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Best SFF Heroines


Nuncle Stark

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The older I get the more I seem to be into female singers, movie leads and especially literary heroines! From Vin, Arya, Shy to many more. They carry big epic sagas and kick ass and save the world no sweat and it's pretty awesome to see so this is a thread for us to share our favorites heroines in science fiction and fantasy literature or just any literature in general. 

Goldenslaughter is my favorite new sff heroine. She is a powerful immortal sorceress and just WRECKS her enemies with overwhelming force. 

 

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Any of the wonderful females of the Liveship Traders; Althea, Ronica, Etta, Malta, Keffria, Serilla. Amber. They are all wonderful characters, extremely complex, albeit in different ways, and they all go through a huge amount of growth during the trilogy. It's brilliant  seeing how they each meet the challenges of being a woman trying to assert themselves in society and positions of power.

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

From Tolkein's universe there are a number, particularly from the First Age. But to pick a few, Luthien, Eowyn and Elwing.

Essun from the Fifth Season. Though not a straight up heroine, she has easily catapulted into being one of my favourite characters in fantasy.

Another who is not a straight up heroine (she has some questionable morality and does some fucked up stuff) who I find very interesting and cannot help but love is Berenice, from The Mechanical. Early days with that series, but I will be good to see where Tregillis takes her character.

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Althea and others from Liveship Traders are the first ones that come to my mind. This series has a whole lot of prominent and well developed female characters.

From Fitz and the Fool (not sure what the spoiler rules about this are, better to be on the safe side):

Bee. A specialbeing from her conception on, and then she developed into a great character in her own right. I like how she is partly childish like the 9-year-old she is and partly so adult and knowing about things.

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

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I'm not into heroes or heroines, but I am into interesting characters. The obvious ones (e.g. Sansa, Catelyn, etc) I'll leave off in favor of those not usually discussed around these parts. As such:

Arianrhod from The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge
Blue from The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater 
Clara from Dagger and Coin series by Daniel Abraham
Naomi, Avasarala, + Anna from The Expanse by James SA Corey
Nyxnissa from the Bel Dame series by Kameron Hurley

 

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though she's presented as the villain, shakespeare's joan of arc summons demons.

milton's eve has the best freytag climax ever: 

What hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat!
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost. 

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Avasarala saved the Expanse for me, I was lukewarm until she showed up.

And I am not sure why one would duck from mentioning Sansa as her story line seems to be very well regarded.  

I am not great at combing my memories for threads like this but Nyx from the Bel Dame trilogy jumped out for me.

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Any of the wonderful females of the Liveship Traders; Althea, Ronica, Etta, Malta, Keffria, Serilla. Amber. They are all wonderful characters, extremely complex, albeit in different ways, and they all go through a huge amount of growth during the trilogy. It's brilliant  seeing how they each meet the challenges of being a woman trying to assert themselves in society and positions of power.

Essun from the Fifth Season. Though not a straight up heroine, she has easily catapulted into being one of my favourite characters in fantasy.

 

I came here to post these names :) The cast of The Liveship Traders is filled to the brim with great female characters, and is the first thing that came to mind when I read the title.

If all goes according to plan I'll receive The Fifth Season as a gift next weekend, I'm looking forward to reading it.

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Essun from the Fifth Season. Though not a straight up heroine, she has easily catapulted into being one of my favourite characters in fantasy.

Another who is not a straight up heroine (she has some questionable morality and does some fucked up stuff) who I find very interesting and cannot help but love is Berenice, from The Mechanical. Early days with that series, but I will be good to see where Tregillis takes her character.

Both good choices. Looking forward to reading more of these characters.

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Any of the wonderful females of the Liveship Traders; Althea, Ronica, Etta, Malta, Keffria, Serilla. Amber. They are all wonderful characters, extremely complex, albeit in different ways, and they all go through a huge amount of growth during the trilogy. It's brilliant  seeing how they each meet the challenges of being a woman trying to assert themselves in society and positions of power.

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

:agree: with everything and would just like to add Sansa-Malta comparison. Reading the former really helped me to better understand and root for later; and I'm sure I'd feel the same if my reading order was reversed.

I also quite liked Vin from Sanderson's Mistborn series.

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