flemmings | Can we do it? Yes we--- err, no. We can't

~~100~~ 50 Female Characters I Love Meme

Maybe I read the wrong stuff or don't watch the right things, or maybe I take that 'love' too seriously, because there aren't that many characters anywhere I actually *love*. Even here, a number are 'strongly like.' You observe there's nobody from Utena, an *anime* I love, nor from Amelia Peabody, whom I still find perfectly readable, but less so as the kids grow up and turn the whole thing into a romance series.

Might be enlightening to make a list of characters I really do love and see what that looks like. You see that Ya Yu tops my female list, but neither Gou Jian nor Fan Li would make it to a male one. Fascinating, absorbing, provocative, but I don't love them. I love Wen Zhong.

1. Ya Yu (Woxinchangdan)

2. Elizabeth Bennett (Pride and Prejudice)

3. Haruka (Sailor Moon)

4. Michiru (Sailor Moon)

5. Yaone (Saiyuki)

6. Miranda West (Antonia Forest, Marlow series)

7. Kanzeon Bosatsu if-se-counts (Saiyuki)

8. Chihiro (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi)

9. Kinu (100 Demons)

10. Akira (100 Demons)

11. Grandmother (100 Demons)

12. Tsukasa (100 Demons, and in that order)

13. Jill Pole (Narnia)

14. Sybil Vimes (Discworld)

15. Cheery Littlebottom (Discworld)

16. Granny Weatherwax (Discworld)

17. Sai-ou (12 Kingdoms) (the old lady, to jog your memory)

18. Han-rin (12 Kingdoms) (the umm eccentric kirin of the eccentric ruler of Han)

19. Risai (12 Kingdoms)

20. Tamura-sensei (Shall We Dansu?)

21. Baochai (Red Chambers)

22. Li Wan (Red Chambers)

23. Lan Fan (FMA)

24. Riza Hawkeye (FMA)

25. Jane Roland (Temeraire)

26. Anthea (E. Nesbit, Three Children and It etc)

27. Yu Shu-lien (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)

28. Chacha (Basara) (the pirate)

29. Ivanova (Babylon 5)

30. Yuika/ Kocho (Kurotsubaki- protagonist)

31, Natsuyo sensei (Kurotsubaki- the hard-drinking doctor)

32. Maho/ Taro-chan (Kurotsubaki-- the outsized maiko)

33. Mrs. Peel (The Avengers)

34. Uhura (ST-TOS)

35. Dr. Pulaski (ST-TNG)

36. Zeniba (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi)

37. Rin (Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi)

38. Kate Sutton (The Perilous Gard)

39. The okami-san (Phantom Moon Tower)

40. Jehane (The Gentle Falcon)

41. Millamant (The Way of the World)

42. Diana Villiers (Aubrey-Maturin)

43. Masamune (Ginga Sengoku Gunyūden Rai/ Thunder Jet)

44. Kaoru no kimi (O-niisama e)

45. Rosaline (As You Like It)

46. Helena (All's Well That Ends Well)

47. Viola (Twelfth Night)

48. Floria Tosca (Tosca)

49. The Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier)

50. Mineko (Sanshiro)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

OK, I dont even know who is Ya Yu. I think I saw you writing about her, but only in posts where you had to know the fandom.

I'm curious to know who is your favourite female character.

Ya Yu is the woman in my icon, a character in the Chinese historical drama Woxin changdan (Famous Chinese proverb-- 'Sleeping on brushwood and drinking gall' ie suffering what one must to achieve one's goal.)

paleaswater's summary of the historical events is the best

The story itself is known to every school child in China -- the King of Yue (ETA-- name of Gou Jian) was defeated and enslaved by the King of Wu. He waited on the King of Wu hand and foot, and proved himself such a loyal and devoted slave that the King of Wu eventually freed him to return to his country. The King of Yue spent the next twenty years effecting his revenge, sleeping on a mattress of thorns and tasting gall so he would never forget the bitterness of his humiliation, until he conquered the Kingdom of Wu, and forced its king to his death.

Ya Yu is Gou Jian's wife, the Queen of Yue, who accompanies him into slavery in Wu; she's also one of his best counsellors, always sensible and steady in the face of the king's erratic behaviour and volatile emotions (both before his defeat and after.) She does not have an easy life of it, but she matters to him intensely. And she betrays him in the end, in a very quiet low-key OMG fashion: and one really can't blame her for doing it. It's an amazing piece of characterization and apparently unlike any other female character in the historical dramas, even the fire-breathing empresses of later times.

My favourite character of all? That's really hard. Maybe Zeniba from Spirited Away?

Edited 2009-10-18 21:37 (UTC)

She seems very interesting indeed. Thank you!

I couldn't name 50 (or even 30) female characters I like ~~probably because I haven't read enough Pterry and little SF/fantasy~~. But they would certainly include Ya Yu, Lizzy Bennett, and your Shakespearean heroines.

Plus the crazy-awesome Lady Zhurong (http://www.kongming.net/novel/sgyy/zhurong.php) from 3K, and Huang Rong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huang_Rong) from Jin Yong's Condor Heroes series (to whose coolness Wikipedia does not do justice).

Re Lady Zhurong: the inability of 3K warriors to keep their heads when someone is yelling names at them is always a source of wonder to me.

Can we do it? Yes we--- err, no. We can't

no subject

no subject

(frozen comment) no subject

no subject

no subject