i love the main male character but i love the women in it
the knick clive owen is so sexy in it but bonos daughter had good arc
big little lies
the virgin suicides
Lilya 4-ever
the love witch

Oh you have GOOOOOD taste.

on the topic of tv shows I think Shiv from Succession is a very nuanced female character and really well written.


Also Margot tenenbaum and her mother are probably the best female characters in a Wes Anderson movie tbh.

If anybody likes Akira but has only watched the movie I really recommend reading the manga because some of the women are very much expanded upon and there's other important female characters that didn't really make the cut in the anime.

 

[Grand Duke Snowfall]

Shilling a little for my favorite video game, Bloodborne. Eileen the Crow is really cool in so many ways, even if her questline can be a pain in the ass. Her thing is that she hunts down beast hunter’s who’ve let the bloodlust go to their heads, puts them out of their misery before they too succumb to the plague that’s turning everyone into beasts. Only other major one I can remember off the top of my head is Lady Maria from the DLC. And the Doll who’s based off of her, who’s more of a soulless automaton but is still nice to have around.

I’ve also been watching Criminal Minds and have been liking Penelope, J.J., and Emily (have not seen much of Elle since I skipped most of season 1 for now).

 

[Birthday Cat]

imo i'd rate game of thrones (specifically books) highly for 3d females. *SPOILERS* below because necessary to explain

catelyn: very interesting noble lady, ride or die for ned and her family. (i like how the show added scenes of her regretting her shit towards jon though). very interesting character to use that knows how shitty war is and how green the men she sees are and becoming mournful of the coming fights, seeing her son forced into the burden of ruling, wanting to hug him but being unable to to protect his image, having minimal time to breakdown for ned and instead having to continue instead of drown. bran and rickon "dying" and losing everything else she had pushes her to free jaime and send brienne for hostage negotiation, which makes people call her retarded but she's a lot like joel from the last of us where the mother who found out her 2 "children" were hung from the gate as burnt headless husks and her friends, family and home desecrated is the mother that would want her fucking daughters back, fuck politics. leading to the red wedding which was written incredibly well and used strange descriptions from a pov to reflect her mental state, which was damn good and unable to be shown on tv. she was also a bit of a retard when young and you can see through his stories how she contributed to so much relationship drama with randomly practicing kissing with littlefinger etc, him dueling to the death for her hand, then dropping him hard.

arya: deconstruction of a boy/girl hero, gets set up for her dream basically and then goes through full hell over and over again. goes from childish to having to learn over time gradually how to not get fucked with or fuck up. very good dynamic with the hound as 2 broken people good at their core, and i wish the books kept the hound more. i believe unlike the show once she leaves him he just makes cameos so far. more hot take but grr martins original outline had her in love with jon, and i think that could have been pretty interesting for drama and keep her having a long term goal to see him again, especially since post red wedding and the hound she basically has nothing at all. it'dve been interesting if that was a hard foundation for not becoming faceless since everyone else to that point left of their own will to me, less icky than jaime and cersei too as steps, however with jaime and cersei already and the shit between littlefinger and sansa and jon and danaerys (maybe eventually in books) it'd be damn near incest fetish exclusive. but regardless she's done pretty good.

sansa: very interesting, begins very naive and is then broken multiple times and doesn't have the skill set arya does, so instead of becoming the hounds protege/cutting through she instead has to learn from littlefinger and falls to some of his corruption and to the corruption of the shitty life and environment she's been put into. arya keeps her agency while sansa's only option is to be a puppet that learns how to manipulate the strings.

Daenerys: tbh at first she was just kind of retarded to me, but she's actually imo a pretty interesting mary sue approach. at most blunt she basically fakes it til she makes it surrounded by people objectively more skilled in everything that carry her, figuratively and literally, and it's usually written in a way that works. like jorah having a very good skillset to assist her and using it at first because he's a spy and then because he fell in love with the mark. by the house of the undying she begins to be less naive and more capable. the visions she gets and trauma she goes through and desire to be just and fair is interesting. ALTHOUGH she does have the biggest "the fuck" moments, like her getting the unsullied which basically was the foundation of her being a "contender" was just fuckin dumb. men who are slave/merchant masters who deal with the equivalent of the mongol horde and nail live gutted slaves to signboards to send a message do not leave that kind of loophole. they do not have no failsafe or backups. they do not walk up to a young dragon actively coughing fire and it's brothers and continuously yank on its chain. her going through the red waste like that post all the physical trauma and still having anything was kind of ridiculous and stretched believability by the worlds standards. her having barristan show up fully loyal to her is... lucky. like having a prime mike tyson saying he wants to be your bodyguard, no charge. ... which she also gets along with barristan in the books as a master gladiator whose only notable flaw is he wants his opponents to bleed him first.

PAST ALL THAT her story is fairly stably interesting and she comes into her own, but it only gets there faaaaarr into the series and takes longer than everyone else. honestly she's probably the core reason why got feels unfinished than good as it is, she's a late bloomer and while all the other characters could be left as "what ifs" or up to reader speculation headcanon, daenerys is set up as a wildcard that's unplayed, ESPECIALLY post show. is she going to fuck jon in the books? go crazy? go craziER? not go crazy? instead from her pov it's like a 5 book setup for her hitting the mainland and then cut to black with no payoff, which is the most unsatisfying character ending easily to me, when potentially she could have some of the most interesting potential if she suddenly started losing her shit and becoming skitzo in a pov similar to what he did with catelyn

 

[DeeNaMeeTay]

Yoko Taro is a weirdo but i appreciate the depth of the women in Nier and Drakengard despite being a bit sexualized. Kaine, 2b, A2, Popola and Devola are all solid characters outside of some being the love interest of the male main character.

But I specifically love all the intoner sisters from Drakengard 3, especially the main character Zero. Read the novellas and just watch the cutscenes around the game, they are so interesting. I also recommend Finding the Plot’s analysis/theory since it’s one of the only good analysis videos of its kind: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SL6auCs5p2A

The Legend of Zelda characters are also the same case; so many great female characters guiding Link. I love how they wrote Zelda in Botw and Skyward Sword etc. And Midna, Urbosa, Impa, and Medli are great too!

A bunch of anime has good characters too, like Akane from Psychopass was mentioned, Gibli girls, sailor moon, shoujo girls like Tohru from Fruits Basket and Yona from Yona of the Dawn, and the Nanas from NaNa. And I heard good things about Maomao from Apothecary Diaries. That’s on the top of my head!

 

[Nip Slip]

The wolf children is a really great one. A woman marries a werewolf and has 2 kids with him, right after they're born however he dies and she's left alone to fend for two half human half wolf children that she doesn't know anything about.

The premise sounds silly but its incredibly down to earth and human and treated dead serious. The primary focus of the movie is in the mother's extreme and extensive efforts to try and keep the kids happy, healthy, disciplined and above all safe, even at sometimes the expense of her own comfort.

She acts like a mother and the movie is focused around her, but the also kids act like kids with their own individual subplots that tie into them other, the movie does a good job highlighting how important both parents are, focused around the mother, both what a mother can and should provide, and what the lack of a father can do. (especially to the male child that has no role model in his life).

Absolutely fantastic movie 10/10 recommend.

There isn't much anime I like, but this movie tugged at my heartstrings! It's such a good children's film that places a mother in a protagonist role by highlighting the challenges that come with parenthood and being split between what a parent believes is best for their children versus what makes their life truly fulfilling. Very precious choice to add here.

 

[Coffee Druid]

Almost every book by Tamora Pierce.

The Elfquest comic series is more obscure these days, but there are literally dozens of unique, strong female characters.

Also The Outlander series. Some of the side female characters are a little one-note, but the main character and others are quite dimensional.

 

[Chandelier]

Daenerys: tbh at first she was just kind of retarded to me, but she's actually imo a pretty interesting mary sue approach. at most blunt she basically fakes it til she makes it surrounded by people objectively more skilled in everything that carry her, figuratively and literally, and it's usually written in a way that works. like jorah having a very good skillset to assist her and using it at first because he's a spy and then because he fell in love with the mark. by the house of the undying she begins to be less naive and more capable. the visions she gets and trauma she goes through and desire to be just and fair is interesting. ALTHOUGH she does have the biggest "the fuck" moments, like her getting the unsullied which basically was the foundation of her being a "contender" was just fuckin dumb.

If Dany was a man, no one would be calling her a Mary Sue when she's not like the Dragonborn from Elder Scrolls. But I do like how she's still a kid at heart and is witty, clever, and a bit of a shit when she wants to be. She does have a Messiah complex but that is tempered with her fears of ending up like her father and she still mourns her brother despite the cruelty he subjected her to.

I don't like how she was married off so young, though. The show made her 16 when she was wedded to Khal Drogo when she was 13 in the books.