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The coolest she'll get for the next 60 episodes...
" Frailty, thy name is woman."
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 'damsel in distress' 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, whether she's overrated or underperfoming.
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!". Even worse you can't have a legitimate backseat female character who's supposed to be an ActionGirl who is less competent, skilled, whatever than a main male character.
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. See also Standard Female Grab Area, because heaven forbid that an Action Girl could take someone's hand off their wrist.
Like the Standard Female Grab Area and Staff Chick, this trope is often caused by writers who want females in their action show, but are unwilling (or not allowed) to show a woman being hit by a man. In many cases, the Faux Action Girl will suddenly develop into an actual Action Girl when faced with a female opponent (because a Cat Fight is just fine), only to return to Faux status as soon as that fight is over.
Examples:
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- 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.
- 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. Despite this, in the Arrancar and Hueco Mundo arc, she steps away from this as much as an non-captain class Soul Reaper can, and is the only female character to have defeated an Espada so far.
- Rangiku also has bad luck with battles. She manages to defeat Izuru, but the fight is never shown. In the fight against Aizen's forces, she's losing against Halibel's fraccion until Momo arrives, and then Allon rips out part of her chest with one finger, presumably incapacitating her for the rest of the battle.
- Most of the female lieutenants, despite typically being the second strongest members of their squads, have never won a battle. Nanao and Yachiru have never even gotten to fight, thanks to Kyoraku not wanting Nanao to get hurt and Kenpachi most likely not wanting to share his enemies.
- Yachiru, however, during the first Ichigo vs Kenpachi encounter, is shown to have a really scary aura. And after the fight she effortlessy pick up Kenpachi and jumps atop a skyscraper.
- Meg from Bakuretsu Tenshi 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.
- 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.
- It's worse in the manga, where she has no displayed wins (losing to Judai, Reggie and David), despite winning enough times to qualify for the academy tournament, but is said to be as as good as Manjoume.
- 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 onscreen win record: "Yeah, that Mai Valentine is a great duelist, alright."
- I'd say she fits is more of a Jobber then a Faux action girl. she is at least shown to be skilled at dueling, its just that her job is to always lose.
- And of all series, Inverted in Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds with the Half Identical Twins Rua and Ruka. The male sibling constantly gets into fights he never manages to win while the female one, who does her very best to downplay her skill with dueling and Psychic Powers, tends to handily overcome her opponents.
- 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. 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.
- Sakura's main problem was that even though she had as much potential as Naruto and Sasuke, no one even tried to train her. As a result, she had no moves beyond the basic ones that Mooks get till Shippuden, even she should eventually be able to have Super Strength and Healing above that of the Kage level Tsunade, even though she is most suited for Genjutsu, something which she has received no training in at all yet.
- But Naruto and Sasuke didn't have any specialists training them either until the mid/end of the first series. And all three of them trained under Iruka and Kakashi. Sakura's lack of strength pre-Shippuden was due to her lack of motivation. By the Chunin Exam, she realizes she's just a giant target and finally decides to train.
- Tsunade is another good example. She is described as incredibly powerful, but never gets to show some impressive fighting against opponents on Hokage-level. She had something of a shining moment of competence when first introduced, by saving Jiraiya and pounding Orochimaru into the ground. Theeen you remember that Orochimaru was all but helpless to fight back, and that kinda gets deflated.
- She did, however, use her monstrous Super Strength to nail Manda to th ground with Gamabunta's giant ass sword. Definitely a CMoA.
- As Hokage, she's typically expected to stay in the village to govern it and protect it against invaders, and as a medical ninja, she's expected to heal her allies rather than fight, so her lack of action is due to occupational limitations (although nearly all the noteworthy characters who are medical ninja are female).
- Ino is said to be one of the best kunoichi from her class, but her Mind Transfer Jutsu backfires when the Sound Ninja attack Kin to hurt her, ties with Part I Sakura, and in Part II, only manages to locate Hidan and Kakuzu and does nothing in the battle (even admitting she's not good at simple fights). Admittedly, Choji didn't fare any better and the battle was pretty much fought single-handedly by Shikamaru.
- Basically, pretty much any female that isn't a main character in this series is either a Faux Action Girl or just simply outclassed by her male peers.
- Kurenai's track record is more understandable, as while she loses to Itachi, her absence from battle in Part II is mainly due to her pregnancy.
- Now the timing of the pregnancy just needs to be explained. They have no birth control in Konoha?
- Amy from Zoids Fuzors. Excerpt from a review
 (emphasis ours): "I have a hard time recalling any battles that all of March Stormï's zoids (except R.D.ï's white liger) didnï't prove to be mere cannon fodder. [A] prime example of this is the episode involving Amyï's old flame. In a story where she was supposed to shine, Amy still got her Zoid trashed."
- 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
- Leena from Zoids: New Century Zero. Her main purpose seems to be using up the team's money to buy ammo for her Gunsniper and then using it irresponsibly and ineffectively in battle.
- Kaoru Kamiya in Rurouni Kenshin is a national level champ at kendo, but she gets severely beaten in the first chapter and is then kidnapped several times. The only time she ever beats a non-mook villain is when she teams up with another girl to fight...a crossdresser.
- The writers Hand Wave it with the idea that all the major characters are underworld fighters who are so absurdly powerful that regular civilians Cant Catch Up. However, Kaoru's 10-year-old male student Yahiko is encouraged to fight underworld assassins on his own after less than a year of swordsmanship training, so we know that's no excuse. It's especially egregarious in RK's setting, where the prescence of an Instant Expert doesn't make much sense in a time period where the strongest characters honed their fighting skills through years of hellish war.
- 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?
- Her Faux Action Girl-ness is taken to a level of Running Gag, whereas in Super Robot Wars Z, she requires a whooping 30 SP just to have her hit accurately, while others have it with at most 20 SP.
- Again in Super Robot Wars K where she doesn't learn said skill until level 50, which is also the last skill she will learn and most likely will never learn due to the slow leveling in the game
- 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 Master 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 (though frankly speaking, she does beat the shit out of you, as a Fake Boss), 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. Though to be fair, the poor woman does spend most of the movie dying, as she's been injected with a deathly poison.
- Kagero actually shows herself as being mostly competent in the movie: she holds off the Mushizo's swarm of bees, and even in the scene where she was being molested, if Jubei hadn't alerted Tessai, triggering his ability to turn his skin to stone, she might have successfully killed him with the needle she was hiding.
- 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 climactic 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.
- Lampshaded in the manga, where in Natsuki's first (and only) fight, there is a panel of her crying tears of joy that she finally gets to do something.
- Practically every female protagonist in every Tentacle Rape Hentai ever. It'd be faster to say which ones didn't fit into this trope.
- Pheles from Shakugan No Shana is a rare antagonist version of this trope. The way Wilhelmina talks about her before she shows up, you would think she was a Physical God. When she does show up, she descends from the heavens (surrounded by a tornado) to Ominous Latin Chanting, and the main character's expression is a very clear Oh Crap. Cue the heroes taking her down in about 5 minutes.
- And about an episode later, she subverts Defeat Means Friendship by revealing that she was actually a significantly less powerful doll created by the real Pheles, who is not at all interested in the talk the heroes have just been having with the doll. Of course, this would completely explain why she was taken down so easily by the heroes before. The real Pheles shows up in person very shortly, once again with Ominous Latin Chanting. Cue the Big Bad taking her down in about 5 minutes.
- An in-universe example: Farnese, from Berserk. She leads the Holy Iron Chain Knights... but they never expect her to actually fight. The Knights are traditionally led by a maiden, so she is entirely there for looks and because she comes from a noble family.
- Plus the HICKs were just for show as well, which is why they get there asses kicked.
- Amamiya from Psyren. She's built up as the experienced veteran who has to show the newbies the ropes, but rarely gets action scenes and never seems available to help the male heroes when they might need it. She doesn't become a damsel in distress or actually lose the few fights she has, but seems to have been reduced to mostly a cheerleader who worries from the sidelines.
- Lisa from Final Fantasy Unlimited. She's 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 Kaze shows up and saves everyone with one summon.
- Mamiya from Fist Of The North Star, who is supposed to be the leader of her village's defense force, spends more time getting captured or getting cornered by the bad guys, only to be saved by Kenshiro or Rei at the last minute. Reina, from the first Raoh Den movie is supposed to an elite general in Raoh's army, but all she does is get wounded fighting Souther's army... twice.
- Which further adds up to the fact that nobody is going anywhere in the Fist Of The North Star universe if they are not Badasses who masters Hokuto Shinken and Nanto Seiken.
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". In the most recent volume, she shows distinct signs of progress toward full Action Girl status.
- 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 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.
- Jarael in the comic book prequel to Star Wars: Knights Of The Old Republic started out as a pretty Badass Action Girl in the first story arc of the series, to the point of saving protagonist Zayne Carrick from the villains in the climactic scene. Since then, while she's kept the fiery temper and violent disposition, she becomes incompetent dealing with anything other than Mooks, and continuously has to be rescued from Mandalorians, Corrupt Corporate Executives, rampaging HK assassin droids ...
- Her name was Blair Williams, played by Moon Bloodgood (Jumping Jesus, they should have just used her REAL name! It's awesome!), and being being subdued by about half a dozen full grown men with hand weapons is excusable. In T2, Sarah Connor was subdued by a couple of psych ward orderlies, and NO ONE could mistake her for being a faux action girl. The fact that Marcus , who is a terminator, renders the assailants about as dangerous as a pack of 6 year olds with wiffle bats is more of a testament to his great strength stemming from the fact that he is indeed a nigh impervious death machine (remember Arnold taking out an ENTIRE POLICE STATION single handedly in T1?) than to William's vulnerability.
- 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 Damsel In Distress so it may as well be the pretty one.
- 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???)
- Alice from Twilight beat her combat veteran boyfriend Jasper in a practice fight in Eclipse. He beat Emmett and tied with Edward, indicating that Alice is the best fighter of the four. However, in a hostile situation Emmett and Jasper are the ones who step up, and Alice's fighting prowess was never even mentioned outside that scene.
- Since, as you may well know, she can see the future, actual fighting skill is less a necessity than the ability to act on it. Also, her husband for the last (75?) years has been that same 'combat veteran' Jasper. Considering Jasper's experiences and Alice's abilities, it isn't a great leap of thought to consider that Jasper taught her how to fight vampires. No one says anything about the WILL to do so, though.
- Arya from Paolini's Eragon. She's supposed to be a 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 is pretty much 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"...
- Possible subversion: in the first book she easily defeats Eragon in a sword fight just after coming out of a coma, casually does magic that makes The Resistance's top wizards run away screaming, and slaughters dozens of enemy fighters.
- Pretty much every Elf can do that. It's nothing special about her, it's just her race.
- Lampshaded by the definite action girl of the episodic morality story "What Is This Black Magic You Call Science?".
Unlike most heroines in this situation (where the dashing, rich, and studly hero saves her, has them fall in love over the span of five seconds, and they get married or something), Chryseis was not going to be rescued, and she knew this.
- 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 accomplished in the last 3 books was:
- breaking her ankle (book 5)
- ...and helping to take down some of Umbridge's "Inquisitorial Squad" with the aforemementioned Bat Bogey spell...offscreen.
- 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...
- ...and leading Hogwarts' student La Resistance in hiding the whole school year, and after refusing to be sent away in the final battle, defending the walls as well as the rest, including a pictured event where she breaks up an attack with a hex.
- One could argue though, that bravery does not equal battle competence. Her qualities are e.g. standing up to Harry when he's even more self centered than most of the time, which noone else dares.
- 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.
- Further Word Of God: What happens to her and Remus in Deathly Hallows is because Rowling originally intended to kill off Arthur Weasley, but chose not to because "he is one of the only good fathers in the series". BUT, since she wanted to kill off some parents, she chose BOTH Remus and Tonks instead. WHAT. THE. HELL.
- Mad-Eye Moody might be a male variation of the Faux Action Girl. He's referenced as one of the best and toughest Aurors of all time. But... in Goblet of Fire, he is beaten by Barty Crouch Jr. and stuffed in a footlocker for the entire school term. Then in Order of the Phoenix, he's the first Order member to be knocked out during the fight in the Ministry of Magic. And of course he gets killed in Deathly Hallows.
- Jaheira in the Baldurs Gate novelisations, to a painful extent (not that there is anything about those that isn't painful). Gee, Mister Abdel Adrian, you think you caught a glimpse of her softer, more feminine side under her usual tough warrior exterior? Might I point out that this is the only kind of context in which the latter is ever brought up? If a fighter/druid can't deal with a spider getting inside her shirt any other way than by having you tear her topless (forced by the circumstances and by no means intentionally, as her husband just died a while ago, after all), then you can be pretty confident something is wrong.
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...
- 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.
- That's mainly the problem of the Metal Hero source footage. Her counterpart in Spielban Diana never got to destroy the monster of the week because they could only be destroyed by the hero's laser sword attack. Instead Diana usually got to infiltrate the enemy lair and save whoever had been kidnapped (which happened every single episode in Metal Heroes) while Spielban fought the MOW. Metal Heroes had the titular heroes as the star with the female companion playing sidekick unlike Sentai/PR which was a team based show and gave everybody the chance to be the hero once in awhile. Heck Diana was the only early MH sidekick who could transform at all. Most of the time they stayed out of battle completely.
- Emily Sullivan of Jericho fell under this for most of the first season. Fixed from the Season One finale onwards.
- Kate, in the BBC series of Robin Hood. One of the other outlaws calls her "a good fighter." I guess that's why she's always getting captured...
- 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). .
- 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.
- Sasha, Ratchet's Love Interest from the third Ratchet And Clank, 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.
- Speaking of Fire Emblem, Petrine is some of 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.) On the other hand, the game makes a point that she's all bark and no bite, especially when she cowers in front of her superiors. There are plenty of real Action Girls that don't have this problem in the plot.
- 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.
- Rachel in the X Box Ninja Gaiden is a supposedly skilled fiend hunter who kills an Elite Mook fairly easily, but then gets knocked aside by a (relatively) easy boss, and later gets kidnapped by Doku for most of the rest of the game.
- Momiji in Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword. The manual suggests that she is a strong ninja, and the player controls her for the first level, which seems to indicate that she might play a role in the action as a secondary player character. Unfortunately, at the end of the level, she loses to the first boss and gets kidnapped, where she is held for the rest of the game. An unlockable diary suggests that she's going on a training journey- and will not likely be able to redeem herself in future games. Omitsu is a skilled archer, but Sanji is the one who saves Sakura (not that Sakura or that Sanji) from Black Spider ninjas with his bow.
- Mei Ying in Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb is supposedly an intelligent and tough sidekick, but proves herself to be borderline-useless during fights and even manages to get incapacitated and possessed by the Big Bad during the final battle. Understandably, said battle becomes a less-than-desirable situation for Indy.
Western Animation
- 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 sidekick 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.
- Barbara herself lampshades her declining screentime when she laments that Batman, despite being one of the most knowlegable people on the planet, had completely missed the fact that she had graduated high school.
- Arcee. Poor Arcee....
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