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"Stay, stay thy hands! Thou art an Amazon and fightest with the sword of Deborah." — Charles to Joan (that's Joan of Arc, in case you were wondering) in Shakespeare's King Henry VI Part 1
Derek Reese: Remind me again, why are the boys out here and the girls in there? John Connor: Because (...) one of the girls is harder than nuclear nails. Derek Reese: And the other one's a cyborg. — Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, "What He Beheld"
The Action Girl is, essentially, Badassitude molded into a sleek female frame: a female character who is spunky, agile, and can take you down with an array of kicks, punches, or diverse Weapons Of Choice.
She is not The Chick, though they overlap more and more frequently, or a Distressed Damsel. She doesn't sit around waiting to be rescued. She doesn't only plan how to rescue herself. She doesn't talk/manipulate/charm her way out of problems. She's got physical moves of her own to make, and even if she's a female Warrior Therapist, that does not guarantee she'll stop attacking as she speaks either.
Two of them make a Lovely Angels pair; if there are more, it's an Amazon Brigade. The youngest are Cute Bruisers and Badass Lolitas. The most noble and graceful are Ladies Of War whereas the wildest and older ones are Hot Chicks With Swords. Gunslinging action is best placed in the Girls With Guns' hands.
If an Action Girl in her twenties or thirties, yet still tags along for the fights, she'll become an Action Mom or a Team Mom, depending on whether the kids she takes care of are hers or not. Maybe even both, if she's got her kids and takes care of other children/teens as well. And threatening said kids, also? Bad, BAD idea.
If the Action Girl is even older, it's a case of Never Mess With Granny. As a bonus, she might also be an Old Master towards a bunch of students, who will also fill in as "her kids". All the other conditions apply, of course.
One anime-specific kind of Action Girl is a Ninja Maid, where the Action Girl normally works as The Hero and/or his/her family's butler, maid, babysitter or nanny, but is quick to jump in his/her defense when push comes to shove. Also, if the Action Girl is hired/honor-bound to work for someone and ends up falling in love with them, she's in a Bodyguard Crush situation.
It might be worth noting that being an Action Girl is not necessarily a good thing. Some writers fall into the trap of thinking that since the Action Girl is a Strong Woman, she doesn't need any other qualities or Character Development, often resulting in a really Flat Character. If this is the case, she'll be reduced to a female Jerk Ass, a Straw Feminist or a Tsundere Sue, and at its worse it might even include several gender-related Unfortunate Implications. Conversely, there are plenty of well-written female characters who've never thrown a single punch, resolving problems through other means and with other strengths. Proceed with caution, then.
If she has a boyfriend (or girlfriend, even) that fights alongside her, they are a Battle Couple.
This trope frequently overlaps with Hot Amazon, who is lusted after because of her strength and her good looks. This kind of Action Girl is also likely to attact not only the attention of males, but of females too, who admire her strength and have her as a role-model. On the other hand, sometimes it serves up No Guy Wants An Amazon as An Aesop about girl power and chauvinism.
If she's only an Action Girl because you have to Take Our Word For It, she's a Faux Action Girl. This can happen as a result of Character Derailment or Power Creep Power Seep. Will probably pull a Sweet Polly Oliver at some point. Vulnerable to Chickification thanks to The Smurfette Principle, and Women In Refrigerators.
Compare the Action Girl with her Dark-Side counterpart, the often far-more-aggressive Dark Action Girl and the more mundane versions: You Go Girl and Plucky Girl. Not to be confused with Affirmative Action Girl, who is just a girl added to the cast in an adaptation or new season to balance out the gender ratio no matter what role she actually plays.
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Examples
Anime and Manga
Comics
- The archetypical comic book Action Girl is, of course, Diana Prince aka Wonder Woman, created for just that purpose in 1941. Not the first female superhero, but a true cultural icon and never out of print in 67 years. (Since until recently, if DC didn't keep making it they would lose ownership).
- Black Canary is a character who fluctuates between Action Girl and Faux Action Girl, depending on the writer. Gail Simone, in Birds Of Prey, was frustrated at the fact that she always seemed to end up as a victim/hostage, and devoted much of the comic to re-establishing Canary's Bad Ass credibility. Sadly, the current "Green Arrow/Black Canary" title has utterly evaporated all that martial arts street cred.
- And then there's Big Barda, who's practically a beautiful seven-foot walking tank. And her husband, Mr. Miracle, loves her that way.
- Every X-Woman in existence has had an Action Girl moment, but doubly so if she was created/handled by Chris Claremont. Easily the most "Action"-oriented are Psylocke and Rogue, though Storm led the team without her powers during a long period in the '80s, and accumulated several Badass levels during that period.
- Chakaal from Groo The Wanderer.
- Modesty Blaise
- Red Sonja
- Agent 355 (and most of the rest of the Culper Ring) in Y The Last Man. A good thing too, as the titular walking Mac Guffin is a definite Non Action Guy. Natalya Zamyatin also fits the bill, as does Hero Brown after her Heel Face Turn.
- Really, most female superheroes are Action Girls. They may go through long stretches of time where they are Faux Action Girls or be written that way occasionally, though. The Bat Family has a record of having some of the the most awesome Action Girls (Barbara Gordon both as Batgirl and Oracle, Cassandra Cain Batgirl, Spoiler, Huntress and Catwoman, just to name a few) and tending to go through long periods where those girls are stuffed in the fridge or misused in some other way, before making returns.
- Tulip O'Hare of Preacher fame. She hates guns, except when they're shooting you.
- Usagi Yojimbo has at least five or six.
- Alexandra Goncharova, Makita and Maya Antares from The Red Star.
- In Strangers In Paradise, anyone who's ever worked for Darcy Parker.
- Elsa Bloodstone, to stupidly ridiculous proportions, kicking the ass of anything with an ass using anything from shotguns to shovels to guitars.
- Tara, Mariah and Shakira from The Warlord.
- Plourr Ilo. Just look
 ◊ at her! She is a princess and her story is loosely based on that of Anastasia, but she is also a competent mechanic and pilot, a bit of a Tsundere, and both strong and good at hand-to-hand combat.
- The version of Rapunzel from Rapunzel's Revenge.
- Squirrel Girl. And how!!
- The Sonic The Hedgehog Archie comic has Bunnie Rabbot, Julie-Su, and Sally Acorn, though the third has been subject to Chickification at times.
- The titular lead of Yoko Tsuno.
- Gran'ma Ben of Bone is a great example of when this type of character grows up to be a Cool Old Lady, and retains all of her ass-kicking powers.
- Cassie Hack of Hack/Slash.
Films
- Action Girls were not common in early movies, as the true form usually requires convincing hand-to-hand combat skills. However, a female character in a Western or Pirate movie could get away with the role. Maureen O'Hara is probably the most famous. She had a powerful screen personality, great acting skills, and an ungodly beauty that could carry any part. She also always looked to be having enormous fun whenever she got in a swordfight, most particularly in Against All Flags (as a pirate) and At Sword's Point (as the daughter of one of the Three Musketeers!).
- Many Kung Fu movies. In particular, characters played by Cheng Pei Pei (60s and 70s), Brigitte Lin, Michelle Yeoh (both 80s and 90s; coincidentally, she played the aforementioned Wai Lin), and now Zhang Ziyi.
- The first real example of a lead Action Girl has to be Ellen Ripley from Alien.
- The title character from Azumi and Azumi 2.
- In Flash Gordon (1980), Dale gets a few Action Girl scenes as she escapes from Ming's bedroom and takes out a few guards. Then she goes back into Damsel In Distress mode for the rest of the movie.
- Marion Ravenwood of Indiana Jones is supposed to be one, but she tends to lean more towards Faux Action Girl. She's defintely one in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull though.
- Pretty much every female character in Kill Bill.
- Tigress from Kung Fu Panda.
- In Last Action Hero, Slater's daughter is one of these, and at first it's played for laughs by subverting the Distressed Damsel — she's screaming mock-hysterically as she kills the mook sent to take care of her. But it's also deconstructed a bit when Slater mentions that she spent her prom night alone in her room, field-stripping an AK-47.
- Trinity from The Matrix.
- Elizabeth Swann, from the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy, quickly evolves from a Distressed Damsel to an Action Girl over the course of the three films.
- Rose McGowan's role in Planet Terror redefined the Action Girl for the next few years at least.
- Interesting little semi-subversion in Red Eye. Rachel Macadams' character is manipulated, abused, and (metaphorically) raped by Cillian Murphy's Magnificent Bastard, and eventually she decides to man up (for want of a better term) and brutalize him with a pen, a shoe, and a field hockey stick. She does pretty well (or at least, well enough not to be a Faux Action Girl), but she still needs the help of Daddy Brian Cox, who also mans up just in time.
- River Tam in Serenity. Less so in the Firefly TV series.
- So-Ha from The Shadowless Sword.
- Princess Leia Organa from Star Wars often switches in and out of the Action Girl role. She must have got it from her mother, Padme Amidala, who is, incidentally, the best shot with a blaster in the entire series.
- In the first two Terminator films, Sarah Connor grows from Distressed Damsel to one of the most badass heroines of all time, perhaps the only other that can truly stand beside Ellen Ripley.
- Trivia: We have (arguably) yet to have a true James Bond Action Girl, though Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) from Tomorrow Never Dies and Jinx (Halle Berry) from Die Another Day come close.
- Some other girls do have their Action Girl moments, though. We have Hot Amazon May Day (Grace Jones) from A View To Kill, Straight Arrow Melina Havelock (Carole Bouquet) from For Your Eyes Only, Countess Teresa DiVincezo (Diana Rigg aka Emma Peel from The Avengers) from On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Japanese spy Aki (Akiko Wakabayashi) from You Only Live Twice.
- You forgot Bambi and Thumper from Diamonds Are Forver who Kick. Bond's. Ass! Even if it was Roger Moore's James Bond it still counts.
- Ukrainian model/actress Milla Jovovich frequently plays Action Girls. She has the attractiveness to get by in Hollywood, and the lean, rangy body of a female athlete.
- Alice, Resident Evil.
- Leeloo, The 5th Element.
- Violet, Ultraviolet.
- Joan of Arc, The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.
- Selena in 28 Days Later has this kind of scheme going on. Since 28 Days Later is on the cynical end of the Sliding Scale Of Idealism Versus Cynicism, she may be badass and violent, but she's still just a rather athletic chemist with a machete.
- Mace in Strange Days. It pretty much takes an entire police SWAT team to kick her ass. Justified in that she's a professional bodyguard, whom you'd reasonably expect to be able to kick someone's ass if necessary.
- Francesca Bruni in the 2005 Casanova movie. Your brother is a poor swordsman who's got himself into a duel? No problem, just take his place and kick ass!
- Selene in Underworld.
- Pam Grier's film carrier is made up of Sassy Action Girls.
- Mulan. Aladdin, Ariel, Lilo & Stitch, even Kuzco got a TV series, why didn't she?
- EVE from WALL-E.
- Trixie (played by Christina Ricci) from the Speed Racer movie.
- In the first Lord Of The Rings film, Arwen Evenstar carries a wounded Frodo from Weathertop to Rivendell, outrunning the Black Riders. (In the book, Arwen was just there for Aragorn to fall in love with, so the film could be considered Politically Correct Fiction.)
- But Eowyn was an genuine Action Girl in both film and books.
- The Quick and the Dead (1995) with the unnamed "The Lady."
Literature
- Action Girls were popular in classical literature. Examples include the goddesses Athena (Lady Of War) and Artemis (Straight Arrow), Penthesilea the Amazon Queen who appeared ancient epic cycles (and later Kleist's play) and Camilla in Virgil's The Aeneid. The popularity of Amazon women waned in Middle Ages, but they were to make a comeback in Renaissance epic in the form of female knights such as Bradamante and Marfisa in Ariosto's Orlando Furioso, Clorinda in Tasso's Gerusalemme Liberata, and Belphoebe and Britomart in Spenser's The Faerie Queene. In the latter poem, Spenser laments the scarcity of Action Girls in his own time and bids females to start kicking ass again as they did in the old days.
- Sharrow in Iain M. Banks' Against A Dark Background.
- Novelist Christopher Brookmyre's kung fu cop, Angelique de Xavia. She kills terrorists with her bare hands, and responds to the Big Bad's expository speech by shooting him in the spine and then cutting out his eye to use on a retinal scanner. She's also technically a Violent Glaswegian, especially considering she's a Rangers fan, but since she's about five feet tall and of south Asian ancestry you might not realise it to look at her.
- Jane Fleming was no slouch either.
- Ellie Quinn and Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan from Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga, although Cordelia seems to have retired after the events of Barrayar, at least in terms of physical arse-kicking.
- In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files,
- Karrin Murphy with (particularly in early books) a bit of The Lancer thrown in. As she is the Badass Normal, she can have trouble with some of the things that she has to face, but after a while, she learns the rules for battling things, and kicks ass.
- The Lancer disappeared in the recent books, as Murphy begins to out-badass everyone in every book. Including Harry.
- Miss Gard. A Valkyrie with a penchant for firearms.
- Velvet in David Eddings' The Malloreon. She kills one enemy in Demon Lord of Karanda by throwing a viper in his face.
- Captain Holly Short and Juliet Butler (on occasion) in Artemis Fowl. Juliet is more of a Cute Bruiser, Holly Short a Fair Cop, among other things.
- Most of the Bene Gesserit and Honoured Matres from Frank Herbert's Dune series.
- Jame of P.C. Hodgell's Chronicles Of The Kencyrath—a martial arts expert, formerly a professional thief who pulled off some of the most impossible thefts, and in training to be a military officer.
- David Isaak's Shock and Awe features multiple examples of this, most notably the heroine, Carla, who is probably the most realistic, believable portrayal of an action girl ever seen.
- Mara Jade of the Star Wars Expanded Universe switches back and forth between being an Action Girl and a full-on Mary Sue depending on who was writing her, only to end up as a Faux Action Girl purely so the writer could kill her off. She got ridiculously close to killing her killer, and that's not something a Faux Action Girl is capable of, it's something an Action Mom or Mama Bear would do, but if she'd been written accurately, she would have mopped the floor with the jumped-up idiot before the fight even properly started. Sacrifice began the process of restoring her from Faux Action Girl to Action Girl, only to kill her off before getting her anywhere near to her true Badass level.
- Then there's Jaina, who is at once Bad Ass enough to take down one of the most powerful and yet least impressive Sith Lords ever, her twin brother nonetheless, and yet despite being a fully-functioning Jedi Knight and part of the Skywalker line (which practically burns with Force potential), had to get additional training from Boba freaking Fett, a seventy-year-old cancer-survivor with bad knees, all because of Karen Traviss's desire to keep Fett and the Mandalorians relevant. Not to mention the 12+ books where she hung around uselessly before even getting to that point. Twelve books where her twin brother received an obscene amount of god-modding.
- Let's not forget Tenel Ka, who took down a Nightsister without any weapons!
- Catti-Brie, of the Drizzt novels, is a reasonably competent Action Girl. This is helped by her truly badass equipment; her sword would be decent equipment on someone four times her official character level, and her bow is all but epic. She even beats Drizzt in sparring matches now and again, and he's fifty years her senior, still in his prime, and trained since his youth to fight. However, a recent wound to the leg that didn't heal right, and hints from the author in-text, indicate she's going to become a Magical Girl of some sort. This may turn out to be a good thing for her, as mages in D&D seem to be long-lived whatever their actual physical health, and she is married to an elf.
- In game terms, though, it's noteworthy that she has the lowest character level of any of the Companions of the Hall — Drizzt is 16, Bruenor is 12, Regis and Wulfgar are both 9, and Catti-Brie is 4. She does, however, have the least overall combat experience, so this may be justified. More than justified. Character levels in D&D are directly related to experience.
- Salvatore's other leading original Forgotten Realms female, Danica Maupoissant, is also a warrior. In her case, she's a fighting monk, trained from her youth both in unarmed combat and the use of some very fine knives, and by the second book of the Cleric Quintet the foremost student of a long-dead grandmaster's teachings. Despite her youth — she's not thirty in her most recent appearances — she's skilled enough to fight alongside and impress centuries-old elven warriors.
- The Seven Sisters from the Forgotten Realms all fit the template to some degree.
- Kahlan in Terry Goodkind's The Sword Of Truth series and even more so in Legend of the Seeker
- Robert E. Howard wrote some surprisingly strong female characters considering his time, genre and upbringing. Belit, Valeria and the original Red Sonja (totally different and far more realistic than the character better known from Marvel comics and the movie).
- Mercedes Lackey examples: Georgina (One Good Knight), Tarma (Oathbound series), Elspeth (Mage Winds trilogy) Kerowyn (By the Sword, appearances in Mage Winds and Mage Storms), Silverblade (Silver Gryphon, though she's a bit iffy).
- Brienne of Tarth from A Song of Ice and Fire is arguably a mix of Action Girl and Failure Knight. A talented warrior (in a fairly patriarchal fantasy society) who watches the man she loves get murdered by a shadow and still tries to defend him. She also manages to defeat many skilled knights (often outnumbered) and is doing pretty damn well on her quest before being hanged for a traitor. Some people have no luck.
- The series also contains Ascha Greyjoy, Meera Reed, Osha and Ygritte, all who play this trope fairly straight without Brienne's terrible luck. Though, poor Ygritte did have the misfortune of getting sacrificed at the altar of Jon's Woobiedom.
- Hekat and Rhian in Karen Miller's Godspeaker Trilogy
- All of Tamora Pierce's Tortall protagonists (with the possible exception of Aly, who's more of a Spy/Trickster, but can still hold her own in a fight)
- Terry Pratchett has outright stated that he "can't write 'soft' female characters." Thus, Discworld contains Angua von Uberwald, werewolf cop; Susan Sto Helit, Death's granddaughter; Polly Perks, a dirty-fighting Sweet Polly Oliver and one of a squad entirely composed of them; Granny Weatherwax, an old Action Girl-ish witch; and even normally bland female characters who have their moments. Magrat Garlick, generally rather useless, has taken down a pair of snake-ladies in Witches Abroad and a few evil elves in Lords and Ladies, Agnes Nitt roughs up a few vampires in Carpe Jugulum, and Saccharissa threatens a man with a crossbow near the end of The Truth convincingly enough that he passes out.
- And don't forget Tiffany Aching, who overpowered the Queen of the Elves with only a frying pan on her home turf, and to whom Mistress Weatherwax took off her hat in respect, at the age of ''nine''. That's just the start of her adventures.
- Even Sybil has her moments. On two occasions, in Night Watch and Guards!Guards!, she responds to trespassers by getting down one of the ornamental swords from the wall. She even stops murderous dwarfs with a song from an opera in Fifth Elephant.
- Not to mention Kirsty from Johnny Maxwell Trilogy.
- And then there are the Good Omens ones conceived with Neil Gaiman. War is the quintessential amazon, and then there's of course Pepper. Arguments could be made for putting Anathema and Agnes Nutter into this category as well; they were certainly badass enough in their own ways.
- Rachel in Animorphs; her signature battle morph is the grizzly bear. She's a Blood Knight, The Big Guy, and good proof that Real Women Wear Dresses: her other passions in life are gymnastics, her boyfriend, and shopping.
- Cutlass Cate and, to a lesser extent, Cheng Li, in Vampirates.
- Patricia Savage, Doc's pistol-toting cousin in the Doc Savage novels who is quite capable of taking on several armed thugs at once.
- Blue Jade in the fifth Finnegan Zwake novel is a (modren-day) pirate Action Girl.
- Little My of The Moomins.
- Several in Nightrunner, considering one of the major settings is a matriarchy with lots of women warriors. Most notably Beka, the princesses Klia and Phoria, and Retired Badass Thryis.
- In the Temeraire series, there are female captains of dragons — and they are almost exclusively captains of the light-heavyweight acid-spitting Longwing breed, critical to Britain's combat formations. There are even three variants presented; a more matronly, heavyset, ladylike woman, a shy young woman who in any other service would be the Sweet Polly Oliver, and the middle road of a woman approaching early middle age with a daughter in the service with a mannish stride and a penchant for smoking and drinking.
- In Matthew Woodring Stover's Acts Of Caine novels, there's Talaan in Heroes Die and Olga/Marade in Caine Black Knife.
- Just like Terry Pratchett, David Weber is apparently physically unable to ever write a Staff Chick. Even his Distressed Damsels tends to be badass in some way, and are usually able even if not fight, then trick themselves out of trouble with some sort of Indy Ploy or Bavarian Fire Drill. But more often than not they just start to kick asses and take names.
- Honor Harrington from David Weber's Honorverse novels not only commands starships (and later in the series, entire fleets), but on occasion takes part in various forms of hand-to-hand combat. She's an all round example of the action woman who's both smart and physically very capable.
- Since combat is never purely in the cockpit, most of the women in the books of the X Wing Series count. Shalla Nelprin would probably have gotten along well with Plourr, above.
- In Spider-Man: The Darkest Hours, during Spider-Man's fight with The Ancients, Mary Jane beats the crap out of the last Ancient with a tire iron while quoting Macbeth. If that's not Action Girl, what is?
Live Action TV
- AceLightning's spunky sidekick (and Redheaded Hero ), Sparx. The name is apt.
- The protagonist of Alias, Sydney Bristow. Also Irina Derevko, Lauren Reed, Nadia Santos, Rachel Gibson, Anna Espinosa, Allison Dorren, Katya Derevko and Elena Derevko.
- Beka Valentine from Andromeda.
- I see your Beka, and raise you Romi.
- Cathy Gale from 1960s action/spy show The Avengers was arguably TV's first Action Girl. She replaced former star Ian Hendry and there were reportedly no changes in the early scripts, so that she was effectively playing a "male" character. She was later replaced with the equally tough Emma Peel, who became the series's iconic female character. Both of them occasionally needed to be saved by male colleague John Steed, but they saved him just as frequently.
- Susan Ivanova on Babylon 5 was sometimes one of these, particularly in her speech in "Between the Darkness and the Light": "I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am Death Incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."
- Kara "Starbuck" Thrace from the Battlestar Galactica remake. Kara is perhaps the Action Girl while in the cockpit of a Viper, but is no slouch in hand-to-hand or ranged infantry combat, either — she's described as "the best shot in or out of the cockpit."
- Temperance Brennan, Bones. Trained in martial arts, and goes hunting. Just for food though.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer from the very beginning. Joss Whedon explained that besides the pure female-empowerment angle, he wanted to turn the opening of virtually every horror movie ever on its head; normally, the pretty blond girl walks into the dark alley, the monster goes in after, and the girl dies. Here, the girl rips the monster a new one. Naturally, the movie features such a scene (involving several vampires, but also a telling-off for Buffy for being an idiot).
- Corporal Jennifer "Pilot" Chase from Captain Power And The Soldiers Of The Future.
- Sarah Walker on Chuck as well as numerous female guest characters.
- Max from Dark Angel.
- Leela, Doctor Who (after whom the Futurama character may have been named). Also Ace, who was never without her trusty Nitro-9 (who also, incidentally, shot a Dalek in the face with a rocket launcher, and beat the crap out of another with a baseball bat).
- The funny part is that modern writers often say the Doctor is "finally" going to have an Action Girl companion, due to the public (read: "journalists") having Small Reference Pools and only remembering those who stood around screaming in black and white. Of course, this ignores characters like the babarian warrior, Leela, and the ever cool and resourceful Time Lady Romana. Ironically the companions from the new series tend to be rather more Distressed Damsel than half the ones in the classic series. This also applies to some extent to James Bond.
- The Doctor manages to turn all of his female companions into Action Girls eventually. Heck, even Rose's mom is pretty awesome. Traveling throughout space and time with a Time Lord will do that, apparently.
- Echo, Sierra and November from Dollhouse depending on the imprint.
- Jo Lupo, Eureka.
- Aeryn Sun, Far Scape.
- The other women on the show are no slouches (except Jool) in a fight, either. Even Zhaan gets some combat ability. But none of them are highly-trained soldiers who show themselves consistently able to make the hard call.
- Zoe in Firefly and River in Serenity.
- FBI agent Olivia Dunham from Fringe.
- Agent 99 from Get Smart.
- Ella Dee in Hex. On the rare occasions when the heroes actually achieve anything, it usually involves her doing violence to somebody. Including throttling a priest (who was actually a demon) while wearing a truly terrifying expression.
- The titular heroine of La Femme Nikita, both movie and series.
- Detective Olivia Benson from Law And Order SVU.
- Juliet on Lost. Television Without Pity calls her a ninja. Kate, Ana-Lucia, Charlotte (who rarely got to show it off), and Ilana as well.
- Ziva David of NCIS, a Mossad officer trained as an assassin. She's responsible for some impressive takedowns, such stopping the steroid-fueled Unstoppable Rage of a Marine who'd thrown off McGee, Tony, and Gibbs in "Corporal Punishment", and temporarily holding off four Marines at once in "Cloak".
- Hunter of Neverwhere.
- Megan Reeves of Numb3rs. Not only does she have the firearm proficiency expected of an FBI agent, but she also has a black belt in Krav Maga. As she remarks to Colby, "If you're going to be arresting people a hundred pounds heavier than you, you'll need to learn some hobbies."
- Jen from Power Rangers Time Force. When not wearing the shiny Ranger suit, she'll clobber poor Wes in sparring sessions (and once for real while Brainwashed And Crazy) and wields a sniper rifle. (Wes isn't a Non Action Guy, he just isn't police trained.) For that matter, most female Rangers count to some degree: there are Katie (Time Force), Alyssa and Taylor (Wild Force), Vida and to a degree Madison (Mystic Force), Kira (Dino Thunder), Z and Sydney (and temporarily Kat) (SPD)...
- Super Sentai has some examples, as well. Remy from Fiveman and Sakura from Boukenger are a couple of the better examples.
- Maid Marian in Robin Of Sherwood, Robin Hood (2006) and, of course, Maid Marian And Her Merry Men.
- Also from 2006's Robin Hood is the Saracen Djaq, who doubled as the team medic. Sadly, both women have now been replaced with a Faux Action Girl.
- Teresa Moreno from Sharpe.
- Veronica Layton from Sir Arthur Conan Doyles The Lost World.
- Teyla from StargateAtlantis is easily mistaken for the self-effacing type until she comes after you with a P-90 or her trusty Bantos rods. She routinely kicks Sheppard's butt during their sparring sessions and is not afraid of making her point with a knife to the throat.
- The unlucky fella who ended up with the last option was a Wraith. Yes, those Wraith.
- Samantha Carter in Stargate SG-1 prefers to be the thinker of the gang, but when butt kicking is called for, she kicks butt!
- Star Trek Deep Space Nine: Jadzia Dax is a dab hand with a bat'leth, and Kira — well, Kira once beat the shit out of a serial killer while the equivalent of nine months pregnant.
- Star Trek Voyager: Seems the whole point of the "Macrocosm" episode was to show Captain Janeway stripping down to a sweaty tanktop and going Sigourney Weaver on the macrovirus' hiney. Half-Klingon B'elanna Torres is handy in a punchup too, and Seven Of Nine is both a good shot and strong enough to knock someone off their feet and a yard down the corridor.
- Trooper Becca Gallagher from Ultimate Force. Okay, Season 3 was when the series (arguably)Jumped The Shark but there was nothing wrong with the character.
- Summer Glau as Cameron Phillips in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Despite not being an android, Sarah herself qualifies as well.
- Despite the fact that she seems to be The Chick, Gwen Cooper from Torchwood is actually an Action Girl. Hoshi Sato, on the other hand, was definitely The Chick.
- Xena Warrior Princess
- And in later seasons, Gabrielle. If you see her in the costume displaying abs o' steel and she has short hair, she's kicking ass.
- Velda the Elf and Gundrada from Knightmare at least as much as possible within the confines of a kids show.
Music
- Pink in the video for "Trouble".
Video Games
- Metal Gear Solid has The Boss, who is a very extreme example of this trope, probably closer to an Action Hero with breasts and bordering on a female Ace: physically powerful, emotionally intelligent, and deeply perceptive. She beats the snot out of the main character repeatedly; fought in World War II — while hugely pregnant — and became a hero; and makes everyone cry at the end. For a lot of rather complicated reasons, she has never been considered a Mary Sue and is probably the most popular female character in the fandom.
- Meryl becomes one of these in Metal Gear Solid 4. The members of The Beauty and the Beast Unit from the same game are part this trope and part Nightmare Fuel.
- Also Sniper Wolf from 1, Olga Gurlokavich and Fortune from 2 (Fortune also wields the biggest gun in the whole series including Raven's), and to some extent EVE from 3.
- Tifa Lockhart from Final Fantasy VII can punch and kick her way with the best of them. She has been trained in martial arts since she was a child, and has super human reflexes and strength.
- Jaheira, of the Baldurs Gate series, wears the pants in her marriage. She's also a warrior and a druid, is not afraid to criticize the PC for doing stupid things, and assumes a role of either leader or trusted advisor. She also has better stats than her husband. There are two parts of the games that are arguably not suited to her being an Action Girl, where she apparently picked up a Distress Ball (or was forced to):
- She is cursed by someone she once had put away for slaving, and requires your help to survive it. This is acceptable because it wasn't a matter of strength; the spell affecting her would have overcome anyone in the party had they been targeted with it, and it was perfectly logical that the person who had it commissioned would come after her (personal vendetta).
- If the PC is in a romance with her, a vampire entrances her and makes her a slave, forcing the party to kill her, though you can bring her back. However, this happens to whomever the PC is romancing, male or female, including Anomen, the tall, "handsome", and bloody annoying knight-errant.
- As a typical example of how good the adaptation is, she becomes an awful Faux Action Girl in the novels.
- Arioch from Drakengard, with the added bonus that she's Ax Crazy. This editor hesitated over whether to place her in here or in Dark Action Girl.
- Live A Live has, from the Xin Shan Quan Master's chapter, Li Kuugo, former bandit and one of three possible characters to become the inheritor of the Xin Shan Quan martial arts style. Of the three possible characters, she is the fastest and has decent attack power and health (far faster than Sammo, more health than Yuan, although that ceases to be an issue as your level increases). Of the three characters, she starts with more attacks than Yuan, but less than Sammo, but is the only one of the three to get a whole-screen attack. Like the other two, she becomes death incarnate once she gets her ultimate tech. She is this editor's personal favorite character in the entire game.
- Almost all the girls who don't fit in the Staff Chick mold in Fire Emblem. They're more likely to belong to the Black Magician Girl, Fragile Speedster or Straight Arrow type, but still can handle themselves more than well in the battlefield, and more than often they get more bonus growths than male characters.
- Argilla from Shin Megami Tensei: Digital Devil Saga.
- Alyx Vance of Half-Life 2.
- Samus Aran is the original video game Action Girl, even if that wasn't always obvious. Nowadays, everybody knows — and she's still one of the most Bad Ass characters in the video game world, female or no. In-universe, she's considered a living legend, and many of the NPCs she meets in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption are starstruck at seeing her.
- Due to budget limitations, we never get to see Sergeant Brooks of the Crusader series of games in an actual fight, but when you consider the lower-ranked NC Os are afraid of her, she lips off multiple times to a superior officer who also happens to be someone who could probably kill her without a breaking a sweat, and survives WEC captivity with no wounds requiring anything more than a two-day stint in a (probably poorly-equipped) hospital, she almost certainly counts.
- Queen Catherine Ironfist of Heroes Of Might And Magic III, a cunning tactician, skilled warrior, and phenomenal leader. Then there's Mutare, a young human woman who rises to prominence in the "dungeon" cities of Nighon (populated mostly by monsters like harpies, medusas, minotaurs, etc.), makes a grab for power the moment her enemy shows a sign of weakness, and ends up the ruler of all Nighon due to being transformed into a sentient black dragon. There are other female warrior-types who probably count, but those two are the only ones with real characterization — the other characterized lead, Adrienne, doesn't count, because she's a Magical Girl.
- Lara Croft, Tomb Raider. Even as the size of her breasts enlarged, she still kicked lots of ass.
- From Mega Man: Marino, the sexy thief from Mega Man X: Command Mission, and from ZX, there's Aile and Ashe. Ashe moreso, because she's an experienced Hunter who can kick ass with just a pistol (And Model A increases her ass-kicking ability quite a bit). Even more impressive is when you realize she can beat bosses with a weapon from the armory of one of few groups from Zero and ZX whose weapons are typically useless in the hands of anyone else besides bad guys and other heroes.
- And I forgot to mention that Aile and Ashe are humans, in a series of robotic protagonists. That makes it even more impressive.
- Monica from Dark Cloud 2, a time-traveling princess who's just as good with a sword as she is with fire magic (and she's cute, to boot).
- Jade from Beyond Good And Evil is both a regular Action Girl and a kind of Action Mom — although she doesn't have any biological children, she is the "mother" of several cute orphans at a shelter.
- Mona Sax of Max Payne 2 is a very capable assassin who is the title character's equal when it comes to guns and ass-kicking in general. You get to play as her during the second act, when Max gets in trouble at the construction site and Mona has to ensure that he stays alive. You also step into her shoes during the third act, when Max gets a bullet in the head from Vlad at the funhouse and Mona "comes to get him through the fire." The two eventually go on a two-person castle storm on Woden's manor.
- Many fighting game girls would fit here in some way, but a few are more noteworthy:
- The famous Chun Li from Street Fighter II and beyond could turn anyone's head with her looks or one (thousand) of her ridiculously fast and powerful kicks.
- Chun Li's partner in dishing out leggy Chinese violence, Jam Cloudberry from Guilty Gear is a lethal chef of a different variety.
- Nina Williams from Tekken would also count... though she might be a bit darker than the norm.
- Asuka Kazama and Christie Monteiro would be more straight examples, then.
- Don't forget the ladies from the King Of Fighters saga. You have Cute Bruisers (Athena, Yuri, Hinako, Momoko), Badass Lolitas (Mignon), Action Mommies (Vanessa), Ladies of War (Chizuru, Maki, Elisabeth), Blood Ladies (Vice and Mature), Emotionless Girls (Leona Heidern), Bifauxnen (King, though she's also a bit of an Action Mom because she raised her brother), Strong Grapplers (Shermie, Blue Mary) and many others.
- Sophitia "Badass Mother" Alexandria. Fugudsakes, when she thought her daughter Phyrra was in danger, she promptly mowed down almost every single character in the game with ease. Honorable mentions go to the lady ninja Taki, the very talented Ivy, Sophitia's younger sister Cassandra, Chinese Girl swordswoman Chai Xianghua, Plucky Girl Seung Mina, and the tiny but powerful Talim.
- Alicia Winston in Time Crisis 3. Not only does she subvert the series' trend of Distressed Damsels, which the past three games had, but she's also a playable character in the PS2 port.
- Shanoa in Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
- Anyone from the Belnades clan of witches, and Maria Renard who was fighting monsters before puberty.
- Final Fantasy VI: Celes and Terra are ultimately the most powerful fighters and the most powerful spellcasters in the game.
- Lenna, Faris and Krile from Final Fantasy V.
- Every female pilots in Super Robot Wars Original Generation series are all Action Girls. It doesn't matter if the said pilot is Moe Moe and shy. Once she enters her mecha, expect multitudes of ass-kicking to commence from her.
- Ashley Williams in Mass Effect. Of all of the squadmates, she is the best all-around fighter, being able to use shotguns, assault rifles, and sniper rifles, wear heavy armor, has high hit points (second only to Wrex) and health regeneration, and can use Immunity, Shield Boost, and Adrenaline Burst. None of your other squadmates can do all of this.
- Bastila Shan in Knights Of The Old Republic. And, like Ashley in Mass Effect, she pales in comparison to the female Player Character, particularly when you learn that the incredibly Badass Darth Revan everybody's been talking about all game, the one who beat the living daylights out of the Mandalorians and the Republic, Jedi Order and all? You're her.
- Reven is male in the canon, this doesn't really count.
- Mira and Brianna the Handmaiden in the sequel, not to mention the Jedi Exile.
- Blaze the Cat is the most straight example from the Sonic The Hedgehog games, but Amy is no slouch with that hammer of hers and Rouge has a more subtle brand of asskicking. Cream... could be considered more of a Technical Pacifist, with her Chao partner Cheese delivering all of the direct attacks.
- Jill Valentine from Resident Evil can tear through a Zombie Apocalypse like a hot knife through butter. Plus she has the honorable title of "Master of Unlocking".
- Ayla from Chrono Trigger. Okay, she's a cavewoman, but also easily the most powerful character (while fighting barehanded), even without magic powers like the other protagonists. And in-story, she is the leader of her village, and its most skilled warrior (even Kino, her boyfriend, is weaker than her).
- Oh, so very much in Valkyria Chronicles, where one of the two female leads is the leader of the local town watch at the start of the game and can run halfway across most maps in a single turn before gunning down a tank and eventually goes super saiyan, and the other is a bigoted former singer who is one of the single toughest characters in the game and carries a machine gun and a flamethrower as standard weaponry. And then there's the Dragon for the big bad, who just dials 'action girl' up to 14 in her first encounter with the heroes and gets much much worse.
- In Planescape Torment, Annah is a fierce and fearless knife-fighter. She's drawn to the protagonist almost against her will, but then so are the rest of the NPCs, thanks to their torments.
- No mention of Ax Crazy Princess Sapphire yet? Also a Battle Couple.
- Ashelin from the Jak And Daxter games has had full Krimzon Guard training, and unlike most of the Guard, actually remembers it.
- In the Halo 3 level "The Covenant", as Sergeant Johnson is held prisoner by the Brutes, Miranda Keyes crashes her Pelican through the Citadel's window and starts blowing away the Brutes with her shotgun.
- Ashei, the lady knight who aids Link in The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, qualifies for this trope.
- Heather Mason from Silent Hill 3. Arguably, the very nature of the series makes the other female characters varying types of a Faux Action Girl at the very least, but Heather is probably the most well-known and easily identifiable example of a true Action Girl.
- Presea Combatir, Judith, and Farah Oersted from the Tales of series fill in this category.
- Presea's choice of weapon is a giant ax that is literally heavier than she is and her physical strength is the highest in Tales of Symphonia.
- Judith is the resident air master of Tales of Vesperia and was so popular that she was accepted as one of the characters to appear in Tales of Vs.
- Farah Oersted is so powerful that she is capable of firing three consecutive beast heads with the technique "ground breaker" and she does this ENTIRELY BAREHANDED.
Web Comics
- Sal Walters in It's Walky... unless you catch her on a bad day.
- Anne Onymous, Katie McBride, Samantha "Wolfie" Wolf, and Miranda West in The Wotch.
- Ellen Dunkel and Nanase Kitsune in El Goonish Shive.
- Oasis in Sluggy Freelance, though not an especially heroic one (which is to say, she is completely psychotic). May be a Robot Girl or a former Tyke Bomb or a vengeful spirit that possesses random passers-by or more than one.
- Zeetha from Girl Genius is a warrior woman from a hidden, jungle city which might possibly have a matriarchal society (this is speculation). She appears to be a stronger warrior than any of the humans in the comic, although she is beaten in combat by the superhuman Baron Wulfenbach.
- This editor thinks old age and treachery factored into the above.
- There's also that Baron Wulfenbach is perhaps the most badass individual on that planet. Really, losing to him is no shame for anyone.
- The titular character is a proficient in making and using death rays and can hold her ground with a sword, but lacks the physique of a real action girl. Fortunately, Zeetha's working on fixing that.
- Haley from The Order of the Stick is a high level chaotic good thief. Her archery is unmatched in the comic. Maybe Vaarsuvius, too.
- Miko might have been a stick-up-the-butt Knight Templar, but this is a woman that managed to solo the Order twice, defeated a minimum 15th level, artifact-enhanced cleric in a world of codzilla, and can behead people with her feet.
- Radical, in Gaming Guardians. Her shapeshifting Evil Twin, Ultima starts out as a Dark Action Girl, but (unusually for the trope) does a Heel Face Turn later — after having put Radical through seven kinds of hell (including fathering Radical's child while disguised as Randarch, and then causing her miscarriage).
- Garanos from the titular webcomic.
- Juno from Starcross'd Destiny.
- Virtually every female character in Errant Story qualifies, though special consideration goes to Sara, the resident warrior-monk. Time-mage warrior-monk.
- Jane Mighty (formerly Iron Jane) from Everyday Heroes. She introduced herself to her future husband by kicking him in the head.
- The title character of The Chalenges of Zona. She and her sister Tula have been known to form a warrior/priestess-mage Lovely Angels duo.
- Wendy from Cheshire Crossing
Web Original
- This is pretty much the point of Pokegirls.
- At the Super Hero School Whateley Academy, in the webfiction Whateley Universe, most of the girls in Team Kimba fit this trope. Chaka, mistress of Ki, has taken down a team of ninjas, fought a guy the size of a Sasquatch to stand up for a friend, and beaten Lycanthros (a super-werewolf kind of supervillain who has multiple wants for murder). Tennyo is so tough the school has had to ban everyone from facing off against her. Phase fought a killer supervillain before she even knew how to use her own powers properly. Generator beat a supervillain in power armor who was trying to hold her hostage with a knife... by impaling herself on the knife first and then taking over his armor. They're all Action Girl types. Except that none of them was born female.
- Kit Baxter from Red Panda Adventures
Western Animation
- She Ra Princess Of Power had the titular character, as well as Huntara, a purple-skinned Grace Jones lookalike who had no powers except a bunch of really cool weapons, but held her own against She-Ra in a one-on-one fight.
- In fact, most of the women in the show were Action Girls, and the guys were the James Bondage types. Understandable since the show was created as the girl's version of He-Man.
- Sally Acorn, Sonic The Hedgehog, before her Character Derailment in the later comics.
- Mira Nova, Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command.
- Colleen, Road Rovers.
- Leela, Futurama.
- Elena Potato and Lay Mamery in Monster Allergy.
- Will Vandom, Irma Lair, Taranee Cook, Cornelia Hale, Hay Lin, and Elyon Brown in WITCH.
- All three of The Powerpuff Girls.
- Sam, Alex, and Clover of Totally Spies seem to take turns being competent.
- Hawkgirl and Wonder Woman, Justice League. In Unlimited we gain Huntress, Black Canary, and Vixen.
- Katara (from the second season on), Toph Bei Fong, Suki, and Ozai's Angels (Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee) on Avatar The Last Airbender; at this point they outnumber the male badasses.
- Kim Possible... sometimes. It's "most of the time, but no boys will watch this show if she saves the day every week". That said, crucial-moment stuff is generally carried out by Rufus. Kim is a true Action Girl most of the time, especially So the Drama is all about giving Kim one Moment of Awesome after another. Unfortunately, the plot often demands Kim to receive a severe case of Chickification (or a problem she can't solve on her own) in order to let Ron, Rufus, or any other supporting character to save the day.
- The same goes for Teen Titans's Starfire.
- Diana the Acrobat in Dungeons & Dragons.
- Adult Jade of Jackie Chan Adventures.
- Lioness from Alpha Teens On Machines.
- Shao Lin from Captain Simian And The Space Monkeys.
- Niko from Adventures Of The Galaxy Rangers, who also had Psychic Powers.
- Carbine, a recurring character on Biker Mice From Mars.
- Candy from Dave The Barbarian. Sometimes parodied, sometimes played straight. Also Fang, Candy's much more aggressive younger sister.
- Sara from Chaotic. Admittedly she looks like the Faux Action Girl for most of the first season, and is quickly defeated in the first battle she has, the first battle of hers that the viewer actually SEES is one of the most intense combats in the series up to that point.
- Some female creatures on the show also provide examples, such as Intress, Laarina, and Takinom.
- Cera from The Land Before Time. Granted as a dinosaur, she lacks the attractive appearance, but you have to respect a girl who can shatter rocks with her head.
- Valerie Gray from Danny Phantom. She's been stated as a ninth degree martial artist despite being only fourteen.
- Sandy Cheeks from SpongeBob SquarePants.
- From ReBoot, all of the main female characters were more than capable of holding their own, though AndrAIa was the only one to be consistently in the fight. Dot and Mouse were more often used for their command and technical skills.
- Kiva from Megas XLR.
- Yumi Ishiyama from Code Lyoko. Aelita also grows into one throughout the series, to settle it starting Season 3.
- Rose from American Dragon Jake Long.
- Jessica from Gormiti The Lords Of Nature Return, as she proves by single-handedly defeating the Big Bad's pet dragon and knocking down Orrore Profondo (the second strongest of the Volcano Gormiti)
- Elisa Maza in Gargoyles.
- Wendy from South Park seems very likely to grow up into one of these based on her Crowning Moment Of Awesome in season 12. (Kicked Cartman's ass.)
- Susan, AKA Ginormica, from Monsters Vs Aliens eventually becomes one of these after starting out as a Reluctant Monster.
- Transformers has a pretty good record with this, despite females being in the extreme minority.
Real Life
- Joan d'Arc was a French peasant girl who heard the voice of God instructing her to expel the hated English from France. Legend has it that she led a cavalry charge with an arrow wound in her neck, and also not only survived being stuck in the head with a cannonball but kept fighting as well. Was eventually betrayed and burned at the stake, but the legend lives on.
- Though this page's quote is about her from Shakespeare's "Henry VI Part 1", Joan d'Arc was actually a Dark Action Girl in that play, through a case of Character Derailment of an actual person.
- Artemisia of Caria fought at the Battle of Salamis, commanding five Persian ships against the Greeks. Her ship was nearly captured by the Greek navy, but she turned and rammed one of her own fleet's ships, sinking it and escaping. Nevertheless, she was praised by Xerxes for her ruthless ingenuity.
- The poetic quote from Xerxes: My men have become women and my women have become men.
- I think female Soviet snipers during the WWII were pretty cool girls, eh kills over 300 Nazis and doesn't afraid of anything
- Zenobia of Palmyra, anyone?
- Fights between female gladiators was a standard gimmick in the games of ancient Rome, and female gladiators nearly always fought topless. Fanservice is older than we think...
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