Best SFF Heroines

[Maithanet]

I'd go with some of the Atwood heroines.  Toby from Maddaddam, Offred from Handmaids Tale.  

 

Sansa, Ygritte, Cat, Jeyne Westerling and more I am forgetting from ASOIAF need to be mentioned too.

Jeyne Westerling?!  Does she even have any lines?  How could you possibly nominate her as one of the best heroines in all of SFF?

[Buckwheat]

I'd go with some of the Atwood heroines.  Toby from Maddaddam, Offred from Handmaids Tale.  

Jeyne Westerling?!  Does she even have any lines?  How could you possibly nominate her as one of the best heroines in all of SFF?

Oh, I do not consider her one of the best heroines, I just feel that she is seldomly mentioned on the favourite characters lists and such, so I just like mentioning her because I like her.

[peterbound]

No mention of any WOT characters yet? I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought of that series, but may have been hesitant to open the box. Fine I'll jump on that grenade. Jordan's female characters are rather divisive on these boards, but his characters are at least memorable for being powerful and doing some pretty memorable things.

Egwene

Nynaeve

Moiraine

Elayne

Soreal

the Forsaken characters.

Because they are really bad examples of the fairer sex in fantasy.  They represent everything that many of the other listed heroines (or their writers) try to get away from.  They are poorly written, childish, tropey, and at times very demeaning to the better 50% of the population.  

 

The books have their place, don't get me wrong, but as examples of good female characters?  Sorry buddy, that's not their strong suit. 

[Darth Richard II]

Eh, I think you could at least make an argument for Moiraine, but otherwise I agree,

[Corvinus85]

Using the excuse that there are also books, not just the TV show, I would add Samantha Carter from Stargate SG-1.

[Astromech]

 

Because they are really bad examples of the fairer sex in fantasy.  They represent everything that many of the other listed heroines (or their writers) try to get away from.  They are poorly written, childish, tropey, and at times very demeaning to the better 50% of the population.  

 

The books have their place, don't get me wrong, but as examples of good female characters?  Sorry buddy, that's not their strong suit. 

Hence, my jumping on the grenade when naming them. I knew the mention of many of them would elicit some strong responses concerning their characterization, or lack thereof. However,  I never claimed they were examples of well-written female characters, but was surprised they weren't brought up when the OP mentioned heroines kicking-ass. It sounded like the interest lay more in female characters that were bad asses.

[fionwe1987]

 

Because they are really bad examples of the fairer sex in fantasy.  They represent everything that many of the other listed heroines (or their writers) try to get away from.  They are poorly written, childish, tropey, and at times very demeaning to the better 50% of the population.  

 

The books have their place, don't get me wrong, but as examples of good female characters?  Sorry buddy, that's not their strong suit. 

I'd say that is true for some, not all. Moiraine, Egwene and Nynaeve, at least, are competently written characters, and they do kick ass, a lot, and are central to the story, and in many ways great female characters.

And no, the fact that some of them have repetitive tics that the author uses to convey some emotion of theirs doesn't make them completely bad characters. That's some bad writing, certainly, but it isn't the sum total of these characters either.

[peterbound]

I'd say that is true for some, not all. Moiraine, Egwene and Nynaeve, at least, are competently written characters, and they do kick ass, a lot, and are central to the story, and in many ways great female characters.

And no, the fact that some of them have repetitive tics that the author uses to convey some emotion of theirs doesn't make them completely bad characters. That's some bad writing, certainly, but it isn't the sum total of these characters either.

Well, your willingness to suspend reality to accommodate your loyalty to mr rigney is well established, so I'm not sure you opinion is all that objective.

[fionwe1987]

 

 

 

Well, your willingness to suspend reality to accommodate your loyalty to mr rigney is well established, so I'm not sure you opinion is all that objective.

 

And I'd say your tendency to ignore much of the books to force across your view of them is also well established. Neither of us has much claim to objectivity, it seems, but this, after all, is a thread about a subjective question... 

[SeanF]

I may be reaching to classify them as "heroines" but:

Monzcarro Murcatto

 

 

She's a great character, and I love her, but objectively, she is an appalling human being.  Carlot dan Eider summed her up quite accurately as "thief, blackmailer, murderer of innocents, and keen practiser of incest."

That said, it looks as though she will be a very able Grand Duchess.

[baxus]

Lessa from Anne McCaffrey's Chronicles of Pern.

At the moment I can't remember of a better heroine than her - speaks to all dragons, is smart, brave and all that.

As a bonus, she was written almost half a century ago.

[Lyanna Stark]

And I'd say your tendency to ignore much of the books to force across your view of them is also well established. Neither of us has much claim to objectivity, it seems, but this, after all, is a thread about a subjective question... 

If we are looking at heroines that are actually heroic and doesn't get undermined by the male heroes then WoT can claim some of that, but definitely not all.

 

She's a great character, and I love her, but objectively, she is an appalling human being.  Carlot dan Eider summed her up quite accurately as "thief, blackmailer, murderer of innocents, and keen practiser of incest."

That said, it looks as though she will be a very able Grand Duchess.

Monza is more of an anti-hero in that regard, but certainly an interesting character and a "heroine" if we equal it with "female protagonist" who gets some sort of HEA at the end.

[SeanF]

If we are looking at heroines that are actually heroic and doesn't get undermined by the male heroes then WoT can claim some of that, but definitely not all.

 

Monza is more of an anti-hero in that regard, but certainly an interesting character and a "heroine" if we equal it with "female protagonist" who gets some sort of HEA at the end.

The other one who sums her up very well is Ganmark, during the course of their duel, although he's no better.

[ryeguy]

Thorn Bathu from the Shattered Sea series

[Kindly Old Man]

Monza is one of Abercrombie's most poorly written characters imo.

[fionwe1987]

If we are looking at heroines that are actually heroic and doesn't get undermined by the male heroes then WoT can claim some of that, but definitely not all.

That's all I'm saying. 

[Wilbur]

As a father of a daughter, I am constantly looking for books with strong, positive female characters that I would like my daughter to read and whose characteristics would be positive for her to emulate.  Some of the following are those characters, and some of the following characters are just in well-written books.

Paksenarrion Dorthansdotter from The Deed of Paksenarrion by Elizabeth Moon
Y.T. from Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Wayness Tamm from Ecce and Old Earth by Jack Vance
Paula Myo from the Commonwealth Saga by Peter F. Hamilton
Heris Serrano from the Familias Regnant books by Elizabeth Moon
Mara of the Acoma from the Servant / Daughter / Mistress of the Empire trilogy by Janny Wurts and Raymond E. Feist
Molly Millions (or Sally Shears) from William Gibson's Neuromancer and other stories
Kylara Vatta from the Vatta's War books by Elizabeth Moon
Cordelia Naismith from the Vorkosigan Saga by Lois McMaster Bujold
Eliza from Neal Stephenson's The Baroque Cycle
Sorry / Apsalar from the Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson
Madouc from Jack Vance's Lyonesse Trilogy
Syrinx from the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton

In the world of cinema, just about every female protagonist from Studio Ghibli is a good example for my daughter to see.

[SeanF]

Monza is one of Abercrombie's most poorly written characters imo.

I think that Best Served Cold generates very mixed reactions.  There are those who think it's Abercrombie's best book (such as myself) and those who hate it.

Most characters range from pretty bad to downright evil, and the more decent characters find their efforts to do good backfire, and they're forced to do evil instead,  It would be very bleak without a huge amount of black humour.

As I say, I think Monza's great, and pretty realistic.  The Snake of Talins even had a real life counterpart in the Tigress of Forli, Caterina Sforza.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tigress-Forli-Renaissance-Courageous/dp/0547844166

 

[SeanF]

Brawne Lamia, from the Hyperion Cantos.

Sergeant Angua, from The City Watch arc of Discworld.

Dr. Ellie Satler, from Jurassic Park.

Hermione Granger, from Harry Potter. How has no-one said this yet?

Lyra, from His Dark Materials

 

A couple of other things:

- I realise some of those are secondary characters rather than protagonists, but I do think they are all heroines.

- Martin has some great female characters, all the one I would have mentioned have already been said but my personal favourite is Sansa. 

-  I left Lucy from the Chronicles of Narnia out even though she strikes me as a very famous protagonist, because when compared to Susan I don't think she's a particularly positive representation of a heroine.

Hermione is indeed a very good heroine.  I'm sure we've all met a Hermione at university or school - a brilliant student, who's good-hearted, but a bit socially awkward, so that her shyness comes over as arrogance initially.

Rather like Daenerys, she combines a good deal of compassion for victims of injustice with a strong streak of vindictiveness.

I think JK Rowling has said she views her as her alter ego.

 

[Kindly Old Man]

I think that Best Served Cold generates very mixed reactions.  There are those who think it's Abercrombie's best book (such as myself) and those who hate it.

Most characters range from pretty bad to downright evil, and the more decent characters find their efforts to do good backfire, and they're forced to do evil instead,  It would be very bleak without a huge amount of black humour.

As I say, I think Monza's great, and pretty realistic.  The Snake of Talins even had a real life counterpart in the Tigress of Forli, Caterina Sforza.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Tigress-Forli-Renaissance-Courageous/dp/0547844166

 

 

Oh, I don't hate Best Served cold, just Monza. And it's not because she's evil. She's no more or less evil than any number of Abercrombie's protagonists. It's because she's almost totally incompetent throughout the whole book, and keeps getting bailed out through increasingly ridiculous deus ex machinas, in a way that happens to no other Abercrombie character I can think of.

Obviously the entire setup with her miraculously surviving the fall off the mountain and then being rescued by Shenkt, one of the only people who could have saved her, is very implausible but I could accept that if it was a one time thing meant to set up her story. However, things only get worse from there. Almost every step of her revenge plot is executed in an incredibly stupid, short sighted way, wherein she needs to be repeatedly bailed out either by other characters or egregiously contrived turns of events.

There are many examples of this (Shivers rescuing her at Sipani, Morveer happening to miss her with his dart and then her fortuitously wearing gloves at the wedding, etc.) The one that I found most infuriating was her fight with Ganmark, which for me was the low point in all of JA's books (which I love). First of all, the idea that she could fight anyone with her left hand a few months after her entire body was shattered and she had to relearn how to walk is ridiculous, but leave that aside. Ganmark has been set up as a hyper competent, incredibly cautious and cold-blooded warrior. In the opening chapter we see that he wants to run Monza through after she has been strangled, before she gets thrown off a mountain, to "make sure of her". He is the only person who realizes that Monza is back and poses a serious threat. Yet when it comes time to fight Monza, he starts grandstanding like a Bond villain, and throws Monza's sword back to her multiple times, even though he knows he just walked into an ambush and anything could be happening to his men in the meantime. It totally goes against what we know of his character, just so that Monza can survive yet again, despite her stupidity. And to add insult to injury, he then gets killed because a statue happens to fall on him. Again, this would be fine in isolation (I thought Whirrun getting killed by a random spear was a cool inversion of the usual fantasy climactic battle), but these random things happen to Monza all the time, and always in her favor. It would be ok in something like the Wheel of Time where you know there is a mysterious force at work behind the scenes, but in a world where the randomness of the universe upsetting people's plans is emphasized, it's jarring to see one character constantly bailed out by sheer luck.

An even worse problem with Monza is that she is an awful character to spend time with. And I don't mean because of her horrendous actions. It's because she's whiny, self pitying, and deserves everything that happened to her. Now, Abercrombie has written several other whiny, self pitying characters, but usually they have something else to get you to enjoy their chapters. Often it's humor, like with Glokta and Gorst. While Best Served Cold has humor all through it, Monza's chapters are almost totally humorless. Some characters that would be otherwise unsympathetic you can enjoy because of their competence (Glokta), or their intelligence (Bayaz), or because they were in fact truly wronged and you hope to see them get theirs back (Ferro). Monza has none of these things. While we hear that she was a good general, what we overwhelmingly see in the book is her incompetence, as I mentioned above. Compounding this is the fact that even seeing things though her whiny, rose-colored, "what else could she do" perspective it's clear by the end of the book that her blindness to Benna's faults and her constant enabling of him makes her totally responsible for Orzo's "betrayal", so there's really no reason to root for her revenge plot to succeed at all.

Hm, that turned out kind of long. So yeah, Monza, she sucks. Also she has a stupid motto, which she fails to apply in the one situation where it would have made sense.