The Red Sonja - Television Tropes & Idioms

The Trope Namer, and a sexy one at that!

"So, the only man that can have you is one who's already tried to kill you. That's logic."

—Kalidor, Red Sonja

Dirk: You know I made three pictures for Cecil B. De Mille and he once said to me: "If you want to get hold of a woman, don't talk to her—get hold of her—pick her up and carry her away." I thought to myself: "This man is a jerk." (With a glance toward heaven.) Cecil, forgive me.

—Mary, Mary

A woman that can/will only fall in love with a man that can “conquer” her. This can be either someone who bests her in combat (this obviously only applies to warrior women), or a man that takes charge and shows her that he is the one who is making decisions.

Compare All Amazons Want Hercules. See also Rape Is Love.

Examples

Anime

Shampoo and the rest of her Amazon tribe in Ranma 1/2.
- Also indirectly (and to her immense annoyance) Akane, after Kuno proclaimed that only he who could defeat her in combat was worthy of dating her. Cue the morning routine in which half the student body at Furinkan High (the male half) went out to fight her.
- Amusingly enough, Kuno applies this trope to himself, claiming that if the Pigtailed Girl (Ranma) can defeat him, he shall allow her to date with him. (And if he wins, he gets to date her. Convenient, in a Heads I Win Tails You Lose sort of way.)
  - Maybe something was lost in translation, because that sounds a bit like a dominance thing-maybe the one who wins the fight gets to wear the pants in the relationship?
- Another variation is Akari Unryuu, whose grandfather wanted her to only marry a boy strong enough to defeat her giant sumo pig.
Miriya in Macross/Robotech is a borderline case. She fell in love with Max after he beat her, but there was never an explicit "rule" about it. (There was to be a female pilot in the never-produced Robotech II: The Sentinels who idolised Miriya and in an in-universe version of Misaimed Fandom vowed only to marry a man who beat her.)
- Macross 7 arguably subverts this, as Max and Miriya have grown estranged from one another and Miriya is questioning whether marrying him was such a good idea.
Inverted in Steel Fist Riku: After she beats Chikara Toudou, Riku learns that he is now forbidden from setting foot on his family's property until he either defeats or marries her.
A less extreme version of this trope can be found in Bakuman, where Iwase, the smartest girl in school, believes that she and Takagi are now a couple when he gets better grades than her. Too bad he thinks she was just making a friendly competition out of it.
- As of recent chapters she's likely going to enter the field of manga in order to compete with him.
In Mahou Sensei Negima it was recently revealed that Ku Fei has imposed this policy on herself.
- Note that Ku Fei doesn't require that the combat actually take place, she can tell that Negi could defeat her in an actual match, and that being able to defeat her is a necessary but not sufficient criteria. She's not romantically interested in Negi. Not yet, anyway.
  - Of course, he just beat her at arm wrestling (to minimize damage) and she joked that now they had to get married... and then Chamo started wondering why Negi's great-something-granddaughter looked so Chinese. Awkward timing there, huh?
Kumiko pulls this trope in Gokusen to get out of an attempted arranged marriage. However her tactics only make the prospective groom fall more in love with her and determined to win the fight and her hand.
Somewhat for Hinagiku of Hayate the Combat Butler. Hayate has 'conquered' her, in that he's taught her how to defeat her fears (or at least the knowledge how to), but when admitting it to Ayumu, she still wants Hayate to be the one to start the romance.
- Unfortunately she's already seemingly given up on that, having tried a few times to confess.
  - Less of giving up, more of realizing that Hayate is just that stupid.
Somewhat subverted in Pokemon Special. It is heavily hinted that the reason why Winona and Wallace broke up in the first place was because she, a Gym Leader, felt uncomfortable having the region Champion as a boyfriend.
Gender-reversed in Fullmetal Alchemist when Barry the Chopper falls for Riza Hawkeye after she calmly kicks his ass.

Comic Books

The Trope Namer here is Red Sonja, originally(-ish) from the Conan The Barbarian comics (and later a movie starring Brigitte Nielsen). Red Sonja lived with her family in a humble house in the Western Hyrkanian steppes (modern Ukraine/Russia). When she had just turned 17 years old, a group of mercenaries killed her family and burned down their house. Sonja survived but she had been brutally raped by the leader of the group, leaving her in shame. Answering her cry for revenge, the red goddess Scathach appeared to her, and instilled in her incredible skill in the handling of swords and other weapons on the condition that she would never lie with a man unless he defeated her in fair combat.
- Peter David commented that this essentially means that the only man she can ever love is one capable of replicating the most traumatic experience of her life.
- Conan managed to beat her in the last story of Roy Thomas's original run. He could tell she was reluctant and he had just lost Belit recently, so he didn't do anything with her.
  - At the end of the same issue, Sonja confessed her feelings for Conan and her fears of what might happen if she didn't put some distance between them.
  - Interestingly enough, in a What If? story where Wolverine became lost in time and wound up in Hyboria at the same time this story took place, Wolverine was able to beat Sonja in battle and went on to become King of Aquilonia instead of Conan, with Sonja as his queen.
- In the movie, she and Kalidor fight to a standstill. At the end, Kalidor inverts this by saying he makes it a rule never to marry a woman unless she can beat him in a fair fight. The pair exchange a couple of sword strokes before kissing.
- In issue 15 of the current series, she and two friends take on a god—a weakened god, but still a quasi-deity at least. He quite naturally trounces them. Whether that counts as a fair fight, which is what has to be waged for it to work, is somewhat moot: he doesn't invoke the trope—she does. Because, the writer said, she was using the loophole wherein someone who's beaten her isn't necessarily someone who has to have sex with her, or whom she even has to let, but whom she can allow to do so if she wants...and the writer decided she did want, some time after the fight was over and they were allies. It's notable that in the new series, at least, the portrayal seems to be romantic love with someone who hasn't beaten her isn't forbidden—just physical affection.
- This was further spelled out in issue #31, where it is revealed that Sonja did share a romantic, but non-physical relationship with a king who hired her as his bodyguard and grew to want her as his queen. Sonja refused, fearful of killing the man she loved if he pressed the issue of being able to consummate their love and challenged her to single combat. Seeking guidance from her goddess, Sonja was told that she could abandon her oath but that she would lose the superior skills she had been blessed with. Deciding this was acceptable, Sonja went to the King's bed chamber to tell him her decision, just as a group of assassins with magical weapons showed up. Sonja was able to repel the assassins but knew the only reason she was able to do so was because of her blessed skills. Her sense of responsibility to hold to her oath to fight evil at the expense of a normal life held and she resigned her post the next day.
  - It never occurred to her to learn combat the old-fashioned way?
- It's worth noting that the traditional interpretation of Sonja's blessing/curse may have missed the mark. The reality appears to be that Goddess granted Sonja powers that she could only lose by voluntarily lying with a man. The "unless he defeats you in combat" may simply be a rape exception, so that Sonja doesn't lose her powers if she is defeated and taken advantage of.
Parodied by the character Blue Opal in the Phil Foglio comic XXXenophile, for whom this was more a curse than an oath. After the sexually-frustrated warrior out-drinks and out-fights every man in the bar, the only one left is a meek man who invites her to play a strategy game with him. The curse is lifted after he beats her at the game—which, as they realize later, has a name that translates as "Battle". Joyful sex ensues.
Subverted in furry parody comic series, Red Shetland. At one point, the titular character and a chivalrous and handsome stag knight end sharing blankets on a wintry night in a cave. The setting created too much temptation for Red to resist and she has passionate sex with her new lover. Later, Red is convinced that her goddess has removed her boons because of this and is despondent, until the Stag proves to her that she has lost nothing once she regains her confidence.
Viciously parodied in Wonder Woman vol.3 #24, where the producers of a Wonder Woman movie have her make this vow, and get defeated by Hercules. The real Wonder Woman is not impressed. Not least because in the DCU, Hercules raped Wonder Woman's mother.
- Earlier, Power of Shazam had an inversion: Billy Batson has a dream about arm-wrestling Wonder Woman in which he throws the match because the Wisdom of Solomon tells him she needs to defeat him before they can "get together".
She-Beard from Seaguy.

Film

In Curse of the Ring, Queen Brunhilde wears a magical belt that makes her stronger than just about any man. She will only wed the man who can outpower her or best her in combat. There is one such man, but he is not interested in her due to a spell put on him. But he is the only one she wants, and is after his love.

Literature

Britomart for Edmund Spenser's poem The Faerie Queene is another example, with pretty much the same vow as Red Sonja's if for completely different reasons. She is an allegorical figure of the virgin Knight of Chastity.
There is a PG Wodehouse short golf story parodying this, where a milquetoast young man falls for a brash, strong willed female explorer who has never married because she wants the type of man who'll drag women around by their hair. He can't bring himself to act like that and gives up all hope of winning her and focuses on golf. When he's in some tournament she stops on the fairway to tie her shoe and he strikes her with the ball. This causes him to tie rather than win and when he find out it was her and not a sheep (his glasses were missing) he throws his putter in a fit of anger. It hits her on the shin quite by chance and as she rushes to kill him he rushes forward to apologize and winds up biffing her in the eye on accident. She's now convinced that they can't both have been coincidences and falls into his arms. He has the sense not to correct her and she ends up his doting and submissive wife.
Ayn Rand is well known for this trope, as it falls in line with her personal fetishes. Rand liked strong, take-charge men and bodice-ripping, ravishment-type sex. She argued that the essence of femininity is hero-worship of men. Her works are sometimes accused of containing Rape Is Love, though it is a debatable matter.
- Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged is a modernized version of this.
- Dominique from The Fountainhead.
- Parodied in The Illuminatus! Trilogy's Rand parody Telemachus Sneezed.
Gender-swapped in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, maybe: One character notes that the only person Ace Pilot Jag Fel would ever have a relationship with would be one who could out-fly him. The jury's still out on whether he'll ever, ever get with the girl who did, much as he might want to.
The Dragaera book Five Hundred Years After mentions a gender inversion (which makes sense since most female Dragaeran characters are Action Girls). Rollondar e'Drien, who was the Warlord (commander of all military forces) fell in love with his wife after she defeated him in combat. It's noted that he receives a lot of ribbing in the barracks because of this.
The plot of The Sheik by Edith Maude Hull is all about this trope. A sheik "tames" a woman who doesn't believe in marriage by very questionable means. There's also a movie adaptation which is apparently considered rather romantic.
- The movie is notable in that the titular Sheik never actually rapes Diana, unlike the one in the book. As a result he comes off rather more sympathetic, even if he's still a Jerkass for kidnapping her in the first place.
Older Than Print example: Chaucer's Wife of Bath describes having several husbands whom she doesn't seem to care for in the slightest; that is, until she marries Jankyn, the first man who seems to have an ounce of power over her.
- Of course, given the content of the Wife of bath's tale and the fact that she asks that Jankyn give her mastery over him/their relationship this may be more of a desire for a challenge than a desire to be "conquered."
Partially subverted by Das Nibelungenlied, a 10th century example. The Icelandic queen Brünhild declared that she would only marry the man who could defeat her in three contests of strength, one of them direct combat with her. Only one man alive was capable of this, the protagonist Siegfried; however, Siegfried had his eye on Kriemhild, sister of King Gunther, and so he agreed to aid Gunther using his incredible strength and magical artifacts, one of which let him become invisible so he could create the illusion that Gunther won the contests while Siegfried did the hard work.
Played straight in Robert E. Howard's Conan The Barbarian story Queen of the Black Coast. The pirate princess Belit becomes Conan's lover after witnessing him singlehandedly slay hordes of her crew.
Used, averted, inverted, and subverted with virtually every romance novel out there, from the old-fashioned bodice rippers to the modern-day Harlequin's—the hero or heroine always needs the later to either tame their wild ways, or in an inversion, to UNLEASH the "hidden passions within."
The wildling women of A Song Of Ice And Fire won't accept husbands who aren't tough enough to kidnap them.
This trope is subverted, sort-of, in Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death, in which the protagonist Sarah has broken off her engagement with her strong-willed fiancé:
Sarah admired strength, and she thought she had wanted to be mastered. But once she met a man capable of taming her, she didn't like it at all. A high-spirited woman secretly wants a man that needs looking after.
Gor, infamously applies this idea to all women. In the first book Tarl doesn't rape the woman he kidnaps, at first she is offended then she decides he isn't a real man and nearly manages to kill him. Once she does get enslaved she's totally into after some token complaints.

Live Action TV

Saffron from Firefly tried to con Mal at the end of the episode "Our Mrs. Reynolds" by pretending to be this type, but Mal didn't fall for it and responded with a Dramatic Gun Cock instead.
The Quantum Leap episode "How the Tess Was Won".
In Dark Kingdom The Dragon King (a.k.a. The Ring of the Nibelungs) Kristanna Loken plays Brunhilde the Queen who will lose all her strength if she marries a man who has not defeated her in battle.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer dabbled in this trope with its eponymous heroine. Buffy's three major romantic interests in the series - Angel, Riley and Spike - were all hardcore superhuman fighters, and two of them actively tried to kill her at least once. Whilst each of these characters had many other facets to them, its notable that the otherwise-progressive series never considered pairing Buffy with someone who was perfectly comfortable supporting her.
- Subverted, however, in that Buffy's boyfriends never defeated her. Spike came the closest in their first clash, when he nearly bashed her brains out and only failed because Buffy's mother hit him with a fire axe. By the time they got romantically involved, however, he was suffering from an advanced case of Badass Decay. Angel gave her a run for her money on several occasions but always lost in the end. Riley's occasional sparring matches with Buffy made it very clear that Riley, for all his fancy Super Soldier augmentations, was nowhere close to her level.

Myth And Legend

Common in Greek Mythology, making it Older Than Dirt:
- Amazon Queen Hippolyta and Heracles. All Amazons Want Hercules, after all.
- Atalanta, who would only marry a man who could defeat her in a foot race. The losers were executed. Eventually, Aphrodite got sick of Atalanta's attitude and gave the next competitor three golden apples - every time Atalanta got ahead, he threw one out in front of her and broke for the lead while she was distracted, giving him the win.
- Peleus winning Thetis after overcoming her Shapeshifter Swan Song. Perhaps less sexist in this case given that Thetis' father, Proteus, also had to be subdued by anyone wanting information from him.
This happened in the Nibelungenlied and was the source of all the bloodshed after that.
The idea for Red Sonja herself was taken from Aoife of Irish mythology via a William Butler Yeats play, though as noted there are examples considerably older with this.

Real Life

Can sometimes be Truth In Television. This (male) troper has several female friends who are smart, strong, talented, capable and highly independent people, and who will freely admit that what they look for in a romantic partner is someone taller and richer than them who will take charge.
Of course, the gender-swapped version can also be Truth In Television — there's a reason why dominatrixes are such popular Fetish Fuel, after all...

Tabletop Games

A set of Dungeons And Dragons trading cards from the mid-90s included a variation, with a Lawful Good priestess who was prophecised to leave the sisterhood in order to wed a great hero, and vowed only to marry a man whose virtues exceeded her own.

Theatre

Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream had the Amazon Queen Hippolyta marrying Theseus, the Duke of Athens, after he defeated her forces.
Partial Example: Katarina vs. Petruchio in The Taming Of The Shrew.

Webcomics

In the webcomic Captain SNES, the wife of Cid from Final Fantasy IV is said to be this.
Rylede from Get Medieval.
Yatta-Ta is convinced that the title character of The Challenges of Zona is this and so far, no amount of evidence to the contrary will convince him otherwise.

Western Animation

Maxima in Superman The Animated Series dragged Superman off to her home planet to be her mate after he defeated her in a fight. Of course, when Lobo shows up, it's "Superman who?" Note that in the comics, Maxima merely wanted Supes because his genes went well with her royal bloodline of warriors.
Male example: Brock Samson from The Venture Brothers fell in love with Molotov Cocktease when, the first time they met, she tied him to the bed and set the building on fire.
Queen Hippsodeth in the Aladdin series, with the unexpected result that she falls in love with the sultan of Agrabah after he defeats her for kidnapping Jasmine.

Web Original

Previous stage decoration Tardboy and his "sub" Torako from Yukari is Free might be considered of this type.
A character by furry artist, Linno, falls under this trope (at least at one point). His Kangeroo babe, named "K.O." is a professional boxer, who uses both her fists and her tail to box with. Of course, this would seemingly make her quite tough to beat in an actual match; so for anyone who does beat her in a one-on-one challenge gets a very special prize. Believe it or not, there was even an adult flash game made out of it (no, this isn't made up).