Faux Action Girl - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Frailty, thy name is woman."

~Hamlet

A supposedly modern heroine who, under closer scrutiny, doesn't live up to her reputation. An Action Girl with very low standards you would never hold a male hero to: a Faux Action Girl. She's established from the very beginning as a powerful, capable hero... and never does anything heroic. She has a well-grounded reputation as a strong fighter in her field... and always fails in the line of battle. Her talents and skills are well known to fellow characters but rarely if ever seen by the viewers.

Her status only exists as an established reputation and depends heavily on Genre Blindness; she never acts like the modern heroine she's supposed to be. Sometimes, the only way she qualifies as anything more than The Chick is if you Take Our Word For It. If the writers are feeling merciful, however, the Faux Action Girl can be relied on to actually defeat her share of Mooks - or, in rarer cases, an enemy chick, should the hero be chivalrous, most likely on a Day In The Limelight episode. Nevertheless, the plot will demand otherwise.

The key is the disproportionate hype, in both directions, whether she's overrated or underrated.

If she's a superhero, she'll be the one in danger far more often than her male contemporaries, even though, logically, given her powers, she shouldn't be. If she's a tomboy, she'll be overshadowed by The Libby and the like and instructed in a repetitive Family Unfriendly Aesop to learn to cope with the stereotypical-but-correct status quo. If she claims she doesn't need the hero, she will get kidnapped and saved by him.

If she's the protagonist, her most common purpose is getting into What An Idiot moments to deliver An Aesop. If she's a supporting character, despite her tough and powerful reputation, it's still always up to a male hero to save her. Ironically, villainesses are never in danger of bearing this label; whatever the threat they pose, they tend to live up to their reputation.

The Worf Effect used too many times on a legitimate Action Girl may turn her into a Faux Action Girl.

Please note that a Faux Action Girl is someone who has a reputation as a fighter. If she is just a girl captured then she's a Distressed Damsel. Also, the trope in itself has gone into massive Flanderization thanks to Double Standard: it seems that now even a legitimate Action Girl can't lose a single fight without people screaming "HOW DARE SHE!"

Usually a form of Informed Ability: Most of these girls have big reputations and great past exploits but never quite match up.

Also contrast with Chickification, in which the producers take an Action Girl and don't even make the pretense of making her a Faux Action Girl, instead going straight for turning her into The Chick.

Examples

Anime

Saya Otonashi from Blood Plus; despite being the protagonist of the story, there is rarely a single enemy in the series 50 episode run Saya defeats herself, instead failing or freezing and requiring one of her male posse (usually Haji) to rescue her.
- Well before Riku died anyways. Sure she still had Haji, but who is going to turn down free help?
- Uh, except for pretty much every dead antagonist in the entire show? She's already killed her first random battle guy by the second episode. Plus, you know Diva and all of her chevalier, sans Nathan.
In the opening scene of Bleach we see a cool looking samurai girl jumping from telephone pole to telephone pole. Rukia Kuchiki, the heroine, has the personality of a tough action girl, but by the end of the first episode she has lost her sword and given her powers to the hero of the series, Ichigo. Not long after that she's captured and Ichigo embarks on a tediously lengthy rescue mission. We don't see her use a sword again until she's possessed by a bad guy. When she finally does recover her powers, she kills off a single Mook, and then gets punched in the gut by the villain, to make way for a one-on-one with the hero. It's nice to know egalitarianism thrives in shounen action anime.
- Keep in mind, of course, that said villain proceeds to beat the ever-living crap out of Ichigo himself, so it's not that unfair.
- She seemed to be stepping away from this, being the first in her group to defeat an Espada, but then got injured and rescued by her older brother in a Big Damn Heroes moment. But then again, every single main character also got saved by captains, all at the same time
- It thrives in this show, unfortunately not for Rukia. I know I can't be the only one who wants to see the main cast save Yoruichi wiped in time for a spin-off starring Kanonji and Ichigo's siblings.
Meg from BakuretsuTenshi is supposedly highly skilled at combat, even though she's usually the dame in distress. Of course, since Jo is a big badass Action Girl, Meg has nothing to worry about.
- In one episode, though, she suddenly manages to open a can of magical kung-fu on the entire enemy syndicate; however, she can't remember a thing about what happened.
Asuka from Yu-Gi-Oh GX: She's called the Queen of Obelisk Blue. Everyone knows she's one of the top duelists in the school. She's strong enough to be among the five chosen students to fight the Big Bad in Season 1. Look at her on-screen dueling credentials: one loss to the protagonist, two wins by sheer luck of the draw/coin toss (though the Magic Poker Equation means that is skill), one loss and one win to an obsessive admirer. Asuka doesn't duel half as often as she's found lying unconscious trapped in a coffin/outer space/room full of water as a trap for the protagonist, or shown passively standing by, lamenting, "I hope you know what you're doing, Jay". Apparently the writers have noticed; she becomes a Distressed Damsel in the third season.
- Similarly, after her first two appearances, Rei has come to fit the bill of a Faux Action Girl: Season 1 had her sneaking into Duel Academy as a new student to see her idol Ryo, while in Season 2 she not only confronted Ryo, but nearly whupped Manjyome for a chance to legally enter the school (which, despite her losing, she somehow managed to strongarm out of the faculty). In Season 3, however, she's stuck with Asuka in the Distressed Damsel role.
- In the original series, we have Mai Kujaku, who was supposedly a top duelist of her time, but couldn't hold a candle to the main cast. In a particularly egregious example, she loses to Yugi in the Duelist Kingdom semi-finals after being intimidated by his skill into missing a game-winning move. In an even MORE egregious example from Battle City, she showboats away a quarter-final match against Malik, eschewing an obvious game-winning move in order to attempt to beat him with his own Winged Dragon of Ra, leading to her Mind Rape at Malik's hand, which subsequently causes her Freak Out.
  - As Yu Gi Oh The Abridged Series sarcastically put it while replaying her 0 for 3 win record: "Yeah, that Mai Valentine is a great duelist, alright."
Sakura Haruno from Naruto is constantly described as being prodigiously talented and does all kinds of fighting in the opening credits, but actually helps out in less than a half dozen fights in the first part of the show (and loses each one save against Ino, in which the result was a draw). Her affection for Sasuke seems to contribute to this, as she frequently stands around watching him play the Ineffectual Loner. This Troper heard it described once as "Hermione Granger if Harry Potter were written by a guy". Following the timeskip and the strengthening of both her character and abilities, her infatuation for Sasuke levels off and she is finally able to get off the sidelines.
- The Sakura vs Ino fight was a deal-breaker for this Troper. Apparently, women are so worthless that when two women fight in a duel, they BOTH lose.
  - Hey, at least Temari holds to her title. Not only she wins her chuunin fight (both of them... technically) she also saves Shikamaru's ass at the arc of the Five Sound Ninjas without breaking sweat against the second most powerful member (considering the most powerful one almost defeated Gaara, that's not too bad).
Amy from Zoids Fuzors. Excerpt from a review (emphasis ours): "I have a hard time recalling any battles that all of March Storm’s zoids (except R.D.’s white liger) didn’t prove to be mere cannon fodder. [A] prime example of this is the episode involving Amy’s old flame. In a story where she was supposed to shine, Amy still got her Zoid trashed."
- This may actually be a subversion; Amy's Zoid, the Koenig Wolf, had built up a reputation in the fanbase as being an unstoppable killing machine, despite having no actual canon media appearances. The Zoid then being effortlessly trashed week after week may have been a Take That to a Misaimed Fandom
Kaoru Kamiya in Rurouni Kenshin. The writers Hand Wave it with the notion that it's not so much that she's weak, it's that Kenshin and Sanosuke are just so absurdly powerful that despite being a national level champ at kendo, she just can't match up. Either way, the concept leaves with being little more than a stay-at-home Distressed Damsel or just plain eye candy. In the manga, however, she does manage to shatter the knee one of the Ten Swords with a broken bokken in a rare moment of showing off the Informed Ability.
Lunamaria Hawke from Gundam Seed Destiny is supposed to be an Ace Pilot; she also can't hit a space shuttle containing the opposing force's leader. She spends most of the time pining over either Athrun or Shinn, and her only use in the show is that she looks hot and her uniform includes a miniskirt.
- In Super Robot Wars Scramble Commander 2, she has a terrible Ranged score despite using a ranged-combat mecha... but oddly, her Melee score is higher than even Kira or Heero's. Maybe she's just using the wrong mecha?
Deedlit in Record Of Lodoss War. Her claim to fame? Getting injured in a fight against a mere mook (enough to need Etoh's healing), a few defensive spells here and there, and being held hostage for the whole final third to set up an incredibly elaborate Rescue Romance. Oh, and being clingy to Parn, natch.
- The producers did fix this in Chronicles of the Heroic Knight. There, Deedlit nearly single-handedly defeats Shooting Star, the baddest of dragons in Lodoss, among other great feats of shamanistic magic. Instant Action Girl!
Elie, from the Rave manga, suffers sometimes from this. In her introduction, she's shown to be highly capable with her tonfa-like cannons, and almost blows up a whole stadium full of mooks by herself while the hero is occupied with a single, not-that-strong miniboss. However, in most of the subsequent fights, she's for the most part ignominiously reduced to being kidnap-bait, source of local drama and sexual tension, or other such roles, while it's up to her male companions Musica and Haru to save her. This is especially aggravated afterwards, when they learn that she has the ability to manipulate Aetherion, a magical force strong enough to vaporize people or literally turn whole nations into featureless plains with a single discharge. Of course, up to where this editor has been able to read, she's still not used it. Yes, it can be understandable she doesn't want to risk it getting out of control. But you'd think she'd at least make some move to try to learn to control it, then!
Mai Shiranui in the Fatal Fury OAV's and movie. In the games she's always been Ms Fanservice *and* Andy Bogard's Clingy Jealous Girl, but still remains an excellent fighter and a proud member of the Female Team. In the anime, however, she's all too often used as a hostage to lure Andy out to fight *and* as an even more blatant Ms Fanservice; apart of her friendship with Sulia and defeating Panni (another girl) on her own, poor Mai doesn't get to show even a bit of her strength; at least Chun-Li gets to maim Vega on her own in the Street Fighter Motion Picture.
- In the King Of Fighters games themselves, we have Chizuru Kagura. Shinto priestess, biker girl, businesswoman, one of the three members of the Shingi Troica along with Kyo and Iori... but she's seriously injured by Goenitz in the 96 game, and in the 2003 one she ends up Brainwashed And Crazy by the Big Bad. For worse, if you finish the game with the Chizuru/Kyo/Iori team, she's completely depowered after Ash Crimson steals her Yata mirror after the last fight, so in the XI game Shingo Yabuki has to replace her. To be fair, Iori Yagami also is depowered in the XI game, when Ash takes his Magatama away and leaves Kyo as the only one standing but still... Poor Chizuru.
Kagero from Ninja Scroll, introduced as a supposedly deadly ninja who then proceeds to be repeatedly kidnapped and molested.
- On a related note, a similar anime, Curse of the Undead Yoma, has a shrinking violet ninja girl, Aya, whose claim to fame is the big reveal as to how she got her scar during the climatic end battle. It's a paradox. She vanishes at one point and reappears without it. She regains the scar from Maruo's horse tapdancing on her face while she tries to hold it in place with her garroting ninja wires. Not the brightest attack she could have mustered considering it's about 3 times the size of a normal horse.
The very Badass Natsuki Kuga from Mai-HiME tended to serve as the Butt Monkey whenever the tone of the show turned comedic. In its Elseworld spin-off, Mai-Otome, that trait was exaggerated into complete incompetence. Despite supposedly being both The Ace and The Aragorn, she never once managed to achieve anything without blundering and spent a good chunk of the series depowered.
Practically every female protagonist in every Tentacle Rape Hentai ever. It'd be faster to say which ones didn't fit into this trope.
- Also, the HIC Ks were just for show, with only one real solder.

Comic Books

Susan Richards of The Fantastic Four had been a Distressed Damsel in most of the early stories, until rewritten as a far more powerful and effective heroine by John Byrne; however, under later writers, she didn't always live up to this standard, and occasionally degenerated into full-on Faux Action Girl.
Spoofed in Adam Warren's graphic novel Empowered. The eponymous heroine is considerably more insecure than most of the other examples here, halfway between a Faux Action Girl and a pure Distressed Damsel. However, at one point her boyfriend reassures her by saying he admires her guts in continuing to try and fight despite knowing that she'll probably end up getting her butt kicked and captured, as opposed to all the other heroes who have it relatively easy. It's also eventually revealed that when she does maintain her confidence, her powers actually work, such as when she effortlessly rescues said boyfriend early in the story. Also a bit of a deconstruction of this trope, as her poor track record is a major source of misery for her; her self-esteem's pretty much nonexistant and her reputation as a crime-fighter is the exact opposite of what this trope usually calls for: She routinely gets called things like "Useless Lass" and "Captain Kidnapped".
Sally Acorn from the Sonic The Hedgehog Archie comics. Her Chickification is actually beginning to reverse, although for a lot of former fans of the comic, it's far too late.
- She wasn't ever meant to be a fighter anyway, really, though it is somewhat annoying how easy it is to capture the resistance's leader...Perhaps she really ought to consider staying behind more often, if only so it's left to her to rescue the walrus sent in her place.
Black Canary, of DC Comics, despite having spent years overwhelmingly regaining her Action Girl street cred in 'Birds of Prey' (and still retaining it in 'Justice League of America'), still instantly morphs to Faux Action Girl whenever she shows up in Green Arrow. The most nauseating example of her instant reversion to co-dependent sidekick whenever in Oliver Queen's presence is the incident where, after Ollie faked the death of her adopted child and arranged for her nigh-permanent separation from her mother without asking Dinah's permission first, she not only said she still loved him but then accepted his proposal of marriage.
- While it is true that Ollie faked said death and sequestered said child as part of an attempt to save her life from attack by a separatist faction of the League of Assassins, it's hardly like doing such a drastic measure was necessary, given the amount of firepower Dinah could potentially call down on Merlyn and his mooks. And the very least he could have done is ask Sin's mother what her wishes in the matter were, seeing as how Ollie was not the father, or possessing any reason to make it his business at all.
- There's also the part in Green Arrow #75 where Dinah Lance, one of the six best martial artists on Earth-DCU, capable of effortlessly smoking Oliver Queen in hand-to-hand combat, having recently in an issue of 'Birds of Prey' fought Deathstroke to a stalemate and gouging out his eye with the help of the Huntress, was reduced to literally sucking on the tip of Deathstroke's sword◊. For three pages. Without even trying to escape, let alone using her superpowers, which are more than capable of precisely breaking metal at point-blank range.
  - Even more annoyingly, Oliver Queen faced Deathstroke solo circa ten issues earlier, and handed him his ass not just by serious use of Prep Time, but also by stalemating him straight-up in a sword duel. And although his hand-to-hand skills are respectable, Dinah's are supposed to be about five orders of magnitude beyond respectable, given that you're supposed to have to start hauling out people like Batman and the Bronze Tiger to find a martial arts jury of her peers.

Film

Sonya Blade in the first Mortal Kombat movie sticks to the Bad Ass mold at first, and has little trouble mopping the floor with her nemesis Kano. Later, all Shang Tsung has to do is grab her by the hair and arm and wham, instant hostage!
- In an amusing (unintentional) bit of accuracy, Sonya in the original MK arcade game does suck against everybody except Kano.
Jinx from Die Another Day is supposed to be a top NSA agent, but her only claims to fame were being strapped to a laser Death Trap and almost drowning in an ice hotel.
Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark is constantly acting tough, insists on joining in on the adventure, supposedly is showing badassedness when she outdrinks some guy, yet doesn't actually do anything except constantly get captured and then saved again.
- This is somewhat rectified in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, where she does most of the driving during the high-speed chase. (She did get kidnapped, but as she points out, Indy didn't do any better.)
Maid Marian in the Kevin Costner Robin Hood. When we're introduced to her character, she beats Robin Hood to a standstill in an equal fight. But then she quickly turns into a Screaming Wench who freaks out over an old woman grabbing her belly and who can't do anything but scream all through the forced marriage scene, despite the ONLY other people in the room were said old woman and the Sherriff. Granted, the old woman was supposedly a witch, but the only "power" said witch showed was delivering bad prophecy. Yeesh.
Anna Valarious of Van Helsing is another lovely example, whose laughable losing record is referenced in this blog post. Mentions the trope too (meta++)

Literature

Arya from Eragon. She's supposed to be this powerful fighter and magician. But all she does in the book is hide the dragon egg in the beginning and... well, remains unconscious through much of the story, and then pretty much stuffed in the background when she does regain consciousness. What makes it weird - if not outright sexist - is that the author mentions, in his own words, that she is "of course, able to take care of herself"...
Arguably, Ginny Weasley from Harry Potter: all the characters praise her for her bravery and her strength, yet she's rarely shown to be useful in battle. Despite having even a personal powerful spell (the Bat Bogey Hex), all she's accomplished in the last 3 books was:
- breaking her ankle (book 5)
- being saved by her boyfriend (book 6)
- being stuck in the Room Of Requirement for most of the time while Death Eaters were attacking Hogwarts, then joining Luna and Hermione in the duel with Bellatrix, only to be saved by her mom (book 7). And the reader still doesn't know what that Bat Bogey Hex looks like...
  - In the "Order of the Phoenix" film, after the creators realized Harry Potter's recently revealed girlfriend had clocked up about five minutes of screen time in the past four films, decided to make her more of an Action Girl who destroys an entire room with one spell. Too bad that the seventh book, released after the fifth movie, totally invalidated their speculations.
- Fleur Delacour, on the other hand, is supposed to be the very best student at Beauxbatons but fails miserably throughout the tournament and shows no sign of achieving anything as an Order member in the last two books.
  - Of course that may not be because she's a girl, as much as because she's French.
- Then there's Nymphadora Tonks. Introduced as an Auror with extra-special abilities as a Metamorphmagus, part of The Clan, Cool Big Sis to Hermione and Ginny, but losing her only major fight in Phoenix results in Sirius' infamous death. In Prince, she loses the extra-special Metamorphmagus abilities because she spends most of her time moping about Lupin refusing to give their love a chance. Last book rolls around and the professional Dark Wizard catcher becomes pregnant during the second rise of the most famous Dark Wizard for a century. Uh-huh. Did she perhaps accidentally buy condoms from Fred and George's shop? So then she has her baby and promptly dies in battle. Killed by the same person she lost to in Phoenix, according to Word Of God.
Tallia, from Ian Irvine's first tale in The Three Worlds Cycle, is supposedly a master of armed and unarmed combat. Odd, then, that she so often is knocked out, overpowered, or otherwise comes up short. To be fair though, the other women in Mr. Irvine's books come across much better (but none of them are professional soldiers, either).
Alistair MacLean's (actually John Denis) Air Force One Is Down goes to great detail describing master thief (now secret agent) Sabrina and how good she is, then portrays her as a classic Damsel In Distress throughout the rest of the book. Most notably in a scene where Sabrina can't lie to the Big Bad because she can't keep her thoughts off her face (and she's supposed to be a former criminal???)
- Hey, not all of us are gifted with gab. Some of us formerly belonged to either the [1] or were just too dang honourable to lie to non-authority figures. :P
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 [2] so it may as well be the pretty one.

Live Action TV

Zev Bellringer, from Lexx. She's supposedly an ass-kicker (hence footage of her fightin' away in the opening credits), yet she never, ever, ever gets out of a scrape without help from Kai (the morose zombie she spends all her free time mooning over) or a convenient deus ex machina. But then, if you want intelligent, interesting, strong female characters, what on earth are you watching Lexx for?
- They made up for it in Season 4 with Vlad, though.
Yuri and her daughter Megumi in Kamen Rider Kiva are supposedly some of the best Fangire Hunters, but nearly all of them survive, only to be killed by the eponymous Kiva himself instead of them. Both mother and daughter have also been captured by the monsters they were supposed to defeat, so they're not really as great as they claim to be...
- Though it could just illustrate how utterly powerless normal humans are against the Fangire, it makes you wonder just how they managed to survive before Kiva and IXA came along.
Kaitlin from VR Troopers is made of this. She was occasionally used in a real Action Girl fashion, but unlike her female power ranger counterparts (who at least got the chance to save everyone as much as the rest of the team) she seemed to exist only to beat up Mooks and get in trouble. One episode involved her losing her self-confidence because of the Big Bad, and the clips that played to show she wasn't useless were a few examples of fighting Mooks with not even an attempt at showing her against the Monster Of The Week.
Emily Sullivan of Jericho fell under this for most of the first season. Fixed from the Season One finale onwards.
Smallville's Lois Lane was practically raised on an army base, knows how to handle weaponry and in her second episode, is shown to be able to outfight military elite. However, she rarely uses her skills before the villain grabs her. On the occasion that she does show off her Action Girl abilities, she is usually taken down by something else shortly after.
Star Trek Voyager. It could be argued that one reason for the Personality Of The Week portrayal of Captain Janeway was writers being conflicted between making the first female Trek captain strong versus the desire for her to appear 'feminine'. Thus Janeway could veer between Ripley-ripoff, Self-Destruct-The-Ship-Crazy, surrogate mother, staunch leader, noble sufferer, outrageous flirt, etc, etc, etc.

Video Games

Fire Emblem 8 (The Sacred Stones) used this for tragedy: Ismaire from Jehanna, the Queen of White Dunes and Joshua's mother. She actually ends up kidnapped and killed by Tiger Eye Caellach and Lyon when she refuses to hand him the Stone of Jehanna, finally dying in Joshua's arms . In her defense, Ismaire didn't get a chance to become an Action Mom since she was a widow queen just *too* busy with handling the kingdom, AND her captors were among the most powerful enemies of the whole game (Caellach is (bleeep)ing hard to kill sometimes). .
- And then when you beat the game, of course, at a certain point you can obtain her for use in the Creature Campaign as a swordmaster, and not a half bad one at that. All hail her Wind Sword.
Lampshaded in the Dreamcast version of Record Of Lodoss War. The hero finds Deedlit captured by some wimpy goblins and just had to ask, "How can a High Elf be captured by mere goblins"?
- And a lovely contrast to Pirotess' buzzing about Marmo WITHOUT being captured. Yes, it's her homeland, but storywise Cardice's return is driving the lesser beings completely bugfuck bonkers aggro, so she undoubtedly has been doing her fair share of goblin weedwhacking too.
Resident Evil, that monolith of double standards, features several examples of this but Rebecca Chambers is perhaps the most prominent. An eighteen-year old prodigy, college graduate, with the tactical and physical fortitude to be recruited to an elite anti-terrorism military police squad - and yet falls over, gets cornered, gets lost, blindsided and generally mistreated to a greater extent than anyone else in the series: even Ashley Graham, the entirely useless prepasaurus daughter of the President. See Dojikko.
Sara from the first Breath Of Fire game. So she's an all-powerful Light Dragon and sister of the hero? That only means she gets beaten by Jade in the prologue, then brainwashed and has to be mercy-killed by the hero in a boss fight. Yup, Women In Refrigerators Syndrome strikes again.
- Which is quite unfortunate, as this troper thought the artwork for the character and her dragon form were awesome. If only they would remake the original correctly for PS 3. Although she doesn't get that sort of mistreatment, a secondary annoyance is the awesome bat-winged Patty of Bo F 2 is not a usable character either.
Sasha, Ratchet's Love Interest from the third game, was hyped by the creators as "a female Han Solo". Her supposed enjoyment of video games is never seen in the series, apart from giving Ratchet a console so he could play Vid Comics, and she ends up being the Damsel In Distress by the end of the game, despite having command of a very powerful starship.
A rare Faux Dark Action Girl example is the Soldier of Fortune series, which makes a deliberate point of having enemy female soldiers be weaker than enemy male soldiers. In Soldier of Fortune 2, the female Prometheus soldiers are coded to have worse accuracy and a crappier weapon than their identical-in-rank male counterparts. In Soldier of Fortune: Payback, the female boss character (who's apparently the Big Bad's personal bodyguard) is probably the easiest boss in the entire game.
Callo Merlose, Ashley's Riskbreaker partner in Vagrant Story. She gets captured almost immediately and spends most of the game as the Distressed Damsel.
Speaking of Fire Emblem, this troper thinks of Petrine as a Faux Dark Action Girl in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. She doesn't really do much fighting (besides a good duel against Greil, but we learn he crippled himself after accidentally killing his wife several years back), and is a mere pushover when you do do battle with her. (The stage itself is a doozy, being narrow and with hidden pits that stun your characters.) She gets half a point for talking good talks, though. Simply put, Petrine is all bark and no bite.
Meryl Silverburgh from Metal Gear Solid started out as a Faux Action Girl, though one who was aware of her her limitations and strove to overcome them.

Western Animation

Totally Spies seems to have an arrangement where every week it's one girl's turn to be the big hero, while the other two hang back and do stupid things, like getting captured.
- And on top of this, it seems Clover is the one chosen to have all the crazy-sexy exploitive junk dumped on her head, from turning into a catgirl (and unfortunately turning back :( ) to fattening up on cookies, to becoming a titanic amazon. Can we just drop the pretense and get a hentai version of this show already, Marathon?
Kim Possible: "Seems to exist only to beat up Mooks and get in trouble," indeed! Thanks to Ron getting an All Up To You episode all the time, despite Kim's legitimate talent in the martial arts and Le Parkour, for the longest time after the first season, there weren't many instances where Kim actually got to save the day on her own. Just leave punching out all the Mooks to the heroine.
- Kim does save the day roughly 1/3 of the time, and she keeps of fighting the side-kick Shego that can defeat Ron without breaking a sweat.
While the show is called The Batman, and she does kick some ass or figure things out for herself later, Detective Ellen Yin spends most of her time being saved by Batman, one step behind Batman, or getting her hand held through mysteries by Batman. A borderline case, as she is competent when the writers realize they have no other choice other than solidifying her slide into full-on Distressed Damsel. However, she is promptly written out at the end of the second season in favour of Commissioner Gordon (thanks to the Law Of Conservation Of Detail) and replaced by Gordon's daughter as the only female protagonist on the series. (She did get a Shout Out in a season 4 episode, though she didn't actually appear; apparently twenty years down the road she becomes police commissioner of Gotham.)
- Barbara Gordon, as Batgirl, also endured some of this, but she was no more trivialized than Robin, even if she wasn't a full-on Action Girl - until the final season, when she appeared barely more times than Green Arrow. That being said, she had appeared a full season earlier than Robin, so probably appeared more often than the more iconic Batman character, and it was also mentioned she had recently started attending college, and if she intended to be serious about her studies would probably have had to cut down on extracurricular activities.