History Main / FauxActionGirl

** Geeta in ''Videogame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'' is hyped up as the strongest trainer in the region, with Nemona in particular insisting she's absolutely amazing. However, her team includes ComMons, her ace is sent last when it should be first[[note]]Its ability causes it to set toxic spikes when hit[[/note]], and her Kingambit is sent out early rather than last[[note]]Its ability increases its damage the more allies have fainted[[/note]]. Overall, she's one of the ''easiest'' champion battles in the franchise. She seems to be aware of it as well as she remarks that Nemona beat her easily without going all out.

* ''Anime/FinalFantasyUnlimited''. Lisa is supposed to be a martial artist and a magic user, but most fights have her using a totally ineffective attack, then cowering with the children she's "protecting" until [[OncePerEpisode Kaze shows up]] and [[DeusExMachina saves everyone with one summon]].

* Mars and Jupiter are examples in ''Videogame/PokemonDiamondAndPearl/Platinum''. Although they were "Commanders" in Team Galactic, they don't get the chance to build their teams beyond two stock Pokemon and a "tank" (Purugly for Mars, Skuntank for Jupiter), meaning they don't advance that much beyond standard leveling up. However, Jupiter does manage to have an offscreen victory against TheRival, Barry. When they team together at Spear Pillar, they are unfortunately facing off against you and Barry, who took training a little too seriously during the adventure and is ready for Round 2. In fact, once you defeat them in Stark Mountain in Platinum, they decide to finally [[HeelFaceTurn give up the profession and go back to regular lives]].

** Harley Quinn is show to be the Joker’s right hand woman reportedly skilled in acrobatics and combat and, when she takes leadership after the Joker’s death, widely shown to be feared by her goons. However, aside from beating up some guards and Nightwing in VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight during her story campaign, she never really backs up her reputation and is easily dispatched by Batman whenever he faces against her and loses to fellow FauxActionGirl Talia al Ghul offscreen.

* ''Manga/PokemonReburst'': Eight volumes worth of material, and Miruto never actually let her Pokémon out of its Pokéball and has never actually participated in a battle, allowing the male lead all the action even if he really could've used the help. This despite the fact she is supposedly part of an organization meant for investigating crimes. It gets really kind of ridiculous when she and her group have to take on someone in an area where Burst is neutralized...and she ''still'' doesn't take her perfectly working Pokeball out.

*** Downplayed with Aoi Zaizen/Blue Angel. She’s introduced as a highly skilled player and part of the show's initial PowerTrio. However, though she does manage a win here or there, particularly a personal victory against Baira in the series, she also has a consistent habit of facing off against major characters, falling victim to TheWorfEffect in a crushing defeat, and then falling out of the story for the duration of the arc. This becomes particularly painful when she goes through a lengthy arc to improve her skills, revamp her look and deck twice as Blue Girl and then as Blue Maiden, and finally gets in another victory after waiting half the series...and then [[YankTheDogsChain gets handily defeated]] by the current ArcVillain a few episodes later.

** Alanna in "Mystery in Space!" The men (Characters/{{Batman|TheCharacter}}, ComicBook/{{Aquaman}} and her husband Comicbook/AdamStrange) get in trouble early in the episode, but get out of it without her help. Nevertheless, she insists on coming along on their next mission since they obviously can't stay out of trouble without her...and she gets kidnapped by the villain and needs them to save her.

* Marcille from ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'' starts out this way for the first few chapters but thankfully gets better fairly quickly. Being the only female in the group she was also pretty damn useless, getting captured by monsters and needing rescue from her male allies (all of whom were barely above BadassNormal while she was a fully qualified mage) and doing little else but complaining about the food. However, she very quickly [[TookALevelInBadass sheds this]] and becomes TheSmartGuy around the time she starts showing off what she can [[GlassCannon really do with her magic]].

** Talia al Ghul is told to be a highly skilled ninja warrior with an extremely high intelligence who poses as a serious threat to all those who face her. However, in the game she never displays any of these skills [[spoiler:and [[DamselInDistress is captured by the Joker, forcing Batman to rescue her.]] While she does escape from the Joker and stab him, it turned out that this was a trick to let her guard down so he could shoot her in the back while the person she really "killed" was Clayface helping the clown prince of crime. Though it's implied she did beat up Harley Quinn by herself, this all still happened offscreen and Quinn was already an AdaptationalWimp]].

* Talia al Ghul from ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' is told to be a highly skilled ninja warrior with an extremely high intelligence who poses as a serious threat to all those who face her. However, in the game she never displays any of these skills [[spoiler:and [[DamselInDistress is captured by the Joker, forcing Batman to rescue her.]] While she does escape from the Joker and stab him, it turned out that this was a trick to let her guard down so he could shoot her in the back while the person she really "killed" was Clayface helping the clown prince of crime. Though it's implied she did beat up Harley Quinn by herself, this all still happened offscreen and Quinn was already an AdaptationalWimp]].

* ''Film/VanHelsing'': Anna Valerious is sometimes attacked for this, but more context is required. She's in danger so much because she's literally the only target from Dracula and his brides, and the first time they attack in the movie is said to be unusual, since they've never attacked in daylight before, and she outright says she was unprepared. She does pull off several heroics, even if her only actual kills are one of the {{Depraved Dwarf}}s and Dracula's last surviving bride. Most of the times she needs saving, Van Helsing does also, and the one time she gets captured is semi-justified - she's just had to watch her brother die and [[spoiler: discovers that Van Helsing has been bitten by a werewolf]], so she lets her guard down for a moment.

* ''Film/RobinHoodPrinceOfThieves'' It's a bit {{downplayed}} but Maid Marian is presented as a stoic and capable fighter that can put up a good fight against ''Robin Hood himself'' and nearly kills one of his men... cut to her being completely defenseless against the Sheriff's [[AttemptedRape Attempted Rape]] at the movie's climax.

* ''Manga/ChainsawMan'': Fumiko Mifune's first appearance has her come off as a [[{{Yandere}} dangerous, horny, and outright unhinged woman]]... only to then repeatedly show that she's an otherwise average Public Safety member who is ''completely'' in over her head working as Denji's bodyguard. [[spoiler:She's (understandably) unable to do anything against Barem's Chainsaw Man devils and needs to be bailed out by Quanxi. Then after Denji gets attacked by a paranoid Public Safety member, Quanxi needs to bail her out again while she, Denji, and Nayuta run away. Then after trying to stop Denji and Nayuta from returning to their apartment,[[note]]To Fumiko's credit, she turns out to be entirely correct here[[/note]] she gets attacked by an old lady mind-controlled by Nayuta and needs to be saved by Denji. Then after grabbing a squad of Public Safety members she opens fire on Barem, only to be blindsided by the Whip hybrid and taken hostage]]. Girl just can't get a win.

* ''Manga/ChainsawMan'': Fumiko Mifune's first appearance has her come off as [[{{Yandere}} dangerous, horny, and outright unhinged woman]]... only to then repeatedly show that she's an otherwise average Public Safety member who is ''completely'' in over her head working as Denji's bodyguard. [[spoiler:She's (understandably) unable to do anything against Barem's Chainsaw Man devils and needs to be bailed out by Quanxi. Then after Denji gets attacked by a paranoid Public Safety member, Quanxi needs to bail her out again while she, Denji, and Nayuta run away. Then after trying to stop Denji and Nayuta from returning to their apartment,[[note]]To Fumiko's credit, she turns out to be entirely correct here[[/note]] she gets attacked by an old lady mind-controlled by Nayuta and needs to be saved by Denji. Then after grabbing a squad of Public Safety members she opens fire on Barem, only to be blindsided by the Whip hybrid and taken hostage]]. Girl just can't get a win.

* ''Film/RobinHoodPrinceOfThieves'' It's a bit {{downplayed}} but Maid Marian is presented as a stoic and capable fighter that can put up a good fight against "Robin Hood himself" and nearly kills one of his men... cut to her being completely defenseless against the Sheriff's [[AttemptedRape Attempted Rape]] at the movie's climax.

The characterization usually involves a form of InformedAbility: Most of these girls have big reputations and great ''past'' exploits. More or less the DistaffCounterpart to MilesGloriosus and FakeUltimateHero. If the only one who lauds her "reputation" is the girl ''herself'', then it's a case of either SmallNameBigEgo or KnowNothingKnowItAll.

If much of the show's screentime is dedicated to showing the girl in question training and practicing only to lose when it counts, that's not this trope. That's HardWorkHardlyWorks, and it can hit anyone (even TheHero in some stories).

Note for videogames: GameplayAndStorySegregation can cause some characters to ''look'' like this. With female foes and bosses, once the player knows what to do, the boss can become little more than an enemy with greater health, and so easily defeated that they don't seem to be a threat. However, they are still capable of defeating the player's character if they get careless. Therefore, any examples of this trope in videogames have to be in the storyline, not in the actual gameplay.

* In ''VideoGame/SkareOrDie 2'', CJ is described as a tough girl who can skate you into the ground, but in the story she hits Icepick with one paint ball and is immediately chased and captured while crying for help.

* Reiko Hinomoto from ''VideoGame/RumbleRoses'' is said to be a competent wrestler who while her own ability and reputation doesn't match her mother's she is considered to be rather good in universe. In story modes she is usually the damsel in other people's story and even in her own story made she has to be saved by her own big sister a number of times.

* Sonja in ''Film/UnderworldRiseOfTheLycans'' is the leader of the elite vampire "death dealers," but unlike Creator/KateBeckinsale's Selene, she's almost completely helpless through the entire film. She's ''introduced'' while fleeing from werewolves, forcing her werewolf lover Lucian to save her. Later, he has to save her again from being overrun by werewolves. Later still, Viktor imprisons her and uses her as bait to catch Lucian. After Lucian busts her out, she actually manages to best Viktor in a swordfight, but he immediately uses her StandardFemaleGrabArea to trap her in a classic hostage pose, forcing Lucian to surrender to save her. After all that, [[spoiler:she gets executed, while Lucian breaks free and successfully slaughters the castle]].

* Elven ranger Shulana of Mark Acres' ''Land Between the Rivers Chronicles'', who for no explained reason can only kick ass when boytoy thief Bagsby tells her it's okay to go all out, otherwise she'll get trounced by mooks left and right. Really, she's actually more useless than ROLW Deedlit as she HAS shown exceptional skill, it's just that for no reason that ever comes up, she must remain a Faux Action Girl until Bagsby gives the word to whoop ass. Traumatic accidental death maybe? Due to this weird and unexplained character dynamic, the rotund middle-aged farmer woman, Marta, winds up kicking about twice as much ass despite the fact she was never trained for such combat and doesn't know any magic. Welp, someone has to be the DamselInDistress so it may as well be the pretty one.

* Vi Sovari, the only female wetboy in Brent Weeks' ''Night Angel Trilogy''. When first introduced, she is touted as the most promising apprentice wetboy in the city - a clear equal (if not superior) to protagonist Kylar Stern. However, for most of the series, all we see of Vi is her getting her ass kicked by fat mage women, falling to pieces over her own emotional baggage, and pining over Kylar. Not that there's anything wrong with a strong female character having emotion - it would just work better if the supposed badass actually measured up to her reputation. Contrast with Kariss Whiteoak in Weeks' other series, ''Lightbringer'': a female character with a healthy balance of strength and emotion, whose reputation as a BAMF is well-deserved and appropriately demonstrated.

* Jaheira in the ''Literature/BaldursGate'' novelizations, to a painful extent. Gee, Mister [[DesignatedHero Abdel]] [[JerkSue Adrian]], you think you caught a glimpse of her softer, more feminine side under [[InformedAbility "her usual tough warrior exterior"]]? If a fighter/druid can't deal with a spider getting inside her shirt any other way than by having you tear her top off (forced by the circumstances and by no means intentionally, as her husband just [[DieForOurShip died]] a while ago, after all), then you can be pretty confident something is wrong.

** Ava from ''[[VideoGame/TheWalkingDeadSeasonThree A New Frontier]]'' as well. She's first introduced as this tough, hardened survivor who can knock down guys twice her size in a single punch, but when it comes to actual fighting, she's very useless. She never helps in a combat scenario, gets captured, and mostly lucks out by staying away from danger. Even [[spoiler: her death scene is an embarrassing way to go out since she gets killed by ''one'' zombie jumping her and falls off a bridge in a panic while most other characters go down fighting ''multiple'' walkers or at least put up a more determined fight]].

* ''Film/VanHelsing'': Anna Valerious plays this trope straight for most of the film. She gets in about a dozen fights over the run of the film and wins, at most, two of them (one of which was against a DepravedDwarf). Ironically, despite the stated intent of the filmmakers to subvert the fainting DamselInDistress scream-queen in horror, Anna ends up basically being exactly that by the end of the film. At least [[DesignatedGirlFight she does get even]] with the film's DarkActionGirl...

** Wrestling/LunaVachon also suffered from this in her feud with, you guessed it, Sable. They were set to compete in a mixed tag match at ''Wrestling/WrestleMania XIV'' and in their training for it, Sable refused to learn how to bump and Luna was warned that she would be fired if she damaged or hurt Sable in any way at all in the match. So in the match, Luna had to rely on her partner Wrestling/{{Goldust}} to do all the work while she acted as Sable's punching bag.

* Wrestling/{{Maryse}} is a rare villain case. After her return, she was immediately pushed in a Divas' title feud and the announcers constantly talked up how menacing and aggressive she was. Her matches told a different story--she would literally have her opponents beat the crap out of her for 90% of the match while the only offence she would get in would be a few slaps and maybe a backbreaker. If she was winning the match then she'd use her finisher. It was pretty hard to take Maryse seriously as a top heel when she only used one move and was never shown actually kicking any ass like the announcers claimed she was. It's telling that when Wrestling/JohnCena gave her TheReasonYouSuckSpeech in 2016, he said "you didn't do jack" the first time she was in the company (forgetting she was a two-time Divas' Champion).
* Wrestling/AshleyMassaro, the 2005 Diva Search winner. She revealed years later that she had never been trained properly, only on a per-match basis. Yet she still received two Women's Championship matches and competed at two ''[=WrestleMania=]'' events - both of which were based around her being the cover girl of Magazine/{{Playboy}} rather than legitimate athletic talent.

* [[Characters/BatmanTaliaAlGhul Talia Al-Ghul]] from ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' is told to be a highly skilled ninja warrior with an extremely high intelligence who poses as a serious threat to all those who face her. However, in the game she never displays any of these skills [[spoiler: and [[DamselInDistress is captured by the Joker, forcing Batman to rescue her.]] While she does escape from the Joker and stab him, it turned out that this was a trick to let her guard down so he could shoot her in the back while the person she really "killed" was [[MadeOfIron Clayface]] helping the clown prince of crime. Though it's implied she did beat up Harley Quinn by herself, this all still happened offscreen and Quinn was already an AdaptationalWimp]].

* PlayedStraight and later {{inverted}} for Amy from ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog''. She was [[InformedAbility supposed to be]] an ActionGirl pre-Adventure. You wouldn't know this though due to her being kidnapped the only times you see her in ''[[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD Sonic CD]]'' and her only real action appearance was in ''VideoGame/SonicTheFighters''. But once ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' came, she began to fulfill her ActionGirl status, and even more so in games like ''VideoGame/SonicAdvance'', ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', and ''VideoGame/SonicChronicles''.

** Rose was initially portrayed as the "key" to defeat the BigBad M. Bison, but she has repeatedly had her butt handed to her by Bison, and even had to be saved from an evil BridalCarry by Guy before she was taken away.

* Asuka Kazama from ''Franchise/{{Tekken}}''. Despite being said to be a good fighter who mediates fights in Osaka and also can stand up to her physically stronger and demon powered relatives, in a Pachinko FMV she was shown to be scared of and no match in a fight to Devil Kazuya, who preceded to easily NeckLift her and drop her off a high building. If it wasn't for Jin, she would presumably have died. In the actual ''Tekken'' games themselves she isn't much better: she isn't shown to be needing male characters to save her, but after initially being the one who stopped Devil Jin in ''Tekken 5's'' canon ending, her plot relevance was swept aside and she was reduced to being the target of a one-sided rivalry from Lili that tends to see Asuka get humiliated repeatedly.
* Paige from ''Videogame/TheWalkingDead'' ''Michonne'' may count as this too. She's presented as a FriendlySniper whose got Michonne's back covered, but she almost gets killed in a fistfight with [[TheDragon Randall]] and when you actually encounter [[BigBad Norma]] and her goons, she completely fails to shoot any of them dead ultimately forcing you to kill most of the attackers. Though when first meeting Michonne, Paige states she's not a very good shot, even going so far as to joke that [[spoiler:it's the reason she hasn't committed suicide]].
** Ava from ''A New Frontier'' as well. She's first introduced as this tough, hardened survivor who can knock down guys twice her size in a single punch, but when it comes to actual fighting, she's very useless. She never helps in a combat scenario, gets captured, and mostly lucks out by staying away from danger. Even [[spoiler: her death scene is an embarrassing way to go out since she gets killed by ''one'' zombie jumping her and falls off a bridge in a panic while most other characters go down fighting ''multiple'' walkers or at least put up a more determined fight]].

** Nanao Ise is a vice-captain of the Eighth ([[spoiler:and later First]]) Division of Seireitei, so you'd think she'd be a decent fighter to be second-in-command to Shunsui Kyoraku, but she never fights and gets easily knocked unconscious [[KickTheDog merely from Yamamoto raising his reiatsu to a high enough level.]] SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome occurs when she actually does join a battle and she's so scared of her sword's power that she needs a RousingSpeech to properly use it. This does have an in-universe explanation, as Kyoraku's previous vice-captain, Lisa, went out on a mission on her own and never came back (as she was one of the eight transformed into a Visored and banished) --it's heavily implied Kyoraku purposely keeps Nanao off the frontlines because he just can't bear the same thing happening to her.

* ''{{Literature/Twilight}}'':

* ''Literature/Twilight'':

* ''[[Literature/Twilight Twilight]]'':

* ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'':

** Vampirized-Bella from ''Breaking Dawn'' also counts. She gets all sorts of training in combat from Emmett and is trained by Kate as to how to protect others with her shield against offensive attacks... and spends the climax just sitting there with everyone else. Her shield halts an attack from Jane and Alec each, but it's nowhere near any of the badassery she was hyped for. The movie does fix this by showing that during the climactic fight Bella and Edward serve as a BattleCouple and [[spoiler:take down Aro]], but... [[spoiler:it turns out that the whole thing was AllJustADream.]]