Best SFF Heroines

[Astromech]

Hmm, what I got was Abercrombie inverting another trope. Uber capable general/fighter isn't really uber capabale, just lucky. And I loved her for all the reasons you hated her.

[TheRevanchist]

My absolute favorite (despite that she is a supporting character) is Moiraine Damodred from Wheel of Time. I also like Egwene Al'Vere a lot (I know that most hate her). 

Vin from Mistborn is quite good.

Monzcarro and Thorn from Abercrombie are also good.

Agree with Helena for Hobb's characters. I intensely disliked Malta for the first two books though (similar to Sansa in ASOIAF). Would also add Kettricken from Fitz's books, she is excellent and I thought that the second Fitz trilogy should have had more Kettricken.

I didn't like Catelyn Stark at all, and I have mixed feelings for Daenerys. I love Arya though.

Lady from The Black Company was great. I also liked Soulcatcher (although she was a villain).

This might be controversial, but I liked Denna from Kingskiller Chronicles.

In Science Fiction, Aenea from Hyperion Cantos is great. Naomi and Avasarela from The Expanse deserve a mention too. Mara Jade from Thrawn trilogy is also great.

[TheRevanchist]

Catelyn Stark. Such a refreshing character. (Incidentally, I see quite a lot of similarity between her and Ronica). 

Similar as both being stupid and making things worse everytime they have a plan? And then, things getting really worse.

I just really disliked Catelyn (Ronica at least had some good actions). Not only that she did whatever was on her power to lose the war for Robb (of course, unintentionally) but also her treatment of Jon Snow was terrible.

[HexMachina]

Yeah this isn't GenASOIAF so not getting drawn into that but I disagree with you completely.

[Lyanna Stark]

Similar as both being stupid and making things worse everytime they have a plan? And then, things getting really worse.
I just really disliked Catelyn (Ronica at least had some good actions). Not only that she did whatever was on her power to lose the war for Robb (of course, unintentionally) but also her treatment of Jon Snow was terrible.

 

Cat's dislike for Jon was completely human reaction and it's also a dead horse that has been flogged a million times. No other bastard in Westeros, complete with Dorne where the rules are different, were raised as Jon was. He was an extreme outlier. Further, his mere existence is an constant insult to Cat and to her entire family. In fact, Cersei comments that Cat must be a mouse since she accepts Jon in her household, and thinks that had it been Cersei in Cat's shoes, she would have had Jon killed.

Your accusations that she lost the war to Robb is factually incorrect as well, but that is more a topic for the ASOIAF forums. Suffice to say, it's completely wrong and has also been beaten to death a hundred times since I joined in 2001.

Catelyn is a completely amazing and very, very unusual character, which is why a lot of people dislike her. She's a mother and she is human, she doesn't automatically love Jon (oh noes!) and she sometimes trusts the wrong person (unlike, well, every other person in the entire novel??) which only helps add to her humanity.

 

 

Re Monza:

I agree with Astromech with why Monza is great. She tramples all the tropes and that's great to read. As for the whole "being stupid" or "being saved by other characters", how common is it really, and how realistic, for a characters to be totally self sufficient and not ever relying on anyone else, or on other people's stupidity? Most RL issues happen because of other people's stupidity, so why not in fiction? Seems more like realism to me.

 

 

 

[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.

I also wanted to add Lucy and Jill Pole from the Chronicles of Narnia, since between the two of them you have the protagonists of six of the seven C.S. Lewis books.

[TheRevanchist]

Your accusations that she lost the war to Robb is factually incorrect as well, but that is more a topic for the ASOIAF forums. Suffice to say, it's completely wrong and has also been beaten to death a hundred times since I joined in 2001.

Well, her freeing Jaime which in turn made Karstark killing the Lannister hostage, which in turn made Robb killed Karstark, which in turn made Karstarks leave which in turn made Starks deal again with Freys, played a large part on Starks losing the war.

Ultimately, they lost cause they made a lot of bad decisions but three most important ones were:

1) Robb falling in love with Jayne and so betraying Frey. (Robb's fault)
2) Edmure defeating Lannisters, when he shouldn't have done so (Robb/Edmure's fault)
3) Catelyn freeing Jaime (Catelyn's fault).

These three decisions pretty much destroyed Starks in a war which they were winning. The third one was the one which finished them.

Anyway, as you said it is a debate which has been done to death. I doubt that either of us are going to change their mind.
 

[SeanF]

 

Cat's dislike for Jon was completely human reaction and it's also a dead horse that has been flogged a million times. No other bastard in Westeros, complete with Dorne where the rules are different, were raised as Jon was. He was an extreme outlier. Further, his mere existence is an constant insult to Cat and to her entire family. In fact, Cersei comments that Cat must be a mouse since she accepts Jon in her household, and thinks that had it been Cersei in Cat's shoes, she would have had Jon killed.

Your accusations that she lost the war to Robb is factually incorrect as well, but that is more a topic for the ASOIAF forums. Suffice to say, it's completely wrong and has also been beaten to death a hundred times since I joined in 2001.

Catelyn is a completely amazing and very, very unusual character, which is why a lot of people dislike her. She's a mother and she is human, she doesn't automatically love Jon (oh noes!) and she sometimes trusts the wrong person (unlike, well, every other person in the entire novel??) which only helps add to her humanity.

Catelyn is highly competent, and essentially a good (but flawed) person who faced a relentless run of bad luck.  Anything that could go wrong for her, did go wrong.  In the end, she broke.  She reminds me somewhat of Denethor in that way.

[Kindly Old Man]

Hmm, what I got was Abercrombie inverting another trope. Uber capable general/fighter isn't really uber capabale, just lucky. And I loved her for all the reasons you hated her.

I can agree with this to a certain extent, Monza works as as inversion of some tropes.  But after a point it seems more like an excuse; with things like the Ganmark example I used what is he doing, inverting consistent characterization? What else can you invert? If someone's dialogue sucks, maybe they are just inverting the usual notions of good dialogue. If you don't like this post, maybe my inversion of traditional good posting has gone over your head. It gets kind of ridiculous.

[Lyanna Stark]

Well, her freeing Jaime which in turn made Karstark killing the Lannister hostage, which in turn made Robb killed Karstark, which in turn made Karstarks leave which in turn made Starks deal again with Freys, played a large part on Starks losing the war.

Ultimately, they lost cause they made a lot of bad decisions but three most important ones were:

1) Robb falling in love with Jayne and so betraying Frey. (Robb's fault)
2) Edmure defeating Lannisters, when he shouldn't have done so (Robb/Edmure's fault)
3) Catelyn freeing Jaime (Catelyn's fault).

These three decisions pretty much destroyed Starks in a war which they were winning. The third one was the one which finished them.

Anyway, as you said it is a debate which has been done to death. I doubt that either of us are going to change their mi

Yet you found the need to talk about it anyway?

 

 

To get back on topic, I think the more Alice in Wonderland heroines are interesting and potentially deserves a mention, as they solve problems without violence most of the time, and instead focus on ingenuity and cleverness. For instance, one such is Gaiman's Coraline, I think. You could potentially put her in the same category as Alice (in Wonderland), Lucy (from Narnia) and maybe even Hermoine. I think Diana Wynne Jones's Sophia from Howl's Flying Castle is one of those, too.

 

[The Marquis de Leech]

1) Robb falling in love with Jayne and so betraying Frey. (Robb's fault)
2) Edmure defeating Lannisters, when he shouldn't have done so (Robb/Edmure's fault)
3) Catelyn freeing Jaime (Catelyn's fault).

You forgot the other big one. Robb deciding to send Theon home, despite all of Catelyn's warnings.

Catelyn freeing Jaime is neither here nor there. Tywin had written Jaime off at that point, and it's Robb's own fault for not doing a Jaime-Sansa trade earlier.

Between Jeyne Westerling, not telling Edmure the plan, sending Theon home, and doing nothing with the leverage Jaime gave him, the biggest cause of Robb's demise was Robb,

[fionwe1987]

You forgot the other big one. Robb deciding to send Theon home, despite all of Catelyn's warnings.

Catelyn freeing Jaime is neither here nor there. Tywin had written Jaime off at that point, and it's Robb's own fault for not doing a Jaime-Sansa trade earlier.

Between Jeyne Westerling, not telling Edmure the plan, sending Theon home, and doing nothing with the leverage Jaime gave him, the biggest cause of Robb's demise was Robb,

Agreed. Robb just ignored that his fight with the Lannisters was about more than what happens in the field. Reading those chapters, one gets the feeling that the only person even aware of that was Catelyn.

I definitely feel she is one of the more unusual and very interesting heroines. I applaud GRRM's decision to let us see the events surrounding the Northern invasion primarily from her PoV rather than Robb. I loved her PoVs, and contrasting them with Cersei's only makes it all the more obvious how clever Cat was. The loss of her PoVs is definitely felt in the next two books.

Regarding female characters who don't use violence... I do wish that didn't become such a trope, though. The woman is always the voice of caution and peace, and while I'm all for caution and peace, I wish author's would branch out from that mould.

[Darth Richard II]

Luna > Hermione

[SeanF]

Agreed. Robb just ignored that his fight with the Lannisters was about more than what happens in the field. Reading those chapters, one gets the feeling that the only person even aware of that was Catelyn.

I definitely feel she is one of the more unusual and very interesting heroines. I applaud GRRM's decision to let us see the events surrounding the Northern invasion primarily from her PoV rather than Robb. I loved her PoVs, and contrasting them with Cersei's only makes it all the more obvious how clever Cat was. The loss of her PoVs is definitely felt in the next two books.

Regarding female characters who don't use violence... I do wish that didn't become such a trope, though. The woman is always the voice of caution and peace, and while I'm all for caution and peace, I wish author's would branch out from that mould.

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that it's become just as much a cliche for a heroine to be a badass. That's not to say there aren't women who enjoy violence, and are good at it, even in a medieval-type society, but they'll be less common than similar men.

Dorne, however, provides a counter-example. There the leading male royal preaches caution and the benefits of peace, while the leading women are eager for war.

[SeanF]

Cat's dislike for Jon was completely human reaction and it's also a dead horse that has been flogged a million times. No other bastard in Westeros, complete with Dorne where the rules are different, were raised as Jon was. He was an extreme outlier. Further, his mere existence is an constant insult to Cat and to her entire family. In fact, Cersei comments that Cat must be a mouse since she accepts Jon in her household, and thinks that had it been Cersei in Cat's shoes, she would have had Jon killed.

Your accusations that she lost the war to Robb is factually incorrect as well, but that is more a topic for the ASOIAF forums. Suffice to say, it's completely wrong and has also been beaten to death a hundred times since I joined in 2001.

Catelyn is a completely amazing and very, very unusual character, which is why a lot of people dislike her. She's a mother and she is human, she doesn't automatically love Jon (oh noes!) and she sometimes trusts the wrong person (unlike, well, every other person in the entire novel??) which only helps add to her humanity.

Re Monza:

I agree with Astromech with why Monza is great. She tramples all the tropes and that's great to read. As for the whole "being stupid" or "being saved by other characters", how common is it really, and how realistic, for a characters to be totally self sufficient and not ever relying on anyone else, or on other people's stupidity? Most RL issues happen because of other people's stupidity, so why not in fiction? Seems more like realism to me.

Monza certainly enjoys a lot of luck, but she deploys a good deal of cunning as well.

[Stubby]

I came into mention Kylara Vatta from Elizabeth Moon's Vatta's War series and noted that she was first mentioned just a few posts ago.

I also have to mention Dorothea McDonald (Diamond Mask) from Julian May's Galactic Milieu series.

[fionwe1987]

 

I'm not so sure. It seems to me that it's become just as much a cliche for a heroine to be a badass. That's not to say there aren't women who enjoy violence, and are good at it, even in a medieval-type society, but they'll be less common than similar men.

 

 

Only in a world like ours, though. There's no reason, in an entirely different world with a different history of how women have been treated in society, for women to be inherently less violent. All evidence we have for differences in male and female brains show that they tend to be very small, and rarely binary in nature. Rather behavioral tendencies follow a continuum across genders, and societal pressures superimpose on these to give rise to actual behavior.

If you have a medieval type society that isn't backed by systemic sexism... why would there be greater peace-making tendencies among women?

Dorne is a decent counter-example in aSoIaF, but within the larger genre, I wouldn't say there is a trend.

And I wouldn't say badass individual heroines necessarily counter this, since in most cases they are considered singular and pushing against the norm. 

[SeanF]

Only in a world like ours, though. There's no reason, in an entirely different world with a different history of how women have been treated in society, for women to be inherently less violent. All evidence we have for differences in male and female brains show that they tend to be very small, and rarely binary in nature. Rather behavioral tendencies follow a continuum across genders, and societal pressures superimpose on these to give rise to actual behavior.

If you have a medieval type society that isn't backed by systemic sexism... why would there be greater peace-making tendencies among women?

Dorne is a decent counter-example in aSoIaF, but within the larger genre, I wouldn't say there is a trend.

And I wouldn't say badass individual heroines necessarily counter this, since in most cases they are considered singular and pushing against the norm.

Well, all that matters is whether something makes sense from a literary point of view. One could construct fictional societies in which men and women were equally violent, or indeed, where women were more violent than men.

But, I'd be genuinely interested to know if there's some good literature about women in combat. Modern armed forces have fairly large numbers of women, but are at the same time, constrained by modern human rights laws. I'd like to know about women in armies operating according to older standards, like the Red Army or Israeli Army in the 1940s. Were they as brutal as the men, more so, or less so?

In ASOIAF, Dany enjoyed putting Astapor to the sack. Is that realistic, or not? In Half a War, Thorn wanted to carry out mass murder at Skekenhouse. Is that realistic or not?

[Mars447]

In ASOIAF, Dany enjoyed putting Astapor to the sack. Is that realistic, or not? In Half a War, Thorn wanted to carry out mass murder at Skekenhouse. Is that realistic or not?

What does this even mean?  Is it realistic for a leader to enjoy putting a city of slavers to the sword, or to desire payback in blood for the murder of their spouse?  Absolutlely.

[Lyanna Stark]

Only in a world like ours, though. There's no reason, in an entirely different world with a different history of how women have been treated in society, for women to be inherently less violent. All evidence we have for differences in male and female brains show that they tend to be very small, and rarely binary in nature. Rather behavioral tendencies follow a continuum across genders, and societal pressures superimpose on these to give rise to actual behavior.

If you have a medieval type society that isn't backed by systemic sexism... why would there be greater peace-making tendencies among women?

Dorne is a decent counter-example in aSoIaF, but within the larger genre, I wouldn't say there is a trend.

And I wouldn't say badass individual heroines necessarily counter this, since in most cases they are considered singular and pushing against the norm. 

Of which we have a lot in SFF?  So far I have encountered exactly zero such societies. There are varied levels of course, but nobody has managed to write a medieval type society with no systemic sexism at all, as far as I know.

I agree with your conclusion that badass individual heroines do not counter this, as they are, as you say, often either unique snowflakes, really male characters with boobs, or an excuse to mix violence with sexual availability.

I'd say writers are prone to see it as women either emulating a masculine idea (warlike) or a feminine idea (altruistic) more than it has to do with systemic sexism. Generally traits that are seen as traditionally masculine and which are tightly linked with the view on acceptable masculinity get valued higher, or are more acceptable. On the flipside of this, it often falls to women to be the voices of peace, since that doesn't threaten any male characters' masculinity, which would often be unacceptable to the readers. Sam is often ridiculed for being a weakling since he is afraid of violence and prefers a peaceful lifestyle without swords, wars and what have you. He suffers from a case of atypical masculinity.