Examples of military Action Girls?

I've noticed that a few Action Girl characters that I come across seem to share strong commonalities between them. The characters in question are: Tanya Adams from Command & Conquer: Red Alert series, Meryl Silverburgh as she debuted in the original Metal Gear Solid, Leona Heidern from The King of Fighters, and Sonya Blade from Mortal Kombat.

The common traits that I've noticed:

• A background in some modern-day/near-futuristic military organization ^note think the same way "military" is required for Military Superhero, but without the superhero aspect.
• A typical/Iconic outfit that is a deliberately sexualized/fetishized version of modern-day military uniforms ^note it might not be readily identifiable with a particular uniform style, BTW; midriff-baring tank tops and camo-print khakis are frequent choices. Getting Ms. Fanservice treatment appears to be practically mandatory, too.
• Model-esque looks with little to no obvious muscular definition or size (which is typical of the average Action Girl, actually).
• A strong-minded tomboy/ladette personality that may reach explicitly anti-authoritarian levels (i.e. Military Maverick).
• Actual expertise with modern military weapons/technology, especially firearms. The Girls with Guns genre is probably heavily related.
• And most importantly, she's not the only female in an otherwise all-male unit (though she may very well be the only known female member of the overall organization), or a member of an all-female military unit/organization.

Whether or this apparent archetype may be a trope is not here or now; that's a job for YKTTW (and I'd do it if I had the time to spare). What I'm interested in, however, is whether there are more examples of such characters out there that I've missed, because I seem to have little luck finding any in Action Girl's list of examples, and none of the existing subtropes appear to be a fit for this kind of character either. I'm hoping that the troper hive mind could help with identifying them.

So there you have it people. If you know an Action Girl that fits the above checklist, please post them. And if you have anything to say about the character type itself, you're welcome to put it forth.

edited 8th Dec '14 11:32:21 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

That doesn't really seem like a distinct trope, to be honest.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.

You mean besides The Squadette? This would probably actually fit better in Trope Finder.

Like I said, that's a job for YKTTW, not Trope Talk. Either way, there's a pattern here, and I may be forgetting some other common traits.

Yeah, being The Squadette (i.e. the only woman in an all-male military squad/unit) is an automatic disqualifier; I knew I was forgetting something. And Trope Finder is for looking for tropes, not examples of variants of existing tropes.

edited 8th Dec '14 11:33:03 PM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

The female character from Expendables 3 doesn't seem to count, since she's the only one there.

On the other hand, what about Dizzy and Carmen from the Starship Troopers movie (and the female pilots in general in the novel, although the fanservice elements are missing there)?

Moneypenny in Skyfall might fit, at least at the beginning (and possibly M, at the end, too :) )

Captain Sosa from The A-Team, too. And Vasquez, Ferro and Dietrich from Aliens.

Mother Superior Tasha Lem from The Time of the Doctor might count, if you squint a bit. :) She is in a military organisation, after all.

By the way, The Squadette seems unclear; the description says "There is rarely more than one,", but doesn't demand it, and a lot of the examples are of multiple women in a work.

edited 9th Dec '14 1:52:30 AM by AndrewGPaul

I don't know who this is, but what I do know is that you seem to have misinterpreted the last, even though I tried to clarify what I meant through the parentheses. Then again, may be you are correct in your judgment due to knowing more about the work and character in question than I do.

Well, from what I can gather about the two characters' movie portrayal, the fanservice seems to have been "limited" to their off-duty hours. [1]◊ [2]◊ Might count as a subversion of the usual mold.

Not familiar with this one. Got pics?

While I'm only sufficiently familiar with the Aliens characters, and even not as much as I'd like, I have to say that you seem to have hit it spot-on with Vasquez. The other two and Captain Sosa... Not so much, from what I gathered on them.

... Nah, I'd have to say that it's too much of a stretch.

You should look at the rest of that line: "There is rarely more than one, and if a new one joins the Squad, odds are the old one will die. A Squadette isn't unusual or token in a society where Gender Is No Object."

It seems clear to me that the Squadette is typically meant to be "Token Female in an otherwise all-male Squad", and so the reason there is rarely more than one Squadette in a Squad is that it's hard to be the Token Female if there are, say, 4 or 5 women in the Squad (real-life army squads usually range from 8 to 14 people; The Squad is usually supposed to be an actual squad, but there is probably some leeway for platoon-sized units^note 15 to 30 soldiers to qualify). In other words, the female(s) have to be overwhelmingly outnumbered by their male peers; that seems to put a semi-hard cap of about 2-3 women for typical Squads (don't quote me on this, though). I wouldn't be surprised if the "multiple Squadettes" examples are either blatant misuse or simply multiple instances of actual Squadettes (that is, the examples are spread across several "Squads"; that seems to be the case for the Fullmetal Alchemist example, at least).

But that's rather off-topic; if there's a problem with The Squadette's description in terms of clarity, the Trope Description Improvement Drive might be able to fix it.

edited 9th Dec '14 8:02:59 AM by MarqFJA

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.

I can't remember the name of the character or actress in Expendables 3 (IIRC she's an MMA fighter?), but I remembered halfway through typing the sentence that she's the only woman in the unit (and the unit seen onscreen is all there is), so it contravened your last rule.

As for Aliens, if Vasquez counts, then Ferro and Dietrich count too - they're women in the same unit as Vasquez, after all. Not sexualised, I admit, but was Vasquez, for that matter?

For Staship Troopers, the fanservice comes from casting Denise Richards and Dina Meyer as soldiers, I would think. :)

For Moneypenny and M, that's pushing it, I admit. The characters are in the Secret Intelligence Service, not the military as such. Still, Naomie Harris is quite easy on the eye. Is it fanservice, or just Hollywood casting? Your decision.

http://www.rogerebert.com/balder-and-dash/big-change-for-moneypenny

Captain Sosa in The A-Team is as capable as her male colleagues, and as for uniform: http://awesome-women.livejournal.com/11545.html (2nd image) She's the only one seen in the film, but surely there must be some more female officers in the DCIS.

If you disagree, then fair enough. I'm just throwing out some examples.

There's a couple in the Valhallan 597th Imperial Guard Regiment in the Ciaphas Cain novels set in the 40k universe. Obviously, being novels, the fanservice is toned down, but one of them - the regiment's colonel - is explicitly described as a good-looking redhead. There's probably some more literary examples (Marygay Potter from The Forever War, for example), but the visual fanservice is usually much less evident.

edited 11th Dec '14 2:47:41 AM by AndrewGPaul

What about the girls of EVA? Misato seem to be the only military girl in the anime. While rei and asuka are mecha pilots I don't know if that count as being a military action girl? Althougth in ROE asuka is a true military girl. By the way, if the girl was in the military but no longer apart of it for whatever reason, does she stlll count as a MAG?