History Main / BadassDamsel

* Kagome Higurashi from ''Manga/InuYasha'' would find herself in captivity rather often in the earlier arcs, having not been trained in martial arts before she got TrappedInAnotherWorld. Nonetheless, she still managed to help Inu-Yasha out a lot and even talked back at her captors frequently. Then she TookALevelInBadass and became TheArcher.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' there is one episode where Superman is being beaten by {{Lobo}}, Lois Lane shows up, grabs a metal rod and joins in the attack. True this does nothing and the guy even eats the pipe, but its the thought that counts.

** Rarity is one of the [[TheChick girliest]] ponies on the show, a prissy fashion designer with an extreme dislike for physical work, dirt or getting her mane even slightly mussed. Put her in a fight however and she doesn't [[GuileHero handle herself too badly]]. This is best shown in the episode [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9PSHRfe1M "A Dog and Pony Show"]], where she gets captured by a group of dogs who want her to dig up gems for them by hoof. She spends the rest of the episode driving her [[PityTheKidnapper ponynappers insane]] in a calculated manner with constant nit-picking, complaining, and the [[MostAnnoyingSound worst whining sound you will ever hear.]] When our heroes finally reach the ponynappers, they are more than happy to let her go. In the second episode of the series, Rarity immediately jumps up and kicks a manticore in the face. [[spoiler:It turns out that it just had a thorn in its paw and Fluttershy just needed to pull it out, but still, can you imagine the nerve of a tiny white unicorn to kick a screaming hellbeast five times its size IN THE FACE?]]

*** And in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', [[CompleteMonster Jabba]] [[PsychopathicManChild the Hutt]] takes Leia as a slave. Goodbye, Jabba.

* LoisLane in ''{{Smallville}}'', [[CaptainObvious obviously]]. Also Chloe Sullivan and Lana Lang to varying degrees.

* ''Series/{{Fringe}}'' gives us either of the Olivia Dunhams. Kidnapping them always ends... badly.

* The unnamed "maiden fair" in the ballad ''The Outlandish Knight''. [[spoiler:The knight convinces her to run away with him, then tells her he's going to drown her in the ocean, as he's done to six other maidens. Then, she convinces him to turn his back on her. "Six pretty maidens have you drowned here/And the seventh has drowned thee.]]

*** And in ''Film/ReturnOfTheJedi'', [[CompleteMonster Jabba]] [[PsychopathicManChild the Hutt]] takes Leia as a slave. Goodbye, Jabba. [[AC:[[{{Discworld}} SQUEAK!]]]]

* Mary Jane Watson. Well, In the comics anyway. She has beaten villains and would be rapists with baseball bats, took fighting lessons from ''CaptainAmerica''! And became the most Badass of any Spidey love interest. There's a reason so many people hate JoeQuesada for One More Day.

* OlderThanTelevision: In the 1940 film ''My Little Chickadee'', Mae West's gorgeous, [[CostumePorn fancily-dressed]] character, Flower Belle, is on a train when Indians attack. An arrow lands two feet from her, and she nonchalantly pulls it out of the wall, goes back to filing her nails... and when a second arrow hits, she responds by mowing them down with [[RevolversAreJustBetter revolvers]] [[GunsAkimbo akimbo]] taken from a passenger [[KilledOffForReal who wasn't so lucky]] and a shotgun borrowed from the only other person defending the train... all while uttering one-liners in her signature alluring, devil-may-care voice.

* In ''WesternAnimation/SupermanTheAnimatedSeries'' there is one episode where Superman is being beaten by a non-kryptonite holding villain, Lois Lane shows up, grabs a metal rod and joins in the attack.

** [[spoiler: After the horrors she suffered from the Eclipse [[GoMadFromTheRevelation that robbed her of her sanity]]]] poor Casca's mind [[AdultChild was regressed to that of a small child]], making her very vulnerable to predation from monsters and humans alike and is in constant need of care and supervision. However, sometimes she finds herself on her own, but in such dire moments we see that Casca's former [[ActionGirl badass self]] isn't ''completely'' gone. The most prominent example to date was when [[spoiler: she ran away from Guts out of fear and ran into some bandits, who then tried to gang rape her... but by the time Guts found her, Casca was naked and covered in her would-be rapists' blood after she slashed all of their throats.]] She also shows glimpses of her pre-Eclipse [[FragileSpeedster agility and acrobatics]].

* Princess Zelda from ''WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfZelda'' animated series actually preceded all the above-mentioned game installments in this department. There were more episodes featuring her battling alongside Link wielding [[TheArcher a bow and arrow]] than there were of Link rescuing her -- and she actually had to save him in one.

* ''{{Shrek}}'' has Princess Fiona. She seems to be every cliché about a Princess in need of rescue, until she meets somebody REALLY ANNOYING... One might argue that she was a captive to begin with at the start of the story, though in her defense she was an unarmored woman facing a fire-breathing dragon thirty times her size. [[BadassDamsel Both]] [[DamselInDistress tropes]] played and subverted, perhaps, because she goes downright [[Film/TheMatrix Trinity]] when she's in a situation that's at all reasonable to handle herself.

* In ''VideoGame/DragonAge Origins'', the ''player'' will be one if they choose the female city-elf origin. Seriously, those corpses weren't there this morning were they? [[spoiler:And any ''other'' female character gets a chance to play at the trope if they get captured near the end. Sure, you can get rescued, but it's totally plausible to just rescue yourself.]]

* In ''VideoGame/DragonAge Origins'', the ''player'' will be one if they choose the female city-elf origin. [[spoiler:And any ''other'' female character gets a chance to play at the trope if they get captured near the end. Sure, you can get rescued, but it's totally plausible to just rescue yourself.]]

Even in the early days, Lois had quite the nerve. In some of the earliest Fleischer cartoons (now public domain) she pulls such stunts as trying to sabotage a getaway vehicle, climbing onto the back of a mechanical monster to see where it was going, blasting away with a submachine gun at would-be train robbers, and disguised herself as a Nazi to warn the American fleet of a U-boat threat (well, it ''was'' the early forties).

** Tifa Lockhart from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII'' is a shy YamatoNadeshiko who CannotSpitItOut. She's also a brutally effective martial artist and BadassNormal who's arguably TheBigGuy of Cloud's FiveManBand. One could argue that Aeris/Aerith Gainsborough is one as well. She gets kidnapped a few times, but she can smack talk with the best of them, and is ultimately the only real threat to Sephiroth's lunatic plans.

** Fluttershy also counts here, another girly pony (in fact, Rarity's best friend), a FriendToAllLivingThings, [[HiddenDepths has considerable fashion knowledge herself]], [[ApologisesALot apoloplegic]], very polite, and recognized in-universe as graceful. She has tamed monsters like the aforementioned manticore, a cockatrice, and a dragon; and she also snapped the neck of a bear! [[spoiler:The last one was only for a massage, but it shows she has the strength to mow anyone down when she has to.]]

* Sam Carter, Vala Mal Doran, and Tela Eymaggan are some of the more obvious examples from the ''{{Franchise/Stargate|Verse}}'' franchise. However, let us not forget the other ladies. Such as Doc Langford, Doc Fraiser, and Elizabeth Weir; sure they're not trained in combat, but they can be just as {{Badass}}.

** Murphy is a straight-up ActionGirl. She's very rarely a [[DistressedDamsel Damsel]].

* Murphy of the ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles''. She's five-nothing, petite, has earned her way to the head of a sub-department of cops known for its turnover rate, and works with Harry on a regular basis. She's chainsawed a demon, led more assaults than is entirely fair, it's implied that she's [[spoiler: a suitable candidate for being a Knight of the Cross]], has instagibbed a living god, has served as the mouthpiece of capital-g God, raided Arctis Tor with Harry... in fact, when she subverts this trope ''at all in any way'', it's because she's sending Harry a message that she's playing the part, and not actually cowed. Harry has a chivalrous rush-to-women's defense impulse. It nearly gets him killed a number of times. He does get a bit genre savvy, eventually.

->''"I'm a damsel, I'm in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day!"''
-->-- '''Megera''', ''Disney/{{Hercules}}''

* [[WesternAnimation/TheLegendOfKorra Avatar Korra]] [[spoiler: gets [[PeoplePuppets kidnapped]] by Tarrlok and locked up in a metal box. Long story short, Amon and his minions showed up, Amon [[CurbStompBattle took care]] of Tarrlok, and sent Lieutenant to electrocute the box to knock her out so they could take her with them. What did she do? Used her wrist wraps to hang on to the bars on the top of the box to avoid electrocution, pretended that he did manage to knock her out, and utterly kicked their arses in the moment they opened the box, then escaped Amon himself. And this after she spent roughtly a night and a day in that box, without anything to eat or drink.]]

* ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing'': Relena, oh Relena Peacecraft. Sure, she can't fight as well as other girls, but she can talk her way out wonderfully and pulls more than one badass GoThroughMe to defend her friends, her Kingdom, or her beliefs.And again in TheMovie where she steals the villain's communications in order to encourage the {{Muggles}} to stop HoldingOutForAHero and do something themselves.

** Kisara, the WhiteHairedPrettyGirl that Kaiba's preincarnation falls in love with, is a perfect example of this trope. Seto may have saved her first, but MAN, does she [[NowLetMeCarryYou repay the favor]] [[HeroicSacrifice in spades]]. It doesn't hurt either that her soul is the [[{{BFG}} Blue Eyes White Dragon]].
** Anzu Mazaki from ''Yu-Gi-Oh!'' also pulled this more than once, specially when [[spoiler: she managed to free Mokuba from Malik's henchmen at the cost of her own safety. In return, Kaiba himself saves her later]]. She also, at times, reveals that she is not that bad of a duelist; beating Mai and the Penguin dude from the Big 5, and at the start of the series beat Joey 5 times in a row.

* Holly Short in ''Literature/ArtemisFowl''. In the first book, when she was captured by Artemis, [[spoiler:she uses a cot to smash through concrete, plants an acorn she snuck in, uses a loophole in an eye-to-eye command to go around the house, neutralizes Juliet with the mesmer and punches Artemis in the face.]]