My First Awesome Female Characters Meme

[tielan]

My First Awesome Female Characters Meme - originally from the DW hooked_on_heroines post about Awesome Female Characters from childhood, but hijacked modified to an LJ entry because that post was made before Easter and is therefore (in internet speak) 'old', and because I want to gush with all the eagerness and enthusiasm of a ten year old telling her schoolmates why her favourite book characters are cool, and I feel that a post is more likely to do them justice.

She-Ra: Princess Of Power

Girl power! Swords! Rainbows! A winged horse! A guy who wore his heart on his sleeve chest! Plus she had a twin brother! (I have sisters who are twins, and when I was 7, I decided I wanted a twin brother. Alas, not an option...) Separated at birth! Saving the world/universe/multiverse/thingy!

I wrote my very first fanfic about her when I was ten. Me and my friends wandered into her world (we also wandered into the Mask universe - think Transformers, but with cooler animation and more people). And my 4th grade teacher read it out in class because she thought it was great!

(Thanks, Miss Mowbray, wherever you are now.)


Lady Penelope (International Rescue)

One of the few episodes I remember is where Lady Penelope has to change some numbers by singing in a nightclub and changing the pitch of her song. BY. SINGING. Screw the (admittedly cool) dual-function ships/craft/whatevers...I wanted to be Lady Penelope! (With the ineffable chauffeur, Parker - because, really, who doesn't want an ineffable chauffeur?) She had the smarts and the unflappable British cool, as well as the beauty and wealth... I think she and Parker also had to jump out of a hanging cablecar into the snow because the guy whose plans she foiled wanted to kill her. (As they usually do.)

"When you plaaaaaay, the daaaaangerous gaaaame..."


Barbie

So, she's the ultimate Mary Sue - she can be anything you want her to be for the purposes of the story - but wasn't that the point? Yes, impossible bodily proportions, ridiculously blonde hair, and multicoloured sparkling eyes...but she could be anything! (Pause in text so T can hum the "we girls can do anything - like Barbie!" themesong to herself.)

I don't know about anyone else's Barbie, but my Barbies (Golden Dream, and Birthday Barbie) were most commonly spies who could do martial arts and shoot guns and cunningly socialise in such a way that the bad guys (or gals) would never realise they were being pumped for information about their supa-sekrit weapon of mass destruction.

"Just call me Barbie... Jemima Barbie..."


Leia Organa

"Aren't you a little short for a stormtrooper?"

"Will someone get this walking carpet out of my way?"

Ah, the snark! She didn't have to be polite - she could be, but she could also show her teeth. And she could fire a weapon, think in a tight situation, take torture (and, okay, still look fresh afterwards) and practically run the Rebellion. Grizzled old war vets listened to her tell them how it was!

I think I may have been the only person who ever hoped Luke would turn to the Dark Side, just so Leia could rescue him...


Princess Eilonwy of Llyr (Lloyd Alexander's Prydain series)

Eilonwy was the first coded 'tomboy' character I remember adoring. (Leia wasn't coded 'tomboy'. Women fired weapons and performed treasonous espionage in the Rebellion because they had to, not because they were in rebellion against being pushed into a "properly feminine" lifestyl.) Headstrong, determined, practical (taking the sword off the dead king, because, well, it would be the best one, wouldn't it?), stubborn, and independent...

I always adored that she came across as completely female and completely comfortable with that, even when she spent most of the books hanging out with wanderers, hunting parties, and assistant pig-keepers of questionable parentage. And telling Taran when he was an idiot. Without reservation or shyness or any sparing of his ego when he was being stupid.

"Taran of Caer Dallben, I'm not talking to you!"


I didn't get introduced to Elizabeth Bennet until I was at least 10, Lessa of Pern when I was 13 (I was so disappointed the subsequent books weren't about her), Polgara and Ce'Nedra (and Velvet, Ehlana and Sephrenia) when I was 15. But She-Ra, Lady Penelope, Barbie, Leia Organa, and Princess Eilonwy of Llyr were my chidhood heroines.

Comments

[mirageofmae.livejournal.com]

I know exactly what you mean about Leesa of Pern! I was rather disgruntled when I tried to continue the series and she was hardly mentioned and then later forgotten! And the other books had male POV characters! I was pretty picky back then (ok, I'm still picky) and almost exclusively prefer a female POV if it's not an omniscient POV. I adored her and wanted to learn more but... alas, it was not meant to be. The same thing happened when I read McCaffery's Freedom series and as the story went further from my favorite female POV I slowly lost interest. Funny how that works.

I love your list! I'm only familiar with some of the characters but this is an awesome meme.

[tielan]

They are awesome characters. :)

[thothmes]

Word! as to Princess Eilonwy of Llyr.

I was also very taken by Eowen in The Lord of the Rings, but felt that it was a cop out when she settled into submissive adoration of Faramir. As a teen I was so disappointed to read Tolkien's letters and journals and find out that he was a truly ghastly male chauvinist piggy.

I loved Mara in Mara Daughter of the Nile (by Eloise Jarvis McGraw), but then I wanted to grow up to be an Egyptologist from the time I was eight, so the subject matter appealed.

Dido Twite in Joan Aiken's series that started with Wolves of Willoughby Chase was pretty intrepid and unquenchable. All her girls were pretty dauntless.

And the first books I read independantly were the Laura Ingalls Wilder books.

I had a sneaking and subversive fondness for Catwoman (Julie Newmar) on the old campy Batman series. Probably about as politically correct as Barbie, but the fact that she could give Batman a run for his money was intriguing.

[tielan]

I'd read the Laura Ingalls Wilder books as a kid, and yes, she and her family were wonderful, but I didn't really feel she owned her own story. It was about her and her family and sure she did some stuff, but she never really stuck out to me.

Otherwise, I never read the others (although my sisters read the Wolves Of Willoughby Chase, I never got into it).

[thothmes]

Laura Ingalls Wilder becomes a stronger person and more of a force to be reckoned with as the books go along. In particular in the last of the books (These Happy Golden Years) when she leaves home for a while to take a teaching job living in dicey circumstances, and when she manages to attract the attention of Almanzo Wilder precisely because she is active and fearless, she really becomes an interesting character, and a role model, within the constraints of Victorian moraes.

As regards the early books in the series, I quite agree with you.

[tielan]

Oh, I got through the later stories, too - but I think the ones our library had went up to Little Town On The Prarie (which, I think, is where she first attracts Almanzo's attention).

It didn't appeal to me as much, though; I don't really know why.

[thothmes]

*Shrugs* I don't know why either, but to me the vast variation and range in individual approaches and individual tastes is part of what makes humanity intriguing and beautiful.