Embobly's List of Super-Hot Badass Women of Sci-fi/Fantasy!
In the spirit of all of the old Livejournal lists and burnbooks I used to make (yes, I used to be on LJ, no, I was not a furry) this list will be in no particular order, and will include pretty pictures of pretty ladies. My criteria were pretty simple, the women have to be super stunningly badass (no Damsels in Distress), and they had to be stunningly hot. I realize that this could be seen as slightly misogynistic, but I wanted to show that women could be pretty AND kick-ass. It seems like in most fantasy you get to be the beautiful but helpless princess(Sansa Stark, Princess Peach), or the ugly but kick-ass warrior lady(Brienne of Tarth, Ellie from Borderlands). I'm not judging the homely warrior ladies, I just chose to make a list of beauty AND strength. Also, I tried to keep my list open to movies, tv, comics, books, and video games, so if I can't find a picture of someone from a book series, I apologize now. Also this should go without saying, but SPOILERS abound! Without further ado, and again, in no order other than the order I might have thought of them, my list.
1. Zoe Washburne (Firefly/Serenity)
Zoe was BY FAR the first woman I thought of when compiling this list. I honestly think Gina Torres is one of the hottest women ever. And Zoe kicks so much ass it's not even funny. She keeps up this "yes captain" attitude, but saves his ass on the regular. Mal seems to be way more of the tortured soul, and she is the warrior at his back. Even when times get tough for her, she keeps on fighting, either because she knows it's right, or because fighting is all she has ever known. I would NOT want to get on her bad side. When I was compiling this list, I asked a few people for advice, and River Tam was one of the people that everybody wanted to say. And while I agree that she is all kinds of gorgeous and kick-ass, she had a bit of the Damsel issue. She was brilliant, but crazy, and needed Simon to save and protect her. Zoe didn't need anyone to protect her, and since I tried to only chose one lady from each series, I went with the one that was a bit fiercer, the big damn hero.
2. Number 6 (Battlestar Gallactica reboot)
Oh Tricia Helfer. The whole reason I started making this list in the first place. So fucking stunning, and will make your ass bite the curb. Honestly, once again the obvious answer I kept getting from other people was Kara "Starbuck" Thrace, and I will admit that she is a cigar-smoking, foul-mouthed, prodigy pilot BAMF. But I could never understand men's fascination with Starbuck, especially when this angelic hotness was standing RIGHT THERE. Yeah, I know she's a bad guy, but I love that. She doesn't think of herself as a bad guy, she's doing the right thing by her people and by her god, and she's beating the shit out of everyone in the most graceful way to do it. Plus that scene where she pushes Gaius Baltar down to save him from the explosion is etched into my memories forever; it was haunting and surreal and strangely erotic. So say we all.
3. Commander Beverly Crusher, M.D. (Star Trek TNG)
I know, I know. I have a sick fascination with redheads. It has been well-documented. But I feel like I shouldn't need to justify this one. She's a smoking hot ginger that saves the crew all the time, and never just sits around and whines about how she feels like Troi. Plus she had to deal with the most obnoxious Mary Sue in the history of the trope, Wesley, and does so without ringing his irritating little neck. And if you are still unsure of this choice, watch the episode "Sub Rosa" in which darling Bibberly (as I lovingly call her) has a torrid affair with an alien being and is torn between ecstatic sex and Star Fleet. It's an amazing episode, and she fucking sizzles.
4. Rose Tyler (Doctor Who reboot)
I know that this picture isn't from the show, but SRSLY? How could I resist this shit? Ok, this is the entry where I know I'm going to get the most flack. My own mother yelled at me that Amelia Pond was a much better fit, and that Rose had a tendency to run off on her own and need saving, thus invoking the Damsel qualification. This may be true. However, and you know I mean this if I am picking her over the redhead, I LOVE Rose. I love her character with all my little blackened super-villain heart. She is so ungodly strong. She might initially have a tendency to run around, but all the companions do to some extent. Rose never had a second thought about running away with the Doctor; she wanted adventure. She saved his ass just as often as he saved her. And for god's sake, Bad Wolf??? She took the entirety of the space-time continuum inside herself, and she mother-fucking divides you. Sorry Ponds, Rose was my first love of the reboot, and her humor and grace is lovely and flawless.
5. Faye Valentine (Cowboy Bebop)
Yeah girl, it's anime time. If you didn't think I was nerd before (and honestly, Beverly Crusher should have done it), then I am throwing all my nerd cards on the table. I watched a LOT of anime back in the hey-day, and by that I mean when I was in high-school and my older brother was in an anime club in college. So this will not be the last ubernerdy anime lady in this list. I warned you. On to Faye. So hot that when you Google her name you have to turn SafeSearch on. So hot that half of the pictures you find are of cosplay, because men and women alike understand just how amazingly hot this little lady is. And dangerous. She's a manipulator, and a gambler and a thief and a bounty hunter. She is a survivor, above all things, and she doesn't give a shit who she steps on to get there.
6. Daenerys Stormborn Targaryen (A Song of Ice and Fire)
Oh man. I have a male friend who is, in all honesty, a complete misogynist asshole. I couldn't really tell you why we're still friends, other than my affinity for the assholes of the world. Anyway, he abhors Dany here, and my only explanation of why is that she's the epitome of the strong female character. Her face is angelic, her body is banging (if you forget that in the books she's 14), and she quite literally SET HERSELF ON FIRE to prove what a badass she is. She shows no fear, she is a dragon in blood and at heart. And as soon as next weeks episode (hopefully) airs, the world that hasn't read the books will see what a cunning brilliant leader she can be. And seriously, I'm tempted to post a picture of her butt because HOLY GOD.
7. Adelle DeWitt (Dollhouse)
She is very British, doesn't say hard R's. I know Echo was maybe the obvious choice here, since my Whedon obsession demanded I chose someone from the show. But I would much rather have chosen a morally ambiguous badass than a... doll. I know Echo becomes a kickass lady, but in the beginning she is basically a sci-fi hooker, and Adelle is a crafty bitch from day one. I mean, essentially a sci-fi madame, but... a crafty bitch none the less. She cries when she is alone, and then puts on her big girl pencil skirt and sends people to the attic with a cold sort of toughness that is only available I think to the British. She takes her liquor straight, if not a bit too often at times when she's concerned about causing the end of the world, and she doesn't even flinch when she gets fucking shot. She's astounding, and an amazing example of the kind of real life feminism that Whedon can put into extraordinary fantasy.
8. Delia Nandana Osgood (String Theory comic)
Yeah, I took this opportunity to plug a friend's comic. I can't help it! It's a really good comic! Delia is a hot, brilliant scientist, who can keep up with the most brilliant minds, and occasionally surpass them. I would say more, but oh man, so many possible spoilers. Go read it. I am the used car salesman of web comics! Sunday Sunday Sunday!
9. Natasha "Black Widow" Romanoff (Avengers)
Butt butt butt. And I swear, I'm more of a boob lady, but this woman makes me want to change my mind. I'll freely admit that I'm flying a little blind here, as I've never read the comics, but I did adore her in the movie. I know, I'm being a terrible nerd right now. I am however being an EXCELLENT Whedon fan. This little lady was a total badass, and in a movie full of total badasses completely stole the show. She is such a badass that she uses the image most people have of the sweet sensitive woman to manipulate the fuck out of some bad guys. She's a true hero, for sure. Also that BUTT.
10. Pamela Swynford De Beaufort (True Blood)
Dear sweet deadly Pam. HBO really changed her up quite a bit from her character in the books, from a sweet tracksuit wearing soccer mom looking vampire to this hot lady babe. Now granted, she always wore the gothic stereotypical vampire outfits when she was at work at Fangtasia, but the show makes it seem like this is what she wears all the time. I would be more upset about this change if she didn't make that gothy plastic corset look so damn good. She adores her maker, but she has no problem killing her own enemies, and looking damn chic while she does it. Cold, calculating, dry Pam. She completely steals every scene she's in, and makes me giggle and clap my little hands with delight.
11. Willow Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, show)
Another redhead. Hey, at least I'll admit to my obsession, both with gingers and with Joss Whedon. Willow starts off as a nerdy shy quiet girl with a crush on her best friend, and turns into the most powerful witch in the world. And sure, she loses control of her power and goes a little darkside for awhile, but this lady was saving the world with her brain before she even had any powers. She truly shows how strong a smart lady can be, and how sexy. This transition from good to evil leads me into my next lady, and I swear, the last of the Whedonites.
12. Cordelia Chase (BtVS/Angel)
A lovely lady with the exact opposite progression. She started off as a hateful popular snide bitch. She had money and boys and hate. Then she gradually lost everything, her money, her friends, her sense of a normal world without demons, and gained some visions and a soul. Not that she didn't have a soul before, BtVS and Angel both had very strange takes on what a soul was and wasn't, she just didn't understand what it was to be a good person perhaps. Then she threw it all in, cut her hair off, and joined the good fight. Cordy became the entire heart of the operation, and wasn't too shabby with a sword either. Watching her grow as a character from someone only there to make mean offhand comments to a person you grew to love was wonderful, and gave you a sense that even the most evil of all ladies can become beautiful.
13. Mad Moxxi (Borderlands 1 & 2)
Toughest bitch on Pandora, any of her ex-husbands would tell you that, if they were alive. Moxxi runs the Underdome arena (and a bar in the second game), and is just as quick with her pistol Rubi as she is with a sexy innuendo. It would be a grave mistake to take this woman for granted as just another pretty face in a skimpy outfit with a killer rack. Am I making too many "she will fucking kill you" puns? Also has some grown homicidal-tended children, which just makes that body all the more impressive.
14. Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan (Star Wars)
Ah the infamous gold bikini, the outfit in a thousand spank banks. What we forget however is the proficiency this princess has with a blaster pistol (in a universe where no one can apparently hit what they're aiming at) and her ability to charm the shit out of some adorable teddy bear aliens. Also, she fucking kills Jabba herself, and is able to use the force. I mean come on, girl, you are your own hope. A New Hope. ( I am so sorry you guys.)
15. Jean "Dark Phoenix" Grey (X-Men)
I never read a lot of comics, to be honest. I've read a smattering of Batman and X-men, and the entire anthology of Strangers in Paradise. Err, and some of the Whedon comics because I'm really grossly obsessive. So I'm again strictly going off of the movies, and yes, I know how much of a terrible nerd this makes me. I'm working on it. Anyhow, I ended up using the comic picture instead of a movie still because this just looked hardcore more awesome. She's evil, amazingly hot, and more powerful than anyone ever. I don't think I really need to say much more.
16. Ifurita (El Hazard)
Another anime babe. Hard to find a picture of her that isn't just a big ol' close up of her nethers. I watched El Hazard when I was like, 14 maybe, and I have never forgot her. In fact, I stole this picture from a previous list I made on my LJ, Embobly's List of Cartoon/Video Game People That Are Hot and Stuff. It was six years ago, I wasn't nearly as good with those wordy things as I am now. That list included Vivian from Paper Mario, and I sure do wish I could add her to this list without making it totally strange and non-human and a little hung up on Mario. Oh Vivian... Right, Ifurita! This here lady is a demon-god with enough power to destroy the entire world, and instead of being used as a weapon by the bad guys, she learns to love in the most heart-breaking way possible. Also her theme song is haunting and gorgeous. If you decide to watch this show, which is a WHOLE LOT of fan service, Ifurita will definitely stick out as its saving grace.
17. Surreal SaDiablo (The Black Jewel trilogy)
This is a terrible picture! I really hate when books insist on having a picture of the characters on the cover. Especially when they don't mesh up with the image you have in your head. Aw well, at least this series hasn't been made into movies yet, so I don't have to be subjected to books with movie stills on the cover. That's one of my biggest pet peeves. Anyway, this book series is probably my favorite series of books ever ever ever. It is beautiful and dark and sexy and impowering and magical. It's pretty glorious. In fact, I loved these books so much that I adopted the name SaDiablo for my pen-name, which I use on occasion. I wanted to put the main character Jaenelle in this list, but the more I thought about it, she doesn't really fit. Jaenelle is more powerful than anyone in the history of the Three Realms ever, but she's a mere child in the first book. And she's so powerful that she can't really even control all that power, so she needs a lot of saving. True, she decimates her rapists in a spectacularly fitting way, but still. Surreal here on the other hand is a complete and utter badass. She's a prostitute, which she uses as a cover for her real job, assassinating evil dudes. She hides her true power by wearing a jewel that is much lower than her true level, and is completely proficient in both the bedroom and with a dagger. In fact, this lady is such a badass, she adopts the surname of SaDiablo after her mother's rapist, which just so happens to be the surname of Saetan himself. Her and her pointy ears make this list easy.
18. Susannah Odetta Holmes Dean (The Dark Tower series)
Due to once again being a book character, I got this image from this here French website. I don't read French, so I have no idea what it says, but I felt I needed to at least acknowledge my sources. Susannah is a split personality lady with the skills of a gunslinger, is adept at throwing plates in a deadly fashion, and is a smoking hot sex-pot. She also just so happens to be in a wheelchair. This should make her an obvious choice for this list already. Then you realize that she came to this world from a completely different one, and learned to adapt, fall in love, merge her personalities, and kick some serious ass in a very short amount of time. In a wheelchair. She is fucking amazing.
19. Virginia "Pepper" Potts (Iron Man 1, 2, 3/Avengers)
So, as I've said, I never read a lot of comics other than strange girly comics about a lesbian assassin, so this is all going off of the movie franchise. When Pepper was first suggested to me, I grimaced and said, "A secretary?" That was dumb of me. First of all, after having been a secretary for a long time before going back to school, I should know better than to think that a secretary is anything less than a badass. Secondly, Pepper is way more than a mere office savant. She's quick-witted, kind, caring without being needy, and eventually not only becomes CEO of Stark Industries but gets her own Iron (Lady?) suit. Not like Margaret Thatcher. You know what I mean. She's a soft sweet lady that can hold her own. Also Gweneth is ungodly hot.
20. Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games trilogy)
Fret not, my tiny following. This list would be incomplete without Katniss, and everybody knows it. Girl can shoot arrows for god's sake. Have you ever tried to use a bow? It's really hard! Jennifer Lawrence was perfectly cast, she's stunningly beautiful, but while still having that quality where it's believable that she doesn't see how pretty she really is. Like, all those movies where Rebecca Romijn or some such actress doesn't know she's beautiful until someone washes her hair and gets her some contacts and the whole time it's so utterly unbelievable? Although, according to a recent study, apparently only 4% of women called themselves beautiful, so maybe it's really true? Tangent, sorry. Katniss kicks a lot of ass, and leads a fucking revolution, all while having some mad braiding skills.
21. Sarah Manning (Orphan Black)
This show has only aired three episodes so far, but I am already in love with this new BBC America sci-fi genius. Sarah here is a messed up loser who ran out on her daughter and hooked up with a drug dealer. Then she sees a woman who looks just like her kill herself, and decides to take her identity to escape from her shitty life. This would be the plot of a bad sitcom, and I think it WAS the plot of the CW show Ringer, if not for the fact that she is a clone, as was the woman who jumped in front of a train, and then 3 other women she meets who share the same face. Brilliant concept. I would have written off Sarah here, if it weren't so god-awful obvious how utterly brilliant she is. To take over this dead lady's life, she learns how to do an American accent. In one evening. When the dead lady turns out to be a cop, she learns the details of the case she was working by heart, in a few hours. She learns how to shoot a gun, flawlessly. She does a DAMN GOOD German accent to impersonate another clone. And her ability to manipulate those around her into giving her the information she needs while keeping her cover in tact is astounding. She might be a fuck-up, but it's obvious she loves her daughter, and that she's way more intelligent than anyone has ever given her credit for. Plus she can pull off a wide array of looks and look amazing in all of them.
22. Claire "Lightning" Farron (Final Fantasy XIII, XIII-2)
Lightning wasn't necessarily my favorite character in the game, nor was this my favorite game in the franchise. But she fits the bill for this list. If you can ignore the fact that she basically has a mullet for a minute, she's a lovely pink-haired lady. She fights with a gun that is also a sword. How cool is that? She can summon Odin in FFXIII, which was my favorite summon in that game by far. She is a little dark and twisty, but she's had a hard life and feels like she has let a lot of people down. And for this, she fights hard to save the entire world, and ends up sacrificing her own life to do so. Without a love interest at all. This fact alone should make her a more powerful female icon than most women in video games. Despite that god-damned mullet.
23. Leeloominaï "Leeloo" Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat (The Fifth Element)
So, this one combines my love of redheads with my love for Milla Jovovich, which has been long-standing. My LJ icon was a picture of Milla. Leeloo here is the perfect being. The PERFECT BEING. She's gorgeous, she's a tough-ass fighter, she can learn at an astronomical rate. She is the physical manifestation of love, the supreme being. She cries at war, she protects her man, she eats more than anybody. Like I said, perfect.
24. Tricia "Trillian" Marie McMillan (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series)
I remember reading these books at a stupid young age, again due to my older brother's insistence. I'm not complaining, most of my nerdiness comes from things my brother made me do: Final Fantasy, Hero Quest, LotR, anime, Buffy, and Hitchhiker's Guide. I remember lugging that giant omnibus of all 5 books (and the short story) to my 5th grade class, and reading it when we were supposed to be talking about the Gettysburg address. Which might explain why I'm so bad at History, but that's another long tangent for another day. Zooey Deschanel here is another amazing casting choice. She represents the adorable nature of Trillian while still managing to seem like the brilliant astrophysicist she is. The rest of the movie had its issues, but she was fabulous. Sure Trillian ran away with the hot two headed guy at a party, but it was soon obvious as she saved him and Arthur repeatedly that she was better than both of them in almost every way. And completely adorable, did I mention that already?
25. Sheik (The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Smash Bros.)
This is my final person on the list, and I wish I could do more, but 25 is like, the longest list I think I've ever made. Other than Embobly's Top 100 Movies That Everyone Must See, which I made in response to hating the list that AFI came out with. I mean, does anyone really REALLY need to see Ben Hur? No. Sheik here is really Princess Zelda in drag. Spoilers, right? Sheik is probably one of my favorites because she flies in the face of the Damsel in Distress mythos. She is no Princess Peach, she'll put on some ninja clothes and save her own ass from Ganondorf. Mayhaps she doesn't fit in so well in this list because she's not your typical "hot", but I think the ninja look is pretty smoking. And honestly, the fact that she's only been in one of the Legend of Zelda games but continues to be a fan favorite says a lot about her appeal.
Ok kids. This list has taken me way too long to make, and I know that it is incomplete. I couldn't put down every single badass babe from every single series, mostly because I haven't seen/read/played them all, but also because then it wouldn't be a fun list, it would just be an article on TVTropes. And no one wants that. However, if you feel like I have made an egregious error in omitting someone, leave a comment and yell at me and call me a dumb slut. I'll try my damnedest to respond and let you know my reasoning for not listing them, although it's possible that reasoning will just be that I forgot. I am far from the perfect future super-villain. Speaking of which, if this list goes over well, I'll start working on a list of my favorite villains. Which ought to be fun. Anyway, that's it for now, rant at me in the comments below and let me know how much I should have picked Amy Pond instead.
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