Bad-ass women, competent people and moments that make me want to punch people
Top Five Badass Women In Fandom
Tricky to limit. Also, bear in mind I wasn't asked about "most beloved" or "smartest" or "most sympathetic", though sometimes there are overlaps. So, here are five examples of female badassery:
1) Ellen Ripley of Alien movies fame. (This includes also Ripley 8 from Alien: Resurrection, even though she's actually a different character, but so intensely played by Sigourney Weaver that I must include her by virtue of sharing Ripley's platonic essence in addition to much of her genetics.) Ripley didn't start out as a warrior, originally, she's basically a trucker in space; she doesn't get military training of any kind until the second movie, but as with another character on my list, the fact she never signed up for this particular heroic gig is important. Because she becomes a hero anyway, not just because she learns how to use a gun but because she keeps trying to save others. Whether "others" end up being her cat, a girl, a crew of convicts or an android. Along the way, her relationship to the alien(s) of the title becomes ever more twisted. If you find yourself menaced by something inhuman, be it an alien or a capitalist organization, try to stick close to Ripley, and you just might have a chance.
2) Sarah Connor from the first two Terminator movies and The Sarah Connor Chronicles, with more of an emphasis on the last. Like Ripley, not a warrior born or bred by any means. Sarah recreates herself out of dire necessity, manages to cope with asylums for the insane, AIs bent on killing her and raising a son, is great with talking to and empathizing with strangers she can leave behind, but not so good in allowing anyone whom she actually has to interact with on a daily basis get close. And most definitely, she is bad-ass; when captured and put into a trunk, this woman will slit her own wrists to get out of being tied up. Definitely the woman to have on your side when the apocalypse comes.
3) Thessaly (also known as Larissa) of Sandman. As opposed to the two ladies named earlier, she's not into saving others (unless the menace of the day is also a threat to her), and not a warrior. She looks deceptively small, unassuming and blends in easily. She even wears fluffy slippers on occasion. But she has lived for millennia and plans on living on for much more, with every chance of doing so, and if you piss her off in any way, your face and tongue might end up nailed against her wall. (This woman is awfully fast with a knife and one of the most dangerous witches around.) Above all, she's dedicated to survival, which is why I'd bet on Thessaly against all the other ladies on my list if it came to that; they would sacrifice their lives for others (in some cases depending on the others in question, of course), Thess would not. And she's the one most easily underestimated; that rarity, an ultimate bad-ass never prone to show off.
4) Patty Hewes, from Damages. Not quite as morally ambiguous as Thessaly, but close. More vulnerable because she does need to believe she's not just playing the game for her own benefit. The woman you want as a lawyer if you need to go after a big soulless cooporation (which reminds me, I so wish someone would write a Patty Hewes versus Wolfram & Hart crossover); also the boss from hell, so think twice before working for her. In conclusion: played by Glenn Close!
5) Agent Abigail Brand (originally from Astonishing X-Men, now also seen in other Marvel titles). A woman to have at your side if you want to save the world (but make sure to make that world is Earth, otherwise there might be conflicts of interest). Mind you, you could find yourself traded in for something, depending on when you meet her, but it would be the greater good. What makes her badass is that she's not just willing to do this to others but to herself as well; she's laid her own life on the line as often as she risks other people's. More recent bad-ass deeds include capturing a Skrull ship single-handedly, saving first Reed Richards from torture and then a lot of stranded superheroes from the Savage Land in Secret Invasion and saving the X-Men's collective butts in China in AXM. Horrible social skills, but she's multilingual and has the great taste to fancy the hell out of Hank McCoy.
Top Five Competent Characters
1) Vir Cotto, of Babylon 5 fame. Note that even in the first season when people tended to dismiss him as mere comic relief, Vir is actually a great diplomatic attaché, who takes his job more seriously than Londo does his. Comes the second season, he takes on double and triple duties in the being Londo's conscience business, and running a secret Narn rescue operation. By the time we're in the fourth season, he's also involved in a coup d'état in Centauri fashion (meaning that he and Londo are conspiring to their emperor to save their world), and by the fifth season, he's a head-of-state in training and ready to become ambassador. Vir is competent at all of this, and a sweetie to boot. We love Vir, yes we do, precious.
2) Kate Kildare, from The Order. Spin-woman extraordinaire for actors, superheroes and people who are both. A genius at getting things done. The fact she also has a Nixon doll as a toy somehow adds up. If you have a PR desaster at your hand, which in the superhero business you frequently do, Kate just might be the one person who could save you from it.
3) CJ Cregg, of The West Wing. Speaking of PR. CJ made press conferences a joy to watch, and when asked to become chief of staff, she managed to do that, too. The fact I believed this when watching despite the odds against it are due to CJ exuding an aura of competence that just squashes any doubts. She ends the show being given millions to save the world, and I have no doubt that somehow, she will. She's CJ. She's just that competent.
4) Pilot, of Farscape. Here we have a being that's in constant physical pain for years before this gets fixed, has to live with a bunch of quarrelsome and crazy passengers who early during their stay on board cut of one of his limbs, and lives in a universe where the other being he's closest to and loves most in the world is constantly shot at and pursued. But does he complain? Hardly. Instead, Pilot navigates Moya and the aforementioned crazies superbly through the stars and puts Montgomery Scott to shame when it comes to pulling off the impossible last minute escape. His competence is only rivaled by his adorability.
5) Arvin Sloane, of Alias. He's many things, but even or especially people who loathe and despise him can deny he's extremely competent. Our Mr. Sloane is so good at the spy business that he basically can get a job at every secret organisation he wants to, including the CIA (three times, twice after his stint as an evil overlord); the Alliance, the Covenant and Prophet Five all wanted him as well. He can do field missions (his impersonation of a general in s3's Breaking Point being a case in, err, point), excels at putting teams together (as the CIA admits when basically hiring all his hand-picked agents after SD-6 is ended), manages to double cross two opposing secret organizations at the same time (the Alliance and the CIA in the first half of s2), and as opposed to all the other spies on this show who yearn only for field duty really is good at and enjoys administrative work. Which he proves not just in the spy business, both evil and good, but by creating a world wide charity organization that's established as trustworthy and delivers the goods in less than two years. (As someone who is sort of involved in a charity organization: that alone is proof of competency at genius level.) And let's not forget he does the charity stuff more or less as a hobby because at the same time he's pursuing his real interests. So, yes, not a good man, my beloved Arvin S., but definitely a more than competent one.
Top Five Moments I Wanted to Punch a Fictional Character in the Face.
With the obvious disclaimer that I don't punch people in real life. Either in the face or elsewhere.
1) I could fill the entire list with Adama (that's Bill Adama of Battlestar Galactica) scenes, but one example will have to suffice. Season 3, Unfinished Business, an episode I loathe and despise for many other reasons (*cough Kara/Lee scenes OMG Hate Hate Hate*) as well: Bill Adama flashes back to the time when Tyrol told him he - Tyrol, that is - and Cally have decided to live on New Caprica instead of remaining on the Galactica. In the present, Bill, who took this as a grave personal betrayal because don't you know, EVERYTHING is about Bill Adama and no one else, decides to vent his continuing rage at Tyrol via challenging him to a fight and punching him. Then he makes what's supposed to be an inspiring speech. I saw red, even more so than about the quadrangle of doom dreariness, and that's saying something.
2) I love Londo Mollari dearly - my favourite B5 character, one of my favourite and most beloved characters of all time - but that doesn't mean I did not want to punch him a couple of times. This often, but not always came also with the impulse to hug him as well, because Londo is that kind of person. One occasion where it definitely was just the punching, and hard, was my own choice for the point where Londo hits the moral rock bottom (from this point onwards, it's a climb up, but the rock bottom comes first, and it's resounding), in And the rock cries out, no hiding place, when near the end of the episode after revealing the truth to Vir (that he actually schemed with G'kar, not against him, in order to kill Refa, and lied to Vir because he knew Refa had a telepath and would have Vir scanned) says, in reply to Vir's protest that Refa could have killed him "no, you weren't important enough to kill". it's understandably also the one point during the show where Vir is angry enough with Londo to consider giving up on him.
3) Spock, in TOS' The Enemy Within. When the Vulcan I'm otherwise quite fond of tells Janice Rand, who in the episode nearly got raped by Kirk's evil half, "the intruder had some intriguing qualities, didn't he, yeoman?" It's 60s sexism "nudge, wink, we all know women really want to be ravished by a bad boy" at its worst, writing wise, but that Doylist reasoning doesn't help me with my Watsonian urge to punch Spock.
4) Lorne, in the s2 episode Epiphany, from Angel. Most of the time, I love Lorne. But in this episode, after Angel did one of his patented morning after scenes ("get dressed and get out" to Darla) and shows up at Lorne's, we get the following comment from Lorne: "You think you're the first guy who ever rolled over, saw what was lying next to him and went 'Guyeah!' And you're not. Believe me. - It's called a moment of clarity, my lamb." Now of course I'm biased, considering I'm a Darla fan, but I think I'd hate that line even if I didn't like her. Angel at this point does have a lot to feel sorry for, and definitely needs to make amends to his friends etc., and get back on track with the saving people business, and the sex with Darla was among other things an attempt at self annihilation on his part, I get that. But within the story, Lorne's choice of phrase - "WHAT", not "who" was lying next to him, etc. - just makes me see red. Let me tell you, when Darla came back in s3, I didn't feel sorry at all for Lorne's club getting blown up in the process. (By Holtz, not Darla, but it was because Darla was in there at the time, so there.) He had it coming.
5) Noah Bennet, a lot of the time during s2 of Heroes, which turned me into a chanter of "Noah had it coming" at a certain episode near the end. I can't pinpoint a moment exactly, when this happened, but I do remember going back to rewatch some s1 episodes for some fanfiction afterwards, and then HRG telling Claire re: her mother's memory losses in the episode before Company Man that this was for her mother's good and was preserving Sandra's "innocence", which the first time around had creeped me out already, now made me want to punch him into a pulp. (This was before s3 made me lose all emotional connection to all the characters and made me quit watching, mind. The anger at Noah came at a time when I still cared.)