Jeanne d'Archétype

One of the many portrayals of Jeanne d'Arc.

Plutarch: We had to save you because you're the mockingjay, Katniss. While you live, the revolution lives.
Katniss's narration: The bird, the pin, the song, the berries, the watch, the cracker, the dress that burst into flames. I am the mockingjay. The one that survived despite the Capitol's plans. The symbol of the rebellion.

— Catching Fire

Jeanne d'Archétype is a fictional character inspired by Saint Joan of Arc.^note Spelled "Jeanne d'Arc" in her native French. This can incorporate various elements of the historical Joan's story. This character is Always Female, usually young, often an Action Girl, and often of humble origin. Her devotion to a religion, her country, or simply a desire to protect her loved ones causes her to assume an active role in liberating the oppressed from an overbearing force, eventually becoming not only a respected leader, but also a living symbol and a reminder of just how unjust the oppressors are if they bring out the warrior in the most unlikely of people. Therefore, her example directly inspires many otherwise ordinary people to follow in her footsteps and join the same cause.

Realizing her importance, it is highly likely her enemies will eventually exploit her own Honor Before Reason to lure her into a trap and subject to a public trial and execution. This, of course, is bound to backfire, as even past her untimely death, her movement will live on as her martyrdom drives them to more zealous and inspirational levels up to veneration as a larger-than-life Divine Figure, sometimes complete with the title "Saint" or any other equivalent.

She may also crossdress, experience supernatural voices or visions, be chaste or celibate, wear heavy armor(which may double as a dress if she's not hiding her femininity), be a farm girl, join the military, or be persecuted and martyred. Extra points for suffering a Cruel and Unusual Death such as being burned at the stake. (Especially if even that involves voluntary martyrdom.)

May overlap with Sweet Polly Oliver, Lady of War, or Church Militant. May also overlap with Xenafication is applied to a pre-established character.

A Sub-Trope of Magnetic Hero. Compare and contrast Messianic Archetype, Madonna Archetype, Young Conqueror, A Child Shall Lead Them.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• Shaman King's Iron Maiden Jeanne is the Well-Intentioned Extremist kid-leader of the X-LAWS, her guardian spirit is Shamash, and she eventually gets incinerated. Her "Iron Maiden" regenerates any and all damage she takes. It does put her out of meaningful action for the rest of the series, though.
• Super Dimension Century Orguss: In one of the earlier arcs, as the cast is travelling across France, they find a woman called Joan of Arc is leading a rebellion to overthrow the tyrant ruling over her country.
• Farnese in Berserk is kind of presented like this at first: girl on a holy mission who fights (sometimes). Thing is, she's actually revealed to have no combat skill whatsoever (women being at the head of the order for symbolic purposes), the voices she hears actually come from demons (Joan of Arc's enemies accused her of this), and she's a pyromaniac. She eventually becomes an actual witch under the tutelage of the resident Cute Witch of Guts's party.
• Fairy Tail's Erza Scarlet has this in her Backstory, a young girl leading slaves to freedom with her newfound magic powers. It is even specifically referenced in the chapter title of the manga.
• In the wider Digimon canon, Darcmon is an angel mon specifically based on Jeanne. Her appearance in the film Digimon Frontier: Revival of the Ancient Digimon, however, is a subversion: Darcmon is one of the disguises used by the villain, Murmukusmon.
• Code Geass has a few examples:
  • Code Geass: Nightmare of Nunnally puts a bit of Mind Screw on this. Initially C.C. is portrayed as being the actual Jeanne D'Arc, but later we find out that the real Jeanne cut a Geass emblem into C.C. and positioned her as a witch, then C.C. aided Britannia in capturing Jeanne, who at her burning cursed C.C., who was also burned as a witch.
  • Code Geass: Akito the Exiled has a mostly played straight example in Leila Malcal; Action Girl, leads people against oppressors, and even has a touch of supernatural to her due to possessing a Geass that lets her connect people's minds together. The only thing she doesn't have is the humble roots as she's of Blue Blood and raised in a wealthy household. This is actually even taken advantage of and invoked by Gene Smilas in trying to make her an Inspirational Martyr. Leila however manages to Earn Her Happy Ending despite attempts otherwise.
  • Rare Male Example in Zero. Lelouch Lamperouge as Zero is The Strategist and a symbol of the rebellion and resistance against Britannia in Japan and eventually the whole world. He even acknowledges the fact Zero is a "symbol" himself. Like the actual Joan, he's not much of a fighter - at least until he gets his Ace Custom that lets him fight using his own personal strengths - and requires others to fight for him but makes up for it by going directly into battle himself and making it very clear he's willing to take risks the same as his soldiers. This aspect of Zero is taken advantage of when he pulls off the Zero Requiem; which also involves a dark twist on the martyrdom as Lelouch sacrifices himself as a "demon" so the world will seek peace and unite together.
• Isabelle of Paris: Isabelle herself. French? Check. A tomboy? Check. Uses a sword, fights for her country despite the wishes of everyone else, even cutting her hair to disguise herself as a boy? Check, check, check. Isabelle even has an Imagine Spots where she pictures herself like Jeanne.
• Joan of Arc is, well, Joan of Arc's clone in the series Afterschool Charisma. It's questionable whether she has visions or not since she does spend a lot of time staring into a mirror. She plans on pseudo-sacrificing herself (mimicking being burned at the stake, of course) in order to break the chains of destiny and hopefully live past her original's age of nineteen.
• Sephiria Arks, the Lady of War from Black Cat. She leads a special military unit of assassins, is ridiculously skilled at using a sword, and her last name is probably a homage to Joan d'Arc.
• In the manga version of Chrono Crusade, Chrono calls the main character Rosette Christopher "a modern-day Joan of Arc" in an attempt to cheer her up. She does fit some of the trope—a girl from humble origins who becomes a Church Militant Action Girl for a noble cause (saving her brother Joshua from a demon)—but her personality is a loud, Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero that swears like a sailor and has a bad habit of causing as much damage as she manages to prevent.
• Lyrical Nanoha has the last Sankt Kaiser, Olivie Sägebrecht. She was a young girl who found herself thrust into the position of leadership during a time of war before eventually dying for her goal to end the fighting, leading to others following her cause and ensure that her sacrifice was not in vain. In her case, her legend shot past sainthood and went straight to godhood as she's currently worshiped as the Christ-like figure of the Saint Church, the most prominent religion in The Multiverse.
• Puella Magi Madoka Magica features a cameo of Jeanne during a flashback, where it is revealed that she herself was a Magical Girl. (Alongside like Cleopatra, Queen Himiko, maybe even Anne Frank, etc.) Goddess!Madoka appears to Jeanne when she's about to be burned at the stake, holding her Soul Gem in her hands; this implies that, instead of being executed, Jeanne Ascended to a Higher Plane of Existence thanks to Madoka.
  • And a Spin-Off entitled Puella Magi Tart Magica: The Legend of Jeanne d'Arc began serialization in November 2013.
• In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds, Sherry LeBlanc is a French, blond biker and uses a knight-themed deck based of Joan of Arc. Her D-Wheel "Sturm und Drang" resembles a horse, fitting to her knight theme and her horse monsters. Her first duel with Yusei invokes even Samus Is a Girl. After her Face–Heel Turn, she uses illusions and even a witch monster.
• Jeanne d'Arc in Rage of Bahamut: Genesis plays this trope extremely straight. Born a simple peasant girl in a remote village, after hearing the voice of the gods, she is now the leader of the Orleans Knights armed with the legendary spear Maltet. Then again, in this series, the gods definitely exist and regularly appear and speak to humans, including a certain demon who makes Jeanne cross the Despair Event Horizon as she's burning at the stake, driving her to a Face–Heel Turn.
• Joan (Jeanne/Jehanne in France) by Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (of Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin fame among others), starts off with Joan of Arc's actual execution. The manga's volumes though focus on a young girl following in - and mirroring - Joan's footsteps in medieval France.
• In Nobunaga the Fool, a reincarnation of her appears named Jeanne Kaguya D'Arc.
• Choujin X: In 1923, a 16 year old nun named Sora Siruha received a vision in her sleep of her funeral procession being brutally slaughtered at the hands of Queem, the War Choujin who was engaged in a war of global conquest. Sora attempted to warn her superior, but none of them heeded her prophecies. One day, the exact events Sora predicted came to pass, as Queem massacred her and all the clergy in her procession. In a twist of fate, however, Queem's powers prompted contagion within Sora, causing her to come back to life as a choujin of immense power known as "Choujin X." Determined to protect her homeland from Queem's onslaught, at the age of 18 Sora rallied an army against Queem. After a long and brutal war spanning multiple years, Queem was ultimately defeated by Sora and her allies. In the end, however, Sora is a massive deconstruction of this archetype. Whereas Saint Joan of Arc was a major leader and symbol for her army, she was still seen as a servant of God. Sora, however, amassed a Cult of Personality who worshipped and idolized her as though she were God. This, alongside her own trauma, drug addiction, and declining sanity, instilled within her a messiah complex which caused her to accept her own prophecies as fact without question. These prophecies lead Sora to commit horrid atrocities, up to and including genocide, believing that her own actions are necessary for the greater good. However, it is heavily implied that Sora's prophecies as she grew older became distorted by her own deluded mind, to the point that they probably aren't even true. Ultimately, despite Sora's good intentions, she inevitably decayed into a tyrant no better than her old enemy Queem.

Comic Books

• Artesia is described by the author as a pagan Joan of Arc.

Fan Works

• Infinity Train: Blossoming Trail: Chloe Cerise becomes one starting in Blossoming Trail Act 2, having a mission from God (One-One) to rally the train to rise up against the Apex with the desire to stop the cult from hurting/killing anymore people. Lexi equates her to a "knightess" at one point (even though she never wears anything resembling armor) but her cloak and summoning magic actually makes her more of a witch (which she's a big fan) with the irony on how her signature element is fire. She also ends up dying via dropping to her death but Came Back Strong and, amusingly, summoned Lucifer to defeat someone who called themselves "the God of Silent Hill".
• The Night Unfurls:
  • Celestine may be a Really 700 Years Old High Elf Queen, and it is not revealed whether she had a humble upbringing or not, but she experiences supernatural visions, is not much of a fighter like the actual Joan of Arc, and is stated to be the spiritual leader of the Church, beloved by many as the Goddess Reborn.
  • Subverted for Alicia in the remastered version. A blonde princess knight dubbed "Knight of Iris", dressed in a set of light blue plate and mail, her appearance bears a resemblance to Saber, a specific breed of this character archetype. In reality, she has a noble upbringing rather than a humble one, is not a symbol for some noble cause, and, despite her exhibiting Knight in Shining Armor characteristics, is far from a saintly figure.
• RWBY: Scars tweaks Jaune so that he's even closer to his namesake than in canon. He wished to prove to his family, and especially his father, that he wasn't a weakling, so he cut his hair, changed his name from "Joan Arc" to "Jaune Arc", stole his grandfather's sword, and ran away to Beacon Academy using fake transcripts. Jaune is later killed trying to protect Pyrrha from Cinder.
• In The Weaver Option, Taylor Hebert appears right in the middle of an Imperial Guard unit minutes before they are attacked by an overwhelming Ork attack - and helps to destroy the Orks with her bug-controlling ability, building up to defeating a Greater Daemon of Khorne in combat, protecting the Blood Angels from the Black Rage by turning into a Barrier Maiden and becoming a Living Saint.

Films — Live-Action

• In Alita: Battle Angel Alita is called "Battle Angel", wields a sword, is a righteous avenger, in the frame of a small innocent girl. She is hunted by the corrupt authorities for "disturbing the natural order of things", finds a suit of armor (rather armored body) and proceeds to kick ass with it. The ending song of the anime version ends with some very Jeanne d'Arcian imagery, using the lyrics "set my body on fire. My ashes scatter as your flames consume me. It's no matter...I'm an insignificant girl."
• In Snow White & the Huntsman, Snow White is given the Joan of Arc treatment in many ways. She acts as a symbol of resistance to a foreign usurper, fights in plate armour, and is considered something of a living saint.
• Cybil Bennett from Silent Hill although not a leader, has other traits that could spark to mind Joan of Arc. Cybil like Joan is not conventionally feminine (being a rather butch looking police officer with short spiky bangs) and later in the movie defends the Catholic protagonist Rose against The Brethren, a Neo-Manichean religious cult (which also has traits of a witch hunting Protestant church from America's colonial past) after the cult's leader Christabella accuses Rose and her adopted daughter Sharon of being witches (and Cybil by extension, an accomplice to the "witches"). Cybil brought time for Rose to escape through fighting off Christabella's henchman with her baton, but gets brutally beaten up after pulling out her gun which failed to fire as it was empty. Cybil later woke up inside the cult's church tied to the top of a tall wooden ladder opposite Sharon, who witness Cybil getting burnt to death after the cult's followers set her ladder on fire.
• When asked to describe Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games, actress Jennifer Lawrence replied, "She's a futuristic Joan of Arc." Her co-star Donald Sutherland also compared Katniss to Joan. What clinches her role as Jeanne D'Archetype, however, is probably the whole "Girl on Fire" image which Katniss is given.
• Rita Vratski from Edge of Tomorrow. Action Girl? Check. Inspirational? Check. Prophetic visions? Check. Heavy armor? Check. Hair of Gold? Check. She even has a similar nickname. Compare 'The Angel of Verdun' with Joan of Arc's 'The Maid of Orléans.' And Verdun is located in Lorraine, Joan's native province. The comparison is confirmed by Word of God.
• Actually deconstructed in Luc Besson's film about the lady herself. According to the film, such a character would likely be more like Willard in Apocalypse Now. It's thought that the real Joan was bipolar or schizophrenic - an interpretation this film goes with.
• In Cloud Atlas, Sonmi~451 becomes this for the oppressed classes of futuristic Korea, especially after the death of her beloved.

Literature

• D'joan/Joan in the Cordwainer Smith story "The Dead Lady of Clown Town," although she's more of a nonviolent revolutionary with religious overtones than a warrior.
• Ursula from the Slaves to Darkness trilogy managed to lead the fractured armies of the Empire to face the Chaos Warriors of the Norse in their own homeland. This led to an retaliatory invasion that nearly destroyed Kislev, but hey... What is interesting about her is that her possession of the legendary blade Ulfshard, the weapon of one of Sigmar Unberogen's own contemporaries, actually gave her a claim to the contested throne of the Sigmarite Empire in a time where every Elector Count was at the other's throat for the position. Various Counts attempted to leverage her in their own ways to gain power, which is ultimately the reason why her crusade against the Norse even happened. She spent her last days anonymously in a small convent, too. So consider her a Deconstruction.
• Saint Sabbat in the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Sabbat Martyr has an origin story that is quite Joan of Arc-like (young farm girl with divine visions becomes a charismatic military leader and is eventually martyred.)
• "Wazzer" in Monstrous Regiment: dresses like a man like everyone else in the regiment and receives visions from the spirit of the Duchess, a kind of spiritual protector/Virgin Mary figure for their country. But she also Deconstructs the trope, as she is not very good in a fight — unless you insult the Duchess — and seriously creeps out most of the other members of her regiment. Polly theorizes that Wazzer's abusive past caused her, somewhere along the line, to just snap.
• Mina of the Dragonlance War of Souls trilogy is a subversion — she's very much the traditional image of Joan (teenage girl who is nonethless a deadly warrior and an incredibly inspiring leader on a mission from God), except that the voice she hears is actually that of the setting's traditional Big Bad. Mina, however, has no real idea that she's evil's tool and believes she's this trope played straight.
  • Laurana in the original Chronicles trilogy fits the trope very well. She never intended to be a leader, but after being incomparably badass at the High Clerist's Tower she found herself in command of the Knights of Solamnia and the armies of Palanthas. After her successful Vingaard River Campaign (mirroring Jeanne's Loire River Campaign), she too was captured by the enemy.
• In the Belgariad, Princess Ce'Nedra takes up the role of figurehead for the army of her husband while he's off fulfilling prophecies and such, mostly to make a lot of noise and distract the bad guys. She may not actually be the Jeanne d'Archétype, but she presents herself as this to her army, and plays the role to the hilt. As she explains, while the Alorn Kings can command an army, they can't lead it, because no one's inspired by an army led by committee. She even goes so far as to have gold (well, gold-foil) armor made. It's too thin to actually be protective, so she can actually move with it on, and it... exaggerates her pettanko frame, to the annoyance of the armorsmith tasked with making it. As she points out somewhat tartly, however, it's necessary: as a very petite Half-Human Hybrid she's far too small to realistically fight anyone, and she's trying to convey the idea that she's a young woman, not a little girl.
• Ash, in Mary Gentle's Ash: A Secret History, is very much this archetype in some ways, as a female military leader in the fifteenth century who hears voices. Unlike her in other ways; she's not very religious, for instance.
• Vin, from Mistborn plays with this. Vin is a Street Urchin, who discovers she's a powerful allomancer when she gets pulled into a plot to overthrow the the Lord Ruler. She becomes a pseudo religious figure as the series goes on, especially due to her association with Kelsier and the fact that she killed the Lord Ruler. In the final book she also pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to kill Ruin. Vin, who thinks of herself as little more than a magic-using assassin, is more than a little disturbed by the whole cult of personality that builds up around her as the series goes on.
• Holding the Zero, a novel by Gerald Seymour set in a Kurdish revolution against Saddam Hussein led by a teenage girl. She's shown to inspire several protagonists, but her entire revolution is a result of Kurdish and Western power politics — when the CIA and SIS pull out of the operation, most of her army runs for the hills except for a handful of loyal supporters, and she ends up being shot by the main protagonist (a British marksman) as she's about to be hanged by the Iraquis.
• Katniss Everdeen from the The Hunger Games is a deconstruction. She's an Action Girl from humble origins who stands up to oppression to protect a loved one, becomes a beacon of hope for the rebellion, and is even given a flame motif as the "Girl on Fire". However, off-camera she's actually a pragmatic survivor who never really cared about the rebel cause and is in it solely to protect her family. Later on when she starts having visions it's a result of trauma, drug addiction, and possible brain damage rather than any divine inspiration.
• Kanya Chirathivat in The Windup Girl, including the Hearing Voices (she's followed around by the Deadpan Snarker ghost of her superior, whom she betrayed, and eventually takes on his Cowboy Cop role) and the nationalist inspiration to fight against foreigners (in this case megacorporations).
• Sonmi~451 of Cloud Atlas becomes a symbol of revolution for the oppressed peoples of futuristic Korea. Her myth survives the apocalypse and she is worshipped as a god After the End.
• The novel The Book of Joan is a Speculative Fiction revision of the Joan of Arc story. Joan is a young French woman who discovers she has powers stemming from the natural world and wages global war against the imperialist Jean d'Men. She is captured and burned at the stake as an eco-terrorist, becoming a martyr to her followers and a legend to all (although it turns out she escaped burning and is still undermining d'Men in hiding).
• Fate/Apocrypha features the actual Jeanne d'Arc, who incorporates most, if not all, of her real life counterpart's character traits. Her farmer upbringing is held into account even when all Servants that materialised into the present world all receive comprehensive knowledge of the setting and the various mythos that exist in the era; it's represented by her frustration on a math homework. Of course, she is summoned as the mediator of the Holy Grail War, with absurdly strong powers and stats to boot. She also uses her banner as an actual weapon, either rolled up as a kind of lance, or unfurled to create a shield.
• Mélisande of Malê Rising was this to the people of Rwanda. Caught up in the conflicts of the Congo during the Great War, she fled eastwards to the African Great Lakes and absorbed many kinds of beliefs and practices along the way, including ingesting psychoactive plants. Leading an army of followers, she deposed the king of Rwanda and instituted a peasant-herder commonwealth with her as a wandering Prophet-Queen.
• Pucelle of the Whateley Universe. She's really a deconstruction, because she sees herself as a Joan of Arc figure and pushes toward that image, while irritating the heck out of her dormmates and classmates.
• In Myke Cole's The Sacred Throne trilogy, Heloise Factor (the surname is because her father is a factor) is declared a saint when she kills a demon with a War Engine that she desparately climbs into. Her victory is declared a miracle as she's normally too small to be able to use the machine but the demon's initial attack crushed it down enough for her to barely fit. In a new battlesuit fitted to her, she leads a rebellion against the Order, the organization that's supposed to stop wizards and the hell portals that they eventually manifest but have long since grown corrupt and tyrannical.
• Olivia Vandergriff from The Overstory is a young, charismatic woman who inspires her group of True Companions towards their mission, is The Chosen One courtesy of Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane visions, and ends up dying during her mission, in a manner that involves fire. Another character lampshades this at one point.
• Pamela D. Toler's nonfiction book Women Warriors: An Unexpected History has a chapter called "Joan of Arc of (Insert Place Here)", dedicated to warrior women regarded as patriotic heroes. However, she points out that none of them have the religious overtones that Joan did.
• Eloise Pritchart of the Honor Harrington series certainly ticks enough of the boxes here:
  • She's not exceptionally young, but she is from a humble background (her family were Dolists) and, through grit, determination, and undying loyalty to the Old Republic and its Constitution, served in La Résistance, was a key part of the Theisman Coup that overthrew the Committee of Public Safety and restored said Constitution, and ultimately became the first genuinely elected President of her nation in over two centuries in a bona fide landslide election. And she was first tapped to run for the job (and head the interim government beforehand) because she was so popular with the public, who remembered her as an iconic revolutionary figure.
  • While she doesn't get martyred, the love of her life (who is also her longtime lover, and was beside her all throughout that revolution) is killed in battle defending the nation their relationship was so crucial to restoring. She is heartbroken, but carries on for his sake and for her country's.
  • She is said to have an unbreakable resolve and "inherent presence" that makes everyone around her somehow seem smaller than life, even if she's just been dragged out of bed in the middle of the night.
  • Just to cap it off, her star nation is a direct fictional analogue of Joan's own nation of France.
• The Alien Chronicles trilogy draws inspiration from Joan of Arc, with some Spartacus and Book of Exodus mixed in. The books primarily follows an Aaroun named Ampris, whose species is one of many enslaved by the Viis and their empire. She is sold into slavery in her infancy, and by chance ends up as pet to the Sri-Kaa (the heir to the Kaa who leads the empire). Living in the palace allows Ampris to acquire a surprisingly solid education, until one of the Sri-Kaa's pranks goes horribly wrong and Ampris is cast out as punishment. Ampris winds up forced into a career as a gladiator, and a skilled one at that. Over time, she rises through the ranks while secretly building up a resistance movement, even after a career-ending injury sees her sold to a research facility. There, she undergoes a Medical Rape and Impregnate with half-Viis children, before she manages to escape with her two surviving sons. Despite the pain, trauma and humiliation she suffers, by the end of the trilogy she succeeds in leading a large group of slaves to a secluded paradise world to begin a new civilization. However, her numerous injuries and illnesses catch up to her, and she dies surrounded by friends, family and followers shortly after landing.
• The World of Ice & Fire: Jeyne Poore is Westeros' equivalent to Joan of Arc, being one of the Faith Militant's rebel leaders during the uprising against Maegor the Cruel, and who was betrayed by her enemies and burned at the stake as an witch.
• Esther Blanchett of Trinity Blood is something like this. She was the young orphan-novice who acted as the brave cross-dressing leader of the partisans in István and later on was hailed as Lady Saint. However, she turns out to be really the long lost heir of Albion and becomes Queen, subverting this. Thus making her actually a King Arthur expy.
• Tanya of The Saga of Tanya the Evil is an unusual example in that she did not become one willingly. In order to use her unstable Super Prototype type-95 computation jewel, Tanya must pray to God or risk exploding, due to Being X first inspiring Doktor Schugel to invent it then blessing the jewel itself. But because nobody else in the Empire knows this, Tanya comes across as extremely pious. Combine this with how she volunteered for the military at the tender age of 9, though this was because she knew that due her magical talent she'd be conscripted anyway, and she is seen as highly patriotic.

Live-Action TV

• Joan of Arcadia is an odd case, since it clearly references Joan of Arc but avoids many of the usual elements, apart from having a young girl carrying out missions from God as the protagonist.
• Wonderfalls was loosely based on Joan, with Jaye being urged to help people by strange voices — in her case, from inanimate models/pictures of animals.
• Ambassador Delenn in Babylon 5 is an obvious example, being a mystically inclined woman who uses her charisma to lead in battle against a great enemy and inspires devotion and heroism in her followers. However she is a high class woman rather then a peasant girl.
• Joan Of Montreal, a one woman comedy special featuring Brigitte Gall, tells the story of a young French-Canadian woman chosen by God to defeat the English by being goalie for the Montreal Canadiens in the last game of the Stanley Cup Final.
• Paladin Pucelle seems to at least aspire to this trope in a very literal way. While intersex rather than strictly female, this controversial content creator is a devout Roman Catholic who HAS VISIONS OF SAINTS, wears heavy armour and is evidently trying to help save France from what she perceives as a threat in videos such as this one:

"C'est un Acte de Guerre" and "Saint Therese Appeared to Me and Revealed the Future"

• Subverted by Pennsatucky in Orange Is the New Black who sees herself as this but isn't. Another inmate even calls her out on this.
• Sakura Igarashi/Kamen Rider Jeanne from Kamen Rider Revice is named after Joan of Arc, what with the series involving humans and demons, and Joan herself being known as a demon magnet.
• The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power: As opposed to being a Madonna Archetype like in the books, this Galadriel carries herself like a seasoned military leader. Like most examples, maidenhood is a crucial characteristic of the archetype and Galadriel's name does mean "maiden crowned with a garland of bright radiance". She’s blonde, and wears Battle Ballgown type of armour, which takes a few cues from different popular paintings of Jeanne D'arc in armour, like the 1865 Joan of Arc work by Sir John Everett Millais, Joan of Arc by Charles-Amable Lenoir and the 1854 Joan of Arc at the Coronation of Charles VII by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres. She has faced many wars since she was a child, and after the death of her brother, she aims to defeat Sauron and defend Middle-earth from his evil, but unlike her inspiration, Galadriel is driven by her desire for vengeance rather than altruism. In the end, Galadriel ends up being deceived by her enemy, just like it happened to Jeanne D'arc.

Music Videos

• The music video for Katy Perry's "Hey Hey Hey" has Katy as a Marie-Antoinette-like figure having to deal with all the restrictions of aristocratic life, until she comes across a book about Jeanne D'Arc. Cue her imagining herself as Jeanne fighting against the parts she dislikes (such as corsets, being forced to be delicate, and disgusting suitors). She is executed when she finally has enough, but her Jeanne alter-ego comes out to avenge herself.

Tabletop Games

• The Sisters of Battle of Warhammer 40,000 are an all female religious/millitary organization (there's not much difference in the Imperium) modeled off of Jeanne d'Arc, including a fleur-de-lys as their main symbol. There's not much subtelty there to begin with, but the Living Saints in general, and Saint Celestine in particularly are quite close to specific character representations.
• Repanse de Lyonesse from Warhammer Fantasy is part of Bretonnia, a nation heavily based on Arthurian legends and Feudal Europe, with a fleur-de-lys as her banner. When the kingdom was in it's darkest hour, the Lady of the Lake calls upon then humble peasant girl Repanse to save it. She grabs the horse and armor of a dead knight, raids the local church for a holy sword, and rides off to face the Hordes of Chaos. The Knights rally to her banner, Repanse slays the Chaos lord leading the invasion in single combat and earns a proper knighthood and a Dukedom in the process, as well as the Lady's continued blessing. In case it wasn't already incredibly obvious, the French translations drop all pretense, calling her Jeanne de Lyonesse.
• Iomedae from Pathfinder is essentially Jeanne d'Arc deified: a Lawful Good goddess of honor and battle who ascended to divinity after leading several successful crusades against evil as a mortal. After her patron god Aroden died, it was she who picked up his banner, by repatriating his followers into her congregation and leading them into battle against the demonic invasion from the newly-opened Worldwound.
• The sci-fi miniatures wargame Infinity takes this a step further, in that it has Jeanne d'Arc herself as a character that can be fielded. In reality, it isn't the actual Jeanne d'Arc (the actual warrior, for example, wasn't wearing Powered Armor) but is a "recreation" of her designed by the super-AI AELPH to serve as a battlefield commander for the armies of PanOceania, along with countless other Historical Domain Characters. Some historical minis wargames do allow you to field the actual Jeanne (or at least a tin figure representing her)
• Jeanne d'Arc is an actual NPC in Continuum, where she is a powerful time traveler who serves as a one-woman security force by calling in herself from other points in the timeline. Even more bad-ass, she knows her fate is to be martyred in France, and accepts it blithely, ready to head back when the time comes. It Makes Sense in Context, as the PCs themselves are also time-travelers.
• Elenda of Garrano from the Ixalan block in Magic: The Gathering qualifies as an rare vampire example. Originally a warrior nun charged with retrieving the Immortal Sun, she used dark magic to become a vampire so she could accept the burden of immortality to could fulfill her duty, and founded the Legion of Dusk to continue their search. After going missing in her crusade, her followers eventually became corrupt and formed a theocratic, oppressive and ever-expanding empire while still holding her as their inspiring saint. She eventually returns and becomes mortified to learn the Legion are cruel invaders and sets out to reform them. She is one of several Jeanne d'Archetypes to have appeared in MAGIC over the decades, ranging from slight visual references such as Homelands' Aysen Crusader and Ice Age's Order of the Sacred Torch to the planeswalker Elspeth, who rose up from her birth in the dark realm of Phyrexia to become an armoured holy leader who makes soldiers and can even give them angelic abilities.

Theatre

• Joan of Arc (here called Joan la Pucelle) is a major character in Shakespeare's early history Henry VI Part 1. In this incarnation she forgoes the crossdressing, sadly, but claims to be a holy virgin conscripted by God to aid the French king and kick the English out of France. To prove her worth, she defeats the king in single combat (prompting him to fall madly in love with her) and goes on to soundly defeat the English troops whenever she encounters them, becoming a saint to the French and a witch-warrior to the English. Of course, since this a play written by a 16th century Brit, the latter view is proven true: one of her final scenes reveals that the jealous accusations of the English have actually been correct—she has been consorting with demons for her power and lying about her divine mission, although she is motivated by a genuine desire to help her country. She is subsequently captured and burned at the stake by the English.

Video Games

• Conqueror's Blade: Season XI: Paragons is themed after the Siege of Orleans during the Hundred Years' War and, unsurprisingly, features a Joan of Arc clone named Gabrielle-Maelys.
• Obviously the story of Jeanne d'Arc is based very closely on the actual story of Joan of Arc, but with many additions and imaginings (like a magic gauntlet that transformed her into a valkyrie, for example, or fighting The Legions of Hell). Also, she doesn't burn to death at the stake, that would be her childhood friend impersonating her.
• Likewise, La Pucelle is another game with a Joan-like heroine, and is also named after one of her titles (French for "The Maiden"). Though Prier is a little more selfish than most archetypes, and her story may take a horrendously wrong direction. If you allow the dark energy on a stage to build up, a portal into the Dark World eventually forms. If Prier kills a significant number of demon lords and overlords while in the Dark World, she eventually gathers so much demonic energy that she becomes an overlord herself. (Interestingly enough, this event does not end the game, which also makes Prier the first canon example of a non-evil Demon Overlord, as well. Moreover, given that Overlord Prier becomes a recurring bonus character in other Nippon Ichi games, this is actually the canon ending despite having originally been intended as a joke.)
• Joanna Dark of Perfect Dark was named after Joan of Arc. She also wears 24-Hour Armor and is an Improbable Age (the best agent the CI has at 23).
• Metal Gear:
  • In a way, The Boss from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, although she's older than the usual examples. However, during World War II she became a military leader at an early age, she fought for her country, and once the truth about her fake defection comes out, she can be seen as a martyr.
  • Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker has Amanda Valenciano Libre, the defacto leader of a Sandinista cell who becomes one of Snake/Big Boss' allies. But it's not until later on in the game that she truly takes up the mantle of being Commandante, to the point of Snake explicitly comparing her to Joan of Arc.
  • Metal Gear: Ghost Babel features Sophie N'dram, who is fighting against the genocide of her minority group. Brian McBride specifically compares her to Joan of Arc at one point.
• Micaiah in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. She is named the Silver-Haired Maiden, she leads La Résistance, she's the one to find the lost heir to the throne, and everyone, enemies included, agrees that she's the one the people of her country will follow to the death, rather than the king. And Micaiah becomes the Queen of Daein in the end... though if she wanted to, she could've claimed her right to the Empire of Begnion instead. (Her little sister Sanaki remains Empress, however.)
• In Goddess: Primal Chaos, formerly Heroes of Chaos and Primal Chaos, Joan of Arc is in the city of Canossa, the last refuge of humans.
• In the MMORPG Atlantica Online, one can hire a Lady Knight mercenary, whose final upgrade is Jeanne d'Arc (or Joan of Arc). She is a sword type and is an extremely good tank.
• The Witcher 2's Saskia the Dragon Slayer fits this trope to a tee at first glance, a peasant girl who had by all accounts slain a dragon and is much beloved by the common folk who leads a peasant uprising, and helps to defend the city of Vergen from an invading army. She dreams of creating a queendom where humans, elves and dwarves live together as equals. An uncommonly noble goal in the Crapsack World of the Witcherverse (whether she is successful or not varies depending on your game choices). But there is a twist... She is not actually a dragonslayer, she is an actual dragon, able to assume human form. The whole Dragonslayer story was cooked up by an elvish rebel named Iorveth, to help endear her to the people. Why she feels the need to fight for the common folk is a bit unclear, but perhaps she just felt the humans were doing it wrong and decided to show them how do to it right.
• Jeyne Kassynder of Dungeon Siege III, who in the backstory riled up the populace against the 10th Legion in order to avenge the slain King, her father, and exterminated them. However she's actually the Big Bad of the game since the main characters are attempting to rebuild the Legion.
• The "Sword Magess" from Wild ARMs 2 was obviously based on Joan, from being chosen by a divine being (a wolf) to save her world, to having her humble family become nobility after her death.
• Emilia Nighthaven from Heroes of Might and Magic IV, who goes from a glassblower's child to the Queen of Great Arcan during the course of the Order campaign.
• Byakuren Hijiri from Touhou Project. A religious figure, is/was persecuted^note being an immortal she can't be a martyr, has a fanatical cult following, and is thrust into a conflict greater than herself. She's not exactly "holy", though. She in turn was inspired by Japanese religious concepts and old legends, and is actually based on a Historical Domain Character herself.
• Sophitia from Soulcalibur is given a mission from her god, Hephaestus, to destroy Soul Edge (she only half-succeeds). In the Dreamcast game, her third costume is in heavy armor, greatly resembling most depictions of Joan.
  • Hilde, who debuts in the fourth game, fits the description even more; in fact, she seems to have been specifically designed for this role. (If anything, she's the only female in the game who is always fully armored and thus avoids the Stripperific Trope that the others do, unless a player undresses her in Character Creation mode.)
• With the Sons of Abraham DLC active, Christian lords in the latter years of Crusader Kings II can encounter an event chain that's based on Joan of Arc's life, with a female character with strong martial abilities showing up at your court (and she's exempt from the usual prohibitions on women leading armies and functioning as councilors in your court). You can either let the legend play out, or attempt to defy the historical outcome and allow her to continue to live and serve, though in either case her life can be cut short by the whims of the game engine, just like any other character.
• World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor introduces a draenei named Yrel, who starts as a naïve priestess but steps up to become a heroic paladin when the Iron Horde begins to attack her people.
  • An older example can be found in High General Brigitte Abbendis, leader of the Scarlet Onslaught in Wrath of the Lich King. Abbendis had many of the Joan of Arc features such as being a warrior lady, leader of a crusade and fervently religious; in the Death Knight starter quests we see documents that describe her as being struck by holy visions and hearing voices. Unfortunately, the 'holy' visions and voices are actually sent by a demon, and the Scarlet Onslaught is composed of genocidal zealots.
• Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear features someone called the Shining Lady, a warrior who came from nowhere and leads something which she calls a crusade. She's also said to have Divine Parentage.
• Zig-Zagged by Iovara, a.k.a. the Walking Spoiler, in Pillars of Eternity. On the one hand, she was a charismatic leader who rose from humble origins to lead La Résistance against the encroaching Engwithian missionaries and, later, against the Inquisition, but was betrayed by one of her supposed allies, had defied a Kangaroo Court, and was executed for heresy and apostasy in a particularly gruesome manner. On the other hand, where Saint Joan claimed to have been guided by God and was Vindicated by History, Iovara defied the gods (in a setting where their existence is undisputed) and was posthumously erased from all history books by her enemies.
• Terra from Final Fantasy VI. Victimised for being an Esper (which gives her supernatural abilities, including the protection of FF6's Grandpa God version of Ramuh), she ends up as a leading and icon of the Returners fighting against the Empire that had tortured her, such that fighting against the Empire is fighting for Terra's right not to be enslaved.
  • Celes Chere from the same game provides another example of the trope which may be even nearer the mark. The player first finds this French-named former general in chains scheduled to be executed for going against the Empire's plan to poison a besieged castle's water supply (much as the English attempted to do to that of Orleans). In the second half of the game, she temporarily becomes the main character, awakening alone with only her adopted grandfather and tasked with singlehandedly finding the despairing party members and inspiring them to reunite against the evil which now rules the world.
• Originating from Rage of Bahamut, The Granblue Fantasy version of Jeanne d'Arc is a fearless military leader of Orleans who joins the party because she believes the Team Pet is someone she saw in a vision who told her she would save the world. Eventually she goes under the Despair Event Horizon and becomes corrupted into her Dark version as she led her troops into a massacre while going after corrupt nobles. She later has a She's Back moment, becoming good again and kicks the ass of the Otherworldly Beings who corrupted her, fulfilling her vision of saving the world.
• She appears as a Winged Humanoid in Dragalia Lost but is treated as a Dragon instead. This version of her originally appeared in the now defunct Dragalia Lost precursor Knights of Glory.
• In the Dragon Age series, the prophet Andraste combines the Joan of Arc trope (a woman of humble beginnings chosen by a god to lead an uprising against an oppressive foreign occupation, eventually getting burned at the stake after being sold out by a key ally) with the life of Boudica (led a Fantasy Counterpart Culture for pre-Norman Britain against the Roman Empire equivalent, and the name "Andraste" comes from a war goddess that Boudica worshiped) with elements of the Jesus narrative (both divine and human, preaching a gospel that created a church and taken into Heaven to reign at God's side) and Mohammed's life story (a normal human who was chosen by The Maker to use military might to overthrow a polytheistic religious establishment and replace it with her own monotheistic one). Leliana also partly fits the trope, being a very religious person with skill as a warrior. In the third game, she can potentially become the next Divine.
• In Fate/Grand Order, Jeanne from Fate/Apocrypha can be summoned. She also ends up gaining two counterparts: an evil clone created by Gilles de Rais that acts the way he remembered her (rude, defiant, has the short hair historical Jeanne had; his memory is however twisting by his insanity), a younger, more idealistic version of said clone made by magic that fulfilled one of the original Jeanne's childhood dreams. Then alternate versions of the "true" Jeanne and her evil clone: a swimsuit-wearing version of her with a sister complex and an affinity for dolphins, and the swimsuit-clad version of the clone who's an obsessive doujin author. Jeanne considers all of these counterparts to be her sisters.
  • In the fourth Lostbelt, Lakshmi Bai looks similar to Jeanne due to having the same artist (and they have similar histories; a famous real-world novelization of her exploits has the subtitle "The Jeanne D'Arc of India").
• Disco Elysium has Dolores Dei, who is the Joan of Arc of "Moralism" (radical neoliberalism) as well as colonialism and a central figure of the backstory of the setting. While mostly revered as a saint she is also regarded as a fundamentalist warmonger by some due to leading crusades to brutally subjugate native populaces and is in-universe considered a somewhat controversial subject of discussion.
• Ys IX: Monstrum Nox has this in St. Rosvita, a young peasant girl who had been blessed by the god Grimnir, then recruited into Gllia's Hundred Year War with Britai. After they won the war, like the real Jeanne, the Gllian royal family grew jealous of her exploits and had arranged her to be sent to Britai where she would be burned at the stake as a witch. Rosvita is Aprilis, the same woman who gives Adol the Curse of the Grimoire Nox at the start of the game, having been cloned through alchemy.

Visual Novels

• Fate/stay night: Saber is actually a very straight example. She is an expert swordswoman, was born humble but became the leader of her people, pretended to be male, and even eventually died because she was betrayed by her people. It's often the first guess as to her true identity. Of course, that's assuming she's based on a female hero... which she's not. She is in fact a Gender Flipped King Arthur, Arturia Pendragon. In Fate/Zero she actually is mistaken for Jeanne d'Arc by a character who was Jeanne's contemporary: the Caster of that Holy Grail War, who once was Jeanne's companion Gilles de Rais. Of course, he's insane, having been driven to madness by Jeanne's horrific death. In Fate/Apocrypha, Saber of Red (Arturia's identical clone/son/daughter, Mordred) makes no connection between Jeanne (who is the Ruler of that war) and Fate/Stay Night's Saber.

Web Animation

• A rare Gender Flip of this trope is Jaune Arc of RWBY, who is a male character in a primarily Action Girl cast, uses a sword and shield, and is the leader of his team. The joke is that he's a far better leader than a fighter, since he was crafty enough to lie his way into Beacon Academy but didn't have the training to back it up (much like how the real Jeanne was an Actual Pacifist constantly running a Wounded Gazelle Gambit on her own soldiers). He has the strength and weaponry to chop the heads off giant bears, but he has a long way to go before he can actually be a true Huntsman. It takes him a while to figure out what his Semblance is, which turns out to be amplifying his own and others' Aura to both replenish and briefly supercharge Semblances, a hint of which is shown when a bully tries to punch him, only to be visibly hurt by striking Jaune's Aura, who doesn't even feel the impact. He rarely has to worry when transferring Aura to another, as his reserves are unusually high.

Webcomics

• In life, Jeanne of Gunnerkrigg Court, a French Lady of War, and human sacrifice in the early days of the court. Now she's a ghost stranded on the shore of the river who is "beyond even the Guide's reach."
• Subverted and possibly deconstructed with Jone (sic) Half-Orc in Yet Another Fantasy Gamer Comic. Jone starts as a sympathetic young character with humble origins who just turns out to be a natural fighter and on a mission from the orc-god Gruumsh; it's too bad that her eventual army of followers consists of self-deluded fanatics (including a self-styled prophetess "interpreting" Jone's wishes as she sees fit, since their savior-figure is unfortunately mute) and that Jone herself gets so caught up in her "crusade" that she ultimately ends up going Ax-Crazy beyond redemption. Probably would've helped if Gruumsh hadn't given all of his potential "chosen ones" for the mission a daemonic Superpowered Evil Side.
• In Times Like This, Joan is rescued from her execution by Cassie and Matt (with a little help from a Decoy Getaway). She now lives in the present time as Joan Arquette. The storyline begins here.
• In The Wolf at Weston Court Nova recounts the harrowing tale of Lira Nelson, who freed the Faeries from Dwarven oppression and is depicted with short dark hair.

Western Animation

• ReBoot: Supervirus Daemon, far and away the most powerful Virus on the net, appears as a petite holy warrior with a soft French accent who preaches a gospel of peace and tolerance. Her infection causes people to love her completely and follow her every word willingly and happily. She even becomes a "martyr", as instead of being defeated she merely dies at a pre-coded time to put the entire net on a sixty-second count-down to its own oblivion.
• Comically subverted on Clone High, where the Joan of Arc clone is an angsty goth chick. In one episode, she thinks she hears the voice of God telling her to spread His word, but it's actually a radio station she's picking up through her retainer.
• Marinette Dupain-Cheng, titular heroine of Miraculous Ladybug. Action Girl, extremely protective of her loved ones and the general public and a very good leader in and out of costume. Also worth noting is that, in-universe, Joan of Arc was a previous holder of the Ladybug Miraculous, making Marinette canonically one of her successors.

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