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Day One Favourite Lead Female Character
Day Two: Favorite supporting female character
Day Three: A female character you hated but grew to love
Day Four: A female character you relate to
Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show
Day Six: Favorite female-driven show
Day Seven: A female character that needs more screen time
Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show
Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show
Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show
Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show
Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship
Day Twenty-Six: Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)

Day Twenty-Seven: A female character you have extensive personal canon for

Rowan Marlow. While both the older Marlow sisters end up doing something that it's safe to say they'd never have planned while ruling the roost at Kingscote, at least Karen does it for love (or something - personally I've always assumed that she slept with Edwin, decided that nice girls don't sleep with men they aren't in love with, therefore she was in love with him and that was that) whereas Rowan does it for duty.

And in my personal canon it's a mistake, she knows it's a mistake almost from the start, and she keeps on at it from a combination of stubbornness (including a refusal to admit to her family that she's made a mistake) and the idea that it will be like deserting a post in the heat to turn her back on it now.

And while there's always been Starkadders at Cold Comfort Farm there's always been Marlows at Trennels, that's because it's entailed. In tail male, one presumes. That is, she's abandoned her own career aspirations only for her father or brother, when they've got bored with or exhausted the possibilities of their own careers to show up and say, "Move over, Rowley" (I always find it bizarre that Giles both imposes a nickname on Rowan which we've never heard before but orders a drink for her without asking her what she wants).

Oddly enough, Rowan claims not to have had much idea about a career when she decides to throw it in to run the farm (like Peter, the hero of Rivers of London she fancied being an architect, but couldn't manage the drawing side of it - Peter, on the other hand, is plainly fascinated by buildings, whereas I never get the idea that Rowan is).

She's a good rider, a very competent sailor (Giles would have much rather had her as his number two in that idiotic lark in Run Away Home) and a highly effective fast bowler, as well as being the person who should have been games captain, had all gone well.

And she's an urbanite. She is, on any basis, not farming Trennels out of any love of farming or of the land (she does like animals, but there's a certain sort of grim determination about it and she's competent because she'd always be competent at that sort of thing). Although she does tell Giles she's finding it OK, I always see that as being deflection.

So my head canon for Rowan has to be something that gets her out of the situation. She can see the dangers - when Nicola rejects (very politely) her suggestion that she become a vet (honestly, careers advice at Kingscote seems to be dire) and then adds that she realises she'd "be company for [her]" she comes out with the idea of them becoming terrible tweedy types known far and wide as the queer Miss Marlows.

What she actually needs is a war (in my headcanon which goes with the dating of immediately post-War for the twins arrival at Kingscote a very young Rowan Marlow helps Caitlin Naismith's "aunt" - then a prefect and in the Sixth - out of a window as part of the sequence of events which led to the latter going to France and becoming "la petite egorgeuse") or something else which disrupts things while she's still got a chance of getting out before she loses everything (I can't see Captain Marlow and Giles colluding to break the entail in her favour and, anyway, this still doesn't deal with the issue that she doesn't want Trennels).

If only Miranda had a brother! Rowan running the New York end of the art and antiques business would be just the kind of thing she should be doing, but I can't think of a way of getting her into it which she'd find acceptable within the constraints of the the situation and which her family would also see as reasonable. Simply deciding "That's it" and applying for a job that isn't Trennels isn't an option, so my head-canon has to involve a catalyst that gets her out of Trennels and makes her realise she can't go back.

Nicola I do see as instrumental in this - she's fended off Giles's enquiries, but Rowan has allowed Nicola to see more of her than she does Giles, and Nicola doesn't have a dog in the fight the way Giles has (Giles is not, I think, a particularly sympathetic character any of the times we see him, and particularly not in Run Away Home where he literally cannot understand why Rowan can't put the farm on hold to help him sail Surfrider).

And I do see it as somehow involving the Wests.




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Day One Favourite Lead Female Character
Day Two: Favorite supporting female character
Day Three: A female character you hated but grew to love
Day Four: A female character you relate to
Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show
Day Six: Favorite female-driven show
Day Seven: A female character that needs more screen time
Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show
Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show
Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show
Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show
Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship
Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship

Day Twenty-Six: Favorite classical female character (from pre-20th century literature or mythology or the like)

An odd use of the term "classical" here. Apart from the fact that it produces the always difficult task of choosing between Lizzie Bennet and Grendel's mother, it seems to blur "canonical" and "classical".

Oh, what the hell. I'm going to do one from mythology and one from canon.

Canon, indeed, I'm going with Austen. Anne Elliot, to be precise.

Mythology, I'm going for Maebh of Connaught, the only woman ever to hold up an advancing army because she was having a really bad period.



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Day One Favourite Lead Female Character
Day Two: Favorite supporting female character
Day Three: A female character you hated but grew to love
Day Four: A female character you relate to
Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show
Day Six: Favorite female-driven show
Day Seven: A female character that needs more screen time
Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show
Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show
Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show
Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show
Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates
Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship
Day Twenty-Four: Favorite female romantic relationship

Day Twenty-Five: Favorite mother/daughter and/or sister relationship

Ah, they weren't included in the platonic ones, after all.

Generally the mother/daughter relationships I've come across are somewhere between fraught and nonexistent. I'm with Ekaterin on the idea that the folktales where the heroine's mother dies young seems to be meant as some form of instruction, and surprisingly prevalent ones, too.

So, sisters. I note, of course, that it's the relationship one is supposed to favourite, not the individuals, and while there are possibilities galore in Austen, I would like to mention Maria Edgeworth's Patronage with Caroline and Rosamond Percy, who are a sort of Elinor and Marianne duo, but with rather more melodrama. I'm very fond of Patronage (it's the book name-checked in Cranford as having "banished wafers from polite society" and the sisters are particularly good.

But I've already discussed how much I love the sibling relationships in Ankaret Wells' Requite novels and in Firebrand. In particular, it allows for an equality in rescue scenarios which traditional damsel in distress models can't match; Kadia and Kassia rescue each other with considerable symmetry in Firebrand, and while things are sparkier and edgier in The Maker's Mask/The Hawkwood War they come over as very real sibling relationships in both cases.

So I'm going with Firebrand.







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Apologise for the slowed pace of posting recently; RL intervened. In any event, please do feel free to continue discussion on any of the earlier posts.



Day One Favourite Lead Female Character
Day Two: Favorite supporting female character
Day Three: A female character you hated but grew to love
Day Four: A female character you relate to
Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show
Day Six: Favorite female-driven show
Day Seven: A female character that needs more screen time
Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show
Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show
Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show
Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show
Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist
Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon
Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates


Day Twenty-Three: Favorite female platonic relationship

The trouble with terms like "platonic" and "virgin" is that they suggest their opposites, so that the parameters of this question seem to be framed to limit possible relationships to those which have the potential to be romantic but aren't - the female equivalent of the "bromance" or "buddy show".

Except there aren't all that many iterations of that model floating around - Scott and Bailey, as aforementioned, Black Widow - except that was a relationship between antagonists with hints of a distinct sapphic, as opposed to platonic, fascination?

And a large majority of portrayals of female relationships out there posit inherently antagonistic or, at best, wary relationships between women - if the political advice is to keep one's friends close and one's enemies closer, female literary friendships seem to be posited on the assumption that women never know when one will turn into the other (at least, one knows exactly when; it's when an eligible man appears on the scene) so female friendships have to be the closest of all. As ever, Austen has the most subtle take on this trope: while Pride and Prejudice has Caroline Bingley and Jane Bennet in the "pretended friendship" model (with Elizabeth aware of and commenting on the game in progress) but also has Elizabeth and Charlotte Lucas, which is a real friendship and even survives Charlotte's marriage to - a minor subversion of the trope - a man who had previously proposed to Elizabeth. No, they aren't love rivals, of whom one carried off the crown and the other did not, but Lady Lucas and Mrs Bennet certainly spin the story that way.

There are good portrayals of friendship ensembles - Jennifer Weiner's Good in Bed opens with the heroine's best friend giving bad news:

Samantha sighed. "Okay but remember: Don't shoot the messenger."
Now I was getting worried.
"Moxie. The new issue. Cannie, you have to go get one right now"
"Why? What's up? Am I one of the Fashion Faux Pas?"
"Just go to the lobby and get it. I'll hold."

This was important. Samantha was, in addition to being my best friend, also an associate at Lewis,Dommel and Fenick. Samantha put people on hold, or had her assistant tell them she was in a meeting. Samantha herself did not hold. "It's a sight of weakness,"she'd told me. I felt a small twinge of anxiety work its way down my spine.

There's also a good friendship with a character I'm pretty certain is a thinly disguised Kate Winslet - Good in Bed apart from being funny and romantic has what I can only describe as a nice line in what I'd call naturalistic wish-fulfilment (heroine ends up looking at the Pacific Ocean from a beach somewhere like Mailbu with an A-list Hollywood star, but unfortunately he's taken some distinctly bad Ecstasy and passes out on her, so she has to deal with the situation by taking step by step instructions from a doctor friend of hers in Philadelphia over her mobile phone).

But the female friendships are a distinctly minor note, nice but not foregrounded. As they are in Bridget Jones. And I can't cite Legally Blonde for everything.


So, tough one, this, especially if sisters are excluded. Need they be? If sisters are included it widens the field no end - for example, one of the things I really enjoy in Ankaret Wells' work is the relationships between sisters; it's a major plot driver in Firebrand and in the two Requite books, The Maker's Mask and The Hawkwood War what's fascinating is how the similarities and differences between three sisters play out, with a stronger undercurrent suggesting that if Tzenni Boccamera can once and for all break free of roles and expectations instilled in the nursery, literally nothing can stop her.

Ultimately, though, I think for the time being I'm going with Heris Serrano and Lady Cecilia de Marktos, in Elizabeth Moon's Serrano Legacy series. They're two characters who grow and develop because of their friendship, and their friendship develops with them, and the final appearance of Lady Cecilia just has me crying (and there are other female friendships galore throughout the series - Brun, in particular, has a gift for it, so when she comes up against someone where her natural charm just doesn't cut it and where we appear to be sliding back into the "natural rivals whose prey was the same: men"* mould it should signal - and in fact does - that there's something about to go radically wrong with this universe. And, guess what - when it does go radically wrong it's the strong bonds between different women - aunt/niece, big sister/little sister, mother/daughter - that get things fixed - though the aunt/nephew bond is pretty important, too).



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*Scarlett O'Hara on female friendship, quoted without the book.

Day One Favourite Lead Female Character
Day Two: Favorite supporting female character
Day Three: A female character you hated but grew to love
Day Four: A female character you relate to
Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show
Day Six: Favorite female-driven show
Day Seven: A female character that needs more screen time
Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show
Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show
Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show
Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show
Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist

Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon


Day Twenty-Two: Favorite female character you love but everyone else hates

Well, I wouldn't say "everyone" because that pings me in the same way as someone setting out an essay with great pomp as an "unpopular fannish opinion" and then it turning out to be a mildly controversial textual interpretation held by a vocal and growing minority pings me. Or, for that matter, people using the phrase "thinky thoughts" (Ugh!) or - an offender from Tor.com recently drawn to my attention did - interrupting a perfectly well-argued if slightly shallow essay with an all-caps WARNING: ACADEMIC IN THE HOUSE ( here, if you're interested).

But I'm going to interpret this as "female character about whom there is a lot of noisy animosity on-line" and there really is only one serious candidate for this, so far as I'm concerned (I grew to warm to Gwen Cooper, but I'd never say I loved her.)

Professor River Song, who gets vast quantities of on-line grief ("Moffat trying to squeeze his Mary-Sue in again" is the mildest of it, along with "all she does with her life is obsesses over the Doctor" - which is blatantly untrue, given she's obviously enjoying a high-flying academic career as well as a love-life which is plainly varied and interesting, even by 51st century standards) is the paradigm candidate for this role, for me. She's played by the wonderful Alex Kingston, the "lives lived in reverse to each other" device gives her a level of equality to the Doctor which other companions don't possess, and absolutely crucially
The Name of the Doctor (spoiler behind cut) ( Read more... )

CS Lewis said - in one of those irritating moments of profound insight which he had among the codswallop - that "“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: "What! You too? I thought I was the only one” and used mutual antipathy to the Junior Dean as an example of such a topic about which life-long bonds could form.

And the idea that the creator of River Song could actually look at that issue and understand how some viewers might feel about it and put words into her mouth to imply she thought the same way is the sort of touch that makes one love a character through all space and time (and, trust me, we've been).



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Day One Favourite Lead Female Character
Day Two: Favorite supporting female character
Day Three: A female character you hated but grew to love
Day Four: A female character you relate to
Day Five: Favorite female character on a male-driven show
Day Six: Favorite female-driven show
Day Seven: A female character that needs more screen time
Day Eight: Favorite female character in a comedy show
Day Nine: Favorite female character in a drama show
Day Ten: Favorite female character in a scifi/supernatural show
Day Eleven: Favorite female character in a children’s show
Day Twelve: Favorite female character in a movie
Day Thirteen: Favorite female character in a book
Day Fourteen: Favorite older female character
Day Fifteen: Favorite female character growth arc
Day Sixteen: Favorite mother character
Day Seventeen: Favorite warrior female character
Day Eighteen: Favorite non-warrior female character
Day Nineteen: Favorite non-human female character
Day Twenty: Favorite female antagonist


Day Twenty-One: Favorite female character screwed over by canon

Well, the appalling treatment of Donna Noble has already been discussed, and that would really be it, were it not for my distinct sense that the longer a series with a prominent female character or characters runs, so does the probability that that character or those characters will be screwed over by canon approach one. (The speed with which this happens is a function of how expensive to produce/high profile the canon in question is.)

It's partly because of people seeing male as the default, so that women exist to do something gendered, not just to do something that needs doing* which usually involves being fridged.

And I think it's partly for the reasons that Starfleet SOPs apparently, as per the latest movie, require weapons specialists to strip to their bras and knickers before turning to business; that even where the are women characters doing interesting things elsewhere in the plot, TPTB have a core audience in mind whose requirements, they believe, need to be serviced too.

So Donna is a favourite, but honestly I do get to feeling that the default condition of all female characters is being screwed over by canon, and that isn't going to change any time soon.



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*(people complaining about sexism in Sherlock don't seem to acknowledge that on this metric a lot of the "background" characters in Sherlock are female: Ella, Miss Wenceslas, the head of the school from which the children are kidnapped, Dr Stapleton, Dr Mortimer, one of the assassins, half the bombing victims, the Professor of astronomy)