Can be from any kind of media.
For me it’s Margot from The Magicians (which is interesting because in the books she is anything but) and Jesse Faden from Control.
The Boss, MGS
Not Big Boss, the man with the eye patch and is a bad guy, the woman who taught him and the mother of Ocelot
She was such a badass woman that she inspired basically everyone around her to try to mold the world in the way they thought she saw it. Shes a great example of a woman/mother who’s a badass directly because of the skills normally associated with those roles. Yeah, she can fight and kick your main characters ass, but that’s mostly because she’s spent time nurturing him and caring for him to the point where he emotionally cannot fight her. She regularly disarms strong, imposing men (some with superpowers like lightning channeling) by just looking at them sternly and implying she’s about to call them by all 3 of their names in a disapproving tone
Time and again she does badass things while she’s alive, and her death is technically the catalyst for the rest of the series as those who loved and admired her try to shape the world as she saw it, which isn’t even something she herself did because of her loyalty to her country.
Oh and she’s voiced by the same woman who does Pearl from SpongeBob, which is wild
Someone already said Susannah Dean so I’m gonna go with Roz from Frasier
Sarah Connor
Samantha Carter from Stargate SG1
I rewatch that series every few years, it’s awesome, in no small part thanks to Sam.
Couldn’t tell you why, but my mind went straight to Wonder Woman.
Aloy from the Horizon games was my first thought.
Lara Croft from the first “Tomb Raider” movie, played by Angelina Jolie.
Lieutenant Ellen Ripley.
Chandler Bing
Wow I haven’t watched that show in ages, but I totally remembered that bit!
Adding my vote for Ellen Ripley.
There are others that come to mind from more obscure movies I’ve watched more recently, like the women in Grandma (2015), Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), and even Men (2022), also non-fictional women like those in Kokomo City (2023). There are so many more I can picture in my mind but can’t put my finger on the movie and or am just shit with names so I can’t think of them right now, but might come back to update.
Don’t think I’ve seen that review of Alien before. Thanks for sharing it.
Literally the first name that popped into my head when I saw the question. There are plenty of other good choices, but she has to be near the top of any list.
Incidentally… am I having federation issues? This is the only comment I see mentioning Ripley. I see 11 comments currently…
Incidentally… am I having federation issues? This is the only comment I see mentioning Ripley. I see 11 comments currently…
I see 36 comments, mine and 3 others mention Ripley, so yeah, probably a federation issue.
Captain Janeway from Voyager ❤️
She’s strong, but is anybody who loves coffee that much truly independent?
She’ll independently recycle your matter into more coffee.
I’m addicted to coffee so I understand her very much.
I was a young child in a Trekkie house when that show aired. I think that helped me think of women in authority as just a normal thing.
Hetty Lange
Captain/Admiral Kathryn Janeway
Nobody in particular stands out, but a thought I had a while back is that Game of Thrones was one of the rare pieces of modern cinema with a host of great female characters who, for the most part, actually had to put in effort to earn their status rather than just being born with it.
Ripley
